"Progress Energy works to dispel myths of nuclear energy," so reads a headline in the November 27, Levy county Journal. Progress Energy's John Stevenson spoke to the Chiefland Rotary Club members with the stated purpose of dispelling myths about nuclear energy. According to the report in the Levy County Journal, Stevenson referred to the industrial accident in Bhopal, India where thousands died when a pesticide plant erupted in flames. Stevenson is quoted as saying, "The worst-case nuclear scenario at a commercial nuclear power plant cannot result in a catastrophe like that. It simply cannot happen." Mr. Stevenson must believe that the nuclear disasters at Three Mile Island in the U.S. or the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the former USSR are minor incidents not likely to happen again. Mr. Stevenson suggested that commonplace exposures to electricity, household chemicals and gasoline are hazards we accept, and that they are no different than naturally occurring nuclear materials or nuclear reactors hazards. (We are regularly told by nuclear industry spokesmen that nuclear plants cannot become atomic explosions if a reactor goes critical.) When Three Mile Island nuclear power plant went out-of-control radioactive water was released and there were immediate concerns that a melt-down might occur. The disaster at the Russian nuclear plant at Chernobyl was vastly more damaging than the Three Mile Island incident. Dozens of people died as a direct result. Furthermore, a fifteen hundred mile long cone of cancer causing radioactive contamination reaches from Chernobyl to Finland. These actual nuclear events cannot be equated to the hazard of gasoline can in ones garage. Nuclear power plants are now being presented as answers to: 1. Global Warming, 2. Dependence on Arab Oil, 3. Strip Mining Coal, 4. Expensive Fossil Fuel. Along with promotion of nuclear power plants there must also be public policy regarding health, safety and economic effects from nuclear power. Health and safety may not be at risk if there is no melt-down or fire at a nuclear plant. Economically, the great cost of construction of a nuclear plant demands that the plants have little downtime. The cost of decommissioning nuclear plants and disposal of radioactive wastes are currently only estimated. Decommissioning is being pushed twenty years into the future. The scientific basis for extending the life of nuclear plants may be overwhelmed the need to defer the cost beyond the original estimate of a thirty year safe period. The bottom line is that the public should not rely on public relations spiels at the Rotary Club or the Progress Energy Information Center. Furthermore, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission public affairs officers have not always been correct in defending or overseeing the nuclear industry. | 