Condensed 1AC
Content
Observation 1: Inherency
A. Now is key to create a permanent nuclear waste
repository
PNC Voice 8/31/14
http://www.thepncvoice.com/federal-government-lossdisposing-current-nuclear-waste-stores/35047
In an effort to clean up America, the United
States government seeks ways to
transport tons of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants across
the country to various nearby disposal sites.¶ Or, wait, the
government already has the trains; the trains just have nowhere to
go and no cars to haul.¶ Such is the current nuclear dilemma the U.S. Department of Energy
faces as they plead with national companies for ideas on how they can get more rail cars to transport each
of the 150-ton casks of used, volatile, radioactive waste. They expect the cars could last 30 years but they
want to know if consumers—or maybe experts that don’t already work for the government?—think they
should buy or lease the rail cars.¶ ¶ Whether it is a lack of response or a lack of manpower, apparently the
Obama administration isn’t planning to move the trains anytime soon, even if they did have the cars. After
all, the latest
government plan is to build or use an existing interim
storage site—but not until 2021—as they wait for a new geologic
depository that should be ready by 2048.¶ Whether they are building
a new geologic depository or plan to alter an existing site is also
unclear at this time. And nobody knows where any of these sites
could possibly be. Still, even amidst the confusion the Obama administration continues to plan,
develop, write contracts, and test new equipment in anticipation that the answers will come. ¶ “Digging
your well before your thirsty” really only works when you still have
water to drink. Where are we going to put all the waste we already
have?¶ Of course, the U.S. Department of Energy hasn’t commented on the issue, but they do share
responsibility for disposing of the waste with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Thus, the plan: The United States Federal
Government should substantially increase subseabed disposal of nuclear waste in the Earth’s
oceans.
Observation 2: Solvency
A. Sub-seabed nuclear waste disposal solves radiation
leakage
Dillon in 2014 – Kenneth (Historian who writes on science, medicine, and
history)”Sea-Based Nuclear Waste Solutions”, Scientia
Press,http://www.scientiapress.com/nuclearwaste. MWH
First formally proposed in 1973, the concept of burying nuclear waste in stable clay formations
under the seabed was investigated by international teams of scientists for many years. A
substantial scientific literature details the various modalities, associated risks, and geological
conditions. The large undersea plain some 600 miles north of Hawaii, stable for some 65
million years, received special attention. Researchers found that the clay muds in such
sub-seabed formations had a high capacity for binding radionuclides, so that any
leakage would be likely to remain within the clay for millions of years, by which time
radioactive emissions would decline to natural background levels.
B. Sub-seabed disposal was proven to be the safest
method of disposing of nuclear waste, but the U.S.
program was terminated in 1987
Professor Edward L. Miles ‘08
[Professor of Marine Studies and Public Affairs at the University of Washington; Adjunct Professor at the
School of Fisheries at the University of Washington; Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of
Denver (1965); Senior Fellow at the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean at the University
of Washington; Co-Director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington;
Graduate from the School of International Studies at the University of Denver; studies in International
Law and Organization; Science, Technology and International Relations; Marine Policy and Ocean
Management ; did his Ph.D. dissertation on “The Process and Politics of the Intergovernmental Codification
of International Law at the Supranational Level”], “Sub-Seabed Disposal of High Level Radioactive Waste:
The Policy Context Then and Now,” Published on the Internet,
2008 ,http://www.xiamenacademy.org/upload/2-8%20Miles%20MASTER
%202008-07-29.doc[PB]
“Ultimately, on the basis of radiological assessments conducted by
EPA and Sandia National Laboratories, the manager of both the
national and the coordinated international programs, the subseabed option was shown to be the safest of all options by several
orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, the U.S. program was
terminated prematurely by DOE in 1987 and the European program
couldn’t survive on its own. What then had happened?”
Observation 3: Advantages
Advantage 1: Ethics
Scenario 1: Environmental Racism
A. Environmental Racism affects Native Americans and
any person of color on a daily basis.
Bullard 8 (Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., Environmental Justice Resource Center,
Clark Atlanta University, 7/2/08, “POVERTY, POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL
RACISM: STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITIES” http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/PovpolEj.html
The United States is the dominant economic and military force in the world today. The American
economic engine has generated massive wealth, high standard of living, and
consumerism. This growth machine has also generated waste, pollution, and ecological
destruction. The U.S. has some of the best environmental laws in the world. However, in the real
world, all communities are not created equal. Environmental
regulations have not achieved uniform benefits across all segments
of society. [2] Some communities are routinely poisoned while the government looks the other way .
People of color around the world must contend with dirty air and
drinking water, and the location of noxious facilities such as
municipal landfills, incinerators, hazardous waste treatment,
storage, and disposal facilities owned by private industry,
government, and even the military.[3] These environmental problems are exacerbated
by racism. Environmental racism refers to environmental policy,
practice, or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages
(whether intended or unintended) individuals, groups, or
communities based on race or color. Environmental racism is
reinforced by government, legal, economic, political, and military
institutions. Environmental racism combines with public policies and
industry practices
to provide benefits for the countries in the North while shifting costs to countries in the South.
[4] Environmental racism is a form of institutionalized discrimination. Institutional
discrimination is defined as "actions or practices carried out by members of dominant (racial or ethnic) groups that have differential and negative impact on members of subordinate (racial and ethnic) groups." [5] The United States is grounded in white racism. The nation was founded
on the principles of "free land" (stolen from Native Americans and Mexicans), "free labor" (African slaves brought to this land in chains), and "free men" (only white men with property had the right to vote). From the outset, racism shaped the economic, political and ecological landscape
of this new nation. Environmental racism buttressed the exploitation of land, people, and the natural environment. It operates as an intra-nation power arrangement--especially where ethnic or racial groups form a political and or numerical minority. For example, blacks in the U.S. form
both a political and numerical racial minority. On the other hand, blacks in South Africa, under apartheid, constituted a political minority and numerical majority. American and South African apartheid had devastating environmental impacts on blacks. [6]
Environmental racism also operates in the international arena
between nations and between transnational corporations. Increased
globalization of the world's economy has placed special strains on
the eco-systems in many poor communities and poor nations
inhabited largely by people of color and indigenous peoples . This is
especially true for the global resource extraction industry such as oil, timber, and minerals. [7]
Globalization makes it easier for transnational corporations and capital to flee to areas with the least
environmental regulations, best tax incentives, cheapest labor, and highest profit. The struggle of African
Americans in Norco, Louisiana and the Africans in the Niger Delta are similar in that both groups are
negatively impacted by Shell Oil refineries and unresponsive governments. This scenario is repeated for
Latinos in Wilmington (California) and indigenous people in Ecuador who must contend with pollution from
Texaco oil refineries. The companies may be different, but the community complaints and concerns are
Many nearby
residents are "trapped" in their community because of inadequate
roads, poorly planned emergency escape routes, and faulty warning
systems. They live in constant fear of plant explosions and
accidents. The Bhopal tragedy is fresh in the minds of millions of people who live next to chemical
very similar. Local residents have seen their air, water, and land contaminated.
plants. The 1984 poison-gas leak at the Bhopal, India Union Carbide plant killed thousands of people-making it the world's deadliest industrial accident. It is not a coincidence that the only place in the U.S.
where methyl isocyanate (MIC) was manufactured was at a Union Carbide plant in in predominately African
American Institute, West Virginia. [8] In 1985, a gas leak from the Institute Union Carbide plant sent 135
residents to the hospital. Institutional racism has allowed people of color communities to exist as colonies,
areas that form dependent (and unequal) relationships to the dominant white society or "Mother Country"
with regard to their social, economic, legal, and environmental administration. Writing more than three
decades ago, Carmichael and Hamilton, in their work Black Power, offered the "internal" colonial model to
explain racial inequality, political exploitation, and social isolation of African Americans. Carmichael and
The economic relationship of America's black communities
. . . reflects their colonial status. The political power exercised over
those communities go hand in glove with the economic deprivation
experienced by the black citizens. Historically, colonies have existed for the sole
Hamilton write:
purpose of enriching, in one form or another, the "colonizer"; the consequence is to maintain the economic
dependency of the "colonized." [9] Institutional racism reinforces internal colonialism. Government
Institutional racism defends, protects,
and enhances the social advantages and privileges of rich nations.
institutions buttress this system of domination.
Whether by design or benign neglect, communities of color (ranging from the urban ghettos and barrios to
rural "poverty pockets" to economically impoverished Native American reservations and developing
nations) face some of the worst environmental problems .
The most polluted communities
are also the communities with crumbling infrastructure, economic
disinvestment, deteriorating housing, inadequate schools, chronic
unemployment, high poverty, and overloaded health care systems.
B. Native Americans do not want nuclear waste on their
land as “temporary” storage sites
Minn Post 9/3/14
http://www.minnpost.com/political-agenda/2014/09/redwing-officials-disappointed-feds-decision-spent-nuclearfuel
Red Wing city officials and leaders of the Prairie Island Indian
Community say they are unhappy with a recent Nuclear Regulatory
Commission ruling that does little to resolve the ongoing dispute
over storage of spent nuclear fuel.¶ The Prairie Island nuclear power
plant is on the Mississippi River in Red Wing, and is adjacent to the Indian
reservation.¶ A story in the Rochester Post Bulletin says the NRC ruling:¶
"...opens the door for on-site nuclear waste storage for 100 years or
more. The language also lifts a suspension on licensing additional
nuclear facilities even without the creation of a national repository
for nuclear waste."¶ Not good, says Red Wing City Council member
Peggy Rehder, who has lobbied in Washington, D.C., on the issue, and
wasn't surprised with the ruling¶ "There's been a movement toward saying
that spent fuel in dry cask storage is safer for a longer period of time," she
said. "It's disappointing, but on the other hand, we're seeing movement in
Congress toward getting spent fuel that's in storage in at a least an interim
storage site."¶ And Ron Johnson, president of the Prairie Island Indian
Community's Tribal Council, said in a statement:¶ "...the NRC
affirmed a new rule and generic environmental impact statement
that concluded that spent nuclear fuel — some of the most
dangerous and toxic substances known to mankind — can be safely
stored 600 yards from our homes indefinitely if no geologic
repository is ever built. No other community sits as close to a
nuclear site and its waste storage."¶ According to the paper, Xcel Energy
says it has "38 casks containing nuclear waste near Red Wing and is
permitted to store waste in 64 casks when the current operating licenses end
in 2033 and 2034."
C. Environmental Racism IS RACISM- it perpetuates dehumanization
Wilder and Memmi, 1996
Gary and Albert, WEB Dubois institute, racial theorists, “Irreconcilable differences.”
Transition, 71, 1996, pp. 158-177
Perhaps Memmi's most precocious and valuable insights emerge from his belief that racism
traps its victims in "an
impossible condition ... a condition which can have no solution in its actual structure." We can read Memmi's work as an
inventory of possible responses to colonization, racism, and anti-Semitism. He believes that racialized
subjects
are inevitably impelled by contradictory gestures of self-rejection
and self-affirmation, and that it is as impossible to secure recognition as
different but equal as it is to gain full access to "universal" humanity: "No matter which way
I turned I always found my- self an accomplice of the established order." He has profound empathy for oppressed peoples' attempts to
survive with dignity, and he allows us to see the desire to disappear into the mainstream and the wish to retreat into ghettoized
enclaves as natural reactions to the racial dilemma.
D. Dehumanization is every impact discussed in debate felt by real people every day
and must be rejected
Berube, 1997; David M., Professor of Communication Studies at University of South Carolina., “NANOTECHNOLOGICAL
PROLONGEVITY: The Down Side,” http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/faculty/berube/prolong.htm]
This means-ends dispute is at the core of Montagu and Matson's treatise on the dehumanization of humanity. They warn[s]: "its
destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague,
famine, or natural calamity on record -- and its potential danger to the
quality of life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation.
For that reason this
sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.... Behind the genocide of the holocaust lay a
dehumanized thought; beneath the menticide of deviants and dissidents... in the cuckoo's next of America, lies a dehumanized image
of man... (Montagu & Matson, 1983, p. xi-xii). While it may never be possible to quantify the impact dehumanizing ethics may have
had on humanity, it is safe to conclude the foundations of humanness offer great opportunities which would be foregone. When we
calculate the actual losses and the virtual benefits, we approach a nearly inestimable value greater than any tools which we can
Dehumanization is nuclear war, environmental apocalypse ,
and international genocide. When people become things, they become dispensable.
When people are dispensable, any and every atrocity can be justified. Once justified,
they seem to be inevitable for every epoch that has evil and dehumanization is evil's
most powerful weapon.
currently use to measure it.
Scenario 2: Poverty
A. High fuel prices are one of the biggest burdens on
impoverished families – lowering the cost of energy
should be the first priority in solving poverty.
Holt, President of the Consumer Energy Alliance, 2014
(David, “Energy key to solving income inequality,” January 28, Online:
http://theenergyvoice.com/energy-key-solving-income-inequality/)
When exploring solutions to income inequality policy makers pay
close attention to the costs. The cost of healthcare. The cost of food. The cost of child care.
The cost of housing.¶ What about the cost of energy?¶ According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, in 2012 the average U.S. family spent over $4,600 or about 9 percent of
their budget to heat and power their homes and fuel their vehicles.
Families in the bottom fifth of income earners spent nearly 33
percent more of their budget on energy costs than average $2,500 a year or 12%
of their annual budget. Reference the chart to the left and you will find that low-income families
spend two and half times more on energy than on health services.
Unlike food and housing, consumers cannot shop around for the
lowest cost energy. Bargains can be found in the supermarket, but,
prices at the pump do not vary from one station to the next.
Conservation similarly is not an option when it’s a choice between
driving to work or saving a gallon of gasoline.¶ A solution to
remedying income inequality is tackling rising energy costs . The U.S.
Energy Information Administration projects the price of electricity will rise 13.6
percent and the price of gasoline by 15.7 percent from now until
2040. Rising global demand, aging and insufficient¶ energy
infrastructure and restrictive government policies all play a role in
increasing costs.President Obama has the ability to reverse this trend and lessen the blow to all
consumers.¶ Take the shale gas boom for example. Increasing access to private and state lands and sound
state regulatory programs have boosted production of natural gas and led to a significant lowering of
prices. IHS CERA predicted that the shale revolution lifted household income by more than $1,200 in 2012
through lower energy costs, more job opportunities and greater federal and state tax revenues. ¶ Policy
makers should promote responsible energy development with the knowledge that it will have a positive
affect on even the most vulnerable. The president has the power to act. Permitting energy infrastructure –
including the Keystone XL Pipeline, opening new offshore areas to oil and natural gas development, and
If policy
makers want to take meaningful action to help our nation’s low
income families, they must pursue actions that help lower – not raise
– the cost of energy.
finalizing the nuclear waste confidence rulemaking, could transform the energy economy. ¶
B. Widespread Nuclear power leads to low electricity
prices.
Nordhaus, Lovering, and Shellenberger ‘14
(Nordhaus & Lovering are founders of Breakthrough
Institute, Shellenberger is a Climate & Policy Analyst at
Breakthrough Institute)
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/pdfs/Breakthrough_Ins
titute_How_to_Make_Nuclear_Cheap.pdf
The promise of nuclear technologies capable of producing cheap,
clean, and abun- dant energy once inspired widespread hopes in modern
progress and captured the imaginations of policy makers eager to deliver on
popular aspirations. That promise has not been altogether unfulfilled.
Nuclear energy now represents 12 percent of total global electricity
production and comprises 19 percent of total electrical generation in
the United States, 29 percent in South Korea, 43 percent in Sweden, and
82 percent 10 in France.1 Existing nuclear plants are one of the
cheapest sources of electrical power production in the United
States,2 while France boasts the lowest electricity prices in Western
Europe. 3
C. Formulating a credible nuclear waste solution leads to
widespread nuclear power by revitalizing domestic
nuclear industry along with being modeled globally
CSIS 13 – Center for Strategic and International Studies (June 2013,
“Restoring U.S. Leadership in Nuclear Energy,”
http://csis.org/files/publication/130614_RestoringUSLeadershipNuclearEnergy_
WEB.pdf)
Waste management has stood for decades as a barrier to the growth of
nuclear energy in the United States. Several states have laws that ban construction
of new nuclear plants until the waste issue is resolved. More broadly, the lack of a
waste-disposal solution has damaged the credibility of , and undermined public confidence
in, nuclear power as an energy source . The recent report of the Blue Ribbon Commission
on America’s Nuclear Future found that “this nation’s failure to come to grips with the
nuclear waste issue has already proved damaging and costly and it will be more
damaging and more costly the longer it continues: damaging to prospects for maintaining a
potentially important energy supply option for the future, damaging to state–federal relations
and public confidence in the federal government’s competence, and
damaging to America’s standing in the world—not only as a source of
nuclear technology and policy expertise but as a leader on global issues
of nuclear safety, non-proliferation, and security.” If the United States can
decide on a course of action to deal with its own spent fuel and other high level
nuclear waste, this could open the door to options such as fuel “take-away”
arrangements between the United States and countries with small nuclear
programs. Such agreements, which would allow a country to dispose of spent fuel in another
country with established disposal capability rather than on its own soil, could have large safety
and security benefits, especially if implemented in concert with nonproliferation
goals. The United States has had a small but successful security initiative to repatriate spent foreign
research reactor fuel for storage and disposal. If a similar program to accept spent fuel from foreign
this would greatly expand the options
available to the United States in advancing its nonproliferation interests , particularly
as new, small, and inexperienced nuclear entrants consider their fuel cycle options. Of course, such a
program would likely be politically acceptable only in the context of
discernible progress toward implementing a permanent disposal solution
commercial reactors could be established,
for U.S. spent fuel. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has set the global
standard for excellence in nuclear energy regulation and has long served to
bolster public confidence in nuclear operations. Yet there is a growing concern that the regulatory
burden facing U.S. plant operators will be expanded without commensurate safety benefit, particularly in
light of the understandable and appropriate desire to respond quickly to lessons learned from the
Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. It is essential that the NRC and the U.S. nuclear industry work
constructively to enhance the safety and security of the U.S. nuclear fleet without placing undue burdens
The U.S. commercial industry has been unrelenting in its quest
for excellence. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) has been a strong force
for self-regulation and the result has been performance that sets the
global standard. Added regulatory requirements when they produce real benefits are good for the
on reactor operators.
industry; additional regulatory costs without appropriate benefits will weigh down otherwise wellperforming nuclear facilities and their staff, and would contribute to financial pressures that could lead to
even more rapid shutdowns of presently operating nuclear power plants.
D. All individuals deserve electricity access – but most
don’t get it – we have an obligation to rectify the
government’s failure to provide energy to the poor
Tully 6 – former BP Postdoctoral Fellow of the Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for the Analysis of Risk
and Regulation and of the Law Department of the London
School of Economics and Political Science¶ (Stephen, “The
Human Right to Access Electricity,” The Electricity Journal vol
19 issue 3, April 2006, pg 30-39, dml)
governments are expected to
provide access to an equal supply of electricity to all individuals within their
jurisdiction or control. Drawing upon the sources identified in Section I, the normative content and scope of the
human right to access electricity entitles everyone to access a reliable, adequate,
and affordable electricity supply of sufficient quality for personal and household (domestic) use.
Elaborating upon each of these elements in turn, ‘‘everyone’’ implies that electrical facilities and
services are universally available without discrimination . Special protective
Characterizing electricity as an essential civic service implies that
measures to ensure that marginalized social groups enjoy electricity access would not qualify as discrimination.
Significantly, the human right is formulated as one of access rather than a right to electricity per se. ‘‘ Access’’
must be physical (an adequate infrastructure exists), geographically proximate (located near
end users) and economical (affordable). The term ‘‘access’’ first implies equality of
opportunity which permits everyone to develop their own capabilities
without undue restriction. It also requires governments to remedy
situations of de facto inequality by removing barriers to participation and
instituting affirmative measures in favor of disadvantaged groups. Second, the duty of suppliers to provide
electricity upon demand is contingent upon consumers first being eligible, namely, satisfying the supply conditions
including the ability to make financial payment. Third, access is consistent with the obligation of progressive
realization envisaged by the ICESCR which acknowledges the resource constraints confronting government.
Governments would be expected to incrementally expand electricity networks over time in light of available energy
access is consistent with the
terminology of relevant political declarations within the sustainable
development context, a topic considered further below. Finally, individuals do not want electricity per se
sources, local energy requirements, and population density. Fourth,
but rather the goods and services it produces (in other words, their demand is derived). Returning to the right as
formulated above, ‘‘reliable’’
means that electricity supplies are regular,
dependable, secure, and continuous. Disconnection must not be arbitrary :
it is only permissible in certain defined circumstances (for example, non-payment, illegal use, and risk to human
health or safety) and must be exercised consistently with proper procedures (for example, notification and
An ‘‘adequate’’ electricity supply means that consumers
should not be deprived of the minimum essential level necessary to lead
a life in human dignity, a particularly vague normative expectation. ‘‘Sufficient quality’’ means that the
opportunity to rectify).
supply constitutes an acceptable strength to power the appliance for which it is intended whereas ‘‘personal and
electricity dedicated to satisfying basic human needs
enjoys priority above directly productive but competing agricultural or industrial
applications.
household use’’ implies that
Advantage 2: Leakage
Scenario 1: Mutations
A. Leaks are inevitable unless a change is made
Easley ‘12
(Megan, Magna Cum Laude @ Georgetown University, Law
Graduate from Cornell)
http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=3235&context=clr
Although the U.S. government accepted federal responsibility for disposing of
civilian nuclear waste with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA),4
spent nuclear fuel continues to linger at its source in temporary
storage facilities built by the utility companies operating nuclear power
plants. 5 Some of these facilities are leaking,6 some are located near
elementary schools, 7 and others are already filled to ca- pacity.8
These problems in "temporary storage" are hardly surprising,
however, since under the NWPA the federal government was to
accept receipt of nuclear waste for permanent disposal in a geologic
reposi- tory in 1998. 9 However, 1998 came and went but nuclear
waste stayed put.
B. Leaks can lead to genetic mutations, cancers, and a
higher vulnerability to disease
http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/stop-polluters/indian-point/radioactive-waste/
Radioactive Waste and Pollution, River Keeper.org New York’s Clean Water Advocate
2014
River Keeper ’14
Every exposure to radiation increases the risk of damage to tissues, cells, DNA and
other vital molecules. Each exposure can cause programmed cell death, genetic
mutations, cancers, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune and endocrine
system disorders. There is no safe threshold to exposure to radiation.
Government regulations allow radioactive water to be released from Indian Point nuclear
power plant to the environment containing “permissible” levels of contamination.
However, since there is no safe threshold to exposure to radiation, permissible does not
mean safe.
It doesn’t take an accident at the Indian Point nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water, and soil. As a matter of regular operation, radiation is released from Indian Point in the form of liquid, gaseous, and solid radioactive
wastes. Solid radioactive wastes include laundry (considered low-level waste) and irradiated spent fuel (considered high-level waste.)
Each reactor routinely emits relatively low-dose amounts of airborne and liquid radioactivity. This radioactivity represents over 100 different isotopes only produced in reactors and atomic bombs, including Strontium-89, Strontium-90, Cesium137, and Iodine-131. Humans ingest them either by inhalation, or through the food chain (after airborne radioactivity returns these chemicals to earth).
Each of these chemicals has a special biochemical action; iodine seeks out the thyroid gland, strontium clumps to the bone and teeth (like calcium), and cesium is distributed throughout the soft tissues. All are carcinogenic. Each decays at
varying rates; for example, iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days, and remains in the body only a few weeks. Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28.7 years, and thus remains in bone and teeth for many years.
These chemicals are different from “background” radiation found in nature in cosmic rays and the earth’s surface. Background radiation, while still harmful, contains no chemicals that specifically attack the thyroid gland, bones, or other organs.
Indian Point ranks among the top emitters with respect to radioactive releases over the years it has operated.
Radioactive releases result from plant accidents and accidents happen. On February 15, 2000, IP-2 suffered a ruptured steam generator tube that released 20,000 gallons of radioactive coolant into the plant. The incident resulted from poor plant
maintenance and lax oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The accident, a stage 2 event, triggered a radioactive release to the atmosphere. The NRC gave the plant its worst rating because of the previous plant operator’s failure to
detect flaws in a steam generator tube before the February 2000 leak. One week after the accident, 200 gallons of radioactive water were accidentally released into the Hudson River.
Since at least August 2005, radioactive toxins such as tritium and strontium-90 have been leaking from at least two spent fuel pools at Indian Point into the groundwater and the Hudson River. In January 2007 it was reported that strontium-90
was detected in four out of twelve Hudson River fish tested.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission relies upon self-reporting and computer modeling from reactor operators to track radioactive releases and their projected dispersion. A significant portion of the environmental monitoring data is extrapolated –
virtual, not real.
However, radioactive releases from Indian Point’s routine operation often are not fully detected or reported. In fact, accidental releases may not be completely verified or documented.
And, they occur throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, which includes uranium mining, uranium milling, chemical conversion, fuel enrichment and fabrication, the process by which electricity is generated at plant via controlled reaction, and the
storage of radioactive waste, both on-site and off-site.
Finally, radioactive by-products continue giving off dangerous radioactive particles and rays for enormously long periods – described in terms of “half lives.” A radioactive material gives off hazardous radiation for at least ten half-lives. One of the
radioactive isotopes of iodine (iodine-129)
Scenario 2: Ecocide
A. Nuclear waste leakage devastates the environment-this is ecocide
Hynes 14 – Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in western Massachusetts,
retired environmental engineer and Professor of Environmental Health (Pat
Hynes, Summer 2014, “The “Invisible Casualty of War:” The Environmental
Destruction of U.S. Militarism, http://traprock.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/06/Militarism-and-the-Environment.pdf)//twonily
Since the United States exploded the first nuclear bomb in New Mexico in 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons have
been tested worldwide in multiple environments: aboveground, underwater, underground, and in outer space. According
to some estimates, the equivalent of more than 29,000 Hiroshima bombs have been tested in the atmosphere,
discharging more than 9,000 pounds of plutonium— with a half-life of 24,000 years—into the environment. 9,10 Hundreds
of thousands of military personnel, civilian workers, their families, and people living downwind of test sites have been
exposed to radiation at levels sufficient to cause cancer and other diseases. Compensation programs set up by the U.S.
government place many obstacles in the way of claimants, including burden of proof, maximum limits on compensation
and grossly inadequate underfunding, particularly in the case of compensating citizens of the Marshall Islands and
Micronesia, both of which places were environmental sacrifice zones for the U.S. nuclear program.11 Most of the
uranium mined for the U.S. nuclear program was in or near Navajo tribal lands in New Mexico. More
than 1,000 regional mines and mill sites are now abandoned and unsealed sources of soil and drinking water
miners worked without protection from exposure to uranium
dust and still live with their families near the contaminated sites. The Navajo and
nearby Laguna tribes suffer lung cancer, kidney disease, and birth defects at higher than
average rates.12 Even if all nuclear weapons were dismantled tomorrow, the radioactivity of waste
from mining, manufacturing, and testing will endure for millennia . By 1994, nearly 5,000 contaminated
contamination. Navajo
sites at the DOE nuclear weapons and fuel facilities had been identified for remediation. The now-closed Hanford nuclear
weapons facility, which recycled uranium and extracted plutonium for nuclear weapons, is the largest nuclear waste
storage site in the country and may be the world’s largest environmental cleanup site, with a projected budget of $100
The operating plant regularly released radioactive iodine
emissions and discharged more than 400 billion gallons of radioactive waste into
adjacent soil and the Columbia River , exposing tens of thousands of
people living nearby to some of the largest amounts of radiation in the
world. Over the course of its 30-year operations, Hanford workers developed a rare blood cancer and other work
billion U.S. dollars.
related diseases at elevated rates. Nearby residents, including the Yakima Nation, also experienced high rates of cancers,
miscarriages and other health problems. The waste on the closed 600 acre site includes nearly five tons of plutonium and
60 of
the tanks have leaked and others may be leaking into soil and groundwater
which flows into the Columbia River, a regional source of salmon,
agricultural irrigation, and drinking water supply.14 Nuclear weapons’
waste dwarfs all other hazardous waste in scale, toxicity, dispersion
across the world, and cost. Moreover, it defies technical solutions for
permanent environmental cleanup and environmental safety .15
more than 53 million gallons of radioactive plutonium waste stored in underground tanks. According to DOE about
B. Ecocide is the worst thing we can do to the
environment. It is when we no longer know ourselves as a
part of our environment that we enable the destruction of
the atmosphere, non human beings and human beings.
This is a far more violent level of extinction.
Gottlieb, 94 (Roger - professor of humanities at Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, Ethics and Trauma: LEVINAS, FEMINISM, AND DEEP ECOLOGY,
http://www.crosscurrents.org/feministecology.htm)
I speak of the specter of ecocide, the continuing destruction of
species and ecosystems, and the growing threat to the basic
conditions essential to human life. What kind of ethic is adequate to this brutally new
and potentially most unforgiving of crises? How can we respond to this trauma with an ethic which
demands a response, and does not remain marginalized? Here I will at least begin in agreement with
¶
the
anthropocentric perspectives of conservation or liberal
environmentalism cannot take us far enough. Our relations with
nonhuman nature are poisoned and not just because we have set up
feedback loops that already lead to mass starvations, skyrocketing
environmental disease rates, and devastation of natural resources.¶
The problem with ecocide is not just that it hurts human beings. Our
uncaring violence also violates the very ground of our being, our
natural body, our home. Such violence is done not simply to the
other -- as if the rainforest, the river, the atmosphere, the species
made extinct are totally different from ourselves. Rather, we have
crucified ourselves-in-relation-to-the-other, fracturing a mode of
being in which self and other can no more be conceived as fully in
isolation from each other than can a mother and a nursing child.¶ We
Levinas. As he rejects an ethics proceeding on the basis of self-interest, so I believe
are that child, and nonhuman nature is that mother. If this image seems too maudlin, let us remember that
other lactating women can feed an infant, but we have only one earth mother. What moral stance will be
shaped by our personal sense that we are poisoning ourselves, our environment, and so many kindred
spirits of the air, water, and forests? To begin, we may see this tragic situation as setting the limits to
¶
¶
The other which is nonhuman nature is not simply
known by a "trace," nor is it something of which all knowledge is
necessarily instrumental. This other is inside us as well as outside us. We
prove it with every breath we take, every bit of food we eat, every glass of
water we drink. We do not have to find shadowy traces on or in the
faces of trees or lakes, topsoil or air: we are made from them.¶ Levinas
Levinas's perspective.
denies this sense of connection with nature. Our "natural" side represents for him a threat of simple
consumption or use of the other, a spontaneous response which must be obliterated by the power of ethics
in general (and, for him in particular, Jewish religious law(23) ). A "natural" response lacks discipline;
without the capacity to heed the call of the other, unable to sublate the self's egoism. Worship of nature
would ultimately result in an "everything-is-permitted" mentality, a close relative of Nazism itself. For
Levinas, to think of people as "natural" beings is to assimilate them to a totality, a category or species
which makes no room for the kind of individuality required by ethics.(24) He refers to the "elemental" or
the "there is" as unmanaged, unaltered, "natural" conditions or forces that are essentially alien to the
categories and conditions of moral life.(25)¶ One can only lament that Levinas has read nature -- as to
some extent (despite his intentions) he has read selfhood -- through the lens of masculine culture .
It is
precisely our sense of belonging to nature as system, as interaction,
as interdependence, which can provide the basis for an ethics
appropriate to the trauma of ecocide. As cultural feminism sought to expand our
sense of personal identity to a sense of inter-identification with the human other, so this ecological
ethics would expand our personal and species sense of identity into
an inter-identification with the natural world.¶ Such a realization can lead us to
an ethics appropriate to our time, a dimension of which has come to be known as "deep ecology."(26) For
we do not begin from the uniqueness of our human selfhood,
existing against a taken-for-granted background of earth and sky. Nor
this ethics,
is our body somehow irrelevant to ethical relations, with knowledge of it reduced always to tactics of
domination.
Our knowledge does not assimilate the other to the same,
but reveals and furthers the continuing dance of interdependence.
And our ethical motivation is neither rationalist system nor individualistic self-interest, but a sense of
connection to all of life.¶ The deep ecology sense of self-realization goes beyond the modern Western
sense of "self" as an isolated ego striving for hedonistic gratification. . . . . Self, in this sense, is
experienced as integrated with the whole of nature.(27)¶ Having gained distance and sophistication of
perception [from the development of science and political freedoms] we can turn and recognize who we
have been all along. . . . we are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come
home again -- and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way.(28)¶
Ecological ways of knowing nature are necessarily participatory. [This] knowledge is ecological and plural,
reflecting both the diversity of natural ecosystems and the diversity in cultures that nature-based living
gives rise to.¶ The recovery of the feminine principle is based on inclusiveness. It is a recovery in nature,
woman and man of creative forms of being and perceiving. In nature it implies seeing nature as a live
organism. In woman it implies seeing women as productive and active. Finally, in men the recovery of the
feminine principle implies a relocation of action and activity to create life-enhancing, not life-reducing and
life-threatening societies.(29)¶ In this context, the knowing ego is not set against a world it seeks to
control, but one of which it is a part. To continue the feminist perspective, the mother knows or seeks to
know the child's needs. Does it make sense to think of her answering the call of the child in abstraction
from such knowledge? Is such knowledge necessarily domination? Or is it essential to a project of care,
respect and love, precisely because the knower has an intimate, emotional connection with the known?
(30) Our ecological vision locates us in such close relation with our natural home that knowledge of it is
knowledge of ourselves. And this is not, contrary to Levinas's fear, reducing the other to the same, but a
celebration of a larger, more inclusive, and still complex and articulated self.(31) The noble and terrible
burden of Levinas's individuated responsibility for sheer existence gives way to a different dream, a
different prayer:¶ Being rock, being gas, being mist, being Mind, Being the mesons traveling among the
galaxies with the speed of light, You have come here, my beloved one. . . . You have manifested yourself as
trees, as grass, as butterflies, as single-celled beings, and as chrysanthemums; but the eyes with which
you looked at me this morning tell me you have never died.(32)¶ In this prayer, we are, quite simply, all in
it together. And,
although this new ecological Holocaust -- this creation of
planet Auschwitz -- is under way, it is not yet final. We have time to
step back from the brink, to repair our world. But only if we see that
world not as an other across an irreducible gap of loneliness and
unchosen obligation, but as a part of ourselves as we are part of it,
to be redeemed not out of duty, but out of love; neither for our
selves nor for the other, but for us all.
A. Now is key to create a permanent nuclear waste
repository
PNC Voice 8/31/14
http://www.thepncvoice.com/federal-government-lossdisposing-current-nuclear-waste-stores/35047
In an effort to clean up America, the United
States government seeks ways to
transport tons of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants across
the country to various nearby disposal sites.¶ Or, wait, the
government already has the trains; the trains just have nowhere to
go and no cars to haul.¶ Such is the current nuclear dilemma the U.S. Department of Energy
faces as they plead with national companies for ideas on how they can get more rail cars to transport each
of the 150-ton casks of used, volatile, radioactive waste. They expect the cars could last 30 years but they
want to know if consumers—or maybe experts that don’t already work for the government?—think they
should buy or lease the rail cars.¶ ¶ Whether it is a lack of response or a lack of manpower, apparently the
Obama administration isn’t planning to move the trains anytime soon, even if they did have the cars. After
all, the latest
government plan is to build or use an existing interim
storage site—but not until 2021—as they wait for a new geologic
depository that should be ready by 2048.¶ Whether they are building
a new geologic depository or plan to alter an existing site is also
unclear at this time. And nobody knows where any of these sites
could possibly be. Still, even amidst the confusion the Obama administration continues to plan,
develop, write contracts, and test new equipment in anticipation that the answers will come. ¶ “Digging
your well before your thirsty” really only works when you still have
water to drink. Where are we going to put all the waste we already
have?¶ Of course, the U.S. Department of Energy hasn’t commented on the issue, but they do share
responsibility for disposing of the waste with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Thus, the plan: The United States Federal
Government should substantially increase subseabed disposal of nuclear waste in the Earth’s
oceans.
Observation 2: Solvency
A. Sub-seabed nuclear waste disposal solves radiation
leakage
Dillon in 2014 – Kenneth (Historian who writes on science, medicine, and
history)”Sea-Based Nuclear Waste Solutions”, Scientia
Press,http://www.scientiapress.com/nuclearwaste. MWH
First formally proposed in 1973, the concept of burying nuclear waste in stable clay formations
under the seabed was investigated by international teams of scientists for many years. A
substantial scientific literature details the various modalities, associated risks, and geological
conditions. The large undersea plain some 600 miles north of Hawaii, stable for some 65
million years, received special attention. Researchers found that the clay muds in such
sub-seabed formations had a high capacity for binding radionuclides, so that any
leakage would be likely to remain within the clay for millions of years, by which time
radioactive emissions would decline to natural background levels.
B. Sub-seabed disposal was proven to be the safest
method of disposing of nuclear waste, but the U.S.
program was terminated in 1987
Professor Edward L. Miles ‘08
[Professor of Marine Studies and Public Affairs at the University of Washington; Adjunct Professor at the
School of Fisheries at the University of Washington; Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of
Denver (1965); Senior Fellow at the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean at the University
of Washington; Co-Director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington;
Graduate from the School of International Studies at the University of Denver; studies in International
Law and Organization; Science, Technology and International Relations; Marine Policy and Ocean
Management ; did his Ph.D. dissertation on “The Process and Politics of the Intergovernmental Codification
of International Law at the Supranational Level”], “Sub-Seabed Disposal of High Level Radioactive Waste:
The Policy Context Then and Now,” Published on the Internet,
2008 ,http://www.xiamenacademy.org/upload/2-8%20Miles%20MASTER
%202008-07-29.doc[PB]
“Ultimately, on the basis of radiological assessments conducted by
EPA and Sandia National Laboratories, the manager of both the
national and the coordinated international programs, the subseabed option was shown to be the safest of all options by several
orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, the U.S. program was
terminated prematurely by DOE in 1987 and the European program
couldn’t survive on its own. What then had happened?”
Observation 3: Advantages
Advantage 1: Ethics
Scenario 1: Environmental Racism
A. Environmental Racism affects Native Americans and
any person of color on a daily basis.
Bullard 8 (Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D., Environmental Justice Resource Center,
Clark Atlanta University, 7/2/08, “POVERTY, POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL
RACISM: STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITIES” http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/PovpolEj.html
The United States is the dominant economic and military force in the world today. The American
economic engine has generated massive wealth, high standard of living, and
consumerism. This growth machine has also generated waste, pollution, and ecological
destruction. The U.S. has some of the best environmental laws in the world. However, in the real
world, all communities are not created equal. Environmental
regulations have not achieved uniform benefits across all segments
of society. [2] Some communities are routinely poisoned while the government looks the other way .
People of color around the world must contend with dirty air and
drinking water, and the location of noxious facilities such as
municipal landfills, incinerators, hazardous waste treatment,
storage, and disposal facilities owned by private industry,
government, and even the military.[3] These environmental problems are exacerbated
by racism. Environmental racism refers to environmental policy,
practice, or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages
(whether intended or unintended) individuals, groups, or
communities based on race or color. Environmental racism is
reinforced by government, legal, economic, political, and military
institutions. Environmental racism combines with public policies and
industry practices
to provide benefits for the countries in the North while shifting costs to countries in the South.
[4] Environmental racism is a form of institutionalized discrimination. Institutional
discrimination is defined as "actions or practices carried out by members of dominant (racial or ethnic) groups that have differential and negative impact on members of subordinate (racial and ethnic) groups." [5] The United States is grounded in white racism. The nation was founded
on the principles of "free land" (stolen from Native Americans and Mexicans), "free labor" (African slaves brought to this land in chains), and "free men" (only white men with property had the right to vote). From the outset, racism shaped the economic, political and ecological landscape
of this new nation. Environmental racism buttressed the exploitation of land, people, and the natural environment. It operates as an intra-nation power arrangement--especially where ethnic or racial groups form a political and or numerical minority. For example, blacks in the U.S. form
both a political and numerical racial minority. On the other hand, blacks in South Africa, under apartheid, constituted a political minority and numerical majority. American and South African apartheid had devastating environmental impacts on blacks. [6]
Environmental racism also operates in the international arena
between nations and between transnational corporations. Increased
globalization of the world's economy has placed special strains on
the eco-systems in many poor communities and poor nations
inhabited largely by people of color and indigenous peoples . This is
especially true for the global resource extraction industry such as oil, timber, and minerals. [7]
Globalization makes it easier for transnational corporations and capital to flee to areas with the least
environmental regulations, best tax incentives, cheapest labor, and highest profit. The struggle of African
Americans in Norco, Louisiana and the Africans in the Niger Delta are similar in that both groups are
negatively impacted by Shell Oil refineries and unresponsive governments. This scenario is repeated for
Latinos in Wilmington (California) and indigenous people in Ecuador who must contend with pollution from
Texaco oil refineries. The companies may be different, but the community complaints and concerns are
Many nearby
residents are "trapped" in their community because of inadequate
roads, poorly planned emergency escape routes, and faulty warning
systems. They live in constant fear of plant explosions and
accidents. The Bhopal tragedy is fresh in the minds of millions of people who live next to chemical
very similar. Local residents have seen their air, water, and land contaminated.
plants. The 1984 poison-gas leak at the Bhopal, India Union Carbide plant killed thousands of people-making it the world's deadliest industrial accident. It is not a coincidence that the only place in the U.S.
where methyl isocyanate (MIC) was manufactured was at a Union Carbide plant in in predominately African
American Institute, West Virginia. [8] In 1985, a gas leak from the Institute Union Carbide plant sent 135
residents to the hospital. Institutional racism has allowed people of color communities to exist as colonies,
areas that form dependent (and unequal) relationships to the dominant white society or "Mother Country"
with regard to their social, economic, legal, and environmental administration. Writing more than three
decades ago, Carmichael and Hamilton, in their work Black Power, offered the "internal" colonial model to
explain racial inequality, political exploitation, and social isolation of African Americans. Carmichael and
The economic relationship of America's black communities
. . . reflects their colonial status. The political power exercised over
those communities go hand in glove with the economic deprivation
experienced by the black citizens. Historically, colonies have existed for the sole
Hamilton write:
purpose of enriching, in one form or another, the "colonizer"; the consequence is to maintain the economic
dependency of the "colonized." [9] Institutional racism reinforces internal colonialism. Government
Institutional racism defends, protects,
and enhances the social advantages and privileges of rich nations.
institutions buttress this system of domination.
Whether by design or benign neglect, communities of color (ranging from the urban ghettos and barrios to
rural "poverty pockets" to economically impoverished Native American reservations and developing
nations) face some of the worst environmental problems .
The most polluted communities
are also the communities with crumbling infrastructure, economic
disinvestment, deteriorating housing, inadequate schools, chronic
unemployment, high poverty, and overloaded health care systems.
B. Native Americans do not want nuclear waste on their
land as “temporary” storage sites
Minn Post 9/3/14
http://www.minnpost.com/political-agenda/2014/09/redwing-officials-disappointed-feds-decision-spent-nuclearfuel
Red Wing city officials and leaders of the Prairie Island Indian
Community say they are unhappy with a recent Nuclear Regulatory
Commission ruling that does little to resolve the ongoing dispute
over storage of spent nuclear fuel.¶ The Prairie Island nuclear power
plant is on the Mississippi River in Red Wing, and is adjacent to the Indian
reservation.¶ A story in the Rochester Post Bulletin says the NRC ruling:¶
"...opens the door for on-site nuclear waste storage for 100 years or
more. The language also lifts a suspension on licensing additional
nuclear facilities even without the creation of a national repository
for nuclear waste."¶ Not good, says Red Wing City Council member
Peggy Rehder, who has lobbied in Washington, D.C., on the issue, and
wasn't surprised with the ruling¶ "There's been a movement toward saying
that spent fuel in dry cask storage is safer for a longer period of time," she
said. "It's disappointing, but on the other hand, we're seeing movement in
Congress toward getting spent fuel that's in storage in at a least an interim
storage site."¶ And Ron Johnson, president of the Prairie Island Indian
Community's Tribal Council, said in a statement:¶ "...the NRC
affirmed a new rule and generic environmental impact statement
that concluded that spent nuclear fuel — some of the most
dangerous and toxic substances known to mankind — can be safely
stored 600 yards from our homes indefinitely if no geologic
repository is ever built. No other community sits as close to a
nuclear site and its waste storage."¶ According to the paper, Xcel Energy
says it has "38 casks containing nuclear waste near Red Wing and is
permitted to store waste in 64 casks when the current operating licenses end
in 2033 and 2034."
C. Environmental Racism IS RACISM- it perpetuates dehumanization
Wilder and Memmi, 1996
Gary and Albert, WEB Dubois institute, racial theorists, “Irreconcilable differences.”
Transition, 71, 1996, pp. 158-177
Perhaps Memmi's most precocious and valuable insights emerge from his belief that racism
traps its victims in "an
impossible condition ... a condition which can have no solution in its actual structure." We can read Memmi's work as an
inventory of possible responses to colonization, racism, and anti-Semitism. He believes that racialized
subjects
are inevitably impelled by contradictory gestures of self-rejection
and self-affirmation, and that it is as impossible to secure recognition as
different but equal as it is to gain full access to "universal" humanity: "No matter which way
I turned I always found my- self an accomplice of the established order." He has profound empathy for oppressed peoples' attempts to
survive with dignity, and he allows us to see the desire to disappear into the mainstream and the wish to retreat into ghettoized
enclaves as natural reactions to the racial dilemma.
D. Dehumanization is every impact discussed in debate felt by real people every day
and must be rejected
Berube, 1997; David M., Professor of Communication Studies at University of South Carolina., “NANOTECHNOLOGICAL
PROLONGEVITY: The Down Side,” http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/faculty/berube/prolong.htm]
This means-ends dispute is at the core of Montagu and Matson's treatise on the dehumanization of humanity. They warn[s]: "its
destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague,
famine, or natural calamity on record -- and its potential danger to the
quality of life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation.
For that reason this
sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.... Behind the genocide of the holocaust lay a
dehumanized thought; beneath the menticide of deviants and dissidents... in the cuckoo's next of America, lies a dehumanized image
of man... (Montagu & Matson, 1983, p. xi-xii). While it may never be possible to quantify the impact dehumanizing ethics may have
had on humanity, it is safe to conclude the foundations of humanness offer great opportunities which would be foregone. When we
calculate the actual losses and the virtual benefits, we approach a nearly inestimable value greater than any tools which we can
Dehumanization is nuclear war, environmental apocalypse ,
and international genocide. When people become things, they become dispensable.
When people are dispensable, any and every atrocity can be justified. Once justified,
they seem to be inevitable for every epoch that has evil and dehumanization is evil's
most powerful weapon.
currently use to measure it.
Scenario 2: Poverty
A. High fuel prices are one of the biggest burdens on
impoverished families – lowering the cost of energy
should be the first priority in solving poverty.
Holt, President of the Consumer Energy Alliance, 2014
(David, “Energy key to solving income inequality,” January 28, Online:
http://theenergyvoice.com/energy-key-solving-income-inequality/)
When exploring solutions to income inequality policy makers pay
close attention to the costs. The cost of healthcare. The cost of food. The cost of child care.
The cost of housing.¶ What about the cost of energy?¶ According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, in 2012 the average U.S. family spent over $4,600 or about 9 percent of
their budget to heat and power their homes and fuel their vehicles.
Families in the bottom fifth of income earners spent nearly 33
percent more of their budget on energy costs than average $2,500 a year or 12%
of their annual budget. Reference the chart to the left and you will find that low-income families
spend two and half times more on energy than on health services.
Unlike food and housing, consumers cannot shop around for the
lowest cost energy. Bargains can be found in the supermarket, but,
prices at the pump do not vary from one station to the next.
Conservation similarly is not an option when it’s a choice between
driving to work or saving a gallon of gasoline.¶ A solution to
remedying income inequality is tackling rising energy costs . The U.S.
Energy Information Administration projects the price of electricity will rise 13.6
percent and the price of gasoline by 15.7 percent from now until
2040. Rising global demand, aging and insufficient¶ energy
infrastructure and restrictive government policies all play a role in
increasing costs.President Obama has the ability to reverse this trend and lessen the blow to all
consumers.¶ Take the shale gas boom for example. Increasing access to private and state lands and sound
state regulatory programs have boosted production of natural gas and led to a significant lowering of
prices. IHS CERA predicted that the shale revolution lifted household income by more than $1,200 in 2012
through lower energy costs, more job opportunities and greater federal and state tax revenues. ¶ Policy
makers should promote responsible energy development with the knowledge that it will have a positive
affect on even the most vulnerable. The president has the power to act. Permitting energy infrastructure –
including the Keystone XL Pipeline, opening new offshore areas to oil and natural gas development, and
If policy
makers want to take meaningful action to help our nation’s low
income families, they must pursue actions that help lower – not raise
– the cost of energy.
finalizing the nuclear waste confidence rulemaking, could transform the energy economy. ¶
B. Widespread Nuclear power leads to low electricity
prices.
Nordhaus, Lovering, and Shellenberger ‘14
(Nordhaus & Lovering are founders of Breakthrough
Institute, Shellenberger is a Climate & Policy Analyst at
Breakthrough Institute)
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/pdfs/Breakthrough_Ins
titute_How_to_Make_Nuclear_Cheap.pdf
The promise of nuclear technologies capable of producing cheap,
clean, and abun- dant energy once inspired widespread hopes in modern
progress and captured the imaginations of policy makers eager to deliver on
popular aspirations. That promise has not been altogether unfulfilled.
Nuclear energy now represents 12 percent of total global electricity
production and comprises 19 percent of total electrical generation in
the United States, 29 percent in South Korea, 43 percent in Sweden, and
82 percent 10 in France.1 Existing nuclear plants are one of the
cheapest sources of electrical power production in the United
States,2 while France boasts the lowest electricity prices in Western
Europe. 3
C. Formulating a credible nuclear waste solution leads to
widespread nuclear power by revitalizing domestic
nuclear industry along with being modeled globally
CSIS 13 – Center for Strategic and International Studies (June 2013,
“Restoring U.S. Leadership in Nuclear Energy,”
http://csis.org/files/publication/130614_RestoringUSLeadershipNuclearEnergy_
WEB.pdf)
Waste management has stood for decades as a barrier to the growth of
nuclear energy in the United States. Several states have laws that ban construction
of new nuclear plants until the waste issue is resolved. More broadly, the lack of a
waste-disposal solution has damaged the credibility of , and undermined public confidence
in, nuclear power as an energy source . The recent report of the Blue Ribbon Commission
on America’s Nuclear Future found that “this nation’s failure to come to grips with the
nuclear waste issue has already proved damaging and costly and it will be more
damaging and more costly the longer it continues: damaging to prospects for maintaining a
potentially important energy supply option for the future, damaging to state–federal relations
and public confidence in the federal government’s competence, and
damaging to America’s standing in the world—not only as a source of
nuclear technology and policy expertise but as a leader on global issues
of nuclear safety, non-proliferation, and security.” If the United States can
decide on a course of action to deal with its own spent fuel and other high level
nuclear waste, this could open the door to options such as fuel “take-away”
arrangements between the United States and countries with small nuclear
programs. Such agreements, which would allow a country to dispose of spent fuel in another
country with established disposal capability rather than on its own soil, could have large safety
and security benefits, especially if implemented in concert with nonproliferation
goals. The United States has had a small but successful security initiative to repatriate spent foreign
research reactor fuel for storage and disposal. If a similar program to accept spent fuel from foreign
this would greatly expand the options
available to the United States in advancing its nonproliferation interests , particularly
as new, small, and inexperienced nuclear entrants consider their fuel cycle options. Of course, such a
program would likely be politically acceptable only in the context of
discernible progress toward implementing a permanent disposal solution
commercial reactors could be established,
for U.S. spent fuel. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has set the global
standard for excellence in nuclear energy regulation and has long served to
bolster public confidence in nuclear operations. Yet there is a growing concern that the regulatory
burden facing U.S. plant operators will be expanded without commensurate safety benefit, particularly in
light of the understandable and appropriate desire to respond quickly to lessons learned from the
Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. It is essential that the NRC and the U.S. nuclear industry work
constructively to enhance the safety and security of the U.S. nuclear fleet without placing undue burdens
The U.S. commercial industry has been unrelenting in its quest
for excellence. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) has been a strong force
for self-regulation and the result has been performance that sets the
global standard. Added regulatory requirements when they produce real benefits are good for the
on reactor operators.
industry; additional regulatory costs without appropriate benefits will weigh down otherwise wellperforming nuclear facilities and their staff, and would contribute to financial pressures that could lead to
even more rapid shutdowns of presently operating nuclear power plants.
D. All individuals deserve electricity access – but most
don’t get it – we have an obligation to rectify the
government’s failure to provide energy to the poor
Tully 6 – former BP Postdoctoral Fellow of the Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for the Analysis of Risk
and Regulation and of the Law Department of the London
School of Economics and Political Science¶ (Stephen, “The
Human Right to Access Electricity,” The Electricity Journal vol
19 issue 3, April 2006, pg 30-39, dml)
governments are expected to
provide access to an equal supply of electricity to all individuals within their
jurisdiction or control. Drawing upon the sources identified in Section I, the normative content and scope of the
human right to access electricity entitles everyone to access a reliable, adequate,
and affordable electricity supply of sufficient quality for personal and household (domestic) use.
Elaborating upon each of these elements in turn, ‘‘everyone’’ implies that electrical facilities and
services are universally available without discrimination . Special protective
Characterizing electricity as an essential civic service implies that
measures to ensure that marginalized social groups enjoy electricity access would not qualify as discrimination.
Significantly, the human right is formulated as one of access rather than a right to electricity per se. ‘‘ Access’’
must be physical (an adequate infrastructure exists), geographically proximate (located near
end users) and economical (affordable). The term ‘‘access’’ first implies equality of
opportunity which permits everyone to develop their own capabilities
without undue restriction. It also requires governments to remedy
situations of de facto inequality by removing barriers to participation and
instituting affirmative measures in favor of disadvantaged groups. Second, the duty of suppliers to provide
electricity upon demand is contingent upon consumers first being eligible, namely, satisfying the supply conditions
including the ability to make financial payment. Third, access is consistent with the obligation of progressive
realization envisaged by the ICESCR which acknowledges the resource constraints confronting government.
Governments would be expected to incrementally expand electricity networks over time in light of available energy
access is consistent with the
terminology of relevant political declarations within the sustainable
development context, a topic considered further below. Finally, individuals do not want electricity per se
sources, local energy requirements, and population density. Fourth,
but rather the goods and services it produces (in other words, their demand is derived). Returning to the right as
formulated above, ‘‘reliable’’
means that electricity supplies are regular,
dependable, secure, and continuous. Disconnection must not be arbitrary :
it is only permissible in certain defined circumstances (for example, non-payment, illegal use, and risk to human
health or safety) and must be exercised consistently with proper procedures (for example, notification and
An ‘‘adequate’’ electricity supply means that consumers
should not be deprived of the minimum essential level necessary to lead
a life in human dignity, a particularly vague normative expectation. ‘‘Sufficient quality’’ means that the
opportunity to rectify).
supply constitutes an acceptable strength to power the appliance for which it is intended whereas ‘‘personal and
electricity dedicated to satisfying basic human needs
enjoys priority above directly productive but competing agricultural or industrial
applications.
household use’’ implies that
Advantage 2: Leakage
Scenario 1: Mutations
A. Leaks are inevitable unless a change is made
Easley ‘12
(Megan, Magna Cum Laude @ Georgetown University, Law
Graduate from Cornell)
http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=3235&context=clr
Although the U.S. government accepted federal responsibility for disposing of
civilian nuclear waste with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA),4
spent nuclear fuel continues to linger at its source in temporary
storage facilities built by the utility companies operating nuclear power
plants. 5 Some of these facilities are leaking,6 some are located near
elementary schools, 7 and others are already filled to ca- pacity.8
These problems in "temporary storage" are hardly surprising,
however, since under the NWPA the federal government was to
accept receipt of nuclear waste for permanent disposal in a geologic
reposi- tory in 1998. 9 However, 1998 came and went but nuclear
waste stayed put.
B. Leaks can lead to genetic mutations, cancers, and a
higher vulnerability to disease
http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/stop-polluters/indian-point/radioactive-waste/
Radioactive Waste and Pollution, River Keeper.org New York’s Clean Water Advocate
2014
River Keeper ’14
Every exposure to radiation increases the risk of damage to tissues, cells, DNA and
other vital molecules. Each exposure can cause programmed cell death, genetic
mutations, cancers, leukemia, birth defects, and reproductive, immune and endocrine
system disorders. There is no safe threshold to exposure to radiation.
Government regulations allow radioactive water to be released from Indian Point nuclear
power plant to the environment containing “permissible” levels of contamination.
However, since there is no safe threshold to exposure to radiation, permissible does not
mean safe.
It doesn’t take an accident at the Indian Point nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water, and soil. As a matter of regular operation, radiation is released from Indian Point in the form of liquid, gaseous, and solid radioactive
wastes. Solid radioactive wastes include laundry (considered low-level waste) and irradiated spent fuel (considered high-level waste.)
Each reactor routinely emits relatively low-dose amounts of airborne and liquid radioactivity. This radioactivity represents over 100 different isotopes only produced in reactors and atomic bombs, including Strontium-89, Strontium-90, Cesium137, and Iodine-131. Humans ingest them either by inhalation, or through the food chain (after airborne radioactivity returns these chemicals to earth).
Each of these chemicals has a special biochemical action; iodine seeks out the thyroid gland, strontium clumps to the bone and teeth (like calcium), and cesium is distributed throughout the soft tissues. All are carcinogenic. Each decays at
varying rates; for example, iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days, and remains in the body only a few weeks. Strontium-90 has a half-life of 28.7 years, and thus remains in bone and teeth for many years.
These chemicals are different from “background” radiation found in nature in cosmic rays and the earth’s surface. Background radiation, while still harmful, contains no chemicals that specifically attack the thyroid gland, bones, or other organs.
Indian Point ranks among the top emitters with respect to radioactive releases over the years it has operated.
Radioactive releases result from plant accidents and accidents happen. On February 15, 2000, IP-2 suffered a ruptured steam generator tube that released 20,000 gallons of radioactive coolant into the plant. The incident resulted from poor plant
maintenance and lax oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The accident, a stage 2 event, triggered a radioactive release to the atmosphere. The NRC gave the plant its worst rating because of the previous plant operator’s failure to
detect flaws in a steam generator tube before the February 2000 leak. One week after the accident, 200 gallons of radioactive water were accidentally released into the Hudson River.
Since at least August 2005, radioactive toxins such as tritium and strontium-90 have been leaking from at least two spent fuel pools at Indian Point into the groundwater and the Hudson River. In January 2007 it was reported that strontium-90
was detected in four out of twelve Hudson River fish tested.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission relies upon self-reporting and computer modeling from reactor operators to track radioactive releases and their projected dispersion. A significant portion of the environmental monitoring data is extrapolated –
virtual, not real.
However, radioactive releases from Indian Point’s routine operation often are not fully detected or reported. In fact, accidental releases may not be completely verified or documented.
And, they occur throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, which includes uranium mining, uranium milling, chemical conversion, fuel enrichment and fabrication, the process by which electricity is generated at plant via controlled reaction, and the
storage of radioactive waste, both on-site and off-site.
Finally, radioactive by-products continue giving off dangerous radioactive particles and rays for enormously long periods – described in terms of “half lives.” A radioactive material gives off hazardous radiation for at least ten half-lives. One of the
radioactive isotopes of iodine (iodine-129)
Scenario 2: Ecocide
A. Nuclear waste leakage devastates the environment-this is ecocide
Hynes 14 – Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in western Massachusetts,
retired environmental engineer and Professor of Environmental Health (Pat
Hynes, Summer 2014, “The “Invisible Casualty of War:” The Environmental
Destruction of U.S. Militarism, http://traprock.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/06/Militarism-and-the-Environment.pdf)//twonily
Since the United States exploded the first nuclear bomb in New Mexico in 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons have
been tested worldwide in multiple environments: aboveground, underwater, underground, and in outer space. According
to some estimates, the equivalent of more than 29,000 Hiroshima bombs have been tested in the atmosphere,
discharging more than 9,000 pounds of plutonium— with a half-life of 24,000 years—into the environment. 9,10 Hundreds
of thousands of military personnel, civilian workers, their families, and people living downwind of test sites have been
exposed to radiation at levels sufficient to cause cancer and other diseases. Compensation programs set up by the U.S.
government place many obstacles in the way of claimants, including burden of proof, maximum limits on compensation
and grossly inadequate underfunding, particularly in the case of compensating citizens of the Marshall Islands and
Micronesia, both of which places were environmental sacrifice zones for the U.S. nuclear program.11 Most of the
uranium mined for the U.S. nuclear program was in or near Navajo tribal lands in New Mexico. More
than 1,000 regional mines and mill sites are now abandoned and unsealed sources of soil and drinking water
miners worked without protection from exposure to uranium
dust and still live with their families near the contaminated sites. The Navajo and
nearby Laguna tribes suffer lung cancer, kidney disease, and birth defects at higher than
average rates.12 Even if all nuclear weapons were dismantled tomorrow, the radioactivity of waste
from mining, manufacturing, and testing will endure for millennia . By 1994, nearly 5,000 contaminated
contamination. Navajo
sites at the DOE nuclear weapons and fuel facilities had been identified for remediation. The now-closed Hanford nuclear
weapons facility, which recycled uranium and extracted plutonium for nuclear weapons, is the largest nuclear waste
storage site in the country and may be the world’s largest environmental cleanup site, with a projected budget of $100
The operating plant regularly released radioactive iodine
emissions and discharged more than 400 billion gallons of radioactive waste into
adjacent soil and the Columbia River , exposing tens of thousands of
people living nearby to some of the largest amounts of radiation in the
world. Over the course of its 30-year operations, Hanford workers developed a rare blood cancer and other work
billion U.S. dollars.
related diseases at elevated rates. Nearby residents, including the Yakima Nation, also experienced high rates of cancers,
miscarriages and other health problems. The waste on the closed 600 acre site includes nearly five tons of plutonium and
60 of
the tanks have leaked and others may be leaking into soil and groundwater
which flows into the Columbia River, a regional source of salmon,
agricultural irrigation, and drinking water supply.14 Nuclear weapons’
waste dwarfs all other hazardous waste in scale, toxicity, dispersion
across the world, and cost. Moreover, it defies technical solutions for
permanent environmental cleanup and environmental safety .15
more than 53 million gallons of radioactive plutonium waste stored in underground tanks. According to DOE about
B. Ecocide is the worst thing we can do to the
environment. It is when we no longer know ourselves as a
part of our environment that we enable the destruction of
the atmosphere, non human beings and human beings.
This is a far more violent level of extinction.
Gottlieb, 94 (Roger - professor of humanities at Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, Ethics and Trauma: LEVINAS, FEMINISM, AND DEEP ECOLOGY,
http://www.crosscurrents.org/feministecology.htm)
I speak of the specter of ecocide, the continuing destruction of
species and ecosystems, and the growing threat to the basic
conditions essential to human life. What kind of ethic is adequate to this brutally new
and potentially most unforgiving of crises? How can we respond to this trauma with an ethic which
demands a response, and does not remain marginalized? Here I will at least begin in agreement with
¶
the
anthropocentric perspectives of conservation or liberal
environmentalism cannot take us far enough. Our relations with
nonhuman nature are poisoned and not just because we have set up
feedback loops that already lead to mass starvations, skyrocketing
environmental disease rates, and devastation of natural resources.¶
The problem with ecocide is not just that it hurts human beings. Our
uncaring violence also violates the very ground of our being, our
natural body, our home. Such violence is done not simply to the
other -- as if the rainforest, the river, the atmosphere, the species
made extinct are totally different from ourselves. Rather, we have
crucified ourselves-in-relation-to-the-other, fracturing a mode of
being in which self and other can no more be conceived as fully in
isolation from each other than can a mother and a nursing child.¶ We
Levinas. As he rejects an ethics proceeding on the basis of self-interest, so I believe
are that child, and nonhuman nature is that mother. If this image seems too maudlin, let us remember that
other lactating women can feed an infant, but we have only one earth mother. What moral stance will be
shaped by our personal sense that we are poisoning ourselves, our environment, and so many kindred
spirits of the air, water, and forests? To begin, we may see this tragic situation as setting the limits to
¶
¶
The other which is nonhuman nature is not simply
known by a "trace," nor is it something of which all knowledge is
necessarily instrumental. This other is inside us as well as outside us. We
prove it with every breath we take, every bit of food we eat, every glass of
water we drink. We do not have to find shadowy traces on or in the
faces of trees or lakes, topsoil or air: we are made from them.¶ Levinas
Levinas's perspective.
denies this sense of connection with nature. Our "natural" side represents for him a threat of simple
consumption or use of the other, a spontaneous response which must be obliterated by the power of ethics
in general (and, for him in particular, Jewish religious law(23) ). A "natural" response lacks discipline;
without the capacity to heed the call of the other, unable to sublate the self's egoism. Worship of nature
would ultimately result in an "everything-is-permitted" mentality, a close relative of Nazism itself. For
Levinas, to think of people as "natural" beings is to assimilate them to a totality, a category or species
which makes no room for the kind of individuality required by ethics.(24) He refers to the "elemental" or
the "there is" as unmanaged, unaltered, "natural" conditions or forces that are essentially alien to the
categories and conditions of moral life.(25)¶ One can only lament that Levinas has read nature -- as to
some extent (despite his intentions) he has read selfhood -- through the lens of masculine culture .
It is
precisely our sense of belonging to nature as system, as interaction,
as interdependence, which can provide the basis for an ethics
appropriate to the trauma of ecocide. As cultural feminism sought to expand our
sense of personal identity to a sense of inter-identification with the human other, so this ecological
ethics would expand our personal and species sense of identity into
an inter-identification with the natural world.¶ Such a realization can lead us to
an ethics appropriate to our time, a dimension of which has come to be known as "deep ecology."(26) For
we do not begin from the uniqueness of our human selfhood,
existing against a taken-for-granted background of earth and sky. Nor
this ethics,
is our body somehow irrelevant to ethical relations, with knowledge of it reduced always to tactics of
domination.
Our knowledge does not assimilate the other to the same,
but reveals and furthers the continuing dance of interdependence.
And our ethical motivation is neither rationalist system nor individualistic self-interest, but a sense of
connection to all of life.¶ The deep ecology sense of self-realization goes beyond the modern Western
sense of "self" as an isolated ego striving for hedonistic gratification. . . . . Self, in this sense, is
experienced as integrated with the whole of nature.(27)¶ Having gained distance and sophistication of
perception [from the development of science and political freedoms] we can turn and recognize who we
have been all along. . . . we are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come
home again -- and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way.(28)¶
Ecological ways of knowing nature are necessarily participatory. [This] knowledge is ecological and plural,
reflecting both the diversity of natural ecosystems and the diversity in cultures that nature-based living
gives rise to.¶ The recovery of the feminine principle is based on inclusiveness. It is a recovery in nature,
woman and man of creative forms of being and perceiving. In nature it implies seeing nature as a live
organism. In woman it implies seeing women as productive and active. Finally, in men the recovery of the
feminine principle implies a relocation of action and activity to create life-enhancing, not life-reducing and
life-threatening societies.(29)¶ In this context, the knowing ego is not set against a world it seeks to
control, but one of which it is a part. To continue the feminist perspective, the mother knows or seeks to
know the child's needs. Does it make sense to think of her answering the call of the child in abstraction
from such knowledge? Is such knowledge necessarily domination? Or is it essential to a project of care,
respect and love, precisely because the knower has an intimate, emotional connection with the known?
(30) Our ecological vision locates us in such close relation with our natural home that knowledge of it is
knowledge of ourselves. And this is not, contrary to Levinas's fear, reducing the other to the same, but a
celebration of a larger, more inclusive, and still complex and articulated self.(31) The noble and terrible
burden of Levinas's individuated responsibility for sheer existence gives way to a different dream, a
different prayer:¶ Being rock, being gas, being mist, being Mind, Being the mesons traveling among the
galaxies with the speed of light, You have come here, my beloved one. . . . You have manifested yourself as
trees, as grass, as butterflies, as single-celled beings, and as chrysanthemums; but the eyes with which
you looked at me this morning tell me you have never died.(32)¶ In this prayer, we are, quite simply, all in
it together. And,
although this new ecological Holocaust -- this creation of
planet Auschwitz -- is under way, it is not yet final. We have time to
step back from the brink, to repair our world. But only if we see that
world not as an other across an irreducible gap of loneliness and
unchosen obligation, but as a part of ourselves as we are part of it,
to be redeemed not out of duty, but out of love; neither for our
selves nor for the other, but for us all.
