Go green, but not nuclear

I am an engineer with over 40 years of experience. In the late 1980s, I studied to take the operator's test for running nuclear power plants. As I studied, I realized how unsafe and dangerous these plants and waste storage facilities are. They have only gotten worse over the years, with license extensions and too small or cracked containment buildings being common.

Also budget cutbacks and utilities merging have fueled more and more dangerous conditions because of the need to give hefty returns for stockholders.

In my opinion, the NRC is rubber stamping these extensions. They also have approved parking lot storage facilities for nuclear waste storage.

The coronavirus makes these safety concerns more obvious as the days go by. Nuclear power plants by design want to run full tilt. It is only by operator and computer input that the reactions are kept under control. The spent fuel rods if not left under water and cooled will start to burn and spew fatal radiation over long distances. These spent fuel pools are usually kept at reactor sites and contain thousands of spent fuel rods per pool.

Nuclear power is not carbon neutral and is fatal if mishandled. We need to go to greener energy and safer energy. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and this pandemic are proof of this.

Bill Collins

Mount Prospect