The Green New Deal Promises Peace and Progress. Will Nuclear Advocates
Undermine It?
By Harvey Wasserman, The Progressive
30 December 18
The environmental policy centerpiece of the incoming Democratic House of
Representatives has ignited tremendous grassroots enthusiasm.
The environmental policy centerpiece of the incoming Democratic House of
Representatives is what's now known as "The Green New Deal." But it's
already hit deeply polarizing pushback from the old-line Democratic
leadership. And it faces divisive jockeying over the future of nuclear
power.
The Green New Deal's most visible public advocate, newly elected
twenty-nine-year-old U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat
of New York, has laid out a preliminary blueprint advocating an energy
economy meant to be based entirely on "renewable" and "clean" sources.
According to a report in The Hill, fossil fuels and nuclear power are
"completely out" of her plan.
The draft proposal has ignited tremendous grassroots enthusiasm, with
massively favorable poll readings, even among some Republicans. Substantial
grassroots pressure has grown on presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to
form a Green New Deal Committee chaired by Ocasio-Cortez.
But on December 20, the Democratic leadership announced it will not support
a separate House Committee on the deal. Instead, it will proceed with a
panel on climate change, to be chaired by Florida Representative Kathy
Castor, who has taken substantial funding from the fossil fuel industry. It
remains unclear whether Ocasio-Cortez will even get a seat on the committee.
But the grassroots push for a Green New Deal is clearly not going to go
away. The youthful Sunrise Movement has vowed to fight for it, along with a
wide range of others, including Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of
Vermont, a likely 2020 presidential contender.
***
The Green New Deal idea conjures visions of the vast "alphabet agency"
programs birthed by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s.
With unparalleled pageantry, New Deal Democrats put millions of Americans to
work building roads, bridges, schools, libraries, museums, public swimming
pools, local and national parks, and more. They proved that immense communal
good could come from a solid government blueprint administered through a
competent, well-orchestrated brain trust.
In contrast, the Trump Administration's promise to deal with
"infrastructure" has involved none of the above. While denying the disaster
of climate change, its energy policies have focused purely on handing cheap
fossil drilling leases on public land (and waters) to Trump cronies.
It's also granted a $3.7 billion low-interest loan (added to $8.3 billion
previously granted by President Obama) to private developers of the last two
U.S. nuclear reactors under construction, at Vogtle, Georgia. Already years
behind schedule and billions over budget, the project may soar beyond $20
billion and still never be finished.
The fate of the Vogtle plant underscores a nuclear war that will cut to the
heart of the Green New Deal and the climate issue as it plays out in the new
Congress.
Already, The New York Times, with its long history of reactor advocacy, has
featured an op-ed by U.S. Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming,
advocating more nukes as a solution to the climate crisis. In an article
running under a photo of a Chinese reactor under construction, Barrasso
argues that "nuclear energy is produced with zero carbon emissions."
In fact, nuclear reactors do emit trace quantities of radioactive Carbon-14.
The fuel rods that power reactor are produced with significant carbon in
mining, milling, and enrichment. They pump huge quantities of waste heat
directly into the eco-sphere, operating far less efficiently even than coal
burners. They yield large quantities of radioactive waste, directly related
to nuke weapons production. And five of them (Chernobyl 4 and Fukushima
1-2-3-4) have blown up.
Reactor enthusiasts like Barrasso invariably conjure visions of a "new
generation" of small, modular nukes, and other techno-variants like molten
salt and thorium, alleged to be safe, cleaner and cheaper that the current
fleet. But there are few tangible indications such alternative reactors can
come on line anytime soon, or beat the price of wind and solar, which
continue to plummet. The criticism that renewables are intermittent is also
losing its sting as large-scale battery arrays are also dropping in price
while rising in efficiency and capacity.
Barrasso also advocates the continued use of fossil fuels, with various
pipeline-related schemes for storing and using the resultant CO2. "The
United States and the world," he says, "will continue to rely on affordable
and abundant fossil fuels, including coal, to power our economies for
decades to come."
***
These pro-nuke arguments are echoed even by some self-proclaimed supporters
of the Green New Deal. According to a report from DataforEnergy, principally
written by Greg Carlock, at least part of the Green New Deal should be
powered by "clean sources such as nuclear and remaining fossil fuel with
carbon capture."
Such rhetoric will be tested by advocates characterizing atomic energy as
"clean." Their fight for new reactor funding may quickly engulf much of the
Green New Deal debate.
So will the struggle over the 98 U.S. reactors still licensed to operate. As
they age, they continue to deteriorate and embrittle. Opponents of nuclear
power want them shut down before they explode; advocates argue that without
them, more fossil fuels will be burned.
But such choices are made in corporate boardrooms, not even by the free
market. Pacific Gas & Electric, owner of two aging reactors near San Luis
Obispo, has already admitted that it could replace both with renewable
energy while burning no more coal, oil, or gas. If Green New Deal activists
are to make a dent in our aging nuclear fleet, they'll have to make sure the
slew of reactors about to close is replaced by renewables, not the fossil
fuels the utilities still own and love.
Finally, along with nuke power, the question of how to fund the deal will be
center stage. Mainstream proposals will focus on a new range of taxes.
But outspoken peace groups like Code Pink are eager to move the money out of
the military and into the social/infrastructure programs that can rebuild
the nation. High-profile campaigns led by activists Jodie Evans and Medea
Benjamin were integral to the shocking defection of seven Republican
Senators to deny the Trump Administration funding to support the Saudi war
in Yemen.
Activists must now argue that the trillion-plus dollars we spend annually on
arming the Empire should instead fund those wind turbines and solar panels
at the heart of the Green New Deal.
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