1. Nuclear energy is expensive. Only with massive subsidies has the metered price come to a reasonable level: but we still pay the subsidies. Nuclear reactor proponents point to the cost benefit it might enjoy over coal if there is a carbon tax. That is an illusion, since the extraction, enrichment, transport, and waste storage of nuclear power is all carbon-emitting. Those who can remember will note that we were first told nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter”, now journalist have noted it is “too expensive to matter”.

2. Nuclear reactors are a risky financial investment. They take a long time to build (Callaway’s current reactor took ten years), and most of the costs are loaded into the construction or the decommissioning of the project. For a working reactor, that means that the two greatest costs and risks are the two events that are sure to occur: construction and deconstruction. The productive lifetime of the reactor (where it is expected to overcome its enormous costs) is variable. Originally, reactors were expected to operate for thirty years. Changes in community acceptance, availability of fuel, legislated subsidies, waste disposal costs, and the operation costs all can force an early closure of a reactor.

3. Nuclear reactors are deployed nuclear weapons. Terrorist do not have to build nuclear bombs or dirty bombs: they just need to damage a nuclear power plant. In mock attacks on nuclear reactors, in which the security force is notified in advance and allowed to prepare, 7 out of 11 of the last attacks ended in successful meltdown of the reactor. This may even be a weak indicator, since the same company that contracts the majority of security for reactors also contracts the mock attacks: a clear breech of ethics. Damage to spent fuel storage, for example, would release hundred of times more radiation than a meltdown of the reactor itself. Such damage to storage casks can be inflicted from outside the facilities fence using legally available weapons.

4. We have no high level waste dump in the U.S. For the last forty odd years, high level waste has been accumulating in pools or casks at each nuclear site. This waste is now becoming a major security, cost, and logistic problem. The unsolved, and potentially unsolvable, problem of high level waste is not going away. Expansion of the nuclear program will require truly massive outlays of land for essentially infinite storage of deadly waste. These sites, if we ever find them, will both remove space from the U.S. and require absolute security for the next million or more years. Failure to guard them will provide a virtual beacon for terrorism.

5. Low level waste dumps are leaking, and they are full. We have no short term (let alone long term) method for dumping low level waste. Such waste, which is very dangerous to human health, is leaking from current dumps. Even if we fix these leaks, which is not likely, the sites are closed or nearing closure. Expansion of our nuclear reactors will make this issue absolutely vital in the next decade.

6. If nuclear sites are securable, can they be protected while conforming to democratic processes? The need for security has been used in the past as a means of avoiding democratic oversight and transparency of operation. Transparency is vital since nearly every nuclear accident has begun with a denial or downplay from the operator. Residents have the right to know when fuel and waste will be shipped by their homes, among other information about nuclear reactors in their vicinity.

7. AmerenUE is not our neighbor. This is not to say that AmerenUE is diabolical, or otherwise bad. But their lists of costs and benefits are different from the community members. For example, AmerenUE looks at the maximum cost of an accident at $10 billion because their liability is limited to this amount. But Missouri residents will pay and pay until we are safe, bankrupt, or evacuees. As another example, AmerenUE is permitted to vent radiation into the air, water, and ground. This offsets costs of controlling leakage, water contact and flow, etc. So for AmerenUE, radiation release is a benefit: but for anything living it is a cost. One of the highest cost of nuclear power may be the radiation it leaks. The communities around the Pantex, Texas site have fully 200% more cancer fatalities than the national average. Aside from the loss of loved ones, there is a considerable cost to the community through healthcare.

8. Nuclear power isn’t going to slow down climate change. The vast, vast majority of carbon emissions are from transportation and military activities. Even if electricity generation was the major problem (which it is not), nuclear power emits nearly the same amount of carbon as fossil fuel plants if one includes the extraction and shipment of uranium and nuclear waste.

9. The timeline for nuclear reactors are way off from what we want. Reactors need large amounts of time to be built, during which they cost enormous amounts of money. Then they need to operate for decades to earn back their initial costs. Finally, the reactor has to be decommissioned at great cost. This process is rigid, and cannot help us as a community if conditions change even slightly. Will nuclear power be more economical than some new technology in 40 years? We can be skeptical enough to see the risk involved. Finally, uranium production isn’t possible to keep pace with a massively enlarged nuclear industry.

10. Nuclear power is unforgiving. Nuclear advocates may talk ad nauseam about safeguards and protocols but that is only because the nature of nuclear power can be summed up in one word: dangerous. At virtually every step in the fuel lifecycle, nuclear power poses almost incomprehensible dangers. An accident can occur during mining, milling, enrichment, transport, storage, usage, storage of spent fuel, and transport to dumps. Have you ever seen a road marked “for nuclear waste only”? That’s because nuclear materials are transported on highways and railines just like everything else. In Missouri, the state isn’t even notified that a nuclear shipment is coming or going. Accidents on highway 70, for example, could kill countless communities before it was even identified as nuclear material.