President Obama has proposed a whopping $54 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of new nuclear power plants.
What does that mean? If the costly new nuclear plants aren't finished, then taxpayers cover the huge financial loss.
If they are built, then we're stuck with power plants that generate overpriced electricity and create deadly radioactive waste that will remain toxic for thousands of years.
Either way, the nuclear industry wins, and we lose.
Nuclear power creates deadly radioactive waste, from the mining process onwards. It's got a scary history: think Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
Just recently, a nuclear plant in Vermont was ordered shut down after radioactive tritium, which is linked to cancer, leaked from the plant into local water supplies.
Nuclear power is so financially risky that even Wall Street won't bet on it. It's a public health and financial disaster waiting to happen.
Instead, our government should promote energy efficiency and a decentralized power system based on safe, clean, renewable energy.
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