Here we go again. With the Obama administration’s promise of federal loan guarantees to build two new nuclear power plants at a cost of $8.3 billion, the radioactive monster is rising from a long dormancy, pumped to life by the lobbyists for nuke designers, nuke contractors, nuke operators and nuke consultants and their generous spending. Over the last decade, the nuclear industry has spent more than $600 million lobbying the federal government and another $63 million in federal campaign contributions, according to an analysis of public records by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. Today, the industry is using our desperate need for jobs and worries about global warming to further its cause. But let’s not forget the reasons that citizens across the nation have been successfully opposing expanded reliance on nuclear energy since the 1970s. First and foremost, there is the waste issue. Nuclear power generates a radioactive waste stream from hell that will threaten even our grandchildren’s grandchildren. We still have no repository for the waste and no plan to dispose of it. Two decades and billions of taxpayer dollars later, a proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has been all but abandoned. The […]