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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Nu cle ar P ow er Affir mati ve


Nuclear Power Affirmative...............................................................................................................................1
***Affirmative***...........................................................................................................................................3
1AC 1/16...........................................................................................................................................................4
1AC 2/16...........................................................................................................................................................5
1AC 3/16...........................................................................................................................................................6
1AC 4/16...........................................................................................................................................................7
1AC 5/16...........................................................................................................................................................8
1AC 6/16...........................................................................................................................................................9
1AC 7/16.........................................................................................................................................................10
1AC 8/16.........................................................................................................................................................11
1AC 9/16.........................................................................................................................................................12
1AC 10/16.......................................................................................................................................................13
1AC 11/16.......................................................................................................................................................14
1AC 12/16.......................................................................................................................................................15
1AC 13/16.......................................................................................................................................................16
1AC 14/16.......................................................................................................................................................17
1AC 15/16.......................................................................................................................................................18
1AC 16/16.......................................................................................................................................................19
Inherency-current incentives not enough........................................................................................................20
A2 Mccain......................................................................................................................................................21
Global Warming Solvency..............................................................................................................................22
Global Warming Solvency..............................................................................................................................23
GW Impact extensions....................................................................................................................................24
GW Impact extensions....................................................................................................................................25
GW Impact extensions....................................................................................................................................26
GW impacts: Climate oscillation module.......................................................................................................27
GW Impacts: War extensions..........................................................................................................................28
A2 Mining Uranium/building plants increases emissions..............................................................................29
A2 Nuclear power releases CFC gas-conversion process..............................................................................30
A2 you don’t solve transportation/heating emissions.....................................................................................31
A2 other sources solve in squo.......................................................................................................................32
Oil Dependence Solvency...............................................................................................................................33
Oil Dependence: Iran module.........................................................................................................................34
Oil Dependence: Democracy module.............................................................................................................35
Oil dependence: Shocks module (economy)..................................................................................................36
Oil dependence: Shocks module (economy)..................................................................................................37
Oil Dependence: Economy-extensions...........................................................................................................38
Oil Dependence: Economy-extensions...........................................................................................................39
Solvency (Oil dependence/Global warming)..................................................................................................40
Economy advantage: Solvency.......................................................................................................................41
Economy advantage: Solvency.......................................................................................................................42
Solvency-greenhouse gas tax/cap and trade program.....................................................................................43
Solvency-subsidize plans/guarantee income..................................................................................................44
Solvency: Increase loan guarantees................................................................................................................45
A2 not enough Uranium/other fuels...............................................................................................................46
A2 meltdowns/terrorism DA: Safety tech checks..........................................................................................47
A2 terrorism (Aircraft attack).........................................................................................................................48
A2 terrorism (generic)....................................................................................................................................49
A2 terrorism (generic)....................................................................................................................................50
A2 terrorism (generic)....................................................................................................................................51
A2 terrorism (generic)....................................................................................................................................52
A2 Meltdowns................................................................................................................................................53
A2 Meltdowns................................................................................................................................................54
A2 nuclear waste.............................................................................................................................................55

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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 nuclear waste.............................................................................................................................................56
A2 Health........................................................................................................................................................57
A2 Cancer/safety............................................................................................................................................58
A2 proliferation..............................................................................................................................................59
2AC T-alternative............................................................................................................................................60
A2 T-alternative..............................................................................................................................................61
***Negative***..............................................................................................................................................62
T-alternative: 1NC..........................................................................................................................................63
T-Alternative cards.........................................................................................................................................64
1NC Energy Transition FL.............................................................................................................................65
1NC Energy Transition FL.............................................................................................................................66
Nuclear power releases GHG-Extensions.....................................................................................................67
Nuclear power releases GHG-Extensions......................................................................................................68
Plan doesn’t solve other emissions-extensions...............................................................................................69
Renewable sources solve in SQ-extensions....................................................................................................70
Plants wont be built fast enough-extensions...................................................................................................71
1NC Economy FL...........................................................................................................................................72
1NC Economy FL...........................................................................................................................................73
1NC Solvency FL...........................................................................................................................................74
1NC Solvency FL...........................................................................................................................................75
1NC Solvency FL...........................................................................................................................................76
1NC Solvency FL...........................................................................................................................................77
1NC Solvency FL...........................................................................................................................................78
Uranium will run out-extensions....................................................................................................................79
Prolif extensions.............................................................................................................................................80
Meltdowns-Extensions...................................................................................................................................81
Meltdowns-Extensions...................................................................................................................................82
Nuclear waste extensions................................................................................................................................83
Nuclear waste extensions................................................................................................................................84
Terrorism DA: 1NC 1/3..................................................................................................................................85
Terrorism DA: 1NC 2/3..................................................................................................................................86
Terrorism DA: 1NC 3/3..................................................................................................................................87
Terrorism Extensions-links.............................................................................................................................88
Terrorism extensions-facilities are vulnerable................................................................................................89
Terrorism extensions-plants vulnerable..........................................................................................................90
Terrorism extensions-turns the case................................................................................................................91
Politics links-Bush bad...................................................................................................................................92

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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

***Affi rm ativ e* **

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1AC 1/1 6
Contention One: Inherency.
Congress will not act to support nuclear power-Recent Climate
change bill proves its too politically contentious
Christian Science Monitor, June 5th
Economic risks imperil climate bill, 2008, lexis
While there's broad agreement on the need for more investment in solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energies,
expected amendments on the needs to relaunch a nuclear power initiative could also further splinter support for the bill.
On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) submitted a long-awaited license application to build a nuclear waste
dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada - a move that supporters say is essential to revive the nuclear-power industry.
Nuclear-power advocates hope to use the global-warming bill as a vehicle for reviving the industry. They make the case
that without a significant increase in nuclear power, it will be impossible to lower carbon emissions without a blow to
US living standards.
"It's time we begin the nuclear renaissance in America and Yucca Mountain is a vital step," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R) of
South Carolina, in a statement after the announcement. "If Congress is serious about reducing carbon emission,
nonemitting nuclear energy must play an even larger role than it does today."
Many Democrats are wary of risking the support of some environmental groups over nuclear power. Majority leader
Reid, a longtime opponent of a nuclear-waste dump in his state, charged that DOE filed the application with only about
35 percent of the work done to justify it.
"Yucca Mountain is as close to being dead as any piece of legislation could be," he said on Tuesday. Republicans say
they are holding out for a wide-ranging debate over the global-warming bill, including many amendments. Democratic
leaders worry that some amendments, including those over nuclear power, could undermine support for the bill.
Commenting on the diverse coalition of lawmakers now supporting the bill, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) of California said:
"They need a certain amount to stay on it. I need a certain amount not to get off it. We're looking for that sweet spot."

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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

1AC 2/1 6
Contention two are the advantages:

Advantage One is the Energy Transition.

Scenario One is Climate Change:

Climate change is real. Recent studies are undeniable and


empirical evidence is confirming what models have already
predicted. Temperature variability is happening in such a way that
it could only be caused by human activity.
Rosenzweig, et al. May 2008
Cynthia Rosenzweig1, NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia Center for Climate Systems Research
David Karoly, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Marta Vicarelli, Peter Neofotis1, Qigang Wu3
School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, Gino Casassa, Centro de Estudios Científicos, Annette Menzel5,
Terry L. Root6, Nicole Estrella5, Center of Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich,
Bernard Seguin7, Piotr Tryjanowski8, Department of Behavioural Ecology, Institute of Environmental Biology, Adam
Mickiewicz University, Chunzhen Liu9, China Water Information Center, Samuel Rawlins, Caribbean Epidemiology
Center & Anton Imeson, Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change, Nature, May
15th, 2008
Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a
concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with
warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions
of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by
natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth
century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and
furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over
each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on
physical and biological systems globally and in some continents.

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1AC 3/1 6
US Leadership is critical: We can lead the world to a low-carbon
transition to solve climate change worldwide
Claussen and Diringer, 7
Eilleen, president of the pew center on global climate change and Elliot, director of international strategies of the pew center on global
climate change, Vol 29, Harvard international Review, A new climate treaty- US leadership after Kyoto
http://www.harvardir.org/articles/1594/
The urgency of the task is irrefutable. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest assessment concluded
with 90 percent confidence that human activity is warming the planet and warned of irreversible and potentially
catastrophic consequences if emissions continue unabated. Politically as well, the next few years represent a critical
window for action. The emission limits assumed by most industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol expire in
2012. What momentum the treaty has achieved and the multibillion-dollar carbon market it has spawned may well be
lost unless a new agreement can be forged.
Any new treaty will be environmentally effective and politically feasible only to the degree that it successfully engages
and binds all of the world’s major economies. Coming to terms with cost and equity while also bridging the gap
between developed and developing is an extraordinary diplomatic challenge. Meeting it will require fresh thinking and
approaches, a genuine readiness to compromise and a collective political will that, while perhaps emerging, is by no
means assured. What is needed above all right now is US leadership, for no country bears greater responsibility for
climate change, nor has greater capacity to catalyze a global response.
Responsibility is measured most directly in terms of emissions, and it should surprise no one that history’s greatest
economic power is also the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. By the same token, the tremendous enterprise,
prosperity, and technological prowess that have contributed so heavily to the atmospheric burden uniquely qualify the
United States to lead a low-carbon transition. Indeed, no nation has done more to advance scientific understanding of
the causes and consequences of global warming. But thus far, the US contribution to the global effort largely ends
there.
For the first time, however, US politics are beginning to favor real climate action. Even before the recent Democratic
takeover of Congress, momentum was building for mandatory measures to reduce US emissions. As on many other
environmental issues, individual states are leading the way, with California once again at the forefront. Business
leaders, sensing that carbon constraints are inevitable and fearing a patchwork of state rules, are increasingly calling for
a uniform national approach. Ten major companies, including General Electric, DuPont, and Alcoa, recently joined
with four nonprofits in the US Climate Action Partnership to push for mandatory emission limits. Several bipartisan
bills now before Congress would mandate emission cuts of 60 to 80 percent by 2050.
With the enactment of mandatory US measures probably occurring no later than 2010, the global politics of climate
change will be thoroughly transformed. Having resolved what it will do at home, the United States will know far better
what it can commit to abroad. To avoid losing competitive advantage to countries without emission controls, the United
States will have a strong incentive to rejoin and strengthen the global climate effort.
For the struggling multilateral process, the United States’ re-entry cannot come soon enough. After President Bush’s
outright rejection of Kyoto, other countries rallied around the treaty and brought it into force. But without the United
States and Australia, the protocol encompasses only about one third of global emissions. Even if all countries meet their
targets, which is unlikely, global emissions in 2012 would still be 30 percent higher than in 1997, when Kyoto was
negotiated. While talks on post-2012 commitments have begun, under the treaty’s terms they contemplate targets only
for those countries that already have them. European leaders are floating ambitious numbers, but Japan and others have
made clear they are not taking on new commitments without movement by the United States and major developing
countries. The political reality is that the negotiations are headed nowhere, unless they are somehow broadened or
linked to bring in the other major players.
With the United States back at the table, there could be a way forward. Once the largest emitter says it is ready to deal,
China and other emerging economies might also be willing. Under this more hopeful scenario, what could a future
climate treaty look like? To begin with, it must commit all the major economies. Today, 25 countries account for 85
percent of global emissions (as well as 70 percent of global population and 85 percent of global GDP).
Environmentally, no long-term strategy to cut global emissions can succeed without them. Politically, it is imperative
that all major economies be on board. All share concerns about costs and competitiveness, and none can sustain an
ambitious climate effort without confidence that others will contribute their fair share. This requires binding
commitments. But a new treaty should be flexible, allowing countries to take on different types of commitments.
Circumstances vary widely among the major economies, and the policies that can address climate change in the context
of national priorities will vary from one to the other. Countries will need different pathways forward.

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1AC 4/1 6
Nuclear power will solve climate change
Spencer, 8
April 18th, Jack, Heritage Institute, Nuclear power critical to meeting President’s Greenhouse gas objectives
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/upload/wm_1898.pdf
On April 16, President George W. Bush established a national goal to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by
2025. His plan would first slow, then stop and reverse the rate of emissions of CO2 and other so-called greenhouse
gases. ThePresident placed much of the onus of meeting these objectives on the electricity generation industry. While
wind, solar, and clean-coal technologies may eventually affordably contribute to the nation’s production of emissions-
free power, the best way to achieve the President’s vision today is through nuclear power. Nuclear power already
provides the United States with 20 percent of its electricity and 73 percent of its CO2-free electricity. If the objective is
an affordable near-term reduction of CO2 and other atmospheric emissions, then the importance of nuclear power
cannot be overstated. It is safe and affordable technology that is currently being used around the world.

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1AC 5/1 6
We’ll Isolate Two impacts:
First is Global Nuclear War: Left unchecked, global climate change
will cause resource wars across the planet. This will destabilize
Asia and Europe, heighten tensions over Kashmir, and cause a
massive conflagration.
Schwartz and Randall 3
Peter Schwartz, cofounder and chairman of Global Business Network and Doug Randall, senior practitioner at
GBN, “Abrupt Climate Change”, October 2003
http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=26231
As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to the abrupt climate change, many countries’
needs will exceed their carrying capacity. This will create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to
offensive aggression in order to reclaim balance. Imagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed
their populations with a falling supply of food, water, and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is
already in decline, for access to its grain, minerals, and energy supply. Or, picture Japan, suffering from
flooding along its coastal cities and contamination of its fresh water supply, eying Russia’s Sakhalin Island
oil and gas reserves as an energy source to power desalination plants and energy-intensive agricultural
processes. Envision Pakistan, India, and China – all armed with nuclear weapons – skirmishing at their
borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land. Spanish and Portuguese fishermen might
fight over fishing rights – leading to conflicts at sea. And, countries including the United States would be
likely to better secure their borders. With over 200 river basins touching multiple nations, we can expect
conflict over access to water for drinking, irrigation, and transportation. The Danube touches twelve
nations, the Nile runs though nine, and the Amazon runs through seven.
In this scenario, we can expect alliances of convenience. The United States and Canada may become one, simplifying
border controls. Or, Canada might keep its hydropower—causing energy problems in the US. North and South Korea
may align to create one technically savvy and nuclear-armed entity. Europe may act as a unified block – curbing
immigration problems between European nations – and allowing for protection against aggressors. Russia, with its
abundant minerals, oil, and natural gas may join Europe. In this world of warring states, nuclear arms proliferation is
inevitable. As cooling drives up demand, existing hydrocarbon supplies are stretched thin. With a scarcity of energy
supply – and a growing need for access -- nuclear energy will become a critical source of power, and this will
accelerate nuclear proliferation as countries develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to ensure their national
security. China, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, France, and Germany will all have nuclear weapons
capability, as will Israel, Iran, Egypt, and North Korea.

Second is Biodiversity
Climate change will cause massive biodiversity loss and species
extinction.
Nature 4
Feeling the heat: Climate change and biodiversity loss, Jan 8th
http://www.nature.com/nature/links/040108/040108-1.html
Many plant and animal species are unlikely to survive climate change. New analyses suggest that 15–37% of a sample
of 1,103 land plants and animals would eventually become extinct as a result of climate changes expected by 2050. For
some of these species there will no longer be anywhere suitable to live. Others will be unable to reach places where the
climate is suitable. A rapid shift to technologies that do not produce greenhouse gases, combined with carbon
sequestration, could save 15–20% of species from extinction.

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1AC 6/1 6
The Impact is the end of civilization and all life on earth
Diner 1994 (David N. Judge Advocate General’s Corps of US Army, Military Law Review, Lexis)
No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death
-- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a
single-minded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race.
n67 In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species
perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why
should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like
all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species
could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would
become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to
find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In
addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value
that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to
man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment,
and biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical
processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian
value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined,
and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or
Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man
in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly
useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75
Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. n76 4.
Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass
extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing
the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications.
Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist
species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more
stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more
successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by
several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which
if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have
artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the
risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions
of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be
expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction,
with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem
collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster.
Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings,
[hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

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1AC 7/1 6
Scenario two is oil dependence

Nuclear power will fuel a hydrogen revolution which will end


dependence on oil.
Raabe, 7
Otto Raabe, prof @ center for health and the environment, UC davis, May 16th, l/n
USA TODAY's article "Honda promises hydrogen sedan in '08" isn't just about another electric car. The hydrogen fuel-
cell car is the ultimate answer to America's dependence on foreign oil, air pollution and global warming (Money,
Friday).
These cars are not the battery-powered vehicles with puny power and without air conditioning or heat. They aren't
dependent on gasoline, like hybrids. The only vehicle emission for the hydrogen fuel cell is plain water. Here are just a
few of the benefits:
*Because hydrogen fuel can be made from water via electrolysis, all that is needed is plentiful electricity. The United
States has enough nuclear fuel in the form of plutonium-239 and depleted uranium to supply all of our electrical power
needs for the whole century using modern, safe nuclear power plants.
*No more mining is required because plutonium can be extracted from retired nuclear weapons.
*With nuclear-power-produced electricity, there won't be any pollutant greenhouse gas emissions, acid rain and
particulate air pollutants.
This is the true environmentalist vision: Electricity from clean and safe nuclear power. Pollution-free autos. The end to
dependence on foreign oil. Why is our country not briskly moving ahead to accomplish this dream?

Oil Dependence makes victory in the war on terrorism impossible


Sandalow, 7
David, energy and environment scholar at Brookings, “ending oil dependence”, Jan 22nd
http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/fellows/sandalow20070122.pdf
The United States is in a long war. Islamic fundamentalists struck our shores and are determined to do so again. Like
the Cold War, this struggle has many causes and will last for generations. Unlike the Cold War, oil dependence plays a
central role in the struggle.
Oil dependence lies behind the jihadist threat – not as the only cause, but as an important one. For example, according
to Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser at the time of the first Gulf War, “…what gave enormous urgency to
[Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait] was the issue of oil.”5 After removing Saddam from Kuwait in 1991, U.S. troops
remained in Saudi Arabia where their presence bred great resentment. Osama bin Laden’s first fatwa, in 1996, was
titled “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.”
Today, deep resentment of the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf remains a powerful recruitment tool for jihadists. That
resentment grows not just from the war in Iraq, but from the U.S. relationship with the House of Saud, the presence of
U.S. forces throughout the region and more. Yet the United States faces severe constraints in responding to this
resentment. With half the world’s proven oil reserves, the world’s cheapest oil and the world’s only spare production
capacity, the Persian Gulf will remain the indispensable region for the global economy so long as modern vehicles run
only on oil. To protect oil flows, the U.S. policymakers will feel compelled to maintain relationships and exert power in
the region in ways likely to fuel the jihadist movement.
Compounding this problem, the huge money flows into the region from oil purchases help finance terrorist networks.
Saudi money provides critical support for madrassas with virulent anti-American views. Still worse, diplomatic efforts
to enlist Saudi government help in choking off such funding, or even to investigate terrorist attacks, are hampered by
the priority we attach to preserving Saudi cooperation in managing world oil markets.

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1AC 8/1 6
Failure against global terrorism will cause the end of civilization
Alexander 3
ALEXANDER, professor and director of the Inter-University for Terrorism Studies in Israel and the United
States, 2003, Yonah, Washington Times, August 27,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030827-084256-8999r.htm,
Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that the
international community failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of the terrorist threats to
the very survival of civilization itself.
Even the United States and Israel have for decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or irritant
rather than a critical strategic challenge to their national security concerns.
It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001, Americans were stunned by the unprecedented tragedy of 19
al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at the center of the nation's commercial and military powers.
Likewise, Israel and its citizens, despite the collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of terrorism
triggered by the second intifada that began almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of
intensive diplomatic efforts to revive the moribund peace process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements
(hudna).
Why are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other countries affected by the universal nightmare of modern
terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"?
There are many reasons, including misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's
expansion, such as lack of a universal definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of
morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological
warfare.
Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of
conventional and unconventional threats and impact.
The internationalization and brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super
Terrorism (e.g. biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber) with its serious implications concerning national,
regional and global security concerns.

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1AC 9/1 6
Advantage 2 is the Economy:

The Economy is stable but reeling-the housing crisis has placed us


on the brink of recession
Sacramento Business Journal, 7/7/08

SF Fed chief sees economy improving -- next year

Shocks in the housing, stock and commodity markets continue to dampen the economy but it will
pick up next year, the president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve said Monday.

Housing prices have further to fall, financial markets remain fragile and commodity prices threaten to
fuel inflation, Janet Yellen said in a speech at the University of California San Diego Economics
Roundtable.

"The earlier policy easing by the Federal Reserve will help cushion the economy from some of
the effects of the shocks," she said, "And the fiscal stimulus program is helping at present. Over
time, the drag from housing will wane and credit conditions should improve."

Global warming legislation is inevitable and will destroy the


economy absent a switch to nuclear power.
Ackley, June 9th
Kate, Roll call Staff, Roll Call, Nuclear energy poisons legislative environment, l/n
"If climate change legislation eventually happens, which I think some form will in the next 18 months, there certainly
will be restrictions on coal, and if that is to occur then we are looking for power-generation capacity," said Holt, whose
group represents oil and gas, nuclear, manufacturing, chemical and alternative energy interests. "This country needs up
to 100 new nuclear power facilities to help meet demand."
While nuclear opponents such as Kamps say nuclear power carries many dangers, including a target for terrorists, Holt
said it's much safer than in the past. "Modern nuclear power in the world is not your grandfather's nuclear power," Holt
said.
Lobbyists for the larger business community say that without nuclear as a viable alternative, the United States simply
will not have the energy it needs to keep the economy afloat if carbon emissions are severely restricted.
"The environmentalists say it's a poison pill, but if you don't have nuclear you can't reduce CO2 or you don't have much
energy," said Bill Kovacs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's vice president for environment, technology and regulatory
affairs.
"There is no way in the world that you can even consider addressing the reductions in CO2 without large-scale
deployment of nuclear energy."
Otherwise, he said, a carbon cap would "devastate our economy."

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1AC 10/16
Current incentives are insufficient to spur the type of nuclear
renaissance needed to save the economy
Spencer, 8
Jack, research fellow in nuclear energy at the Thomas A Roe institute for economy policy studies at the heritage foundation, Heritage
foundation, Nuclear power needed to minimize Lieberman-warner’s economic impact, 2008
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm1944.cfm
Top 10 List for a Sustained Reemergence of Nuclear Power
The massive increases in nuclear power over the next 25 years on the scale described in some S. 3036 analyses might
be unrealistic, but the right policies could at least move the nation in the right direction. Although the Energy Policy
Acts (EPACTs) of 1992 and 2005 provide some reform and incentives to boost the nuclear industry, they do not provide
the systemic overhaul that would be necessary to meet the demands required to satisfy Lieberman–Warner. Existing
legislation assures that the U.S. will build six to 10 reactors, which does almost nothing to mitigate the consequences of
CO2 caps.

US economy is key to the global economy


Jerusalem post, 7
(Global gains expected to continue)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257286295&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
As long as a US economic slowdown does not develop into a recession, strategists believe the adverse impact on the
rest of the world will be limited.
"While before there was the fear that the US economy could be heading into a recession, the majority of predictions
now are for a slowdown, which has calmed the markets and returned the positive sentiment," said Britt, adding that
despite the US slowdown it's now believed that the rapid expansion of the global economy will continue.
Similarly, Vered Dar, chief economist at Psagot Ofek Investment House said expectations of a "soft landing" of the US
economy represented one of the major drivers of both local and global markets.
"The current environment is constructive for stocks," said Dar. "Stock markets do not like rapid growth. Instead they
welcome a slowdown of growth, which in turn means lower interest rates leaving no alternative but invest in the
equities markets."
She cautioned, however, that although the stock markets rebounded following the subprime mortgage crisis, the money
and credit markets, such as commercial papers, had not yet come back.
"The stock market could be wrong, but only the developments over the next months will be able to tell if we are really
past the crisis," Dar said."

13
NU 08-09 p. 14 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

1AC 11/16
The impact is extinction-An economic collapse would cause a
global nuclear war destroying civilization.
Bearden, 2000
T. E. Bearden, Director, Association of Distinguished American Scientists, June 24, 2000
http://www.cmaq.net/en/node.php?id=17547
History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the
stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the
arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to
be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan
and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate
China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In
addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other
nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly.
Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few
nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of
preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is
almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch
immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as
possible.
As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD
arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great
Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many
decades.

14
NU 08-09 p. 15 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

1AC 12/16
Thus the plan: The United States Federal government, through
congressional legislation, will do the following: Open the Yucca
Mountain Spent Nuclear Fuel Repository, remove political and
legal barriers to nuclear fuel reprocessing, and open commercial
nuclear markets.

15
NU 08-09 p. 16 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

1AC 13/16
Contention 3 is Solvency:

Current Incentives are insufficient: The Plan is crucial to creating a


sustainable nuclear renaissance in the United States.
Spencer, 8
April 18th, Jack, Heritage Institute, Nuclear power critical to meeting President’s Greenhouse gas objectives
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/upload/wm_1898.pdf
The problem is that no new reactor has been ordered since the mid-1970s, and the country no longer has the
infrastructure to support a nuclear renaissance. Furthermore, although the President agrees that nuclear energy is critical
to meeting the nation’s CO2 objectives, promoting nuclear power is hardly a new concept. The President has been
doing so for some time, and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 included a generous incentives package that was meant to
spur a nuclear rebirth. Yet no new reactors have been ordered. With the incentives in place from the 2005 Energy Policy
Act, the President and Congress must now tackle some of the policy issues that remain obstacles to a broad expansion
of nuclear power.
These include:
1. Open the Yucca Mountain Spent Nuclear Fuel Repository. The Administration and Congress should commit to
opening Yucca Mountain as soon as possible, and this political commitment should be paired with adequate funding. It
is simply untenable for America’s political leaders to lay a burden such as CO2 reduction on U.S. citizens and
thenstand in the way of the best path forward to meeting that objective. Keeping Yucca Mountain closed runs counter to
this objective. This commitment should be paired with a commitment by the government and industry to make Nevada
the nuclear fuel capital of the world instead of the waste capital of the country. Some of the other high-tech nuclear
technology facilities that will be required to support an American nuclear renaissance could be co-located at Yucca,
providing a significant economic impact for the region.
2. Remove any political and legal barriers to nuclear fuel reprocessing. Congress and the Administration should state
that they recognize the potential benefit that reprocessing spent nuclear fuel can bring to spent fuel management. This
does not mean that the Department of Energy should build a reprocessing plant; it means that it should rethink how the
nation deals with spent nuclear fuel. The current method of taking the fuel directly from the reactor to Yucca is not
sustainable. All options should be considered, including private-sector spent fuel management and reprocessing.
3. Do not exclude nuclear from the CO2 fix. The President stated that nuclear must be part of the solution, but this
principle could be lost in congressional interpretation. It would be extremely bad policy for the Administration or
Congress to create mandates meant to curb CO2 emissions that do not recognize the contribution of nuclear power. The
federal government should not choose nuclear power over other carbon-free energy sources, but it should not
discriminate against it either. The purpose of public policy should be to protect Americans’ freedom to choose courses
of action that best suit them as individuals; it is not to engineer an America that is consistent with a specific political
agenda. Members of Congress simply have neither the expertise nor the moral authority to tell Americans how to
generate power or what kinds of power they should consume. Every time they do, Americans end up footing a higher
energy bill. Rather than picking winners and losers, Congress should allow the market to find the most efficient and
costeffective solution to the proposed energy problems.
4. Commit to open commercial nuclear markets. America can best meet its energy needs by assuring access to the
world’s energy resources, and this includes the commercial nuclear market. Asian and European countries dominate the
commercial reactor business, and the U.S. must not retreat to protectionism as a strategy to rebuild its own nuclear
industry. Doing so not only would raise the cost of building reactors, placing further financial burden on U.S.
ratepayers who will likely pay a CO2 premium, but also would remove the U.S. from the moral high ground in
attempting to open foreign markets to U.S. companies. American companies must be able to participate in the global
nuclear market if it is to generate the necessary potential revenues to justify the significant capital investments that will
enable them to compete in the emerging commercial nuclear business.
Conclusion. For better or worse, the President has placed the nation on a path to CO2 and greenhouse gas reductions.
The best chance that the nation has to meet these reductions in an economically viable way is through nuclear energy.
While financial incentives, such as those in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, may be enough to spur some new nuclear
power plant construction, they are not adequate to bring about a sustainable nuclear renaissance. Such a renaissance
will require longterm policy changes that assure bipartisan political support and allow adequate flexibility for industry
to respond to market realities. The technology exists to meet the President’s objectives. Now it is time for policy to do
the same.

16
NU 08-09 p. 17 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

1AC 14/16
Nuclear power is the only solution to global warming and oil
dependence and will spur an energy revolution to tackle the
problem. The plan will help to rally the public behind other global
warming solutions.
Third Way Project, 7
Matt Bennet, VP for public affairs, Rob keast, senior policy advisor, John Dyson, Third way trustee, Third Way Middle Class project,
“Another inconvenient truth, solving global warming and energy security requires nuclear power”, April 23rd, 2007
http://www.thirdway.org/data/product/file/84/Third_Way_Nuclear_Memo.pdf
However, few in the environmental community or their allies in policymaking have championed—indeed, most have
actively opposed—the one climate change solution that can make a substantial difference in the near term: nuclear
power. This raises a serious problem—there does not seem to be a realistic path to resolving climate change that does
not significantly expand nuclear energy, but most of those at the frontlines of fighting climate change have not yet
embraced it. We must resolve this contradiction if we are to confront global warming effectively. In this paper, we
argue that nuclear energy in America is one important key to solving the global warming crisis—not just in terms of
reducing dangerous emissions, but in breaking the logjam in the public domain over climate change. Of course we are
aware that there are outstanding issues or questions regarding nuclear energy, particularly with regard to waste storage
and plant safety. But the flipside of that equation is that some of the other technologies and ideas being offered as
solutions to climate change are too small, costly or far off. We cannot allow any large-scale potential fixes to be taken
off the table. If, indeed, the existence of the earth as we know it hangs in the balance, we are confident that nuclear
safety and waste issues can be resolved to most people’s satisfaction. This memo makes the case for why progressive
policymakers and activists should support nuclear power expansion in the United States. We offer three reasons: 1.
Expanding nuclear power will make a difference in addressing the problem of global warming. 2. Embracing nuclear
power by progressive leaders would have a galvanizing impact on the public, demonstrating the severity of the climate
change problem and the need for everyone to make hard choices. 3. Moving forward efficiently on nuclear power could
help provide momentum to take additional steps to curb carbon emissions.
1. Expanding Nuclear Power Can Help Fight Global Warming The facts are quite simple, and they speak for
themselves: nuclear power is the only mature, major source of electric power in the United States that is essentially
carbon-free.† In 2005, nuclear power made up 19 percent of our energy mix and prevented 3.32 million tons of sulfur
dioxide, 1.05 million tons of nitrogen oxide and 681.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States
alone.1 But that is today. US electricity demand is predicted to rise by 45% by 2030. That means 350,000 megawatts of
new generation capacity must be built to meet that demand. Unless this country changes course, coal will constitute a
larger share of new power generation than it would otherwise.2 One reason is that growth of domestic nuclear power
production had, until very recently, totally stalled. There are currently 103 licensed reactors‡ in the US, at 65 plant sites
in 31 states. Most have gotten or will get 20-year license extensions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
But no new nuclear power plants have been brought online since 1996, and since 1973, every new plant order—totaling
more than 100—has been cancelled. Moreover, industry consolidation has meant that fewer firms are operating nuclear
plants.3 There is some good news of late—the 2005 Energy Policy Act provides various incentives which support
currently operating plants and encourages future construction. Since the 2005 law was passed, 13 companies have filed
licenses with the NRC to build as many as 31 new reactors.4 But the growth in nuclear production is not without
controversy—serious debates relating to nuclear waste and plant safety continue. Still, we think the risks are worth
taking. America has grappled with a nuclear waste dilemma for decades—it is a serious and currently unsolved
problem, but we believe it can be managed safely in the short term and handled effectively in the long term. As for
plant safety, there is simply no such thing as completely risk-free power, and nuclear is no exception. That being said,
our nuclear sites are some of the most fortified, well-protected industrial spaces in the nation. The industry’s security is
regulated and closely watched by on-site federal inspectors and overseers, and the FBI has categorized nuclear plants as
“difficult targets.” Furthermore, a new generation of plant design and technologies has made nuclear facilities more
efficient, safe and less costly than in the past.5 Yet despite good safety records and a recent resurgence in interest in
new reactors, on its current trajectory, total nuclear generation is projected to grow from 780 billion kilowatt-hours in
2005 to only 896 billion kilowatt-hours in 2030 (that is, if the new reactors cited above come on-line). Even with this
projected increase, the nuclear share of total electricity generation is expected to fall from 19 percent in 2005 to 15
percent in 2030. We would need another four plants (for a total of 35 new plants) simply to maintain nuclear power’s
current piece of the US energy pie.6 So from a global warming perspective, the American energy production outlook is
not great now, and, without substantial change, it is projected to get much worse, as this chart demonstrates: That, in
our view, is an unacceptable outcome. We must face the reality that a growing population and evolving technology will
place ever-increasing demands on our energy production. We believe that policymakers and advocates should set as a
general goal that we expand non- or low-carbon sources, such as nuclear, wind, solar, and “clean coal,” to meet much

17
NU 08-09 p. 18 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

1AC 15/16
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<…………….Card continues…….>>>>>>>>>>>>
of the new demand for power that our expanding nation and modern life require. As a specific and measurable target,
we should aim to advance nuclear energy to a point where it provides for 25 percent of America’s energy. This is an
ambitious but achievable goal; unless we get closer to it, meeting increased energy needs while dealing with the reality
of climate change is probably a pipe-dream.
2. Embracing Nuclear Power Can Help Rally the Public on Climate Change Recent public opinion polling reveals a
seeming paradox: Americans believe that global warming is real, but they don’t feel any urgency about dealing with it.
A Pew poll in January found that 77% of Americans believe there is solid evidence of global warming, and the same
number believe global warming is a very serious or somewhat serious problem.7 But another Pew poll of global
attitudes found that only 19% of Americans who had heard of global warming expressed a great deal of personal
concern over the issue, the smallest percentage of any country in a survey of 15 nations. And climate change ranks 20th
out of 23 in Pew’s annual list of policy priorities (only 38% rank it as a top priority).8 Another January poll found that
less than half of respondents said global warming worries them “a great deal” or “a good amount.”9 In short, awareness
of climate change is high, but urgency—and demand for government action—is low. In part, this is because the
solutions that many offer seem incommensurate to the scope of the problem. For example, almost no one disagrees that
we should use more solar power, but solar makes up 1/30th of 1 percent of current US power usage. It is a very
important but very small part of a near- or even mid-term solution. We simply must have more mature, low-carbon
power generation methods if we are to address this issue aggressively over the next several decades. One glaring
problem is the failure on the part of leading climate change advocates—from most environmental groups to leading
Members of Congress—to support the only existing, mature energy source that can almost immediately help save our
planet from catastrophic climate change. Consider what the three largest US environmental groups are still saying about
nuclear power: [I]t is completely unacceptable that the U.S. government is pushing for more nukes when most of the
rest of the world is saying "so long." Unfortunately, the nuclear power industry in its present state suffers from too
many security, safety, and environmental exposure problems and excessive costs to qualify as a leading means to
combat global warming pollution.11 – Natural Resources Defense Council The Sierra Club opposes the licensing,
construction and operation of new nuclear reactors utilizing the fission process …12 – Sierra Club Clearly, the
mainstays of the movement still have not even lost their hostility to nuclear power, much less acknowledged the role
that nuclear power can play a major part of the solution to global warming. And despite what some are calling a
“nuclear renaissance” that is pegged to the climate issue and rising power needs, anti-nuclear forces have worked hard
to muddy the waters. For example, the following polling question was asked on a survey by the Civil Society Institute:
Experts have proposed a range of long-term and short-term solutions to the energy crisis and the threat posed by global
warming. Some solutions— including solar energy and wind power—are already in place and would be expanded in
the near-term. Others—such as increased conservation—could start immediately. Still others—including nuclear power
and hydrogen fuel cells—would take a decade to put in place, or longer. What is your view of the best way for America
to proceed? Would you say... the energy and global warming problem is happening now. We need most of the emphasis
placed on immediate and near-term solutions that will deliver fast results or we need most of the emphasis placed on
solutions that will deliver results a decade from now or later? Not surprisingly, 62% of respondents to this sharply
slanted and misleading question said we need to take action now. Never mind that solar and wind are not mature power
generation techniques and simply cannot provide “near term solutions” to our CO2 problems. Many advocates have
taken this approach, attempting to keep the debate fixed solely on conservation and renewable sources. And no one
denies that both are crucial to addressing the problem of global warming—a solution is impossible without real shifts in
public behavior and a huge increase in our investment in renewable energy. But we believe that by talking only about
conservation and renewable energy, advocates have undercut the seriousness of their own argument on climate change.
The American public may not know much about base-load capacity, but they understand that we are not going to get
out of our CO2 problem by relying solely on wind farms or geothermal power at this point in time. And they may be
reluctant to make hard changes in their own lives—or demand policy fixes to climate change—until environmentalists
start making some tough choices too. Indeed, if advocates were to embrace nuclear power, which many have spent
their careers fighting, it would help prove to the public that a dramatic shift in our thinking as a nation is required when
our way of life or very existence may be at risk. Some individuals in the movement have begun doing precisely that.
The most prominent is Greenpeace Founder Patrick Moore, who told Congress: If nothing is done to revitalize the
American nuclear industry, the industry’s contribution to meeting US energy demands could drop from 20 percent to 9
percent. What sources of energy would make up the shortfall? Very likely, the US would turn to an even greater
reliance on fossil fuels.13 And in an editorial last year, Dr. Moore put the fundamental point quite plainly: “Nuclear
energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a
growing demand for power. And these days, it can do so safely.”14 Patrick Moore is not alone—a few other movement
leaders, and some environmental advocates in Congress—have begun to come to this conclusion. They include Stewart
Brand, founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, and Hugh Montefiore, former Chairman of Friends of the Earth. Senator
Barbara Boxer, one of the staunchest environmentalists in Congress and Chair of the Environment and Public Works
Committee, recently noted the trend toward nuclear on her committee and has signaled a possible shift in

18
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1AC 16/16
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<…………….Card continues…….>>>>>>>>>>>>
her own thinking about nuclear power as it relates to climate change.15 Some of the groups are starting to come around
as well. Environmental Defense calls nuclear power one of many “wedges” to be used in attacking global warming, and
they note that if “the unresolved concerns can be answered satisfactorily, however, nuclear power may one day have the
potential to be a factor in slowing the emissions that contribute to global warming. For that reason, it is worth pursuing
continued research.”16 The public appears ready for this change. A January 2007 poll by UPI of nearly 7,000
Americans found that 62 percent agree that new nuclear plants should be built.17 This is precisely the same percentage
of Americans that an LA Times survey last summer found would support “the increased use of nuclear power as a
source of energy in order to prevent global warming.”18 The data are clear: Americans understand that climate change
is real, and they are ready to embrace nuclear power as one piece of the long-term solution. But the public will need to
hear from environmental advocates to seal the deal. 3. Moving Forward Efficiently on Nuclear Power Can Help
Provide Momentum to Fight Carbon Emissions One important reason that nuclear power production stalled in the
1990s involved the extraordinary inefficiencies built into the system. Every new plant was required to Third Way
Memo 7 have its own unique design, leaving this nation with a patchwork of different reactors, using different parts and
procedures. This massively drove up costs of construction and made operation and maintenance much more expensive
and difficult, because parts were not interchangeable and personnel had to learn a new plant every time they went there.
By contrast, countries like France, which draws 78 percent of its power from nuclear energy, built essentially the same
two plants throughout the country. Thankfully, the United States seems to have learned a lesson from that experience,
and it now seems standardized reactor design will be the way of the future for domestic production of nuclear power
plants. This will not only reduce the costs of construction, operation and maintenance, it will improve training,
efficiency and, ultimately, safety.19 Furthermore, many new reactors will be built where plants already exist, further
increasing efficiencies and reducing start-up and construction costs. Other efficiencies were built into the 2005 Energy
Policy Act, which is helping to fuel some resurgence of nuclear power development in the US. Still, more needs to be
done. Both to deepen the impact that nuclear power itself can have on US emissions and to demonstrate to the public
that we can make real progress on climate change, policymakers must ensure that new nuclear power plants can be
constructed safely, affordably and efficiently. There are other reasons as well to push for a resurgence of nuclear power.
First is energy security. While the United States has almost unlimited quantities of coal, we are becoming increasingly
dependent on others for fuels like natural gas. The public is acutely aware of America’s need for great energy security,
and reducing our dependence on natural gas for power generation would both boost that security and make gas more
affordable for consumer heat and industrial uses. Since 2000–2001, wholesale prices for natural gas have jumped as
much as three-fold, largely as a result of the growth in the use of natural gas for electric generation that began in the
1990s. This has cost thousands of Americans their jobs as companies shutdown, lay off employees, or move their
production overseas where natural gas is far cheaper. It has also raised the cost of natural gas to a point where many
families cannot afford to heat or cool their homes.

19
NU 08-09 p. 20 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

In he re nc y-cu rr ent inc entiv es not en oug h

Current subsidies and tax credits are insufficient incentives to spur


a long term revolution in nuclear power
Farivar 7
Cyrus, 11/13, Global warming, subsidies fuel a nuclear renaissance, WIRED magazine
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/11/nuclear_economics
This resurgence of commercial attention to nuclear power is coming about for several reasons. The increased attention
on greenhouse gases and their effects on the global climate is spurring interest in carbon-neutral power-generation
technologies, including nuclear power. Improved technologies make new nuclear plants safer and more reliable,
supporters say. And federal tax credits and subsidies (.pdf) tucked into the Energy Policy Act of 2005 have kick-started
a once-dormant industry.
"The performance record from an operational point of view is extraordinary," said David Crane, the CEO of NRG
Energy, of the next-generation plants currently operating in other, more nuclear-friendly countries such as Japan, China
and France. "The U.S. has missed two generations of design that's been carried out in other countries -- they're simpler
to maintain."
Further, he adds, among the 104 reactors currently online in the United States, none have had any disasters since the
infamous Three Mile Island incident in 1979.
However, industry analysts and scholars are not quite as bullish as industry representatives seem to be, and don't see a
nuclear renaissance at all.
"We really see it as essentially a number of companies are getting in line for a set of significant taxpayer subsidies,"
said Geoffrey Fettus, a senior attorney with the National Resources Defense Council. "At this point we're years away
from commitments from any of these companies to build."
The subsidies that Fettus refers to include a tax credit of up to $125 million total per year, estimated at 1.8 cents per
kilowatt hour during the first eight years of operation, for the first 6,000 megawatts of capacity -- the same credit
offered for plants that use renewable fuels.
In addition, the law provides support for construction of new nuclear plants costing over $1.18 billion, and an extension
until 2025 of the Price-Anderson Act, which mitigates financial and legal risk for nuclear plant accidents.
Despite the incentives, experts point out that new nuclear construction may still be prohibitively expensive.
NRG Energy says its two proposed units, which would produce a total of 2,700 megawatts, or enough to power 2
million homes, would cost $6 billion to build. A conventional natural-gas plant of the same size would cost $2 billion,
according to Jeremy Carl, a research fellow and PhD candidate at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy at
Stanford University.
"To make money back you've got to charge a pretty high price for your power and it's not clear that the market will
support that," Carl said.

20
NU 08-09 p. 21 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 Mc ca in
Mccain has empirically flip flopped on this issue-he cant be
counted on to get nuclear through congress
LA times, July 1st
Campaign 08: McCain energy record is on/off, he’s flip flopped on nuclear power, ethanol, and offshore drilling, l.n
On his recent energy tour, McCain also called for 45 new nuclear plants by 2030, a goal he is prepared to back with
billions of federal dollars.
That too is a change for the four-term senator. Earlier in his congressional career, McCain was a consistent opponent of
subsidies for nuclear power, voting five times in the 1990s against taxpayer aid for research on new-generation nuclear
reactors. As recently as 2003, McCain opposed federal loan guarantees to help the nuclear industry finance new plants.
Three years ago, however, McCain began pushing more taxpayer assistance to help develop nuclear power as part of
his proposed legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Public Citizen estimated a version of McCain's bill would authorize more
than $3.7 billion in subsidies for new nuclear plants.
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based group that has worked with McCain to
fight pork-barrel spending, said that kind of aid used to trouble the senator.
"Sen. McCain was a leader in going after subsidies," Ellis said. "Government support for an industry that can't stand on
its own two feet seems to contradict his record."
McCain now defends the subsidies as essential to kick-start the industry. "If we're looking for a vast supply of reliable
and low-cost electricity, with zero carbon emissions and long-term price stability, that's the working definition of
nuclear energy," he said recently.

21
NU 08-09 p. 22 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Gl ob al Wa rmin g Sol ven cy


Other sources pale in comparison to nuclear power-it is the
solution to global warming
Barker, 8
4/24, Greenpeace founder now backs nuclear power, Idaho statesman.com
http://www.idahostatesman.com/235/story/360625.html
Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore says there is no proof global warming is caused by humans, but it is likely enough
that the world should turn to nuclear power - a concept tied closely to the underground nuclear testing his former
environmental group formed to oppose.
The chemistry of the atmosphere is changing, and there is a high-enough risk that "true believers" like Al Gore are right
that world economies need to wean themselves off fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gases, he said.
"It's like buying fire insurance," Moore said. "We all own fire insurance even though there is a low risk we are going to
get into an accident."
The only viable solution is to build hundreds of nuclear power plants over the next century, Moore told the Boise Metro
Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. There isn't enough potential for wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal or
other renewable energy sources, he said.

Nuclear power will solve global warming-can create a nearly


infinite supply of energy
National center for policy analysis 6
7/27 Nuclear power may be answer to global warming
http://eteam.ncpa.org/news/nuclear-power-may-be-answer-to-global-warming
DALLAS (July 27, 2006) - As former Vice President Al Gore's global warming movie nears the end of its run in
theaters, a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) suggests combating climate change
requires creative thinking about the world's energy needs. According to the report, nuclear power holds the most
promise as a clean, practical alternative to fossil fuels that could help satisfy the world economy's growing demand for
energy.
"If we buy the theory that human use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) is causing global warming, we must
reassess how we are going to fuel economic growth in the future," said Pete Geddes, executive vice president of the
Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) and co-author of the report. "Nuclear power very
well could be the best choice to reduce the threat arguably posed by fossil fuels."
Sustaining economic growth in developed countries and accelerating growth in the developing world means that energy
demand will increase dramatically in the coming century. The International Energy Agency projects world energy
demand will grow 65 percent by 2020. According to the report, reducing the amount of CO2 humans put into the
atmosphere, while still meeting the energy demands of an expected population of more than 9 billion people by 2050,
requires reconsidering nuclear power - a safe, practical alternative.
Despite opposition, nuclear power currently produces much of the electric power in developed countries.
* Nuclear power provides about 75 percent of the electricity in France and 20 percent in the United States.
* With 434 operating reactors worldwide, nuclear power meets the electrical needs of more than a billion people.
* China alone is planning to build 30 nuclear reactors over the next five years.
Nuclear power has advantages over fossil fuels. A single, quarter-ounce pellet of uranium generates as much energy as
3.5 barrels of oil, 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, or 1,780 pounds of coal, with none of the CO2 emissions. However,
conventional reactors only utilize approximately 3 percent of the energy contained in nuclear fuel. If the United States
joined France and Japan in recycling used fuel, and recycled the more than 15,000 plutonium pits removed from
dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons, existing and recycled supplies would provide an almost unlimited amount of nuclear
fuel.

22
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Gl ob al Wa rmin g Sol ven cy


Nuclear power is the only clean available energy source to combat
global warming
Lovelock 4
James, indepdennt scientist, creator of the “Gaia hypothesis”, Nuclear power is the only green solution
http://www.ecolo.org/media/articles/articles.in.english/love-indep-24-05-04.htm
By all means, let us use the small input from renewables sensibly, but only one immediately available source does not
cause global warming and that is nuclear energy. True, burning natural gas instead of coal or oil releases only half as
much carbon dioxide, but unburnt gas is 25 times as potent a greenhouse agent as is carbon dioxide. Even a small
leakage would neutralise the advantage of gas.
The prospects are grim, and even if we act successfully in amelioration, there will still be hard times, as in war, that will
stretch our grandchildren to the limit. We are tough and it would take more than the climate catastrophe to eliminate all
breeding pairs of humans; what is at risk is civilisation. As individual animals we are not so special, and in some ways
are like a planetary disease, but through civilisation we redeem ourselves and become a precious asset for the Earth; not
least because through our eyes the Earth has seen herself in all her glory.
There is a chance we may be saved by an unexpected event such as a series of volcanic eruptions severe enough to
block out sunlight and so cool the Earth. But only losers would bet their lives on such poor odds. Whatever doubts there
are about future climates, there are no doubts that greenhouse gases and temperatures both are rising.
We have stayed in ignorance for many reasons; important among them is the denial of climate change in the US where
governments have failed to give their climate scientists the support they needed. The Green lobbies, which should have
given priority to global warming, seem more concerned about threats to people than with threats to the Earth, not
noticing that we are part of the Earth and wholly dependent upon its well being. It may take a disaster worse than last
summer's European deaths to wake us up.
Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the
media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy
sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third
of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen. If we
fail to concentrate our minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may die even sooner, as did more than
20,000 unfortunates from overheating in Europe last summer.
I find it sad and ironic that the UK, which leads the world in the quality of its Earth and climate scientists, rejects their
warnings and advice, and prefers to listen to the Greens. But I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to
drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.
Even if they were right about its dangers, and they are not, its worldwide use as our main source of energy would pose
an insignificant threat compared with the dangers of intolerable and lethal heat waves and sea levels rising to drown
every coastal city of the world. We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in
imminent danger and has to use nuclear - the one safe, available, energy source - now or suffer the pain soon to be
inflicted by our outraged planet.

23
NU 08-09 p. 24 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

GW I mpa ct ex ten si ons


failure to reverse carbon emissions causes mass death and
suffering, destroying the whole planet on a very short timeframe
WOOD 2007—Professor of Law at the University of Oregon, 34 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 577
Our prior carbon pollution has already locked us into an irrevocable temperature rise of up to two degrees Fahrenheit.
13 Two degrees does not sound like much at all until you realize that the Earth's average temperature has not varied by
more than 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 10,000 years. 14 Just a few degrees of average temperature
change makes the difference between an ice age and our current climate. 15 Temperatures only five to
nine degrees Fahrenheit cooler than those today marked the end of the last Ice Age, when the northeast United States
was under 3000 feet of ice. 16 In light of that fact, consider the effect of a ten degree difference on the hot side. 17
Once we understand the climate premium that every single degree Fahrenheit carries, we would no more dismiss a ten
degree temperature rise for Earth than we would dismiss a 108 degree fever in our bodies. So, what does all of this
mean for us? In effect, you and I--along with all of the other people and species on this Earth--find ourselves in a
greenhouse with climbing temperatures. 18 And this situation is bound to create hostility as Americans
alone account for nearly thirty percent [*581] of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. 19 There is
no magic Tylenol that will cure this temperature rise overnight, because carbon dioxide can persist in the atmosphere
for up to a few centuries. 20 Hurricane Katrina--which devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005--
signaled what we can expect from the global warming already underway as a result of the carbon
emissions that we cannot call back. 21 Scientists across multiple disciplines warn of crop losses, 22
food shortages, 23 flooding, 24 coastal loss, 25 wildfire, 26 drought, 27 pests, 28 hurricanes, 29
[*582] tornadoes, 30 heat waves, 31 landslides, 32 species extinctions, 33 vanishing snow pack,
34 increased disease vectors, 35 and other harms. 36 [*583] An international climate research team recently
warned of a need to prepare for as many as fifty million environmental refugees by 2010. 37 If we do nothing to
curb carbon emissions, we will commit ourselves to a future that most Americans cannot even
imagine. Jim Hansen, the leading climate scientist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
presents the ten degree Fahrenheit scenario: it will send fifty percent or more species into extinction. 38
That is equivalent to the mass extinction that occurred fifty-five million years ago. 39 In his words, "Life will survive,
but it will do so on a transformed [*584] planet." 40 A mere five-degree Fahrenheit temperature increase may cause an
eighty foot rise in sea level. 41 Hansen points out: "In that case, the United States would lose most East Coast cities:
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Miami; indeed, practically the entire state of Florida would be under
water. Fifty million people in the U.S. live below that sea level." 42 I could go on detailing on how climate crisis will
affect the lives of every human on Earth. What I have mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg--a phrase on its way out.
British commentator Mark Lynas, author of High Tide, summarizes the Earth's situation this way: "Let me put it
simply: if we go on emitting greenhouse gases at anything like the current rate, most of the surface
of the globe will be rendered uninhabitable within the lifetimes of most readers of this article." 43

24
NU 08-09 p. 25 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

GW I mpa ct ex ten si ons


Numerous Scientific studies prove that CO2 causes global
warming, which leads to extinction
Brandenburg and Paxson 1999 Rocket Scientist and Science Editor
Dead Mars, Dying Earth p. (45-47)
The monitoring of air samples at Mauna Loa was able to reveal a trend that has continued
predictably over time. Since 1955 , when monitoring began, to the present, the level of
atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen somewhere between 0.5 and 2.88 parts per million per year .
Each year, the blip in the graph that indicates the change of the seasons takes the line to yet a
higher level, irrespective of whether there was a car driving up the side of the mountain or not.''
Global air contains a little more carbon dioxide every year, and the 1998 reading was the biggest
increase in a single year ever recorded. The propane car at the observatory was eventually abandoned when an
increase in traffic of regular cars up the mountain made it pointless to attempt to maintain the purity of the air to the same
high standard. Yet despite the fact that the liquid propane needed to run the car wasn't readily available in 1972 (and it cost
more than gasoline) and that the expense involved in converting the engine of a single car to propane was about $600, Dr.
Pueschel felt that conversion was worth the additional expense, even for the average car owner. Dr. Pueschel knew
something that virtually no one else knew: what a single automobile could do to air quality. He personally had witnessed
the impact a lone car had made on the monitoring equipment. "Someday we will have to pay, and it won't be cheap," he
predicted. Dr. Pueschel had also seen the relentless upward climb of the meedle measuring carbon dioxide in the global
atmosphere during the previous two decades. Could his warning have been any more clear? "We take for granted our air is
free, but someday we just won't have it anymore." ' The wisdom of hindsight may illuminate what he really meant when he
told the newspaper why they had bought the propane car. Gradually, incrementally, we are changing Earth's
atmosphere. But are we slowly altering our atmosphere away from something that supports human
life toward something deadly like the atmosphere of Mars? Such an atmosphere would have been
very familiar to Joseph Black, who isolated the very first atmospheric gas. Unitarian minister
Joseph Priestley would have recognized the atmosphere of Mars as well. So would coal miners from
the early part of the 20th century and the canary that lay gasping at the bottom of the cage, for the
atmosphere of Mars is made of fixed air. The atmosphere of Mars is made of blackdamp. The
atmosphere of Mars is made of carbonic acid gas. The atmosphere of Mars is made of a substance
that has over time had many names reflecting the toxic side of its nature. While today we call all of
them "carbon dioxide" (which we think of as a benign product of our own bodies and the harmless
bubbles in soda pop), this substance has clearly not always been viewed as a harmless gas . Nor
should it be in the future, for it is time once again to inform our opinions about this substance and
recognize its invisible, dark side. As long as a stylus attached to the monitoring equipment in some
lonely station on the top of an inactive volcano in Hawaii continues to etch a line ratcheting
upward-showing the increased amounts of carbon dioxide that, year after year, flood our
atmosphere, threatening us-then we too must think of it very differently. It isn't a matter of
speculation. It is a matter of hard, cold scientific fact supported by numerous studies conducted
by many respected scientists . In the overwhelming majority they agree: Earth's atmosphere has far
too much of what we now must think of as carbon die-oxide. It is warming our planet to the
point where life, human life, is endangered . We are going to have to do something decisive and
effective about this killer. No matter how successful or enlightened we think ourselves to be, we
are not exempt from the need to act-in the same way that we are not exempt from the need to
breathe.

25
NU 08-09 p. 26 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

GW I mpa ct ex ten si ons


Even if CO2 is good, Burning fossil fuels decreases oxygen, causing
extinction
Brandenburg and Paxson 1999 Rocket Scientist and Science Editor
Dead Mars, Dying Earth p. (246-247)
A terrible synergism of disaster is already at work. The complex system called "climate" is
running amok because of increasing carbon dioxide, while at the same time, oxygen , the "other
gas" involved in the combustion of fossil fuels, is losing concentration levels in our atmosphere.
We are talking oxygen, the gas that we breathe in to fire every cell of our bodies-not the carbon
dioxide that we breathe out as waste, but the stuff we need to sustain the process called "life."
The decline of oxygen is tiny, but easily measurable . Its decline may have been noted years ago,
but its significance was immediately minimized. In a bow to its emotional implications, the data
was suppressed-or, given the human ability to distance or deny-maybe even repressed.
The decline in oxygen concentration means the beginning of the end for fossil fuels. To continue
to burn them at the present rate, to contemplate that we will industrialize the Third World based
on fossil fuel use, to consider that the world's rainforests are just idle land to be burned and
farmed, is to participate in an act of environmental genocide and self-immolation . Some will
insist that even though the world's supply of oxygen is going down, the amount is too small to be
important. That is nonsense. It is important. On the course we are on, it will continue to fall.
Finally, it will plummet like a stone. The decline in oxygen is important because it shows where
we are going. It is akin to the canary falling off its perch in the coal mine, or the frantic call
from the crow's nest that an iceberg is dead ahead .

26
NU 08-09 p. 27 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

GW impac ts : Climat e os cill ation m odu le


CO2 independent of warming causes climate oscillations
Posner 2004 – Judge of the US Court of Appeals and Lecturer at
Chicago Law School
Catastrophe, Risk and Response, p. 53
Greater temperature swings in even shorter periods only slightly earlier than the Younger Days have also
been recorded.' Climatologists cannot specify the conditions that cause such changes and so can not assess
the probability that the stress that greenhouse-gas emissions are placing on the environment will trigger
them. Changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide may have caused the temperature
oscillations in the Younger Days, and though those changes were not due to human activities, they are a
portent of what may happen as a consequence of those activities. No species has so stressed the
environment as modern human beings are doing, and at an accelerating pace as China, India, Brazil, and
other large, poor countries modernize rapidly. The human impact on the climatic equilibrium is inherently
unpredictable.

Climate oscillations will destroy agriculture and the world


economy—kills billions
Milbrath, Director of the Research Program in Environment and Society at the State University of New
York-Buffalo, 1994 (THE FUTURIST, May, p. 28.)
Another scenario suggests that there could be an extended period, perhaps a decade or two, when there is
oscillation-type chaos in the climate system. Plants will be especially vulnerable to oscillating chaos, since
they are injured or die when climate is too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. And since plants make food
for all other creatures, plant dieback would lead to severe declines in agricultural production. Farm animals
and wildlife would die in large numbers. Many humans also would starve. Several years of climatic
oscillation could kill billions of people.
The loss of the premise of continuity would also precipitate collapse of world financial markets. That
collapse would lead to sharp declines in commodity markets, world trade, factory output, retail sales,
research and development, tax income for governments, and education. Such nonessential activities as
tourism, travel, hotel occupancy, restaurants, entertainment, and fashion would be severely affected.
Billions of unemployed people would drastically reduce their consumption, and modern society's vaunted
economic system would collapse like a house of cards.

27
NU 08-09 p. 28 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

GW I mpa ct s: War e xt ensi ons


Warming causes war
Brandenburg and Paxson 1999 Rocket Scientist and Science Editor
Dead Mars, Dying Earth p. (22)
There is another potential specter in our relationship with fossil fuels that we tend to forget.
People are willing to go to war if they feel they are being deprived of what is essential for life:
water, land, food, and fuel . It is a problem we have had in the past, as the following story will
remind you. It is a problem that we are likely to see again-over other environmental issues unless
we are able to head off the problems associated with global warming.

28
NU 08-09 p. 29 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 Mining U ranium/buil din g plant s incr ea se s


emi ss ion s
Coal and other sources have vastly higher emissions-nuclear is still
the best option
Irish Examiner, 8
May 6th, Nuclear power critic is clutching at straws, l/n
He is, of course, technically correct in asserting that nuclear power makes a contribution to global warming, though it's
very small in comparison with power produced by fossil fuels.
The mining of uranium and its transport across the globe undoubtedly produces some small amount of greenhouse
gases - but very little in comparison with what is produced by the mining of coal and the drilling of oil and gas, and the
burning of it to produce electricity.
And of course the transport of workers to a nuclear plant would contribute to global warming as well, just as it does
with current non-nuclear plants.

Nuclear’s emissions are comparable to wind power-the carbon


released by mining uranium is negligible
Union of Concerned Scientists 7
December 2007, Nuclear power in a warming world
Nuclear power plants do not produce global warming emissions when they operate. However, producing nuclear power
requires mining and processing uranium ore, enriching uranium to create reactor fuel, manufacturing and transporting
fuel, and building plants—all of which consume energy. Today much of that energy is provided by fossil fuels
(although that may change if the United States takes steps to address global warming). However, the global warming
emissions associated with nuclear power even now are relatively modest. Indeed, its life cycle emissions are
comparable to those of wind power and hydropower. While estimates of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions vary with
different assumptions and methodologies, the basic conclusions of most analyses are consistent: for each unit of
electricity generated, natural gas combustion results in roughly half the global warming emissions of coal combustion,
while wind power, hydropower, and nuclear power produce only a few percent of emissions from coal combustion. The
life cycle emissions of photovoltaics (PVs) are generally somewhat higher than those for wind power, hydropower, and
nuclear power, because manufacture of PVs entails greater global warming emissions.5

On Balance- all renewable energy releases some emissions, and


nuclear power is still much more effective then fossil fuels.
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
From the data above it can be concluded that nuclear power emits about the same quantity of greenhouse gases as
electricity produced from a number of renewable sources, but much less than fossil fuel sources: 12 times less than gas
power stations and almost 30 times less than coal power stations. Much of these emissions occur when energy is used
for the mining of uranium, during transports and in the enrichment process that makes uranium usable as reactor fuel.
The emissions during decommissioning of a nuclear reactor are probably underestimated in these analyses, because in
practice these emissions turn out to be much higher than was assumed theoretically.

29
NU 08-09 p. 30 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 Nu cl ear po we r r el eas es CFC ga s-c on ve rs ion


pro ce ss
In the last decade, all non-nuclear plants have been abandoned for
energy production to enrich uranium
Peterson, 4
Scott, spokesperson for the Nuclear energy institute, 9/24, Democracy Now, Is nuclear power the solution to global warming, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/9/24/is_nuclear_power_the_solution_to
SCOTT PETERSON: We meet every federal regulation on the books from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in
terms of radiation released from our plants. We meet every single requirement. Our plants are monitored daily by the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make sure that we’re well within those limits. So, we meet not only the N.R.C.
limits, we meet environmental limits in terms of the temperature of water that has to come out of our plants as we use
cooling water. So, I would have to say that Helen Caldicott as usual, is engaged in a scare tactic with the public, giving
them false information. For example, the uranium enrichment of our fuel for every single nuclear power plant is
powered by a nuclear power plant. We use now nuclear power plants to power the conversion of uranium into our fuel,
so there’s no emissions even in that process. A lot has happened in the industry in the last decade. To make our industry
even cleaner in terms of the emissions than what it had been in the production of nuclear power, and I would just say
that there are a number of life cycle emission studies that have been done in the last ten years that show that nuclear
energy for the environment along with renewables are the cleanest sources of electricity from beginning to end for
consumers and for the environment.

30
NU 08-09 p. 31 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 you do n’t s ol ve t ransp or tation/ he ating e mi ss ion s


Nuclear power would spur new light rail and subway systems
which would solve transportation emissions
National center for policy analysis 6
7/27 Nuclear power may be answer to global warming
http://eteam.ncpa.org/news/nuclear-power-may-be-answer-to-global-warming
"Nuclear power could also help reduce CO2 emissions from transportation," noted NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling
Burnett, co-author of the report. "For instance, running new light rail and subway systems on electricity generated by
nuclear plants - rather than coal or gas-fired power plants - would prevent new emissions."

Nuclear power would fuel hydrogen and electric cars


Union of Concerned Scientists 7
December 2007, Nuclear power in a warming world
While nuclear reactors are now used to generate electricity, they could potentially also be used to produce hydrogen
fuel for transportation. Reducing emissions in the electricity sector may also prove easier than in other sectors,
providing an incentive to use electricity rather than other formsof energy.9 For example, electric heat pumps rather than
natural gas burners could be used to heat residential buildings, and electric vehicles could be used in place of gasoline-
fueled ones. For these reasons, an expansion of nuclear power both in the United States and around the world has been
proposed as one response to global warming. While many different technologies will be needed to address climate
change, the urgency of this situation demands that we be willing to consider all options.

31
NU 08-09 p. 32 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 o th er s ou rc es so lv e in s qu o
Other sources will not be able to provide power during peak times,
we need nuclear power to fill the gap.
Farivar 7
Cyrus, 11/13, Global warming, subsidies fuel a nuclear renaissance, WIRED magazine
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/11/nuclear_economics
"You can't build wind and solar fast enough and their inherent production profiles are different enough such that you
can't use them for base-load generation," said Michael Carboy, an analyst with Signal Hill.
"Wind power doesn't always occur during peak demand times and you don't have solar in the evening. You need
something that's going to be a stable contributor to 20 or 30 percent of the daily power loads that's going to sit there and
run all day long."

Other sources are miniscule compared to nuclear-it is the only way


to solve the climate change crisis
Spencer, 8
Jack, research fellow in nuclear energy at the Thomas A Roe institute for economy policy studies at the heritage foundation, Heritage
foundation, Nuclear power needed to minimize Lieberman-warner’s economic impact, 2008
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm1944.cfm
Hold accountable those leading the charge to cap CO2. It is morally indefensible to put stringent caps on CO2 and then
obstruct the only technology available to meet the mandates affordably. Yet that is exactly what many supporters of a
CO2 cap are doing when they do not advocate for nuclear power. While wind, solar, and other renewable energies may
contribute to CO2-free energy production, none can provide the vast amounts of electricity that is required to meet
America's growing demand.

32
NU 08-09 p. 33 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Oil Dep end en ce Solv en cy


Nuclear power will solve oil dependence
Barker, 8
4/24, Greenpeace founder now backs nuclear power, Idaho statesman.com
http://www.idahostatesman.com/235/story/360625.html
Fossil fuels also are a major health threat. "Coal causes the worst health impacts of anything we are doing today,"
Moore said.
Plus, uranium can be found within the United States and also comes in large quantities from Canada and Australia.
Nuclear Power reduces the reliance on supplies in dangerous places including the Middle East, he said.

Nuclear power will be an integral part of reducing oil dependence


Council on Foreign relations, 6
National security consequences of US Oil dependency: report of an independent task force
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/EnergyTFR.pdf
Electric cars and plug-in hybrids require attention to the sources of electricity. Conventional coal-fired electricity
(which accounts for the majority of the U.S. power supply) emits CO2. Advanced coal technologies that make it
possible to capture and sequester most of the CO2 underground are still in their infancy. Some forms of renewable
energy, for example, wind, which emits no CO2, may play an increasing role in the electric grid. At this time, however,
most renewable energy projects are not commercially viable without subsidies or regulatory mandates. If the new
incremental electric power–generating capacity required for vehicles is fired with natural gas, then electrification could
merely shift dependence on imported oil to dependence on imported gas. If the electricity generation is by nuclear
power, then a transition to electric and plug-in cars displaces oil. Thus, nuclear power, among other electric power
supply options, offers an important long-term pathway to displacing oil as a transportation fuel.

Nuclear power will make hybrid cars cost-effective and decrease oil
usage
Council on Foreign relations, 6
National security consequences of US Oil dependency: report of an independent task force
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/EnergyTFR.pdf
The Task Force believes that the United States should make greater use of nuclear power. With high natural gas prices
and concern about CO2 emissions, there is renewed interest in nuclear power. In the near term, new nuclear plants will
be ordered and built only if the U.S. government is successful in making clear progress on nuclear waste management,
creating a reasonable regulatory framework for licensing nuclear plants with acceptable safety risk, and meeting
proliferation concerns. In turn, the additional electricity supply will eventually make it easier to achieve greater
substitution of electricity for oil, such as through use of plug-in hybrid cars and other costeffective electricity-based
transportation technologies.

33
NU 08-09 p. 34 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Oil Dep end en ce : Ir an mo dul e


Oil dependence prevents the sanctions necessary to respond to
Iranian nuclearization
Sandalow, 7
David, energy and environment scholar at Brookings institution, “ending oil dependence”
http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/fellows/sandalow20070122.pdf
This points to a broader problem -- oil dependence reduces the leverage of the world community in responding to
threats from oil-exporting nations. Today, the most prominent threat comes from Iran, whose nuclear ambitions could
further destabilize the Persian Gulf and put terrifying new weapons into the hands of terrorists. Yet efforts to respond to
this threat with multilateral sanctions have foundered on fears that Iran would retaliate by withholding oil from world
markets. Experts predict this would drive prices above $100 per barrel – a risk many governments are unwilling to
accept. In short, three decades after the first oil shocks -- and a quarter-century after the humiliating capture of U.S.
diplomats in Tehran – we remain hostage to our continuing dependence on oil.

That kills US Leadership


Logan 2k6
(Justin Logan, foreign policy analyst at CATO, The bottom line on Iran: the cost and benefits of preventative war vs. detterence,
Policy analysis no 583 December 4 2006)
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa583.pdf
Problem #3 – A Nuclear Iran Will “Cramp Our Style” (and Israel’s) Another likely result of
Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon is that Iran will use its deterrent to limit U.S. and Israeli policy options in the
Middle East. Clearly, Iran’s nuclearization would dramatically raise the costs of a U.S. regime change effort in Tehran.
More broadly, however, Iran could attempt to extend deterrence to external goals, such as the pursuit of regional
hegemony or attempts to dominate Iraq, Azerbaijan, or even Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
Analyst Thomas Donnelly admits openly that the fear of constraint is a primary concern: A nuclear-armed Iran is
doubly threatening to U.S. interests not only because of the possibility it might employ its weapons or pass them to
terrorist groups, but also because of the constraining effect it will impose on U.S. behavior in the region.122 The
prestigious realist scholar Kenneth Waltz, in his groundbreaking work on the spread of nuclear weapons, put things still
more bluntly: “A big reason for America’s resistance to the spread of nuclear weapons is that if weak countries have
some they will cramp our style.”123 This is indisputably true, but it is less important if America revises its grandiose
and radical foreign policy posture. Analysts like Donnelly fear an Iranian bomb because they favor a revolutionary
American foreign policy that attempts to use force to transform regimes Washington dislikes. Although the Bush
doctrine’s failures are on display daily in Iraq, there is still a chance that the Bush administration—or a subsequent
administration—could decide on another rash, excessive use of the U.S. military. An Iranian bomb would, in almost
any foreseeable scenario, essentially eliminate the option of forcible regime change in Iran. If America intends to
remain unconstrained by anything other than its own will in terms of its policy in the greater Middle East, then nuclear
weapons will indeed give Iran influence that it does not possess currently.

Extinction

34
NU 08-09 p. 35 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Oil D epen de nc e: D em oc ra cy m od ule


Oil dependence prevents the transition to democratic governments
Sandalow, 7
David, energy and environment scholar at Brookings institution, “ending oil dependence”
http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/fellows/sandalow20070122.pdf
Oil wealth also corrodes democratic institutions. This dynamic is not inevitable, but it is widespread. A growing body
of scholarly work explores this topic, concluding that oil wealth is strongly associated with corruption and authoritarian
rule.7
A few examples underscore this trend. Bahrain, the Persian Gulf country with the smallest oil reserves, was also the
first to hold free elections.8 As oil prices climbed in recent years, both Vladmir Putin and Hugo Chavez moved away
from democratic institutions and toward more authoritarian rule. In Nigeria, oil abundance contributes to widespread
corruption.

Failure of global democracy causes nuclear war


Diamond 1995 (Larry- Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Promoting Democracy in the
1990s, 1995)

This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia
nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly
powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the
institutions of tenuous, democratic ones.
Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to
proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears
increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are
associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its
provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness.
LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern
themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do
not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not
ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency.
Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction
to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run
they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to
their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties
since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely
because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the
only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.

35
NU 08-09 p. 36 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Oil d ep end en ce : Sh oc ks m od ule ( ec on om y)


Oil Dependence holds the US economy hostage to supply side
crises which make a recession inevitable.
National Commission on Energy Policy, 5
Oil Dependence creates severe national security and economic risks, top officials find at crisis simulation event, July 24th
http://www.energycommission.org/ht/display/ReleaseDetails/i/1553/pid/500
The dependence of the U.S. on oil creates serious national security vulnerabilities that, if exploited, could result in
widespread economic dislocation and increased global instability, according to former top government officials who
gathered today to examine how the nation might manage an oil supply crisis.
The findings of these leading experts comes amid reports of terrorist threats against oil-rich Nigeria, a state-owned
Chinese company's bid for a major U.S. oil firm, and as Congress considers energy legislation that does little to curb
U.S. oil dependence.
In a scenario confronted by the bipartisan panel of intelligence, military, and energy experts, a series of events over
several months - unrest in Nigeria, an attack on an Alaskan oil facility, and the emergency evacuation of foreign
nationals from Saudi Arabia - drives the price of oil to over $150 per barrel. These events lower expected employment
levels by more than 2 million jobs, embolden countries that are major oil producers and consumers to pressure the U.S.
on key foreign policy concerns, and cause a variety of other significant economic and security challenges.
The scenario removed only 3.5 million barrels of oil from a global market of more than 83 million barrels, resulting in
the following consequences:
* Gasoline prices of $5.74 per gallon;
* Global oil price of $161 per barrel;
* Heating oil prices of $5.14 per gallon;
* Fall of gross domestic product for two consecutive quarters;
* Drop in consumer confidence by 30 percent;
* Spike in the consumer price index to 12.6 percent;
* Ballooning of the current accounts deficit to $1.087 trillion;
* Decline of 28 percent in the S&P 500;
* Aggressive pressure on the U.S. from China to end arm sales to Taiwan, and;
* Demands from Saudi Arabia for changes to U.S. policy regarding the Mid-East peace process.
Participants included:
Robert M. Gates, former Director of Central Intelligence;
Richard N. Haass, former Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State;
General P.X. Kelley, USMC (Ret.), former Commandant of the Marine Corps, member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
Don Nickles, former U.S. Senator;
Carol Browner, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency;
Gene B. Sperling, former National Economic Advisor;
Linda Stuntz, former Deputy Secretary of Energy;
Frank Kramer, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and;
R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence.
Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) served as co-chairs of the Oil ShockWave event.
Other key findings:
# Once oil supply disruptions occur, there is little that can be done in the short term to protect the U.S. economy from
its impacts, including gasoline above $5/ gallon and a sharp decline in economic growth potentially leading into a
recession.

36
NU 08-09 p. 37 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Oil d ep end en ce : Sh oc ks m od ule ( ec on om y)


The impact is extinction
T. E. Bearden, Director, Association of Distinguished American Scientists, June 24, 2000
http://www.cmaq.net/en/node.php?id=17547
History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the
stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the
arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to
be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan
and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate
China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In
addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other
nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly.
Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few
nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of
preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is
almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch
immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as
possible.
As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD
arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great
Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many
decades.

37
NU 08-09 p. 38 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Oil D epen de nc e: E co no my- ex ten si ons


Declining oil production makes economic collapse and war
inevitable – Status quo increases in prices are irrelevant because
they are occurring gradually, rather than as a sudden shock – Only
a shift to alternative energy can solve
Richard Heinberg, 2005 [Senior Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, "How to avoid oil wars, terrorism,
and economic collapse", http://www.energybulletin.net/node/7552]

By now most well-informed people are aware that global oil production may soon reach its all-time
peak, and that the consequences will likely be severe.

Already many important oil-producing nations (such as the United States, Indonesia, and Iran)
and some whole regions (such as the North Sea) are past their production maximums. With nearly
every passing year another country reaches a production plateau or begins its terminal decline.

Meanwhile global rates of oil discovery have been falling since the early 1960s, as has been
confirmed by ExxonMobil. All of the 100 or so supergiant fields that are collectively responsible for about
half of current world production were discovered in the 1940s, '50s, '60s, and '70s. No fields of comparable
size have been found since then; instead, exploration during recent years has turned up only much smaller
fields that deplete relatively quickly. The result is that today only one new barrel of oil is being
discovered for every four that are extracted and used.

World leaders are hampered in their ability to assess the situation by a lack of consistent data. Proven
petroleum reserve figures look reassuring: the world has roughly a trillion barrels yet to produce,
perhaps more; indeed, official reserves figures have never been higher. However, circumstantial evidence
suggests that some of the largest producing nations have inflated their reserves figures for political
reasons. Meanwhile oil companies routinely (and legitimately) report reserve growth for fields
discovered decades ago. In addition, reserves figures are often muddied by the inclusion of non-
conventional petroleum resources, such oil sands - which do need to be taken into account, but in a
separate category, as their rates of extraction are limited by factors different from those that constrain the
production of conventional crude. As a consequence of all of these practices, oil reserves data tend to give
an impression of expansion and plenty, while discovery and depletion data do the opposite.

This apparent conflict in the data invites dispute among experts as to when the global oil peak is
likely to occur. Some analysts say that the world is virtually at its peak of production now; others contend
that the event can be delayed for two decades or more through enhanced investment in exploration, the
adoption of new extraction technologies, and the substitution of non-conventional petroleum sources (oil
sands, natural gas condensates, and heavy oil) for conventional crude.

However, there is little or no disagreement that a series of production peaks is now within sight -
first, for conventional non-OPEC oil; then for conventional oil globally; and finally for all global
conventional and non-conventional petroleum sources combined.

Moreover, even though there may be dispute as to the timing of these events, it is becoming widely
acknowledged that the world peak in all combined petroleum sources will have significant global
economic consequences. Mitigation efforts will require many years of work and trillions of dollars in
investment. Even if optimistic forecasts of the timing of the global production peak turn out to be accurate,
the world is facing an historic change that is unprecedented in scope and depth of impact.

38
NU 08-09 p. 39 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Oil D epen de nc e: E co no my- ex ten si ons


Due to systemic dependence on oil for transportation, agriculture, and the production of plastics
and chemicals, every sector of every society will be affected. Efforts will be needed to create
alternative sources of energy, to reduce demand for oil through heightened energy efficiency, and to
redesign entire systems (including cities) to operate with less petroleum.

These efforts will be challenging enough in the context of a stable economic environment. However, if
prices for oil become extremely volatile, mitigation programs could be undermined. While high but
stable prices would encourage conservation and investment in alternatives, prices that repeatedly
skyrocket and then plummet could devastate entire economies and discourage long-term
investment. Actual shortages of oil - of which price shocks would be only a symptom - would be
even more devastating. The worst impacts would be suffered by those nations, and those aspects of
national economies, that could not obtain oil at any price affordable to them. Supply interruptions would
likely occur with greater frequency and for increasing lengths of time as global oil production gradually
waned.

Efforts to plan a long-term energy transition would be frustrated, in both importing and exporting countries.
Meanwhile the perception among importers that exporting nations were profiteering would foment
animosities and an escalating likelihood of international conflict.

In short, the global peak in oil production is likely to lead to economic chaos and extreme
geopolitical tensions, raising the spectres of war, revolution, terrorism, and even famine, unless
nations adopt some method of cooperatively reducing their reliance on oil.

39
NU 08-09 p. 40 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Solv enc y (Oil d epe nd enc e/ Glo bal wa rm ing)


Nuclear power will solve global warming and oil dependence. It
will power electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars.
Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
NUCLEAR IS GREENER Beyond economics, if you take seriously the issue of greenhouse gases—whether as a
climate alarmist or as someone with an open mind who believes in a degree of prudence—then the case for nuclear
power is unassailable. James Lovelock, famous as the father of the “Gaia Hypothesis,” has said nuclear power
represents humanity’s only hope to escape runaway global warming. Yet most environmental groups refuse to
recognize the impracticality of opposing both greenhouse-gas emissions and our most effective way of reducing them.
For those groups, the problem isn’t “dirty” energy, but energy itself. They presumably agree with one of their sages,
Amory Lovins, who told Playboy in 1977, “It’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap,
abundant energy because of what we might do with it.” For the rest of us, what we might do with it is the whole point
— we might increase human prosperity and welfare. If we’re determined to price coal out of the energy market, then
nuclear is it. If we’re determined to cure our “addiction to oil,” then we will need nuclear facilities to power our plug-in
hybrid electric cars or to make the hydrogen for our fuel cells. This is not a green pipe dream. In fact, given the way
automotive technology is developing, it is plausible that a majority of vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2020 will use electric
power trains, increasing our need for electricity. We might not even need to close our coal mines, since we can get more
energy from the uranium found in coal than from burning the coal itself. Those denizens of Seaton Carew had it right.
Nuclear power is clean. In a sense it is still new. Thirty years after their radical predecessors took nuclear energy away
from the people of the world, environmentalists might have inadvertently given it back. Atomkraft? Ja, bitte!

40
NU 08-09 p. 41 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Eco no my ad vanta ge : Sol ve ncy


Nuclear power is the best way to make the economic consequences
of CO2 restrictions survivable
Spencer, 8
April 18th, Jack, Heritage Institute, Nuclear power critical to meeting President’s Greenhouse gas objectives
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/upload/wm_1898.pdf
The best way to mitigate the economic consequences of massive CO2 restrictions may well be to construct new nuclear
power plants. The challenge is how to build enough of them quickly enough to meet growing electricity demands. But
while daunting, the problem is not unprecedented. Most of the 104 reactors in operation today were brought online in
the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, 37 of the reactors currently operating were connected to the electricity grid between 1970
and 1975.

Recent Estimates assume an increase in nuclear energy-it’s the only


way to prevent climate change legislation from tanking the
economy
Spencer, 8
Jack, research fellow in nuclear energy at the Thomas A Roe institute for economy policy studies at the heritage foundation, Heritage
foundation, Nuclear power needed to minimize Lieberman-warner’s economic impact, 2008
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm1944.cfm
Anxiety over human-induced global warming is driving the debate over energy policy. The Lieberman–Warner climate
change bill (S. 3036) is the political manifestation of this fear.
Many who support the broader agenda of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), view
Lieberman–Warner as a significant step forward and see the benefits of reducing carbon dioxide as outweighing the
costs of the bill. Those who are more skeptical of global warming take an opposite view. A recent Heritage Foundation
analysis, for example, estimates the costs to the U.S. economy at between $1.8 trillion and $4.8 trillion by 2030.[1]
While analyses differ, they have some common threads. For example, most show that Lieberman–Warner will have a
significant negative economic impact. They also assume that some CO2-free technologies will be brought online
quicker than many believe is technologically or economically feasible. Finally, most rely on a broad expansion of
nuclear power to mitigate the bill's negative economic consequences and to help achieve the CO2 cap targets.
Although many supporters of Lieberman–Warner are quick to call attention to conclusions that show the least negative
economic impact, they often fail to mention that the results depend on a massive expansion of nuclear power. For
example, as noted by the Environmental Defense Fund, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis concludes
that economic growth would be minimally affected by Lieberman–Warner but makes no mention of the fact that this
conclusion depends on a broad expansion of nuclear energy.[2]

41
NU 08-09 p. 42 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Eco no my ad vanta ge : Sol ve ncy


Only a massive rampup in nuclear power can save the economy
from the stagnation of CO2 caps
Spencer, 8
Jack, research fellow in nuclear energy at the Thomas A Roe institute for economy policy studies at the heritage foundation, Heritage
foundation, Nuclear power needed to minimize Lieberman-warner’s economic impact, 2008
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm1944.cfm
If one views atmospheric emissions as such a threat that CO2 reductions should be made the central organizing tenet of
America's economic and energy policy (and thus society), then the moral policy should be to achieve that objective in
an economically rational way. The motives of anyone who denies society access to the technologies best capable of
achieving its stated goals, either by explicit antagonism or through implicit passivity, must be questioned.
On the other hand, if CO2 reduction is truly the objective, then maximizing America's nuclear resources as quickly as
possible should be a top priority. While doing so would still not likely allow the U.S. to meet the levels of nuclear
power described in either the EIA or the EPA analyses, it could at least minimize the economic impact of Lieberman–
Warner. But doing so will require long-term, sustained, bipartisan support for nuclear energy. Without this support, the
billions of dollars of private capital needed to expand America's nuclear capacity will simply not be invested. Without
this investment, even the rosiest Lieberman–Warner economic projections lose what little credibility they had at the
outset.

We need much more nuclear power to survive the economic


consequences of climate change legislation, current incentives are
insufficient.
Spencer, 8
Jack, research fellow in nuclear energy at the Thomas A Roe institute for economy policy studies at the heritage foundation, Heritage
foundation, Nuclear power needed to minimize Lieberman-warner’s economic impact, 2008
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm1944.cfm
Commitment to cutting CO2 should be equaled by commitment to nuclear energy. To deny the United States access to
nuclear technology while mandating CO2 caps is hypocritical and indefensible.
The United States will need substantially more nuclear power to survive the Lieberman–Warner bill economically.
While the Energy Policy Act of 2005 may have a near-term role in reestablishing nuclear power in the U.S, it does not
bring about the fundamental changes that will be required to establish a sustainable, market-based nuclear industry. If
the nation is committed to reducing CO2, then it must also be committed to the long-term success of nuclear power.

42
NU 08-09 p. 43 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Solv enc y-g re en ho us e ga s tax/c ap an d t rad e pr og ram


Greenhouse gas taxes or a cap and trade program would sufficient
incentive to spur nuclear power
Keystone Center, 7
June 2007, “Nuclear power Joint Fact-finding”, The keystone center, independent non profit public policy and education organization,
June 2007
http://www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_12_2007(1).pdf
We know that in a carbon-constrained world, in which either a substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) tax or cap and trade
program is implemented, the relative economics of nuclear power (as compared to fossil-fueled power) will improve.
Climate policies enhance the position of all low- GHG sources of power, including: renewables, coal with carbon
capture and sequestration, and energy efficiency investments. A broadly applied GHG tax or cap and trade program
would create GHG saving alternatives in all sectors. The more stringent the climate policy (the greater the reduction
target or the higher the carbon tax), the greater the relative economic advantage of nuclear and other low-GHG
technologies.

43
NU 08-09 p. 44 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Solv enc y-s ubs idi ze plans/ guar ante e inc om e


Solvency: subsidize nuclear plants/guarantee income
Keystone Center, 7
June 2007, “Nuclear power Joint Fact-finding”, The keystone center, independent non profit public policy and education organization,
June 2007
http://www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_12_2007(1).pdf
The NJFF group concludes that while some companies have announced their intentions to build “merchant”
nuclearpower plants, it will likely be easier to finance nuclear power in states where the costs are included in the rate
base with a regulated return on equity. We also recognize that developers may face regulatory hurdles in cost-of-service
states, which may make it difficult to build plants in some states. The power plant cost overruns of the 1970s and1980s
have led to a number of changes in the traditional cost-of-service regulatory framework that creates a more rigorous
environment in which to consider new capital-intensive generation investments

44
NU 08-09 p. 45 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Sol ven cy : Inc re as e lo an gua rant ee s


The Unites States should increase loan guarantees to support the
nuclear industry
Bowman, 8
Frank, President of the Nuclear energy institute, May 5th
http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/speechesandtestimony/2008_speeches_and_testimony/bowmanspeech_050508/
U.S. electric power companies do not have the size, financing capability or financial strength to finance new nuclear
power projects on balance sheet, on their own. To do so could place the entire company at risk – if the project could
receive Board approval in the first place. These first projects require credit support – either loan guarantees from the
federal government or assurance of investment recovery from state governments, or both.
In turn, we must explore business arrangements – joint ventures, for example – that may someday allow us to finance
and build these projects on our own, without resort to the government as the financier of first resort.
The modest loan guarantee program authorized by the 2005 Energy Policy Act was a small step in the right direction,
but it does not represent a sufficient response to the urgent need to rebuild our critical electric power infrastructure.
We may need something new and different and more expansive. A new model. Senator Pete Domenici, still and
always a visionary among our political leaders, recently proposed creation of a Clean Energy Bank, a government
corporation modeled on the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, to ensure that
capital flows to critical infrastructure development in the electric sector.
The Export-Import Bank has $100 billion of loan guarantee authority to support American companies doing business
overseas. The federal government manages a successful loan guarantee portfolio of approximately $1.1 trillion which,
on balance, returns more to the Treasury in dollars than it costs the taxpayer, and returns significantly more in social
value than any taxpayer cost.
We use loan guarantee programs to support shipbuilding, steelmaking, student loans, rural electrification, affordable
housing, construction of critical transportation infrastructure, and for many other purposes.
Please don’t tell me that America’s electric infrastructure is any less important. It’s true that the U.S. electric industry
represents only three to four percent of U.S. GDP. But the other 96 to 97 percent of our $13-trillion-a-year economy
depends on that three or four percent.
More facts. They are stubborn things, aren’t they?
We must reshape perceptions of strategic national initiatives like the energy loan guarantee program.
Our critics, of course, attack the loan guarantee program as a subsidy for nuclear power? What nonsense.
A subsidy is when the federal government makes a payment to a private party. The energy loan guarantee program
works the other way around. The private parties make payments to the federal government in order to receive the loan
guarantees. That’s not a subsidy. The cost of this program – every penny of it -- will, under the law and the
implementing regulations, be paid by the industry. Not one taxpayer dollar.

45
NU 08-09 p. 46 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 not en oug h Uranium/ ot he r fuel s


There are plenty of supplies-and all estimates indicate that fusion
power will be workable by the time Uranium runs out
Irish Examiner, 8
May 6th Nuclear power critic is clutching at straws, l/n
He need not worry about the availability of uranium and other nuclear fuels such as thorium.
These are in plentiful supply and, fortunately, are found in more dependable countries than those from which we get
our fossil fuels. Present estimates are that there is sufficient nuclear fuel to last a 100 years or more. By then it is most
likely that fusion power will be available; it will last as long as there's water in the sea. Solar, wind and waves can
contribute usefully, but nuclear energy is the sole source of the dependable and constant electricity supply on which our
society relies. It would be perverse of us not to consider it seriously.

New Mining operations will solve any supply issues. Even “low-
grade” deposits are economically viable and will be mined to
support an expansion of nuclear power.
Rhodes, 7
Chris, Doctorate from Sussex, former professor @ London University, full bio @ fresh-lands.com, March 27th, Energy Balance, “Not
enough Uranium for nuclear expansion?”
http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2007/03/not-enough-uranium-for-nuclear.html
While there is undoubtedly a major issue of how quickly uranium might be brought into the enlarging marketplace that
nuclear expansion will bring, this is surely underpinned by the matter of how much uranium there is in the world to be
feasibly extracted, milled and fabricated into nuclear fuel rods. As a rough estimate, there are about 3 million tonnes of
uranium as a known reserve. Assuming the world gets through 65,000 tonnes of it per year, that would equate to 3 x
10^6/65,000 = 46 years worth. However, this is a rather simplistic assumption, although it has been widely
promulgated as evidence that nuclear has no future. Along these lines, if the current level of nuclear power were
expanded to provide all the world's electricity the uranium would run out in under 10 years. However, reserves are not
the same as resources, and as that existing uranium reserve becomes depleted, more of the resource will be mined and
processed, even well below the 0.035% (350 parts per million) uranium concentration limit below which currently the
resource is not considered economically worth including among the figures for the reserve. This is the uranium
concentration found at the Rossing Mine in Namibia, which is regarded as low-grade ore. Since the energy cost of
annually mining 3,000 tonnes of uranium from Rossing is 1 Petajoule of energy, and this much uranium can provide 15
Gigawatt-years of power (around 470 Petajoules) , the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) is close to 500.
The average concentration of uranium in the Earth's crust is around 2.7 parts per million, and soils associated with
phosphate minerals can contain around 50 - 500 ppm of uranium. Some shales and phosphate rocks contain 10-20 ppm
of uranium, and given their abundance, are estimated to contain a total quantity of uranium perhaps 8,000 times that of
the rocks currently being explored. Even mining these very low-grade ores would allow the recovery of energy with an
EROEI of 15-30. Hence, unlike conventional oil, it appears that a shortage of uranium per se, is not a problem.
However, it may well be that the shortage of oil and gas used in the mining and processing of uranium is a problem,
and that supplies of these other fuels will compete with the other purposes that society currently has for them, including
electricity production, but mainly for transportation.

46
NU 08-09 p. 47 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 m el td own s/t er ro ri sm DA: Saf et y t ec h c he ck s


New reactors will include safety precautions and security tech
which prevent the DA.
Keystone Center, 7
June 2007, “Nuclear power Joint Fact-finding”, The keystone center, independent non profit public policy and education organization,
June 2007
http://www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_12_2007(1).pdf
New reactors are expected to include advanced features that enhance both safety and security; however, existing
reactors should be the focus of primary attention for improved safety and security, as they are likely to receive license
extensions and for the next 30 years will outnumber new reactors.

47
NU 08-09 p. 48 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 t er ro ri sm (Ai rc ra ft attac k)
Even another 9/11 would not be enough to breach containment at a
plant
Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
There is some concern that nuclear power plants present an attractive target for terrorists. After the attacks of Osama
bin Laden’s impromptu air force in 2001, the Department of Energy commissioned a study into the effects of a fully
fueled jetliner’s hitting a reactor containment vessel at maximum speed. In none of the simulations was containment
breached.

Plants are hard targets to attack. Any terrorist attack would be


unsuccessful.
Congressional Research service 5
Nuclear power plants: vulnerability to terrorist attack, feb 4th, 2003
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/crs/rs21131.pdf
In light of the possibility that an air attack might penetrate the containment building of a nuclear plant, some interest
groups have suggested that such an event could befollowed by a meltdown and widespread radiation exposure. Nuclear
industry spokespersons have countered by pointing out that relatively small, low-lying nuclear power plants are
difficult targets for attack, and have argued that penetration of the containment is unlikely, and that even if such
penetration occurred it probably would not reach the reactor vessel. They suggest that a sustained fire, such as that
which melted the structures in the World Trade Center buildings, would be impossible unless an attacking plane
penetrated the containment completely, including its fuel-bearing wings. Recently completed NRC studies “confirm
that the likelihood of both damaging the reactor core and releasing radioactivity that could affect public health and
safety is low,” according to NRC Chairman Nils Diaz. However, NRC is considering studies of additional measures to
mitigate the effects of an aircraft crash.4

Safety tests prove that an air attack would barely make a dent in
the concrete
NY Times, 2
Jan 21st, Nuclear reactors as terrorist targets
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E5DB153BF932A15752C0A9649C8B63
Nuclear plants are built so robustly that they would seem to present a difficult target for terrorists. Their containment
domes have walls three to six feet thick made of concrete reinforced with embedded steel bars and a half-inch steel
liner. The reactor itself, tucked way down inside the dome, is protected by another thick slab of reinforced concrete. In
one dramatic test years ago, a fighter jet was catapulted into a mock containing wall at nearly 500 miles per hour. The
plane disintegrated into a pile of dust; the wall suffered a two-inch scratch.

48
NU 08-09 p. 49 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 t er ro ri sm ( ge ne ri c)
Terrorists wont target nuclear plants
Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
Given the massive investment that would be needed to compromise a nuclear power station, it is highly unlikely that
terrorists would seek to attack such a hard target—especially when their revealed preference has been for soft targets
offering the maximum possible loss of civilian life. The world’s experience with nuclear power, therefore, has
confounded the arguments of the environmentalists. It has proven safe and reliable—and if you still need convincing of
this, remember that the second-worst nuclear incident, Three Mile Island, saw a destroyed reactor confined with no
casualties.

Nuclear plants are not an attractive target-terrorists will ignore


them
Marsh and Stanford, 1
November, Gerald, physicist who served with the US START delegation/consultant to the office of the chief of naval operations on
strategic nuclear policy and technology, George, nuclear reactor physicist, “terrorism and nuclear power: what are the risks?”, National
Policy analysis
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA374.html
America has lost its innocence. But in responding to this loss we must not lose those facets of our society that have
made us a guiding light for much of the rest of the world. One facet is the dynamism of the American economy, driven
in large measure by the abundant and relatively cheap energy. Unfortunately, much of that energy today comes to us in
the form of imported oil. There is a very simple and prudent means of keeping the energy supply growing in an
environmentally acceptable way namely, by relying increasingly on nuclear power. (Currently nuclear power plants
provide only 20% of electric energy nationally; 40% in Illinois, the most nuclearized state.) We should not allow panic,
politics, or political correctness to curtail the use of nuclear power.
Is nuclear power's potential jeopardized by the heightened awareness of the threat of terrorism? The short answer is,
"No, because nuclear plants are not attractive targets for terrorists." There are many targets that would have a higher
payoff

No attack would be successful-prefer our evidence, it outlines


every possible attack route.
Marsh and Stanford, 1
November, Gerald, physicist who served with the US START delegation/consultant to the office of the chief of naval operations on
strategic nuclear policy and technology, George, nuclear reactor physicist, “terrorism and nuclear power: what are the risks?”, National
Policy analysis
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA374.html
Attack scenarios and likely outcomes. There are three potential targets at a typical reactor site: the reactor itself, a
spent-fuel storage pool, and, in some cases, a dry-cask spent-fuel storage facility. One can imagine various modes of
attack against one or the other of the three targets, such as:
1. A truck bomb that explodes beside a critical structure
2. Suicide attack by small aircraft loaded with explosives
3. Frontal assault with small arms
4. Attack with rockets or medium artillery
5. Sabotage of the power lines to and from the plant
6. Infiltration and sabotage from within
7. Suicide crash of a hijacked commercial airliner into the reactor building
8. Suicide crash of a hijacked commercial airliner into spent-fuel storage
Attack Scenario #1: A truck bomb is probably the least effective of the above options. It would be expected to do
minimal damage to a reactor containment building or a fuel-storage facility. This would not be a terrorist's weapon of
choice, if he were after more than publicity.

49
NU 08-09 p. 50 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 t er ro ri sm ( ge ne ri c)
Attack Scenario #2: A small, explosive-laden airplane could be crashed into any of the three targets. Crashing into the
reactor containment would do little damage, and the dry-storage casks are highly resistant, being of heavy concrete.
Because the airplane can come in from above, it might do some damage to a storage-pool facility, so that is probably
the most vulnerable of the three.
However, some years ago General Electric did a comprehensive study of the consequences of a terrorist attack on a
fuel-storage pool, using high explosives. The conclusion was that the potential for off-site release of radioactivity was
negligible. Even a thousand pounds of high explosive delivered by a small plane crashing into the pool would not
seriously disrupt the fuel assemblies, which sit under nine or more feet of water - especially since the explosive would
probably be triggered when the plane hit the roof of the building, well above the pool.
Attack Scenario #3: A small-arms assault would give time for an orderly shutdown of the reactor, or at least a scram,
and for outside assistance to arrive. From a terrorist's viewpoint, successful penetration to commit significant sabotage
would be very uncertain, at best. In particular, we understand that bringing a shut-down reactor immediately back to
full power and beyond would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. See a Attack Scenario #6, below, for more
considerations.
Attack Scenario #4: As we understand it, U.S. reactor buildings are designed to absorb an attack by medium artillery
without radiological risk to the public. It would take more than a few artillery rounds to penetrate any of the thick
concrete structures on a reactor site, and that is before any sensitive components within the buildings are hit. Again, the
low probability of causing any harm to the public and the high probability that the perpetrators would be apprehended
render this attack mode unlikely to be selected.
Attack Scenario #5. It might be relatively easy to topple the power lines leading into a nuclear plant - in fact, a severe
ice storm can have the same effect. For this reason, all nuclear plants have redundant backup systems to permit an
orderly shutdown if external power is lost. Specifically, there are two independent, separately-located diesel generator
systems, each with enough fuel to provide operational power for thirty days or more. In addition, there are batteries that
can provide emergency power long enough to achieve a safe shutdown, with a cushion of some hours to get the diesels
restarted.
Thus the first five of the above attack modes are unattractive to terrorists who want to inflict major damage. Even a
"successful" attack would cause little more than damage to physical structures at the plant, and perhaps a temporary
shutdown of the reactor, but would not in any credible scenario lead to a major radiation release.
The remaining three scenarios deserve more careful consideration, as loss of cooling or supercriticality could occur.
Attack Scenario #6. The primary protection against sabotage from within lies in the stringent clearance and screening
procedures that are in place. Nevertheless, a group of technically sophisticated and ruthless infiltrators could do serious
damage, if they could disable most or all of the non-collaborating employees (operators, security forces, maintenance
technicians, and on-site NRC monitors). Given enough time and materials, such a group could presumably create a
criticality accident, or loss of cooling, or both, leading to destruction of the reactor. As far as we know, such an attack
cannot be completely ruled out, but it would be many times harder to plan and execute than the World Trade Center
attack, and would require far greater technical expertise, along with detailed inside knowledge.
Off-site release of some radioactivity would seem to be a distinct possibility in this scenario, but is by no means assured
(as explained above, the Chernobyl dispersal mechanism is not available). The radiological consequences might well be
similar to those of TMI - i.e., negligible. Difficulty in infiltrating the power-plant organization, combined with
uncertain infliction of major damage, should motivate terrorists to seek easier routes to their goal.
Attack Scenario #7: Nuclear Regulatory Commission News Release No. 01-112 reports that "detailed engineering
analyses of a large airliner crash have not yet been performed." Pending such an analysis, a reasonable speculation is
that only a direct hit on the reactor building by one of the heavy engines of the incoming airplane could crack the thick
concrete containment. This would require extremely precise guidance of the aircraft by the hijacking pilot. Whether the
engine would enter the containment is an open question. Even if it does, the reactor vessel is unlikely to be breached,
because it is a heavy steel shell surrounded and protected by thick concrete radiation shielding.
We know of no credible way, in this scenario, that the reactor could go supercritical to cause a steam explosion. The
chain reaction would shut down, for a number of reasons, but cooling could be lost. If so, and if, as is likely, the reactor
had been operating for some time, the decay heat could melt the core. Since a steam explosion following loss of cooling
is unlikely (see Loss of cooling, above), the hot fuel might melt through the reactor vessel after a few hours, and spread
out in the substructure, where it would eventually freeze in a subcritical configuration.
Some fraction of the more volatile fission products (such as iodine, cesium, and the noble gases) might escape to the
atmosphere. With a timely and orderly evacuation of nearby residents, in accordance with the site's emergency plan, no
serious off-site irradiation of the public should occur.
The burning jet fuel would scarcely aggravate the situation - it would have been distributed over a considerable area,
and would have burned off well before the molten reactor fuel penetrated the reactor vessel.

50
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 t er ro ri sm ( ge ne ri c)
Attack Scenario #8: A jetliner could be crashed into spent-fuel storage. Typically, used reactor fuel is allowed to cool
for five or ten years under nine or more feet of water in storage pools, and then, pending final disposition, is transferred
to interim dry-cask storage. Both of those facilities tend to be on-site, near the reactor. Such a building, being just one
of several low buildings in the complex, would be even trickier for the terrorist-pilot to identify and hit than the reactor
containment.
While this event may not yet have been fully analyzed, in light of the World Trade Center disaster, informed
speculation can give a reasonable picture of the potential consequences.
The dry casks are made of concrete or thick steel, providing good protection of their contents. If the dry-storage facility
were directly hit by the jetliner, a few of those casks might be broken, but the ensuing fire could not disperse a large
amount of radioactivity. Nevertheless, local evacuation might be called for. A lesson to be learned from Chernobyl is
that the only significant off-site exposure to the public was due to food contaminated with iodine-131, which seeks the
thyroid. Since I-131 has a half-life of only eight days, there is very little of it remaining in spent fuel that has been
stored for more than a few weeks. Therefore - especially with evacuation of nearby residents - radiological risk to the
populace would be very small.
The storage pools are somewhat more vulnerable, although they are not pushovers. For one thing, much of their water
would have to be removed if a significant release of radioactivity were to occur, and many such pools are largely
below-grade. The burning jet fuel by itself will not remove the water, since it will float on top as it burns, without
boiling off much water.
For a limiting, worst-case event, one can visualize the hijackers achieving such a precise hit that the aircraft splashes
out most of the water and crushes an appreciable fraction of the fuel elements stored there. Perhaps the shock wave lifts
some radioactive debris out of the pool and scatters it near the building. Jet fuel runs into the pool and burns. The fire is
not hot enough even to melt the reactor fuel pellets, but radioactive fission products, especially the more volatile ones,
could escape from the disrupted fuel assemblies and be transported into the atmosphere by hot gases from the jet-fuel
fire.
A local evacuation would undoubtedly be ordered. However, such dispersal of radioactivity from a storage pool would
in no way be comparable to what happened at Chernobyl; the stored fuel is five or ten times less radioactive than fuel
from an operating reactor, and most important, as mentioned above, the iodine-131 would be largely or entirely missing
because of its short half-life. No significant irradiation of members of the public would be expected, the most serious
consequences probably being anxiety and possibly panic.
Since the storage-pool building is not nearly as hardened as a reactor containment, a jetliner considerably smaller than a
767 might be sufficient to disrupt it. This fact alone might make the pool a more attractive target than the reactor itself.
Summary: A terrorist assault on a nuclear power plant would attract a lot of attention, and some types of attack could
conceivably prompt a limited evacuation. However, the chance of dangerous release of radioactivity to the atmosphere
is remote, and there seems to be no credible way that any members of the public could be seriously irradiated. Many
easier and more lucrative targets (where damage could be comparable to the World Trade Center disaster) are available
for terrorists to attack. Our ultimate protection against terrorism will lie in lack of terrorists, not in scarcity of targets.

Plants are not vulnerable to attacks-they are designed around non-


combustible materials
Cravens, 8
Gwyneth, writer, associate editor for Harpers magazine, terrorism and nuclear energy: understanding the risks,
http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/spring_weapons_cravens.aspx
Could terrorists turn any of our reactors into a Chernobyl? Again, extremely unlikely. American reactors have a
completely different design. All reactors require a medium around the fuel rods to slow down the neutrons given off by
the controlled chain reaction that ultimately produces heat to make steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. In
the United States the medium is water, which also acts as a coolant. In the Chernobyl reactor it was graphite. Water is
not combustible, but graphite—pure carbon—is combustible at high temperatures. Abysmal management, reckless
errors, violation of basic safety procedures, and poor engineering at Chernobyl caused the core to melt down through
several floors. A subsequent explosion involving steam and hydrogen blew off the roof (there was no containment
structure) and ignited the graphite. Most of the radioactive core spewed out.

51
NU 08-09 p. 52 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 t er ro ri sm ( ge ne ri c)
Nuclear plants are impenetrable fortresses, terrorists would never
be able to successfully attack
Cravens, 8
Gwyneth, writer, associate editor for Harpers magazine, terrorism and nuclear energy: understanding the risks,
http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/spring_weapons_cravens.aspx
U.S. nuclear power plants, which are subject to both federal and international regulation, are designed to withstand
extreme events and are among the sturdiest and most impenetrable structures on the planet—second only to nuclear
bunkers. Three nesting containment barriers shield the fuel rods. First, metal cladding around the rods contains fission
products during the life of the fuel. Then a large steel vessel with walls about five inches thick surrounds the reactor
and its coolant. And enclosing that is a large building made of a shell of steel covered with reinforced concrete four to
six feet thick. After the truck-bomb explosion at the World Trade Center in 1993 and the crash of a station wagon
driven by a mentally ill intruder into the turbine building (not the reactor building) at Three Mile Island, plants
multiplied vehicle and other barriers and stepped up detection systems, access controls, and alarm stations. Plants also
enhanced response strategies tested by mock raids by commandos familiar with plant layouts. These staged intrusions
have occasionally been successful, leading to further corrections. On September 11, all nuclear facilities were put on
highest alert indefinitely. Still more protective barriers are being erected. The NRC, after completing a thorough review
of all levels of plant security, has just mandated additional personnel screening and access controls as well as closer
cooperation with local law-enforcement agencies. Local governments have posted state troopers or the National Guard
around commercial plants, and military surveillance continues.
What if terrorists gained access to a reactor? An attempt to melt down the core would activate multiple safeguards,
including alternate means of providing coolant as well as withdrawal of the fuel rods from the chain reaction process.

52
NU 08-09 p. 53 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 M el td ow ns
Western plant designs are safe. They operate the opposite of the
way the Chernobyl reactor did.
Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
As to the safety of nuclear power stations, there is now a significant history to demonstrate that these concerns are no
longer justified, even if they may have had some precautionary legitimacy in the 1970s. It has long been recognized
that the Chernobyl accident was caused by features unique to the Soviet-style RBMK (reactor bolshoy moshchnosti
kanalniy—high-power channel reactor). When reactors of that sort get too hot, the rate of the nuclear reaction increases
—the reverse of what happens in most Western reactors. Moreover, RBMK reactors do not have containment shells that
prevent radioactive material from getting out. The worse incident in the history of nuclear power, Chernobyl killed just
56 people and made 20 square miles of land uninhabitable. (The exclusion zone has now become a haven for wildlife,
which is thriving.)

Western plans don’t use graphite-meaning there can be no


persistent fire. This checks a meltdown
Marsh and Stanford, 1
November, Gerald, physicist who served with the US START delegation/consultant to the office of the chief of naval operations on
strategic nuclear policy and technology, George, nuclear reactor physicist, “terrorism and nuclear power: what are the risks?”, National
Policy analysis
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA374.html
At Chernobyl there was a steam explosion, but it took a persistent graphite fire to inject the radioactivity into the
atmosphere. The health consequences of that accident have been grossly exaggerated in the popular press [see
endnote ]. Even so, the Chernobyl consequences were much worse than what reasonably could happen in the United
States. One reason is that current Western power reactors do not use graphite - there can be no fire, and without a fire
there is no plausible way to put such a large amount of radioactivity into the atmosphere, even with a steam explosion
that somehow breaches the containment.

Even a full meltdown would not cause a nuclear explosion, a


reactor is too large to produce the necessary density and heat
Cravens, 8
Gwyneth, writer, associate editor for Harpers magazine, terrorism and nuclear energy: understanding the risks,
http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/spring_weapons_cravens.aspx
Could any of the 103 nuclear reactors in the United States be turned into a bomb? No. The laws of physics preclude it.
In a nuclear weapon, radioactive atoms are packed densely enough within a small chamber to initiate an instantaneous
explosive chain reaction. A reactor is far too large to produce the density and heat needed to create a nuclear explosion.

53
NU 08-09 p. 54 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 M el td ow ns
Meltdowns will not happen-new safety measures check another
disaster
Cravens, 8
Gwyneth, writer, associate editor for Harpers magazine, terrorism and nuclear energy: understanding the risks,
http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/spring_weapons_cravens.aspx
A similar meltdown at the Three Mile Island power plant in 1979—one caused by equipment malfunctions and human
failure to grasp what was happening and respond appropriately—involved no large explosion, no breach. The reactor
automatically shut down. Loss of coolant water caused half the core to melt, but its debris was held by the containment
vessel. Contaminated water flooded the reactor building, but no one was seriously injured. A minute quantity of
radioactive gases (insignificant, especially in comparison to the radionuclides routinely discharged from coal-fired
plants in the region) escaped through a charcoal-filtered stack and was dissipated by wind over the Atlantic, never
reaching the ground. The people and land around the plant were unharmed.
In response, the NRC initiated more safeguards at all plants, including improvements in equipment monitoring,
redundancy (with two or more independent systems for every safety-related function), personnel training, and
emergency responsiveness. The commission also started a safety rating system that can affect the price of plant owners'
stock. The new science of probabilistic risk assessment, developed to ensure the safety of the world's first permanent
underground nuclear waste-disposal facility, has led to new risk-informed regulation. In over two decades no
meltdowns have occurred and minor mishaps at all nuclear plants have decreased sharply. Cuts by Congress in the
NRC's annual research budget over the past 20 years—from $200 million to $43 million—may have considerably
compromised ongoing reforms and effectiveness, however.

54
NU 08-09 p. 55 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 nucle ar w as te

Department of energy studies indicate such a small radiation


leakage that there is no impact on the local health.
Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
In the U.S., unfortunately, reprocessing was stopped during the Carter administration, in the naïve belief that other
countries would follow suit and thereby reduce the amount of plutonium available for weapons proliferation. For that
reason, the U.S. has rather more nuclear waste than any other nation, about 144 million pounds of it. Since 1987, the
U.S. has focused its own efforts at geological disposal at a remote Nevada site called Yucca Mountain, located within a
former nuclear-test facility. The story of Yucca Mountain is well-known—it has become a political football as pro- and
anti-nuclear forces try to accelerate or delay (or even stop) the facility’s commissioning. Legal challenges have focused
on the question of how much radiation will escape to the public from the facility—over a timeline of a million years.
The Department of Energy has calculated that exposure will be no more than 0.98 mrem per year, up to a million years
into the future. Even those who hold to the stringent LNT view of radiation should be satisfied. With that settled, the
Department of Energy announced in 2006 that Yucca Mountain would open for business in 2017.

Reprocessing will allow for an end to the nuclear waste problem-it


can be safely recycled
Living on Earth, 6
March 10th, 2006, radio program, Recycling nuclear waste
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00010&segmentID=1
For 30 years, U.S. government policy has banned the reprocessing of nuclear waste. Presidents since Gerald Ford have
concluded that reprocessing was too costly and too risky – it creates weapons-grade plutonium that could fall into the
hands of terrorists or rogue states.
Now the Bush administration wants to reverse that policy with something called the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership. It's a multi-billion dollar research effort aimed at recycling spent fuel not just from reactors in the U.S., but
in the future from developing countries as well.
Living on Earth's Jeff Young reports from Washington.
YOUNG: Recycling your trash is a good idea, right? So Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell asks, why not recycle
our nuclear waste?
SELL: All leading thinkers that have looked at nuclear power, that have looked at how we can accomplish our goals for
clean development, recognize that that will eventually lead us to recycling of spent fuel.
YOUNG: Sell says technology called UREX Plus developed in DOE labs, could allow for that to safely happen. Waste
from traditional light water reactors would go through a chemical process separating some elements. It would not yield
pure plutonium, as technology now used in Europe and Asia does. Instead, plutonium would be bound up with other
chemicals in a material that could later be fuel for an advanced reactor.
SELL: It allows you to extract much greater energy out of the spent fuel, and it also results in a waste form at the end of
the process that is much more stable and much easier to dispose of.
YOUNG: The proposal also aims for greater international control of the movement of nuclear materials. If a developing
country wanted nuclear power, it could lease fuel from the US, France or Britain, then return the waste for
reprocessing.
SELL: If a country has the ability to enrich uranium, or to reprocess plutonium, it effectively has the bomb.
YOUNG: So that's Sell's sales pitch: slow the spread of nuclear weapons materials, get more energy from fuel, and
reduce waste. His first audience on Capitol Hill was receptive. New Mexico Republican Senator, Pete Domenici , is a
fan of nuclear power and reprocessing.
DOMENICI: In the 70s the US decided to abandon its leadership on nuclear recycling and let the rest of the world pass
us by. With the creation of this new global nuclear energy program we're going to get back into the ballgame.

55
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 nucle ar w as te
Yucca Mountain wont leak-it would store the waste above
groundwater, making any leakage delayed and slow
Whipple, 96
Chris, vice president of ICF Kaiser, an environmental engineering, remediation and consulting company. He was chairman of the
National Academy of Sciences’s Board on Radioactive Waste Management and now heads the Environmental Protection Agency’s
advisory committee on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, “Can nuclear waste be stored safely at Yucca Mountain?”, June 1996
http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/papers/nuclear/Sci_Am/Yucca_Mountain_1996_10696072B.pdf
A great deal of effort has gone into discovering and analyzing the ways in which humans could be exposed to
radioactive materials from a waste repository. Dozens of scenarios have been offered. In the one that has received the
most attention, waste canisters corrode, and water leaches radioactive elements (radionuclides) out of the spent fuel or
vitrified high-level waste, then carries them into the groundwater. People would be exposed if they used the water for
any of the usual purposes: drinking, washing or irrigation. A repository at Yucca Mountain, however, would have some
inherent resistance to such occurrences. The repository would store the waste above the groundwater, in what is known
as unsaturated rock. Depending on how much water flows down through the mountain and contacts the waste, the
movement of radioactive materials into groundwater can be delayed for a long time and can occur at a limited rate in
comparison to what might occur at a site below the water table.

56
NU 08-09 p. 57 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 H ealt h
Background radiation from a plant is smaller than pretty much any
other source-it cannot cause health problems
Cravens, 8
Gwyneth, writer, associate editor for Harpers magazine, terrorism and nuclear energy: understanding the risks,
http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/spring_weapons_cravens.aspx
Natural background radiation: 240 millirem worldwide (300 millirem in the United States). The earth's core is a natural
reactor, and all life evolved within a cloud of radiation stronger than background radiation is today. Cosmic rays,
sunlight, rocks, soil, radon, water, and even the human body are radioactive—blood and bones contain radionuclides.
Exposure is higher in certain locations and occupations than in others (airline flight personnel receive greater than
average lifetime doses of cosmic radiation).
Diagnostic medical radiation: 40 millirem (60 millirem in the United States). This is the largest source of manmade
radiation affecting humans. Other common manmade sources include mining residues, microwave ovens, televisions,
smoke detectors, and cigarette smoke—a pack and a half a day equals four daily chest x-rays.
Coal combustion: 2 millirem. Every year in the United States alone, coal-fired plants, which provide about half of the
nation's electricity, expel, along with toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases, 100 times the radioactivity of nuclear
plants: hundreds of tons of uranium and thorium, daughter products like radium and radon, and hundreds of pounds of
uranium-235. Radioactive fly ash, a coal byproduct used in building and paving materials, contributes an additional
dose. Coal pollutants are estimated to cause about 15,000 premature deaths annually in the United States.
Nuclear power: 0.02 millirem (0.05 in the United States). The Environmental Protection Agency, whose standards are
the world's strictest, limits exposure from a given site to 15 millirem a year—far lower than average background
radiation.
For radiation to begin to damage DNA enough to produce noticeable health effects, exposure must dramatically
increase—to about 20 rem, or 20,000 millirem. Above 100 rem, or 100,000 millirem, diseases manifest. Whether low-
dosage radiation below a certain threshold poses no danger and may in fact be essential to organisms is controversial
(the Department of Energy began the human genome project to help determine if such a threshold exists). If exposure is
not too intense or prolonged, cells can usually repair themselves. Radiation is used widely to treat and to research
illnesses.

57
NU 08-09 p. 58 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 Canc er /s afe ty
There is zero medical evidence to back up claims of cancer deaths
because of nuclear plants
Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
There are suggestions that hundreds or thousands more may die because of long-term effects, but these estimates are
based on the controversial Linear Non-Threshold (LNT) theory about the effects of radiation. Official EPA doctrine,
based on the LNT theory, holds that no level of radiation is safe, and that the maximum allowable exposure to radiation
is an extremely stringent 15 millirems (mrem) per year. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, researchers discovered that
600,000 mrem was a sufficient dose of radiation to kill anyone exposed to it, and 400,000 mrem killed half the people
exposed. Symptoms of radiation sickness develop at 75,000–100,000 mrem. By extrapolating linearly, the model holds
that there is no level of radiation at which someone is not adversely affected (hence “nonthreshold”). Therefore, if a
million people are exposed to a very low dose of radiation—say 500 mrem—then 6,250 of them will die of cancer
brought on by the exposure. At least according to the theory. But this is mere assumption, with no epidemiological
evidence to back it up. As Prof. Donald W. Miller Jr. of the University of Washington School of Medicine wrote in
2004, “Known and documented health-damaging effects of radiation—radiation sickness, leukemia, and death—are
only seen with doses greater than 100 rem [which is to say, 100,000 mrem]. The risk of doses less than 100 rem is a
black box into which regulators extend ‘extrapolated data.’ There are no valid epidemiologic or experimental data to
support linearly extrapolated predictions of cancer resulting from low doses of radiation.” In fact, Americans are
naturally exposed to around 200 mrem a year of background radiation. In some places around the world that
background level is much higher. In Ramsar, Iran, thanks to the presence of natural radium in the vicinity, residents get
26,000 mrem a year, but there is no increased incidence of cancer or shortened lifespan. This is a real problem for the
LNT theory. The predicteddeaths and cancer cases haven’t materialized. In Britain, much hay was made by Greenpeace
and other organizations of the emergence of greater incidences of leukemia in children living near the nuclear-
reprocessing plant at Sellafield in the early 1990s. But such “cancer clusters” appear all over the place, and are just as
likely to appear next to an organic farm—to borrow the formulation of British environment writer Rob Johnston—as
next to a nuclear facility. There does not appear to be any greater incidence of leukemia in the children of those who
work in the nuclear industry. In fact, there is so little evidence of significant safety risks related to nuclear power that
the British government “continues to believe that new nuclear power stations would pose very small risks to safety,
security, health and proliferation,” according to a recent analysis it undertook. It also believes that “these risks are
minimized and sensibly managed by industry.”

58
NU 08-09 p. 59 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 pr olif er ation
Proliferation is inevitable-an increase in energy plants wont impact
it
Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
As for the problem of nuclear proliferation, the unpleasant fact is that every country that has been willing to invest the
time and effort required to make a nuclear weapon has succeeded. The existence of nuclear power plants in Western
countries has nothing to do with this.

Nuclear plants use lower-quality fuel which is proliferation proof


Murray, 6/16
National Review, Ian, senior fellow at the competitive enterprise institute, Nuclear power, yes please, EBSCO
In fact, in order to keep plants economical, fuel rods are kept in the reactor long enough that the weapons-grade
plutonium, Pu-239, absorbs another neutron and becomes the much less dangerous Pu-240. To be effective in a
weapon, a given volume of plutonium must contain no more than 7 percent Pu-240. Spent fuel from civilian nuclear
plants is typically composed of about 26 percent Pu- 240. This makes it extremely difficult even for experts to use in
the manufacture of nuclear weapons—and well nigh impossible for amateurs.

Proliferation is inevitable-choosing to not invest in nuclear energy


will not slow it
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 8
May/June 2008, “talking about nuclear energy”, EBSCO HOST
Bethe hit many of the same notes that resonate today as part of the nuclear energy discussion: waste, safety,
proliferation, and cost. He labeled nuclear proliferation the largest risk that accompanied nuclear energy but concluded
that a U.S. decision to not invest in nuclear would not slow proliferation. This remains the case today.

59
NU 08-09 p. 60 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

2AC T -alt erna tiv e


1.We meet: Our inherency and solvency evidence indicates nuclear
is on life-support because no new plants have been built. It is not
currently in widespread usage because it is being slowly phased
out by attrition and an increase in conventional sources production.

2.Counter-interpretation: Alternative refers to fossil fuels. Any


source that doesn’t consume conventional fossil fuels is topical.
US Department of the interior, 8
http://www.mms.gov/offshore/AlternativeEnergy/Definitions.htm
Alternative energy: Fuel sources that are other than those derived from fossil fuels. Typically used interchangeably for
renewable energy. Examples include: wind, solar, biomass, wave and tidal energy.

3.We meet: Nuclear energy is an alternative to fossil fuel


production-that’s the 1AC oil dependence solvency evidence.

4.Counter-standards
A.Framers intent: the term alternative energy shouldn’t be
examined in a vacuum, the topic clearly is about alternatives to
fossil fuels, not alternatives to every fuel we might be using right
now.

B.No aff meets their definition: solar, wind, hydroelectric, etc are
all in significant usage already.

C. Predictability: Current literature around alternative energy is


primarily about reducing dependence on oil and reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. Its about an alternative to fossil fuels,
not an alternative to every source we use now.

60
NU 08-09 p. 61 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

A2 T -alt ern ativ e


Alternative energy is anything other than coal, oil, or natural gas
Science Clarified, no date
“alternative energy sources”
http://www.scienceclarified.com/Al-As/Alternative-Energy-Sources.html
Alternative energy is energy provided from sources other than the three fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.
Alternative sources of energy include nuclear power, solar power, wind power, water power, and geothermal energy,
among others.

61
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

** *N ega tiv e** *

62
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

T- alte rnati ve : 1NC


A.The interpretation: Alternative implies a source not currently in
widespread usage.
Australian Academy of Science, 5
NOVA, science in the news, Glossary- harnessing direct solar energy – a progress report
http://www.science.org.au/nova/005/005glo.htm
alternative energy sources. Energy sources different from those in widespread use at the moment (which are referred to
as conventional). Alternative energy usually includes solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydroelectric and geothermal energy.
Although they each have their own drawbacks, none of these energy sources produces significant air pollution, unlike
conventional sources.

Nuclear is the second largest source of energy in the US.


Policy Almanac, 3
Mark Holt and Carl Behrens, Congressional research service, “Nuclear energy in the United States”
http://www.policyalmanac.org/environment/archive/nuclear_energy.shtml
Nevertheless, all is not bleak for the U.S. nuclear power industry, which currently comprises 103 licensed reactors at 65
plant sites in 31 states. (That number excludes the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA's) Browns Ferry 1, which has not
operated since 1985; the TVA Board decided May 16, 2002, to spend about $1.8 billion to restart the reactor by 2007.)
Electricity production from U.S. nuclear power plants is greater than that from oil, natural gas, and hydropower, and
behind only coal, which accounts for more than half of U.S. electricity generation. Nuclear plants generate more than
half the electricity in six states. The 772 billion kilowatt-hours of nuclear electricity generated in the United States
during 2002 was more than the nation's entire electrical output in 1963, when the first of today's large-scale commercial
reactors were being ordered.

B.the violation: The plan is an incentive to promote nuclear power.

C.standards
1.Predictable limits: Topic Authors agree that nuclear is already a
significant source of energy in the US, meaning solvency advocates
view it as an expansion of an existing energy source, rather than an
alternative to current energy sources.

2.Ground: Impossible for negative to get unique disads to a source


of energy that is already widely used which encourages silly
uniqueness counterplans and a race to the bottom for aff plan texts.

D.Voter for fairness and jurisdiction.

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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

T- Alte rnativ e ca rd s
Nuclear power is not alternative energy-the term implies a source
not popularly used. Nuclear already supplies a large chunk of our
power.
Natural Resources defense council, no date
http://www.nrdc.org/reference/glossary/a.asp
alternative energy - energy that is not popularly used and is usually environmentally sound, such as solar or wind
energy (as opposed to fossil fuels).

Alternative energy explicitly excludes nuclear power.


Oxford English dictionary, 4
Accessed via UNLV, oxford English dictionary
alternative energy n. [perhaps orig. shortened < alternative energy sources and similar phrases, rather than a simple qualification of
ENERGY n.] energy obtained from a source other than conventional or fossil fuels (usually excluding nuclear energy); spec. energy,
such as wind, solar, or tidal energy, obtained in a way that does not deplete the earth's resources or otherwise harm the environment.

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1NC En er gy T ran siti on FL


1.Turn: Nuclear power releases CFC gas during enrichment and
coal-powered plants, excacerbating global warming
Caldicott, 4
9/24, Helen Caldicott, one of the world’s most respected anti nuclear activists, Democracy Now, Is nuclear power the solution to
global warming, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/9/24/is_nuclear_power_the_solution_to
DR. HELEN CALDICOTT: Well, I have just discovered from the Department of Energy’s data, that the enrichment of
uranium produces 93% per year of the C.F.C. gas in this country, which is currently banned under the Montreal
Protocol because it produces destruction of the ozone layer. In Australia, we’ve got an epidemic of skin cancer because
the ozone is so thin. C.F.C. gas, which is the refrigerant gas banned, is up to 20 times more potent global warmer than
carbon dioxide, which accounts for 15% of global warming. But also, to enrich uranium, they use 2 two 1,000
megawatt coal power plants to enrich the uranium itself for nuclear power. Massive quantities of carbon dioxide are
produced in that very process but also in building the reactors, storing the radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands
of years.

2.No solvency-even with a massive ramp-up, other sources of


energy would be needed and emissions wouldn’t be affected for 20
years.
Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007
March, Nuclear power and global warming, position paper
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/nuclear-power-and-climate.html
Nuclear power is not the silver bullet for “solving” the global warming problem. Many other technologies will be
needed to address global warming even if a major expansion of nuclear power were to occur. A major expansion of
nuclear power in the United States is not feasible in the near term. Even under an ambitious deployment scenario, new
plants could not make a substantial contribution to reducing U.S. global warming emissions for at least two decades.

3.No solvency: Nuclear power can only address a fraction of the


problem, it wont affect heating or gas
Hertsgaard, 5
August 7th, Nuclear energy cant solve global warming, other remedies 7 times more beneficial, SF Gate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/07/ING95E1VQ71.DTL
A second strike against nuclear is that it produces only electricity, but electricity amounts to only one third of America's
total energy use (and less of the world's). Nuclear power thus addresses only a small fraction of the global warming
problem, and has no effect whatsoever on two of the largest sources of carbon emissions: driving vehicles and heating
buildings.

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1NC En er gy T ran siti on FL


4.Renewable sources will solve climate change-we don’t need
nuclear
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
The whole of society's energy demands amount to less than 0.1% of the energy we receive from the sun each year. So
far there are only limited places where we can harness this solar energy in an effective way but this gives an indication
of the vast potential of renewable energy sources. Chances for renewable energy will increase substantially in a
supportive economic climate and when governments set ambitious but realistic targets. In some countries, such as
Germany, the scientific community operates in important studies with an ambitious target of 46% renewable energy
sources by 2050 (Johansson et. al, 2004). Renewable energy sources have multiple benefits. Not only is their use free
from greenhouse gas emissions but they can also increase diversity in the energy market. Thereby they will reduce
dependence on specific energy sources and so increase security of supply. They can provide long-term sustainability of
our energy supply. And because of their small-scale applicability, they can be used in rural areas of less developed
countries that are not connected to gas and electricity networks.
In the medium term it is possible to supply all of the world's energy needs through renewable sources based on current
technology (i.e. not including the further developments to be made in the future). This scenario has been depicted in
three separate studies, compiled by The Union of Concerned Scientists in the USA (1978); The International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis for Europe (1981); Enquete Commission of the German Bundestag (2002). While none
of these studies have ever been seriously refuted, they have all been largely ignored by conventional experts (Scheer,
2004).

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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Nu cle ar po we r re le as es GH G-E xt ensi ons


Turn: Nuclear energy requires massive greenhouse gas emissions
to build the plants and mine uranium
Hanley, 4/29
The star phoenix, Paul, Nuclear power not the solution to global warming, l/n
Nuclear power appears to be making a comeback. With the emergence of global warming, the hopes of the industry
have revived based on a growing sense that, nasty as it is, nuclear may be better than coal.
Politicians and industry interests -- including some influential people in Saskatchewan and Alberta -- are touting
uranium as the climate-change fighting fuel of the future. Nuclear power is now being advertised as green, greenhouse-
gas free and sustainable.
Would that it were. Unfortunately, investing in the nuclear industry is quite likely the worst thing we could do in the
fight against global warming.
According to an article published in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, nuclear
energy production would have to increase by 10 per cent each year from 2010 to 2050 to meet future energy demands
and replace fossil fuels. The report claims this rate of growth is completely unsustainable.
Nuclear is unsustainable because building all the uranium mines, mills and refineries and nuclear plants needed to
replace coal would be hugely energy, resource and capital intensive. According to the author, physicist Joshua Pearce,
rapidly building out the nuclear cycle would effectively "cannibalize" all the energy produced by earlier nuclear power
plants.
Pearce claims there are several problems that cannot be overcome if the nuclear power option is pursued in preference
to conservation and renewable energy sources. In addition to the high embodied energy costs, there are also growth
limits set by the grade of uranium ore. "The limit of uranium ore grade to offset greenhouse-gas emissions is
significantly higher than the purely thermodynamic limit set by the energy payback time," he explains.
I interject at this point that an all-out adoption of the nuclear option would amount to an environmental catastrophe for
northern Saskatchewan, which would have to be pulverized to produce all the uranium needed.
Pearce's analysis of the uranium production, nuclear power and waste disposal cycle indicates that nuclear power is far
from the GHG emissions-free panacea claimed by the industry. Each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, including power
plant construction, mining/milling uranium ores, fuel conversion, enrichment (or de-enrichment of nuclear weapons),
fabrication, operation, decommissioning, and short- and long-term waste disposal contribute to greenhouse-gas
emissions.
Even though emissions from nuclear are small compared to fossil fuels, Pearce says if nuclear power were pursued as
the major option over the next 40 years, we would be in no better a position in terms of emissions than we are today
because of the enormous amount of conventional fossil fuel energy needed to build out the nuclear power cycle.

Nuclear energy releases massive amounts of greenhouse gases


Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
However, in various stages of the nuclear process huge amounts of energy are needed, much more than for less
complex forms of electricity production. Most of this energy comes in the form of fossil fuels, and therefore nuclear
power indirectly emits a relatively high amount of greenhouse gases. Emissions from the nuclear industry are strongly
dependent on the percentage of uranium in the ores used to fuel the nuclear process, which is expected to decrease
dramatically. Recent studies estimate that nuclear power production causes the emission of just 3 times fewer
greenhouse gases than modern natural gas power stations.

67
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Nu cle ar po we r r ele as es GH G-E xt ens ion s


Nuclear energy releases greenhouse gas emissions
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
It is true that the actual fission process whereby electricity is generated does not release greenhouse gases. However, in
various stages of the nuclear process (e.g. mining, uranium enrichment, building and decommissioning of power plants,
processing and storing radioactive waste) huge amounts of energy are needed, much more than for less complex forms
of electricity production. Most of this energy comes in the form of fossil fuels, and therefore nuclear power indirectly
generates a relatively high amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

68
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Plan do es n’t s ol ve o th er e mi ss ion s- ext en sion s


No solvency: other causes of greenhouse gases would continue
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
Switching the entire world's electricity production to nuclear would still not solve the problem. Moreover, by diverting
the world’s resources from sustainable energy production to nuclear power, it would only exacerbate the problem by
diverting scare resources away from those technologies which offer real hope for addressing climate change.This is
partly because the production of electricity is only one of many human activities that release greenhouse gases. Others
include transport and heating, agriculture, the production of cement and deforestation. The CO2 released worldwide
through electricity production accounts for only 9% of total annual human greenhouse gas emissions.

Other sources of greenhouse gas would cause warming


Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
The contribution of electricity production to greenhouse gas emissions The myth that nuclear power provides a solution
to climate change is based on the assumption that the generation of electricity by nuclear fission does not lead to
greenhouse gas emissions. However, even if this were the case, switching the entire world's electricity production to
nuclear would still not solve the problem. This is because the production of electricity is 9 only one of many human
activities that release greenhouse gases. Others include transport and heating, agriculture, the production of cement and
deforestation. The CO2 released worldwide through electricity production accounts for 9% of total annual human
greenhouse gas emissions (UIC, 2001b).

69
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Re ne wa ble s ou rc es so lv e in SQ-e xt ens ion s


Renewable energy sources will solve climate change-we don’t need
nuclear power
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
In the medium term it is possible to supply all of the world's energy needs through renewable sources based on current
technology. Renewable energy sources have multiple benefits. They are free from greenhouse gas emissions and can
also increase diversity in the energy market. They can provide long-term sustainability of our energy supply and can be
used in rural areas of less developed countries that are not connected to gas and electricity networks.

Wind, fuel cells, and solar will all solve emissions more effectively
than nuclear power
Lovins, 3
Amory, hydrogen economy: not so difficult—without nuclear power, submitted to nature, 23 August, 2003
http://rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E03-07_H2EconNotDiff.pdf
Global windpower could more than power the world. Its installed capacity rose in 2002 from 24 to 31 GW—twice what
global nuclear power’s global average annual increment in the 1990s. Investors shun nuclear power in favour of wind
and two even cheaper alternatives— ~90%-efficient gas-fired combined-heat-and-power at industrial or building scale,
and end-use efficiency—to be joined in time by fuel cells and even solar cells. Micropower’s extra order-ofmagnitude
economic value from “distributed benefits” makes its edge over any new central station unassailable9.

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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Plants w ont b e built fa st en oug h-e xt ens ion s


Plants wont be built fast enough to combat climate change
Parenti 8
Christian, April 24th, “What nuclear renaissance?”, 2008, The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/parenti
Even if a society were ready to absorb the high costs of nuclear power, it hardly makes the most sense as a tool to
quickly combat climate change. These plants take too long to build. A 2004 analysis in Science by Stephen Pacala and
Robert Socolow, of Princeton University's Carbon Mitigation Initiative, estimates that achieving just one-seventh of the
carbon reductions necessary to stabilize atmospheric CO2 at 500 parts per billion would require "building about 700
new 1,000-megawatt nuclear plants around the world." That represents a huge wave of investment that few seem
willing to undertake, and it would require decades to accomplish.

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1NC E co no my FL
1.Even a nuclear power Ramp-up will not be sufficient to avert the
economic disaster of climate change legislation
Spencer, 8
Jack, research fellow in nuclear energy at the Thomas A Roe institute for economy policy studies at the heritage foundation, Heritage
foundation, Nuclear power needed to minimize Lieberman-warner’s economic impact, 2008
http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm1944.cfm
While building enough nuclear power plants to minimize the economic impacts of CO2 caps may be desirable, the
reality is that the global industrial base could not support such a project in the U.S., much less the rest of the world.
Thus, the amount of nuclear power required to sustain the optimistic Lieberman–Warner economic projections is
impossible to achieve within the timeframes that they would require. This is especially true as the U.S. has yet to
resolve many issues that continue to face the nuclear industry. Using such optimistic nuclear projections to support an
analysis with minimal economic consequences of S. 3036 is therefore completely unrealistic.

2.Climate change legislation wont impact global economy-would


only slow growth rates by .12 percent a year
CSM, 7
May 7th, Curbing global warming wont bankrupt economy
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0507/p02s01-wogi.html?page=2
To be sure, the efforts come at a cost to economic growth. The biggest gains happen when nations begin to impose
taxes or regulations that boost the price of carbon-dioxide emissions to $100 a ton, according to the report's authors. By
some estimates, that translates into US gasoline prices from 25 cents to $1 a gallon higher than today's.
But in the context of global economic activity, the cost is modest, according to the report. It's most aggressive
emissions-reduction scenario would slow still-respectable growth rates by an average of 0.12 percent a year between
now and 2030 – or by roughly 3 percent over the entire period.
From the administration's perspective, the results validate President Bush's reliance on new technologies to achieving
his goal of reducing the country's carbon "intensity." The White House's goal: cut 18 percent per unit of gross domestic
product by 2012.

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3.Current legislation will not impact the US economy, its not strong
enough to cause much economic damage
AP 7
July 11th, Sen Bingaman says new climate bill wont hurt economy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289020,00.html
WASHINGTON — The nation can begin to address the risks of climate change while avoiding harm to the economy,
senators said Wednesday in unveiling anti-pollution legislation.
The bill would establish a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, refineries and industrial
plants but allow companies to trade emission credits and avoid making emissions cuts if the costs become too high.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., one of the bill's chief sponsors, called it a "strong and balanced approach ... while
protecting the American economy." It also includes incentives aimed at spurring other nations such as China to address
climate change.
The bill is one of five that are being considered in the Senate to tackle global warming. It is expected to be the one most
closely embraced by industry, including companies that would be most affected.
Joining Bingaman at a news conference Wednesday to announce the legislation were executives of some of the
country's biggest coal-burning utilities and unions representing autoworkers and coal miners.
It's a "balanced and fair approach that recognizes that economic development and environmental progress can and
should go hand in hand," said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.
Among others at the news conference were chief executives of Duke Energy Co. and American Electric Power, two of
the biggest operators of coal-burning power plants that emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually.
The bill would establish carbon emission limits throughout industry to assure that the releases do not grow significantly
over the next two decades. Carbon emissions would have to be at 2006 levels in 2030, instead of growing at the rate of
more than 1 percent a year as is projected without emissions caps.

4.Climate change legislation will promote economic growth, will


cause innovation and efficiency improvements
Roland-Holst, 6
David, adjunct professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley, “Economic growth and greenhouse gas mitigation in
California”, August, 2006
http://calclimate.berkeley.edu/Growth_Strategies_ES.pdf
The analysis presented here is an update to a study released in January that concluded achieving half the 2020 targets
would promote economic growth in California (Roland- Holst, 2006). This study extends the earlier work to meet all of
the 2020 targets, and confirms the earlier conclusion about economic benefits. The positive economic results are
derived from two primary sources: savings from improvements in energy efficiency and reduced energy bills that offset
the cost of achieving emission reductions and, in related policy scenarios, the benefits of investing in technologies for
innovation. California has a long history of leadership in both of these areas, and continuing along these lines will yield
positive economic and environmental benefits for the state.

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1NC Sol ven cy FL

1.No solvency-Uranium deposits are running low and new sources


will be hard to mine
Hanley, 4/29
The star phoenix, Paul, Nuclear power not the solution to global warming, l/n
Another "eco-efficiency" assessment of nuclear power, published recently in Environmental Science and Technology,
points out that supplies of high-grade uranium ore are declining. This is likely to boost nuclear fuel's environmental and
economic costs. This will include increases in energy use, water consumption and GHG emissions. In addition, newly
discovered uranium deposits may be more difficult to extract in the future causing a further drain on economic and
environmental resources.

2. No Solvency: Nuclear energy is not economically viable


Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
In the 1970's nuclear power cost half as much as electricity from coal burning: by 1990 nuclear power cost twice as
much as electricity from coal burning (Slingerland et al, 2004). Today the costs of nuclear power are estimated to be
about $0.05-0.07/kWh making it, on average, between 2 and 4 times more expensive than electricity generated by
burning fossil fuels. Compared with some modern renewable energy sources, nuclear power has mixed fortunes: for
example it is more expensive than wind, about the same price as hydroelectric power and cogeneration with gasified
wood, and cheaper than solar energy using photovoltaic (PV) cells (Öko Institute, 1997). However, while the costs of
nuclear power are rising, those associated with renewable energy sources are falling rapidly as they are relatively new
and rapid progress is currently being made in reducing costs and increasing efficiency. In the case of nuclear power the
costs are rising and are likely to continue rising for the foreseeable future. This is partly because the nuclear industry
has been heavily subsidized by governments in the past meaning that some of the costs have been excluded from the
price, but have been paid for by the taxpayer. We all pay for the costs of nuclear energy.

4.Investors wont put up the money to get plants built


Parenti 8
April 24th, What Nuclear Renaissance?, The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/parenti
All of which raises the question: why is the much-storied "nuclear renaissance" so slow to get rolling? Who is holding
up the show? In a nutshell, blame Warren Buffett and the banks--they won't put up the cash.
"Wall street doesn't like nuclear power," says Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.
The fundamental fact is that nuclear power is too expensive and risky to attract the necessary commercial investors.
Even with vast government subsidies, it is difficult or almost impossible to get proper financing and insurance. The
massive federal subsidies on offer will cover up to 80 percent of construction costs of several nuclear power plants in
addition to generous production tax credits, as well as risk insurance. But consider this: the average two-reactor nuclear
power plant is estimated to cost $10 billion to $18 billion to build. That's before cost overruns, and no US nuclear
power plant has ever been delivered on time or on budget.

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3.Turn: Even a “safe” nuclear plant releases radiation causing
serious health damage.
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
However, there are also health risks associated with the day-to-day production of nuclear power. Employees working in
power plants are exposed to low-level radioactivity. According to a study by the University of California, based on
research at the DOE/Rocketdyne nuclear 17 facility, the risk of employee exposure to low-level radioactive waste is 6
to 8 times higher than was previously presumed (Mechtenberg-Berrigan, 2003). One should realize that there is no such
thing as a safe limit. Any amount of radiation can cause serious health damage.

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4.Turn:Proliferation
A.The link: Nuclear renaissance will cause massive nuclear
proliferation
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
One of the by-products of most nuclear reactors is plutonium-239, which can be used in nuclear weapons. The
international Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is supposed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons but a number of
countries with nuclear capabilities, including India, Pakistan and Israel, are not party in the NPT. While most countries
claim a strict delineation between nuclear power production and the military use of plutonium, it cannot be ruled out
that plutonium could be used in weapons proliferation. According to the UN Climate Panel IPCC, the security threat
would be "colossal" if nuclear power was used extensively to tackle climate change. Within the Non Proliferation
Treaty, it is completely legal to obtain all necessary technology and material and then to withdraw from the treaty prior
to deciding and announcing the wish to make nuclear weapons.

B.The impact: Proliferation would cause global nuclear war

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5.Turn:Meltdowns
A.The link:
Expansion of Nuclear power will massively increase the risk of
meltdowns. Younger plants are more vulnerable.
Union Of Concerned Scientists 8
March 27th, “Three mile island 29 years later: Nuclear safety problems still unresolved
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/three-mile-island-29-years-lat-0104.html
"Three Mile Island was almost 30 years ago so perhaps the industry and the NRC have forgotten about it," said Dave
Lochbaum, the director of UCS's Nuclear Safety Project. "But you can bet that even the people who welcome new
plants in their communities will want to know if what happened at Three Mile Island could happen to them. As of right
now, the industry and the NRC haven't done enough to ensure them it won't."
The Three Mile Island accident was triggered by a loss of reactor cooling water. Before the accident, the plant's cooling
system valves had broken down 10 times over the preceding year. Instead of replacing the faulty valves, workers
opened them manually to keep the plant operating. When other equipment problems occurred during the eleventh valve
failure in March 1979, control room operators were overwhelmed and the plant suffered a partial meltdown.
Since then, the NRC and plant owners have focused more on keeping nuclear plants running over the short-term than
ensuring their safety, Lochbaum said. That strategy has allowed a number of safety problems at plants to build up over
time. When the accumulated problems cause enough interruptions to harm a plant's profitability, owners shut them
down for extensive safety overhauls. Since Three Mile Island, utilities have had to shut down 41 plants for a year or
more, a total of 51 times.
Nuclear accidents are most likely to occur at the beginning or end of a plant's operating lifetime, Lochbaum pointed
out. When a plant first goes on line, workers have to acclimate to new equipment that has not been tested in real-world
situations. Meanwhile, at the end of a plant's life, workers have to compensate for increasingly degraded hardware.
Three Mile Island and other major nuclear accidents, including ones at Chernobyl, Browns Ferry in Alabama and Fermi
near Detroit, occurred shortly after the plants started operating. Now most of the 104 currently operating U.S. nuclear
power plants are entering the high-risk period at the end of their originally intended 40-year lifespans.
If the nuclear industry constructs a new fleet of power plants, Lochbaum said, there will be at a higher risk for a nuclear
accident because nearly all of the plants in the United States will be either very new or very old.
"If the industry wants to build a new generation of nuclear plants, it first should prove that it can safely operate the ones
currently in operation," he said. "And before the NRC approves any new plants, the agency should make sure the
industry isn't as careless with its new plants as it was with its old ones."

B.The impact: An accident would cause thousands of deaths and


hundreds of thousands of injuries and would contaminate a large
area
Union of Concerned Scientists, 7
10/9 Clean Energy: Nuclear safety
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/nuclear_safety/
Since well before the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, UCS has been the leading watchdog
on nuclear safety. That accident, along with many subsequent close calls, exposed the failings of the nuclear industry
and its government regulators to ensure safe nuclear power. While no new nuclear plants have been built since the TMI
accident, more than 100 nuclear plants continue to operate in the United States.
A severe nuclear accident has the potential to do catastrophic harm to people and the environment. A combination of
human and mechanical error could result in an accident killing several thousand people, injuring several hundred
thousand others, contaminating large areas of land, and costing billions of dollars.

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6.Turn: Nuclear Waste
A.The Link: The plan would require 10 new Yucca Mountains.
Reuters, 7
June 18th, Nuclear power cant curb global warming – report
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/42653/story.htm
Currently, the United States, the world's top nuclear power producer, has 104 plants that generate 20 percent of the
country's electricity.
Nuclear power, which has near-zero emissions of carbon dioxide, has recently come back into fashion as an alternative
to generating electricity from coal and other carbon-based sources that contribute to global warming.
While the report also supported storing US nuclear waste at power plants until the long-stalled Yucca Mountain
repository opens, 10 dumps the size of Yucca Mountain would be needed to store the extra generated waste by the
needed nuclear generation boom.
That outlook was too optimistic in light of how many new nuclear plants are currently on the drawing board, the report
said.

B.The Impact is Extinction- a terrorist attack on a storage site would


be inevitable and cause a nuclear explosion that would end
civilization
Comarow, 1
12/8, David, JD, testimony at US dept of energy public hearing, “Yucca mountain: Time to think the unthinkable”
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-energy/issues/yucca-mountain/yucca-mountain-testimony-
comarow_2001-12-08.htm
What is unthinkable? That there might be, in the next say 1000, 2000, 24000 years a person who has the charisma and
psychopathology of Osama bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Charlie Manson, -- all combined, and
access to technology like bunker-busting bombs. What is unthinkable? -- That they would use such technology to
penetrate Yucca Mountain? Or that they could? Or that we couldn't prevent it?
None of that is impossible, and therefore none of that is unthinkable. We are not talking about the short-term or even
long-term economic prosperity of Las Vegas. We are talking about nothing less than the survival of the human race.
Lest you dismiss this as just more fanatic hyperbole, let this be a reality check: Yucca Mountain will hold all of the high
level nuclear waste ever produced from every nuclear power plant in the US - with about 10% additional defense waste
-- some 77,000 tons. The danger of getting it here aside for a moment, the amount of radioactivity and energy to be
stored in one place, under that relatively tiny little bump in the desert is easily enough to contaminate and sterilize the
entire biosphere. Is that unthinkable? No. If it is possible, it is thinkable. When you are talking about these types of
risks, risks that can endanger entire segments of our population, let alone the entire earth, then the risk analysis must go
into higher gear. It is not enough to merely calculate the risks as "extremely low" - because there is no "low enough"
when the consequences are so cataclysmic. We accept certain risks, which are relatively high - 50,000 traffic deaths per
year for example. But, as terrible as those deaths and injuries are, they do not imperil our culture, our nation or the
survival of the human race. We are less willing to accept such risks when the consequences happen all at once -- plane
crashes for example. That is our human nature. We are willing to spend much more to lower the risk of death in groups
than chronic deaths spread out over time and space. As a people, as caretakers for future people, we cannot create
unnecessary catastrophic risks like biosphereicide, the agonizing death of billions.
What will our present day muskets - bunker-busting bombs, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and the like - what will they
evolve into 225 years from now? 2000 years from now? 24000 years from now? Does anyone really think this piece of
rock will prevent the future Timothy Osama bin Hitlers of the world from making it their purpose in life to breach that
fortress?

78
NU 08-09 p. 79 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Uraniu m will run ou t-e xte nsi ons


Uranium will run out in 3-4 years
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
Just as with fossil fuel, the use of uranium as fuel is limited by its availability. Uranium is a finite resource. Although
we are often told by the nuclear industry that uranium is a "plentiful commodity" (Ritch III, 2002), an examination of
the data reveals that this is not the case. How large are the planet's uranium reserves? According to the most recent
figures of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on global uranium
reserves, the total known recoverable reserves amount to 3,5 million tonnes: this refers to reasonably assured reserves
and estimated additional reserves which can be extracted at a cost of less than $80/kg (NEA & IAEA, 2004). Given that
the current use of uranium is in the order of 67,000 tonnes per year, this would give us enough uranium for about 50
years (WISE, 2003; NEA-IAEA, 2004; WNA, 2004c). Of course, the total reserves of uranium are much greater than
this; NEA and IAEA estimate the total of all conventional reserves to be in the order of 14,4 million tonnes. But not
only are these reserves very expensive to mine, and therefore not economically viable, the grades of usable uranium are
too low for net electricity production. Large parts of the presently quoted reserves (about half) are marginal already.
This is the case in Namibia, South Africa, Kazakhstan and with the Olympic Dam mine in Australia. As pointed out by
advocates of nuclear power, there are also vast amounts uranium in unconventional sources. For example uranium is
found in ocean water, but at a concentration of 0.0000002% (Storm van Leeuwen & Smith, 2004). The costs of
extracting this uranium for use in nuclear power generation would be huge. Furthermore, the extraction and enrichment
of this uranium would require more energy than could be produced with it. If we replaced all electricity generated by
burning fossil fuel with electricity from nuclear power today, there would be enough economically viable uranium to
fuel the reactors for between 3 and 4 years (O'Rourke, 2004; Storm van Leeuwen & Smith, 2004). Even if we were to
double world usage of nuclear energy, the life span of uranium reserves would be just 25 years. Therefore any potential
benefits to the climate are extremely temporary.

79
NU 08-09 p. 80 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Pro lif ex ten si ons


Plan would cause an increase in nuclear materials production
facilities-increasing the risk of proliferation for weapons use
Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007
March, Nuclear power and global warming, position paper
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/nuclear-power-and-climate.html
A major global expansion of nuclear power would require the United States to adopt domestic and foreign policies that
deal effectively with the potential threats to national and global security that would result. Under the existing non-
proliferation regime, such an expansion would be irresponsible because it would entail a corresponding growth in
facilities for producing nuclear fuels—facilities that can readily produce the materials needed to build nuclear weapons.
The government should, therefore, commit itself to reinforcing the non-proliferation regime so that it can provide
reliable control over nuclear fuels. A nuclear fuel of paramount concern is plutonium, which can serve as a highly
effective material for nuclear weapons. For that reason, U.S. policy has long barred the extraction (“reprocessing”) of
plutonium from spent power reactor fuel. The Bush administration broke with this policy by proposing the Global
Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which includes reprocessing as its central component. Contrary to the
administration’s claims, GNEP shows no prospect of creating a proliferationresistant nuclear fuel cycle or of solving
the waste disposal problem. The technologies required for turning this vision into reality do not exist, while the
proposed waste disposal scheme is considerably more costly and substantially less proliferationresistant than the
current practice of direct disposal of spent fuel. Furthermore, the administration’s high-profile advocacy of reprocessing
as an integral part of GNEP is encouraging other nations to engage in dangerous plutonium fuel operations. Congress
should therefore restore the U.S. commitment to direct disposal of spent reactor fuel and bar reprocessing. Any
congressional commitment to GNEP should await a favorable outcome of a thorough and independent assessment of
the program’s prospects for success and its implications for national security.

Nuclear expansion will spark a global arms race


Spiegel Online, 7
July 4th, ‘Nuclear renaissance increases terror risks’
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,492404,00.html
While nuclear energy may play no more than a supporting role in climate protection, the paper outlines the security
risks of a global nuclear revival.
"According to the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), within 30-40 years at least 30
countries are likely to have access to fissile materials from their civil nuclear power programs that can be used for
nuclear weapons," it warns. Potentially volatile countries including Saudi Arabia and Syria are also expressing
increasing interest in civilian nuclear power-- not to mention Iran, which is currently the focus of a dispute with the
West over its nuclear ambitions.
The industry is moving to a new generation of "breeder" reactors. These reactors use less high-grade uranium but
produce a much greater amount of weapons-grade plutonium. And with an increased amount of plutonium available,
many countries will be tempted to start producing nuclear weapons too. This would lead to what the paper calls a
"slow-burning arms race."

80
NU 08-09 p. 81 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Me lt do wns -E xt ensi ons


Plants are unsafe-multiple reasons
Union of Concerned Scientists 7
December 2007, Nuclear power in a warming world
The United States has strong nuclear power safety standards, but serious safety problems continue to arise at U.S.
nuclear power plants because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is not adequately enforcing those standards.
Findings Safety problems remain despite a lack of serious accidents. A serious nuclear power accident has not occurred
in the United States since 1979, when the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania experienced a partial core
meltdown. However, the absence of serious accidents does not necessarily indicate that safety measures and oversight
are adequate. Since 1979, there have been 35 instances in which individual reactors have shut down to restore safety
standards, and the owner has taken a year or more to address dozens or even hundreds of equipment impairments that
had accumulated over a period of years. The most recent such shutdown occurred in 2002. These year-plus closures
indicate that the NRC has been doing a poor job of regulating the safety of power reactors. An effective regulator would
be neither unaware nor passively tolerant of safety problems so extensive that a year or more is needed to fix them. The
most significant barrier to consistently effective NRC oversight is a poor “safety culture” at the agency itself. The poor
safety culture at the NRC manifests itself in several ways. The agency has failed to implement its own findings on how
to avoid safety problems at U.S. reactors. It has failed to enforce its own regulations, with the result that safety
problems have remained unresolved for years at reactors that have continued to operate. And it has inappropriately
emphasized adhering to schedules rather than ensuring safety. A significant number of NRC staff members have
reported feeling unable to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation, and a large percentage of those staff
members say they have suffered harassment or intimidation. The NRC’s recent curtailment of the public’s right to
participate in reactor licensing proceedings shuts the door to an important means of enhancing safety. Public input has
long played an important role in the NRC’s process for licensing power plants. The NRC itself has identified numerous
examples where public participation has improved safety. Despite this, the NRC recently removed the public’s right to
discovery and cross-examination during hearings on renewals of existing power plant licenses and applications for new
ones, precluding meaningful public participation. The NRC’s policy on the safety of new reactors is an obstacle to
ensuring better designs. NRC policy stipulates that advanced reactors need provide only the same level of protection
against accidents as today’s generation of reactors, hampering the development of safer ones. The NRC’s budget is
inadequate. Congress continues to pressure the NRC to cut its budget, so it spends fewer resources on overseeing
safety. The NRC does not have enough funding to fulfill its mandate to ensure safety while also responding to
applications to extend the licenses of existing reactors and license new ones. The Price-Anderson Act lessens incentives
to improve safety. The act, just renewed for another 20 years, severely limits the liability of owners for accidents at
nuclear power plants. This protection lessens the financial incentives for reactor vendors to increase safety measures,
and for owners to improve operating standards.

Human error makes an accident inevitable


Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
Although progress has been made in increasing safety standards, reactors are still not inherently safe and problems are
still common. Apart from possible technical failures, the risk of human error can never be excluded. This risk will grow
now that the onset of privatization and deregulation of the electricity market has forced nuclear operators to increase
their efficiency and reduce costs. The reductions in the size of the workforce have in some cases led to concerns over
safety.

81
NU 08-09 p. 82 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Me lt do wns -E xt ensi ons


Plants are unsafe-There have been tons of close calls and safety
problems will only increase
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
Despite claims that the nuclear power industry has a "superb record" on safety (WNA, 2004a) and an "impeccable
safety practice" (Ritch III, 2002), historical evidence provides many examples of nuclear disasters and near disasters,
for example at Windscale (UK, 1957), Chelyabinsk-40 (Russia, 1957/8), Brown's Ferry (Alabama, 1975), Three Mile
Island (Pennsylvania, 1979) and Chernobyl (Ukraine, 1986). Admittedly, some progress has been made in increasing
safety standards but reactors can never be inherently safe and problems are still common.
In 1995, a natrium leak in the Monju fast-breeder reactor in Japan led to its closure, and once again highlighted safety
fears in the nuclear industry. More recently, in 2002, a near disaster was averted at the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio. The
steel in the reactor head was found to be punctured and was within less than a quarter of an inch of causing catastrophic
meltdown: in the years preceding this incident the reactor had received a near-perfect safety score (Mechtenberg-
Berrigan, 2003). Due to cooling problems in France during the heat wave in the summer of 2003, engineers told the
government that they could no longer guarantee the safety of the country's 58 nuclear power plants (Duval Smith,
2003). This is of particular importance as it suggests that nuclear power production will become even less safe as heat
waves become more common due to climate change.

Privatization, deregulation, and an exodus of skilled workers make


an accident inevitable
Nuclear information and resource service, 5
February, Nuclear power: no solution to climate change, report from WISE and NIRS
http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nukesclimatechangereport.pdf
Apart from possible technical failures, the risk of human error can never be excluded. This risk will grow now that the
onset of privatization and deregulation of the electricity market has forced nuclear operators to increase their efficiency
and reduce costs. For nuclear energy, it is more difficult to reduce costs because it has high fixed costs: building costs
make up about 75% of the total costs (compared, for example, with only 25% for gas). All savings must therefore come
from the 25% variable costs of the electricity price, notably from efficiency increases and personnel reductions
(Greenpeace & WISE, 2001). In the US significant reductions have been made with an estimated 26,000 workers
leaving the industry over the last eight years. The reductions in the size of the workforce have led to concerns over
safety.

82
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Nu cle ar w as te e xte nsi ons


Yucca Mountain proves that canisters will leak
Fox News, 4
Feb 19th Nuclear Scientist: Yucca mountain is unsafe
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111946,00.html
he nation's nuclear waste dump proposed for Nevada is poorly designed and could leak highly radioactive waste, a
scientist who recently resigned from a federal panel of experts on Yucca Mountain (search) told The Associated Press
on Wednesday.
Paul Craig, a physicist and engineering professor at the University of California-Davis, said he quit the panel last
month so he could speak more freely about the waste dump's dangers.
Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is planned to begin receiving waste in 2010. Some 77,000
tons of highly radioactive waste at commercial and military sites in 39 states would be stored in metal canisters
underground in tunnels.
"The science is very clear," Craig told the AP in an interview before his first public speech about the Energy
Department's design for the canisters.
"If we get high-temperature liquids, the metal would corrode and that would eventually lead to leakage of nuclear
waste," Craig said.
"Therefore, it is a bad design. And that is very, very bad news for the Department of Energy because they are
committed to that design," he said.
Craig, who was appointed to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (search) by President Clinton in 1997, spoke
to about 100 people later Wednesday night at a community forum in Reno sponsored by the Sierra Club.
"I would never say Yucca Mountain won't work. What I would say is the design they have won't work," he said
Wednesday night. He said he's convinced the Energy Department will have to postpone the project and adopt a different
design.
"It would require years of delay and my guess is that is what is going to happen. The bad science is so clear they will be
unable to ignore it forever," Craig told the AP.
The 11-member technical review board outlined its concerns about the potential for corrosion in a report to the Energy
Department in November about the metal for the canisters, called Alloy-22 (search) — "an upscale version of stainless
steel," Craig said.
It was the most important report the board has produced since Congress created the panel in 1987, he said, but largely
has been ignored by Congress and the department.
"The report says in ordinary English that under the conditions proposed by the Department of Energy, the canisters will
leak," Craig said. "It was signed by every single member of the board so there would be no confusion."
Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson defended the design plans for the repository and the metal in the storage
casks.
"We stand by our work," he said Wednesday in Las Vegas. He said the department was preparing a formal response to
the board's November report. He had no further comment.
In Washington, D.C., officials with the industry's Nuclear Energy Institute (search) did not immediately return
telephone calls seeking comment.
The board's report in November said the government had failed to take into account "deliquescence" — a phenomenon
regarding the reaction of salt to moisture — in its plans to operate the dump at temperatures well above boiling water,
or about 200 degrees.
At those temperatures, the metal canisters would heat up, causing salts in the surrounding ground to liquefy, thus
leading to corrosion, Craig said.
"It turns out the metals which look like they act pretty good at temperature levels below boiling water — those same
metals act badly with temperatures that could exist" at Yucca Mountain, he said.

83
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Nu cle ar w as te e xte nsi ons


Yucca mountain is vulnerable to earthquakes which would let
loose canisters of radioactive waste.
LA times, 8
June 6th, The Nation; yucca mountain project is ‘doomed’, nuclear firm says, l/n
The Energy Department's safety plan for handling containers of radioactive waste before they are buried at the
proposed Yucca Mountain dump has become a "fool's errand," according to a major nuclear equipment supplier.
Under current plans, the casks of nuclear waste material awaiting burial at Yucca Mountain could be sent into a
"chaotic melee of bouncing and rolling juggernauts" in an earthquake, according to Holtec International, one of the
nation's largest manufacturers of nuclear waste storage systems.
The blistering critique of safety standards is in a newsletter that Holtec sent last week to its customers and suppliers,
warning that the project has become a "doomed undertaking." Holtec supplies storage casks to power plants around the
country.
Nevada officials say the harsh comments deepen their concerns about the site of the repository.
"It shows a lack of attention to safety," Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects,
said Thursday.
An Energy Department spokesman said he had not seen Holtec's critique and had no immediate response. The agency
applied Tuesday for a license to build the facility, calling for 70,000 metric tons of waste eventually to be sent by truck
and rail to the mountain.
Once the waste arrived, it would have to cool down -- for years in some cases -- before being placed in deep tunnels.
Joy Russell, Holtec's sales and marketing manager, said the Energy Department wanted the material to cool down in
casks without adequate seismic anchors or other restraints.
In May, the government rejected a proposal from Holtec for a temporary underground storage system that the company
says would maintain safety in the event of earthquakes and airplane crashes. It instead chose two lower bidders who
proposed unanchored systems, Russell said.
The company intends to develop the below-ground storage system at its own cost.
The government expects Yucca Mountain to experience earthquakes that produce ground movement comparable to a
magnitude 6.5. In such a quake, "pigs will fly before the cask[s] will stay put," the newsletter said.

84
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Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Ter ror is m DA: 1NC 1/3


A.uniqueness: The War on terrorism is winnable. We are on the
advance and terrorists are on the retreat globally.
Times Online, 6/27
Gerald Baker, Cheer up. We’re winning this war on terror, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4221376.ece?openComment=true
And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who
are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind
of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: “Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-
Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!”
Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few
years.
Afghanistan has been a signal success. There has been much focus on the latest counter-offensive by the Taleban in the
southeast of the country and it would be churlish to minimise the ferocity with which the terrorists are fighting, but it
would be much more foolish to understate the scale of the continuing Nato achievement. Establishing a stable
government for the whole nation is painstaking work, years in the making. It might never be completed. But that was
not the principal objective of the war there.
Until the US-led invasion in 2001, Afghanistan was the cockpit of ascendant Islamist terrorism. Consider the bigger
picture. Between 1998 and 2005 there were five big terrorist attacks against Western targets - the bombings of the US
embassies in Africa in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, 9/11, and the Madrid and London bombings in 2004
and 2005. All owed their success either exclusively or largely to Afghanistan's status as a training and planning base for
al-Qaeda.
In the past three years there has been no attack on anything like that scale. Al-Qaeda has been driven into a state of
permanent flight. Its ability to train jihadists has been severely compromised; its financial networks have been ripped
apart. Thousands of its activists and enablers have been killed. It's true that Osama bin Laden's forces have been
regrouping in the border areas of Pakistan but their ability to orchestrate mass terrorism there is severely attenuated.
And there are encouraging signs that Pakistanis are starting to take to the offensive against them.
Next time you hear someone say that the war in Afghanistan is an exercise in futility ask them this: do they seriously
think that if the US and its allies had not ousted the Taleban and sustained an offensive against them for six years that
there would have been no more terrorist attacks in the West? What characterised Islamist terrorism before the Afghan
war was increasing sophistication, boldness and terrifying efficiency. What has characterised the terrorist attacks in the
past few years has been their crudeness, insignificance and a faintly comical ineptitude (remember Glasgow airport?)
The second great advance in the War on Terror has been in Iraq. There's no need to recapitulate the disasters of the US-
led war from the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 to his execution at the end of 2006. We may never fully make up
for three and a half lost years of hubris and incompetence but in the last 18 months the change has been startling.
The “surge”, despite all the doubts and derision at the time, has been a triumph of US military planning and execution.
Political progress was slower in coming but is now evident too. The Iraqi leadership has shown great courage and
dispatch in extirpating extremists and a growing willingness even to turn on Shia militias. Basra is more peaceful and
safer than it has been since before the British moved in. Despite setbacks such as yesterday's bombings, the streets of
Iraq's cities are calmer and safer than they have been in years. Seventy companies have bid for oil contracts from the
Iraqi Government. There are signs of a real political reconciliation that may reach fruition in the election later this year.

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Ter ror is m DA: 1NC 2/3

B.The Links:
1.An increase in the number of plants would exponentially increase
the risk of terror attacks.
Spiegel Online, 7
July 4th, ‘Nuclear renaissance increases terror risks’
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,492404,00.html
According to the report, a spread in the use of nuclear energy will not only lead to proliferation, it would also up the
risks of radioactive material falling into the wrong hands.
A huge increase in the amount of nuclear power stations would increase the number of potential targets for terrorist
attacks. A terrorist group could attack the transport of nuclear material, steal plutonium to build a crude nuclear weapon
or "dirty bomb," fly an aircraft into a power station or infiltrate a power plant to sabotage it from the inside. Increasing
the number of nuclear facilities also inevitably provides terrorists with a greater number of targets, the research group
argues. "Many believe that ... even a small risk of such an attack is not acceptable."
"The question is whether in the 21st century the security risks associated with civil nuclear power can be managed, or
not? Society has to decide whether or not the risks of proliferation and nuclear terrorism in a world with many nuclear
power reactors is acceptable."

2.Plants are highly vulnerable to attack-multiple reasons


Union of Concerned Scientists 7
December 2007, Nuclear power in a warming world
The NRC gives less consideration to attacks and deliberate acts of sabotage than it does to accidents. This lack of
attention is manifested in emergency plans that do not take terrorist attacks into account, the agency’s refusal to
consider terrorist attacks as part of the environmental assessments during licensing proceedings, and its failure to
adequately address the risk of an attack on spent fuel pools at reactor sites. NRC assumptions about potential attackers
are unrealistically modest.The NRC’s Design Basis Threat (DBT) defines the size and abilities of a group that might
attack a nuclear facility, and against which an owner must be able to defend. Although not publicly available, before
9/11 the DBT was widely known to consist of three attackers armed with nothing more sophisticated than handheld
automatic rifles, and working with a single insider whose role was limited to providing information about the facility
and its defenses. The DBT has been upgraded post-9/11, but it still does not reflect real-world threats. For example, it
excludes the possibility that terrorist groups would use rocket-propelled grenades—a weapon widely used by insurgents
around the world. The DBT is unduly influenced by industry perspectives and pressure. The NRC would ideally base
the DBT solely on plausible threats to nuclear facilities. However, in practice, the agency’s desire to avoid imposing
high security costs on the nuclear industry also affectsits security requirements. There is no assurance that reactors can
be defended against terrorist attacks. The NRC stages mock attacks to determine if plant owners can defend their
reactors against DBT-level attacks. Test results reveal poor performance, and the integrity of the tests themselves is in
question. The federal government is responsible for defending against attacks more severe than the DBT, but it has no
mechanism for ensuring that it can provide such protection.

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Ter ror is m DA: 1NC 3/3


An attack would be devastating, millions would die
Union of Concerned Scientists 7
December 2007, Nuclear power in a warming world
Recent independent studies have highlighted the vulnerability of commercial nuclear power plants to terrorist attack,
and the possible consequences of such attacks. For example, a 2002 study by the National Academy of Sciences
concluded that the near-term potential is high for civilian nuclear power plants to suffer from a ground or air assault as
sophisticated as the 9/11 attacks.63 The results could include a core meltdown and very large releases of
radioactivity.64 Indeed, if a team of well-trained terrorists forcibly entered a nuclear power plant, within a matter of
minutes it could do enough damage to cause a meltdown of the core and a failure of the containment structure. Such an
attack would have a devastating and long-lasting impact on public health, the environment, and the economy. The
effects of such an attack would be particularly severe for a nuclear plant near a densely populated metropolitan area. A
prime example is the dualreactor Indian Point plant, which is 25 miles north of New York City. A 2004 study by an
author of this report (Edwin Lyman) for the environmental group Riverkeeper found that a terrorist attack on one of the
Indian Point reactors could result in up to 44,000 near-term deaths from acute radiation poisoning, 500,000 long-term
deaths from cancer, widespread contamination in New Jersey and Connecticut, and economic damages exceeding $2
trillion.65 The study assumed that the attackers damaged only the reactor and not the spent fuel pools, which also
contain large quantities of radioactive material. To determine the maximum expected casualties, the study assumed that
the attack was staged at night, when prevailing winds tend to blow from Indian Point toward New York City. (This is a
well-known meteorological phenomenon that terrorists could exploit.) This study was performed using the same
computer program and assumptions about the types and amounts of radiation released that the NRC itself uses in
conducting accident assessments.66

And the US must stay the course-failure in the war on terrorism


will cause extinction
Alexander 3
ALEXANDER, professor and director of the Inter-University for Terrorism Studies in Israel and the United
States, 2003, Yonah, Washington Times, August 27,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030827-084256-8999r.htm,
Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that the
international community failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of the terrorist threats to
the very survival of civilization itself.
Even the United States and Israel have for decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or irritant
rather than a critical strategic challenge to their national security concerns.
It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001, Americans were stunned by the unprecedented tragedy of 19
al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at the center of the nation's commercial and military powers.
Likewise, Israel and its citizens, despite the collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of terrorism
triggered by the second intifada that began almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of
intensive diplomatic efforts to revive the moribund peace process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements
(hudna).
Why are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other countries affected by the universal nightmare of modern
terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"?
There are many reasons, including misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's
expansion, such as lack of a universal definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of
morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological
warfare.
Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of
conventional and unconventional threats and impact.
The internationalization and brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super
Terrorism (e.g. biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber) with its serious implications concerning national,
regional and global security concerns.

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Te rro ri sm E xt ens ion s-link s


Increase in nuclear plants would dramatically increase the risk of
attack
GreenPeace, 6
Nuclear power and terrorism
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/migrated/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7357.pdf
Nuclear terrorism has the potential to cause enormous numbers of deaths, and the risk of a successful attack will
increase if more nuclear power stations and stores for highly radioactive spent fuel are built. A terrorist strike targetting
the storage tanks holding dangerous radioactive waste at Sellafield in west Cumbria could kill over two million people.
[3]
So great is the risk of a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities that the highly respected Oxford Research Group has told
the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee that nuclear power should not be part of the UK's energy
supply - precisely because it presents a major threat to our national and international security and increases the risk of
nuclear terrorism, by creating opportunities for terrorist organisations. [4

Increase in plants would vastly increase the risk of a terrorist attack


or proliferation which would give terrorists nuclear weapons
Union of Concerned Scientists 7
December 2007, Nuclear power in a warming world
Nuclear power has significant and inherent risks that we must take into account when addressing global warming.
These risks include a large release of radiation from a power plant accident or terrorist attack, and the death of tens of
thousands or more from the detonation of a nuclear weapon made with material obtained from a civilian nuclear power
system. (This report will not consider the risks of dirty bombs, in which a conventional explosive is used to spread
radiological material.) Unless fundamental changes are made in the way nuclear power is operated and controlled, a
largescale expansion of nuclear power in the United States—or worldwide—would almost certainly increase these risks

88
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Ter ror is m ex ten si ons- faci litie s ar e vulne ra ble


Facilities are vulnerable-regulations are poorly enforced and an
attack would contaminate an area for thousands of years
Union Of Concerned Scientists, 7
12/11, Nuclear power in a warming world, 2007
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/nuclearandclimate.html
Nuclear power is riskier than it should—and could—be. The United States has strong safety regulations on the books,
but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not enforce them consistently. Current security standards are inadequate
to defend nuclear plants against terrorist attacks. A major accident or successful attack could kill thousands of people
and contaminate large regions for thousands of years.

89
NU 08-09 p. 90 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Te rro ri sm e xt ens ion s-plant s vulne ra ble


Nuclear facilities are vulnerable to attack with a plane-an attack on
a single facility would kill millions instantly and cause medical
problems for decades
Caldicott, 4
9/24, Helen Caldicott, one of the world’s most respected anti nuclear activists, Democracy Now, Is nuclear power the solution to
global warming, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/9/24/is_nuclear_power_the_solution_to
But we have not focused on one very important area, and that is terrorism. You have got a reactor here in New York, 35
miles from New York, three reactors, actually. In a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant is as much long lived radiation
released by the explosion of 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. And in the cooling pools next to the reactor with is 30 time
as much as that. The reactor itself is protected by a very thick containment vessel of concrete, but the cooling pool is
protected by the same construction as a Kmart roof. You could fly a small plain into that cooling pool. I could melt
Indian Point Dam in a couple of hours. That’s very easy, there’s many ways to do it. If that cooling pool melts and
burns and the radiation blows towards New York with weather conditions prevailing such that it would, millions of
people will be irradiated and die of acute radiation illness with their hair falling out, vomiting and bleeding to death
within two weeks. There would be an epidemic of leukemia five years later. Solid cancers would appear 15 to 60 years
later. Up to a quarter million men would be rendered temporarily sterile. Up to quarter of million women would stop
menstruating, many permanently. There would be 1500 spontaneous abortions, many babies born with tiny heads,
microcephaly, because of the developing neurological system is very susceptible to radiation. There would be Cretins
born and the like. We’re talking about a medical catastrophe that…

A small Guerilla team could attack a plant, causing a total


meltdown
Union of Concerned Scientists 7
December 2007, Nuclear power in a warming world
Sabotage of a nuclear reactor could result in a large release of radiation. If a team of well-trained terrorists forcibly
entered a nuclear power plant, it could disable safety system swithin a matter of minutes, and do enough damage to
cause a meltdown of the core, failure of the containment structure, and a large release of radiation. Such an attack could
contaminate large regions for thousands of years, producing higher cancer rates and billions of dollars in associated
costs.

90
NU 08-09 p. 91 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Ter ror is m ex ten si ons- turn s the cas e


Disad turns the case: a successful terrorist attack would cause a sea
change in public approval for nuclear power, rolling back the plan
Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007
March, Nuclear power and global warming, position paper
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/nuclear-power-and-climate.html
Government and industry should recognize that an expansion of nuclear power is contingent on public confidence, and
taking shortcuts in either safety or security measures increases the chance of catastrophic events. A serious accident or
successful terrorist attack would hobble expansion, as did the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, or might
even result in the closure of many existing plants.

91
NU 08-09 p. 92 / 92
Nuclear Power Affirmative/Negative

Po litic s links- Bu sh ba d
Nuclear power is popular with the public
Peterson, 4
Scott, spokesperson for the Nuclear energy institute, 9/24, Democracy Now, Is nuclear power the solution to global warming, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/9/24/is_nuclear_power_the_solution_to
SCOTT PETERSON: The American public’s perspective on nuclear energy has actually been supportive for many
years now, because they recognize the benefits that they get from nuclear energy, and they also recognize the safety of
our plants, particularly over the last decade. 64% of the U.S. Public believes that we should build more nuclear plants,
and we are now setting the stage in this country, working both with industry and government to begin building
advanced reactors that have even better safety features. They’re going to be more cost effective to build so the
consumer electricity rates are going to be lower. They’re also going to be built in a manner they’re takes advantage of
existing nuclear power plants so we’re building them at the same sites, and actually, using less land, and taking
advantage of the land and the transmission systems that we already have. So, we’re taking a number of steps to make
sure that we can meet consumer electricity demands as they continue to rise in the future. But meet them in a way that
also protects the environment, and recognizes that we need to make changes in how we look at our air quality and how
we combine the imperatives of having electricity and also protecting our environment. If you took the nuclear plants
that we have today out of the electricity-

92

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