During the
former of the last two weeks, the article that really caught my attention was
the one regarding the potential benefits and hazards of instituting nuclear
energy as a critical energy resource. The case for installing a nuclear plan
similar to France’s in the US is rather convincing. We would recycle the mostly (emphasis on the ‘mostly’) spent uranium rather than storing it on site (aka
the 'big red terrorist bull’s-eye' strategy). Alternatively, as the article
suggested, we could use thorium as our primary nuclear fuel rather than uranium,
making a clandestine weapons-grade uranium plant less likely. And after all, uranium
burns with quite literally the intensity of the sun with nary the atmospheric
pollution of our conventional fossil fuels like petroleum and coal. However, if it
sounds almost too good to be true, I’d agree. Because like fossil fuels, the
usage of uranium comes with its own elephant in the room: waste. And, unlike
the atmospheric waste produced by burning fossil fuels which will only slowly kill us, the “depleted” uranium
waste stored in vast quantities underneath our current nuclear plants could
quickly wipe out vast swaths of civilization if successfully breached. Not to
mention the whole controversy of denying developing countries access to uranium
power plants for fear of corrupt governments creating nuclear weapons that
could actually kill us all and turn the planet into an inhospitable ball of
glass. With all this in mind, I am unbelievably going to agree with the
majority of Americans that do not want to build more nuclear power plants.
Instead, I would agree with those who support nuclear power as a transitional resource,
one to tie us over during the eventually mandatory switch to renewables.
Nuclear, after all, isn’t any more renewable than petroleum, and would
therefore not be a logical investment for the long term.
In the
latter of these two weeks, the Chinese film festival arrived on the Furman
campus! I enjoyed the first film, although some found its documentary style
bland, and thought it had some deep insights into how the Chinese government
has misdealt with its environmental issues and how its citizens feel they have
been misdealt with in the same way. From the interviews with the lawyer and his
clients we see how the Chinese legal system has a stifling number of footnotes
and seemingly unnecessary clauses that prevent so many citizens from changing their
societal or legal status. Similarly, they handle their environmental hazards in
the film, mainly the benzene leak towards the end of the film, with a loudspeaker-based
detachment that borders on reckless abandon. It is no wonder to me that Chinese
citizens would feel unrepresented in their own country if the film is any
indication of how the Chinese government still handles these types of
environmental and legal issues.
