Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI)
- U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Office
304 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
- U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee
Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
An open letter to the U.S. Senate and U.S. House Energy Committees
Subject: Strong Energy Policy Position Which Includes Nuclear Power as an Essential Component of the U.S. Energy Security Strategy
June 2016
We, the undersigned members of Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI), are submitting thisletter to encourage your Committees to include a strong Position which includes Nuclear Power as an Essential Component of the U.S. Energy Security Strategy.
Today, many “green energy” proponents encourage massive conversion of our national power grid to “renewable” power in a very short time. There is a common misconception that solar and wind can provide reliable electrical power cheaply and quickly. But, this is not possible because reliable and safe energy storage technology does not exist.
Our life depends on reliable electrical power, regulated to better than 1% in voltage and frequency, available 24/7/365 in all kinds of weather. However, if that power hiccups, we lose frozen food, we can’t charge our phones, our computers crash, and our timers and other gadgets lose their programming. Horrors!
To get quality reliable powerconventionally, you must boil water into steam and spin a turbine with it. That takes fossil fuel or nuclear reactors. Any fossil fuel plant (coal, oil or natural gas),however, produces large quantities of toxic pollutantsthroughout their operation that also may harm public health.
So what to do? Many would have the U.S. rely exclusively on “renewable” sources such as solar and wind. But are those “renewable” only because the sun will rise tomorrow, or the wind may blow again?
• Solar people, what happens when successive cloudy days exceed the capacity of stored energy?
• Wind people, what happens on a calm day?
• Hydropower people, what happens in a drought?
- All carbon-based fuels pollute the air.
By contrast, nuclear plants produceextremely little pollution. Furthermore, the amount of actual nuclear waste produced in a typical nuclear reactor would fit in a pickup truck once every 15 years, if you reprocess and vitrify it. Plus, a breeder reactor (which, because of its design, actually creates more fuel than it consumes), is a renewable energy source as well as a green one. And there is more: new Generation-Four reactor designs can run on that truckload of waste, extracting more energy and leaving less waste, and their ceramic fuel elements can't melt down. Small modular reactors (SMRs) offer even more possibilities. Not to forget, nuclear power generation has an exemplary safety record in spite of the well-known accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima, and it has proven to be the safest mode of power generation in terms of lives lost per terawatt-hour.
Whereas there is wide-ranging fear regarding nuclear power because of the estimated cancer risks based on the linear no-threshold (LNT) model, the LNT model is not consistent with the atomic bomb survivor data, especially following the update to the data in 2012. The atomic bomb survivor data are generally regarded as the most important data for determining health effects of radiation.In fact, basic science now supports the opposite concept that low levels of radiation do not cause cancer and may, in fact, decrease cancers. To have this accepted and overcome public concerns would however take some time, due to the long period over which the LNT model has been a dogma in the world community.
While solar and wind power systems are an essential component of our energy portfolio, we must be aware of their high costs, their practical limitations in application and the difficulty of integrating them into the existing power grid. Massive fossil fuel turbinegenerators can't be instantly throttled up when needed andthen throttled down minutes later each time a cloud covers the solar cells or the wind dies. Utilities simply can’t harvest that energy and integrate it into the power grid that fast and still keep within the 1% tolerance. The power generated as backup to wind and solar is lost forever. Why? Because we have no safe, inexpensive, proven way to storelarge amounts of extra energy for later use when we need it, due to the unreliable solar and wind power systems.
Save the planet and still keep the lights on? Promote nuclear power more. We really have no choice if we want to maintain and improve world living standards without worsening our health due to massive pollution. We earnestly solicit your strong inclusion of nuclear energy in your party’s platform.
Sincerely yours,
Mark Miller
620 La Jolla Place NE
Albuquerque, Nm 87123 Email:
Gary L. Hoe, PE
9412 Doña RowenaNE
Albuquerque, NM 87111 Email:
Alan E. Waltar, Ph.D.
Past President, American Nuclear Society
Ludwig E. Feinendegen, M.D.
Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany
Visiting Professor, Brookhaven National Laboratories
Mohan Doss, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Fox Chase Cancer Center
Alan Fellman, Ph.D., C.H.P.
Dade Moeller & Associates, Inc.
Bruce W. Church, M.S.
BWC Enterprises, Inc.
Jeffrey Mahn
1708 Conestoga Drive SE
Albuquerque, NM 87123Email:
LudwikDobrynski, D.Sc.
National Center for Nuclear Research, 05-400 Otwock, A.Soltana 7, Poland
Charles L. Sanders, Ph.D.
2030 New Hampshire
Loveland, CO 80538
Rod Adams, M.S.
Atomic Insights LLC
Charles Pennington, M.S., M.B.A.
Alpharetta, GA 30022
Executive Nuclear Energy Consultant
Jerome Hauer, Ph.D., M.H.S.
Visiting Professor, Defense Academy of the United Kingdom, Cranfield University
Adjunct Professor, Georgetown UniversityEmail: or
Prof. dr Andrzej Strupczewski
Chairman of Nuclear Safety Commission
National Centre for Nuclear Research
05-400 Swierk POLAND
Mobile +48 66 53 53 553
Vincent J. Esposito, Ph.D
Adjunct Prof. Uni of Pittsburgh
Gwyneth Cravens
Self-employed writer
SARI Contact: Mark L. Miller
620 La Jolla Place NE
Albuquerque, NM 87123Email: