Energy Crises - II

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Energy Crises - II

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Nuclear Power

• reading M.Garza chapter on anti-nuclear power
  movement
• Nuclear Power was byproduct of nuclear weapon
  production
• US Government
• wanted nuclear power
• financed development of nuclear power
• carried out PR campaign to sell it
• put enormous pressure on utilities to adopt it

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Unknowns

• As nuclear power industry began, no one really
  understood
• how to build very large, commercial scale nuclear
  reactors
• how to make them safe
• how to dispose of nuclear waste material
• how long they would last
• what to do with them when they wore out
• how much the electricity they would generate
  would cost

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Anti-nuclear Movement

• Originates in communities most directly affected
  environmentalists anti-nuclear weapons
  movement
• White, middle class movement
• Fears
• meltdown
• radioactive leakage
• radioactive waste disposal

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Phase I 1957 - 1967

• reaction to nuclear weapons, anti-testing,
  especially in atmosphere, fear of fallout,
  poisoning of oceans
• Opposition to locating plants near population
  centers, property owners objected, fishermen
  objected, women's opposition
• Indian opposition to poisoning from uranium mining

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Phase II 1968 - 1976

• Anti-nuclear movements links to environmental
  movement
• Environmental pressure on utilities for all kinds
  of pollution, now added nukes
• Legal challenges, slowed building, raised costs
• Imposition of safety checks and standards
  dramatically raised costs of production
• Spread of movement as understand grew

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Phase III 1977 - 1988

• Direct action intensified movement
• Clamshell Alliance uses civil disobedience
• fueled by 3-Mile Island (1979) Chernobyl (1986)
  debacles
• fueled by deteriorating plants, more info
• fueled by rapid growth of Indian movement against
  mining-poisoning autonomy
• Shift in labor's position
• from pro-nuke/jobs to anti-nuke, part of crisis
  of union leadership

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Alternatives

• "Soft Energy Paths"
• renewable energy (solar, biomass)
• less energy requirements (solar architecture)
• less pollution
• more decentralized
• jobs security (Amory Lovins)
• Significant defection of scientists
• increasing flow of imagination creativity into
  exploration and elaboration of alternatives

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Ideology

• Anti-capitalism
• Marxist opposition to use of nukes for labor and
  social control
• Deep Ecology
• rethinking human-nature relationships from
  domination to co-existence
• Eco-feminism
• critique of "Western" dominance of nature as akin
  to men's domination of women

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Business Reactions

• Accomodation
• Stobough Yergin Harvard Business School
• Political limits on coal, nukes, oil
• thus conservation, solar
• Resistance
• continuing attack on environmental constraints
• use of Gulf War to gain drilling rights, nukes
• runaway shops to avoid environ. controls

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Accomodation

• Stobaugh Yergin (1979)
• foreign oil politically precarious
• increasing conflicts over foreign oil, price
  rises
• domestic oil gas production future not bright
• not conventional, off-shore, shale
• coal environmental labor constraints
• nukescont. stalemate over plants waste
• Solar not "big solar" but "small solar",
  diffused use of sun, biomass
• Conservation serious reduction in demand

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War

• War on Environmentalists
• attack via reduced enforcement, legislation,
  terror intimidation
• continuing push to exploit ALL resources
• War in Gulf (1990 - 1991, 1998?)
• Historycountries production arranged by
  colonial powers (See "Why War?" art.)
• Acceptance of Iraq role, high oil prices
• Keeping Saddam Hussain in his place
• militarization of Gulf, Gulf labor force

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