{"id":362599,"date":"2010-02-25T14:37:23","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T19:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenrightnow.com\/?p=9389"},"modified":"2010-02-25T14:37:23","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T19:37:23","slug":"rfk-jr-explains-why-nuclear-power-isn%e2%80%99t-green-and-coal-isn%e2%80%99t-cheap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/362599","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. explains why nuclear power isn\u2019t green and coal isn\u2019t cheap"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Harriet Blake<\/a>
\nGreen Right Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

As passionate as his father was about civil rights, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is equally so about the environment.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/p>\n

Robert Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a lecture in Fort Worth on Wednesday, the 56-year-old son of the late Senator, advocated for moving the nation to green energy, which he doesn’t see as encompassing nuclear power.<\/p>\n

Coal is not the only power-producing industry that needs scrubbing, said the longtime environmentalist, nuclear energy is simply not safe. \u201cNuclear energy is the most catastrophic form of energy. No bank will finance it\u2026[and] no insurance company will insure it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a bunch of hippies saying it\u2019s unsafe. There are spills all the time into the Hudson,\u201d says Kennedy, who serves as chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper<\/a>, whose mission is the restoration of the Hudson River. Three Mile Island was not the last accident despite what nuclear advocates say.<\/p>\n

He made it clear that lobbyists for fossil fuel and polluting energy industries are powerful and dangerous. The nuclear industry, for example, managed to find a way to get a Congressional exemption that leaves them free from damage. \u201cAll homeowners\u2019 policies in the U.S. exclude radiation from the nuclear industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kennedy believes greed has taken over the utility companies as well. \u201cUtility companies make money by selling more energy \u2013 even if the energy is green. We need to change the rules,\u201d he says. \u201cDon\u2019t reward bad behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes it\u2019s a question of loyalty. \u201cInstead of being loyal to their shareholders, company leaders need to be loyal to our nation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Along with serving on the boards of green energy companies, Kennedy, a resident of Mount Kisco, N.Y., has led the efforts to protect New York City\u2019s water supply, both through Riverkeeper and as a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is the president of Waterkeeper Alliance<\/a> and a professor and supervising attorney at Pace University School of Law\u2019s Environmental Litigation clinic. (After getting his undergraduate degree from Harvard and law degree from the University of Virginia, he picked up a masters in environmental law from Pace.)<\/p>\n

As a partner with Silicon Valley\u2019s VantagePoint Ventures<\/a>, he is involved firsthand with green energy. VantagePoint funds an array of emerging clean tech and green energy companies.,<\/a> including solar, algae fuel and energy conservation businesses.<\/p>\n

During his lecture at Texas Christian University, Kennedy also addressed the coal industry’s claims that coal is clean and cheap. It is neither, he says.<\/p>\n

The problem is that once a coal plant is built, there are many hidden costs such as pollution and healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 60,000 Americans are killed each year due to ozone particulate pollution,\u201d he says. In addition, every fish in the United States is affected by dangerous levels of mercury, thanks to the coal industry. That mercury level also has grown in humans. Babies being born to women with high mercury levels have a higher percentage of illness ranging from autism to mental retardation.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, \u201cOnce a solar plant is built, the energy is free forever.\u201d There are no pollution and health costs, and no strings attached, he said.<\/p>\n

Using coal to produce electricity is a destructive business from the beginning of the process, says Kennedy, who opposes the mountain-top removal mining in Appalachia in which ancient mountains are sheared off to get to the coal. The practice destroys forests and the resulting debris pollutes area rivers. (Coal companies say they ameliorate the damage by planting new trees, but environmentalists say these saplings cannot replace the mature forests; that erosion, runoff and river pollution are not abated.)<\/p>\n

Kennedy recalled his father being against what was then known as strip-mining. \u201cHe told me, [the coal industry] is not just destroying the environment, but permanently impoverishing the surrounding communities. They\u2019re doing this so they can break the unions.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s particularly a shame because Appalachia, Kennedy points out, \u201cis the oldest ecosystem on the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday,\u201d he says, \u201cninety-nine percent of coal in West Virginia is owned by Wall Street bankers such as JP Morgan and Chase.\u201d The reason? Many of the homeowners were tricked into selling their mineral rights because they didn\u2019t know any better. \u201cThe coal industry has liquidated the people of West Virginia of their cash,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Kennedy says he\u2019s not just fighting for ecosystems and halting the destruction of the environment. \u201cIt\u2019s about the subversion of American democracy, the public process and transparency in government.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment is supposed to protect us,\u201d but because of the influence polluting companies and lobbyists wield in Washington, that\u2019s not happening.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, he says, \u201cevery nation that has attempted ‘de-carbonization’, has prospered afterward. In Iceland, they became scared of global warming and within 15 years, went from being the poorest nation in Europe to the fourth richest. Sweden is another example. After Sweden de-carbonized and closed their nuclear facilities, they prospered. Tons of entrepreneurs came in as clean energy was introduced.\u201d<\/p>\n

He named Brazil and Costa Rica as having robust economies after they de-carbonized as well.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/p>\n

Robert Kennedy Jr. speaks at TCU.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Kennedy would like to see an increase in geothermal power, which he uses at his home in New York. \u201cGeothermal,\u201d he says, \u201cis an underutilized resource. It\u2019s been unexploited until now, but it could be a boon, especially in Texas where you already have holes in the ground from gas\/oil drilling.\u201d His home also has solar panels and between the two forms of energy, his home generates more power than he can use, which he then sells back to the utility company. \u201cBut you can\u2019t do this in all states. This needs to be fixed. We need to reward efficiency; and punish inefficiency. We should be able to turn every home into a power plant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another resource he\u2019d like to see used more is wind. \u201cThere\u2019s enough wind in the states of North Dakota, Minnesota and Texas to power the entire country,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Obama Administration faces some major obstacles, Kennedy says. \u201cWe need to get rid of the subsidies that give breaks to dirty energy. And we have to build an electric grid that can accommodate the entire country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy compares the effort to the interstate highway system that was built during the Eisenhower years. The United States has the technology, Kennedy says. \u201cAnd we have the resources \u2013 wind that blows at night; and sun that shines by day…We can put PVCs on every south-facing roof in the country.\u201d Taking advantage of these green energies should be a no-brainer.<\/p>\n

The TCU lecture was part of the Frost Foundation Lectureship for Global Issues, sponsored by the TCU Center for International Studies.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Harriet Blake Green Right Now As passionate as his father was about civil rights, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is equally so about the environment. Robert Kennedy Jr. In a lecture in Fort Worth on Wednesday, the 56-year-old son of the late Senator, advocated for moving the nation to green energy, which he doesn’t see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6460,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6460"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}