Disaster in Japan critical to nuclear power future
Two nuclear facility events, one in the Soviet Union, one in Pennsylvania changed the direction of nuclear power in the US, imagine the affects of today's events in Japan. by Mark Vogl
(conservative)
Monday, March 14, 2011
The tragedy in Japan is of global significance. First, because of the immediate loss of life, the displacement of families, and the massive destruction of property as a result of the natural events of the earthquake and tsunami Japan must be the focus of the world's efforts. We in the United States must rally to help, to do what we can to help the people of Japan. We need to do this through our churches, through the American Red Cross, anyway we can. You can be assured the Obama administration will act. But we as a people, outside our government must act. We are a Christian nation, and we need to act as Christ would have us do.
All that said, there will be repercussions on the world and American energy markets because of what is occurring in Japan. If nuclear facility failures and events cause even more damage the reaction in America, and across the world could freeze recent efforts to expand nuclear power, and rightly so.
This may have already happened. Scenes broadcast across America from Japan's facility are already terrible and frieghtening. And the potential for a meltdown is real, and terrifying.
But since nuclear power is included in the complex calculations of energy and power creation, as the availability of present day and future nuclear power generating sites are reduced the dependence on fossil fuels increases, driving up both the short term and long term prices. In America's case, we have vast fossil fuel deposits recently found which is an asset. True most of these new finds are thought to be in coal, but still these resources are presently the largest in the entire world.
The events occurring in Japan help illustrate just how much potential the United States has, and how little we have done to develop it.
The historic human tragedy in Japan require Americans to exceed anything we have done in the past regarding our charitable outreach to a people. We should do this, it is our Christian heritage. But, we also should completely reverse our national policies concerning exploration and development of our own natural resources. This is not an issue which will get better with time. Our economy is already in a fragile, recessionary state. One in four working age men are not working. The Fed's own Labor reports indicate something like 17% unemployment.
We can pray that it is God's will that the crisis be limited. And we can earnestly hope that all works out well. But the political and pubic relations damage has already been done to nuclear power. Any sane person must conclude that there is a real threat of a nuclear accident which will compound the horrific consequences of mother nature's assaults on the islands nation.
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