Environmental reporter and activist Harvey Wasserman notices (Columbus Free Press, 11/6/08) that, “as the world media filled with the victory of Barack Obama, a defeat for atomic power in his own back yard sent a Solartopian message to the new administration”:
Chicago-area… voters approved by well over two-to-one a referendum asking that “our elected officials in Illinois take steps to phase out nuclear power in the state, replacing it with renewable sources such as wind and solar.”… 31,586 (68.3 percent) voters approved the referendum, versus 14,676 (31.7 percent) opposed.
Atomic energy will be one of the most critical issues the new administration will face. Obama was criticized by eco-advocates for taking campaign donations from [“America’s largest nuke owner”] Exelon. Both he and Vice President-elect Joe Biden expressed campaign support for atomic power.
But their stance was moderated by Obama’s insistence that atomic power be “safe,” and by ads he ran in Nevada opposing the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump. Some 80 percent of Nevada citizens oppose that project, whose projected cost now runs about $100 billion. By contrast, John McCain vehemently advocated the quick construction of some 45 new reactors.
Declaring that “the issue of how to finance such a ‘nuclear renaissance’ now overshadows all the rhetoric,” Wasserman nevertheless warns that “a strong lobby with a slick, expensive pubic relations campaign is now pushing new nukes”–with the willing help of compliant corporate media; see FAIR’s magazine Extra!: Money Is the Real Green Power: The Hoax of Eco-Friendly Nuclear Energy (1-2/08) by Karl Grossman
