Above: The Monticello reactor. Note the tall stack used to vent cancer-causing radioactive gases.
(Please forgive the personal notes in this post. So often we debate the technical merits of nuke power, without sufficiently considering the human side, the human impacts, of the decisions getting made.)
I’ve had more of a relationship with the nuclear industry than seems ideal. In Delaware, I can look out a window and see the domes of three reactors. In 2000, I wrote in an alert:
“Parts of New Castle County (DE) are in the “ingestion zones” (= within fifty miles) of 7 nuclear reactors (Limerick 1 and 2, Peach Bottom 2 & 3, Salem 1 and 2, and Hope Creek). While the nuclear industry has always claimed that it’s radiation output is too small to cause health problems, more and more reports are linking proximity to nuclear facilities to breast cancer, leukemia, childhood cancer and birth defects, and other health problems.”