Greenpeace Co-Founder Warms to Nuclear Energy

Sunday, November 12, 2006

By Nancy Crawley

The Grand Rapids Press

The issue has been dead since the Three Mile Island crisis. But get ready for the nuclear-energy debate to re-ignite in Michigan.

The co-founder of Greenpeace came Friday to throw fuel on the fire when his Clean and Safe Energy Coalition made its first appearance in the Great Lakes state.

Patrick Moore, who left Greenpeace 20 years ago, said he wants to build grassroots support among mayors and state lawmakers, union members and chamber of commerce leaders.

“We want those people to talk to friends and colleagues, and we want names on our mailing list so people can be kept informed,” he said.

“Not many people realize there are 15, 20 nuclear plants on the drawing board right now in the United States. We want people to be ready for it, and realize it’s a good thing for the environment and economy,” he said.

His message is this: “Nuclear energy is safe, reliable, cost-effective, and reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emission.”

The coalition is financed by a trade association, the Nuclear Energy Institute. Also leading the group is former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who was George W. Bush’s first director of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Moore’s group is surfacing just as Americans are beginning to soften their opposition to nuclear power.

No plants have been built in the 30 years since the meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island. But some environmentalists are rethinking their positions as demand for electricity rises, oil prices sky rocket and coal-fired plants struggle to control air pollutants.

The 59-year-old Moore, who grew up in a small fishing village on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, reflects Americans’ ambivalence to the question.

As a Greenpeace leader, he vigorously opposed nuclear power, he said. Now called an eco-Judas by some, he split from the anti-nuke group in 1986.

While he said he joins in supporting solar and wind power, he believes nuclear has the greatest capacity to combat global warming.

He also believes nuclear’s dangers are exaggerated. “What nobody noticed at the time was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story,” he told a congressional subcommittee in September.

“The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do — prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death.”

The industry has improved its methods for handling spent fuel rods and much of it revolves around recycling, he said, noting recycling waste now is practiced in Japan, France, Russia and England.

Industrialized Michigan is a big energy user, one reason the coalition targeted the state.

Coal generates more than half of the state’s electricity, but 27 percent is generated by four nuclear plants: Palisades in Covert, Fermi 2 in Newport and two reactors at the Donald C. Cook site in Bridgman.

Renewable energy and hydro power produced less than 3 percent of the state’s energy.

Moore also arrives as the state’s top regulator works out a plan for how Michigan should meet energy demands that will outstrip the current system in three years and will require at least one more power plant by 2014.

In Grand Rapids, meanwhile, the nuclear debate has been as muted as anywhere. In fact, the West Michigan Environmental Action Council has been split on the issue, spokeswoman Lisa Locke said.

“While there is some disagreement about the benefits and dangers of nuclear power, there is wide agreement we should be focusing on conservation strategies, and further developing and promoting alternative energy,” she said.

But Moore warns time is running out.

He points to the British scientists’ warning two weeks ago that we face a worldwide calamity equal to the Great Depression if we don’t get global warming under control quickly.

“It is just a complete dream world to think you can do the whole thing with windmills and solar panels,” Moore told National Public Radio last month. “People who believe that have simply not done the arithmetic.”

By the time Moore’s group packs up and leaves for another state, it is likely this old Greenpeace activist will have indeed put a match to this long-dormant debate.

Now we have to see whether more heat or light is produced.