Not the Official Position of
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
by Hugh Rogers
A loyal but disgruntled member criticizes our “apparent opposition to all forms of energy production.” He writes, “We all use energy. Therefore it behooves environmental protectors to advocate the use of other forms of energy.” And he adds, “WVHC seems to be supporting nuclear energy as the only solution to our energy conundrum.”
Well. The notion that we’re supporting nuclear energy will be startling to all the members of our board, especially Peter Shoenfeld, the only one who has written about it (The Highlands Voice, July 2009). So far, he has not persuaded the board to take up the issue, let alone act on it.
I suspect this is another case of “If you print it in the Voice, it must be your official position.” Periodically, our editor, John McFerrin, publishes a disclaimer: Just because you read it here doesn’t mean we agree with it. Some of what you read in the Voice reports on official actions and positions; but other stuff agitates for actions we ought to take, or attacks what we have done, or simply expresses an interesting point of view on subjects we care about. It shouldn’t be difficult to figure out which is which.
The disclaimer, which we might do better to print every month, applies equally to this column. Every month. Hence the Monty Python-ish headline above.
With that understood, here’s my personal opinion of the member’s complaint: Who’s behooved? Not us. Our mission is “to promote, encourage, and work for the conservation-including both preservation and wise use-and appreciation of the natural resources of West Virginia and the Nation, and especially of the Highlands Region of West Virginia.”
To be sure, our preoccupation with the impacts of energy production makes us more aware of alternatives, and board members do have opinions; but advocating for them is not our core mission.
First, we try to conserve.
Our committees are composed of volunteers; our conservation efforts flow from individual interests as well as organizational history. Board elections come around every October. Someone with a particular interest in alternative energy production could gain a seat on the board and urge us to become more active on the issue.
Short of that, John always welcomes thoughtful articles and letters to the editor. Publication doesn’t imply endorsement, but it can be persuasive.
A hit-or-miss way to draw attention to an issue is to write a personal letter. It worked for this person. I can reassure him that we agree with his call for “an energy system that is diffuse, efficient and as friendly to the environment as possible.” He gives as examples small (10kw) wind turbines to supply power to neighborhoods, solar collectors on roofs, and on-site geothermal systems for efficient heating.
In mid-May I forwarded to the board a bit of news from my law school alma mater: UNC-Chapel Hill was phasing out campus coal use. George Beetham commented, “On-site solar arrays and wind turbines to serve large installations seems to me to be a great way to ‘go green.’ Generation at or near the site is exactly what I’ve been touting for years.”
Cindy Rank replied, “Absolutely. First conservation, then efficiency, then on-site and/or local (community/residential where possible, and especially at and for large installations/plants/buildings/ complexes).”
These are e-mails, not carefully composed white papers, but they’ll give you a sense of the direction we’d like to go.
The problem, Cindy noted, is scale. “What if we can’t break away from our continued reliance on centralized energy production and distribution?” She pointed out that our objections to coal had to do with the negative impacts incurred during the whole life cycle of its use-and “we have to carefully consider the whole life cycle of whatever other source(s) are developed in its stead.”
Which brings me back to nuclear power. Together with Vince Collins, Peter wrote a very favorable review of William Tucker’s book, Terrestrial Energy. The title is meant to be reassuring: on the one hand, we have solar energy stored underground in fossil fuels; on the other hand, we have terrestrial energy stored underground in elements (uranium, thorium) that have been there since the earth was formed. A controlled release of the energy stored in the nucleus of a uranium atom is way more powerful than a release of the energy stored in coal or petroleum.
The energy available from sources we think of as renewables, such as wind, solar, and hydro, is so much more dilute than even coal or petroleum that it’s unlikely to replace them at the current scale of power generation. Tucker deals with each alternative to clear the way for his pro-nuke argument-which is essentially another clearing operation: he thinks the only obstacles to nuclear power are our unreasonable fears.
Peter and Vince summarized them: “the terrorist problem, the nuclear accident problem, and the waste disposal problem.”
But something’s missing. Mindful of Cindy’s warning to consider the whole life cycle of any energy source, I wondered what the author had to say about the mining problem. Nothing at all, it turned out. No index entry for “mining,” and no sub-heading under “uranium,” either.
Tucker promotes the French, who get 80% of their electricity from nuclear power, as the model we should follow. They have “solved” their waste disposal problem by recycling nearly all the spent uranium. Is that the solution to the mining problem as well?
Jacques Besnainou, vice-president for disposal and recycling for Areva, the French nuclear power company, likes to call spent fuel “the new uranium mines,” but he doesn’t claim they’ll replace the old ones. He told Tucker, “We’ve cut our need for uranium 30% by reprocessing.”
The French have closed their last uranium mine. Now they get it from Niger, a former colony. Radiation poisoning of workers and contamination of groundwater are a growing scandal there.
Our country is very slowly and expensively dealing with the same problems left over from mining in the Southwest.
Tucker wants to persuade us that nuclear power is cheap, safe, reliable-and clean. But his silence on the mining problem is too much like what we don’t hear in all the bombast about “clean coal.”
