While living in Germany in the late 1970s, we saw cars with a bumper sticker that said “Atomkraft? – Nein Danke” throughout the country. The phrase means “Nuclear Power? – No Thanks” and it was a tagline for Germany’s anti-nuclear movement.
More than 40 years later, in the wake of the ongoing catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Party has been losing political support over their pro-nuclear power stance. Christian Democrats lost some key elections to the Social Democrats and the Green Party over the issue, notably in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. A majority of the German people oppose nuclear power and Merkel bowed to the will of the people when she set, in early June, “the end of 2022 as an irreversible final date for the switch-off of the last nuclear power station” in Germany. The decision is subject to ratification by the German Bundestag (parliament).
In Iowa, there does not seem to be a “will of the people” regarding nuclear power. Earlier this year the commerce committees in both chambers of the Iowa legislature began to move bills (HF 561/SF 390) relating to the permitting, licensing, construction, and operation of nuclear generation facilities. Few people were aware that clearing the financial obstacles for companies to apply to the Iowa Utilities Board to construct a new nuclear power plant in Iowa was in the works.
What most Iowans care about is that there is adequate electricity to power cooking stoves, washers and dryers, air conditioners, communications equipment, lights and other modern conveniences. Iowans also care that businesses have enough electricity to stay in production, operating farms, processing agricultural products, lighting offices and so on. Nuclear power and electricity were off the radar screen as an issue for most of my Iowa friends and neighbors.
Now, flood waters from the Missouri River surround the Fort Calhoun, Nebraska nuclear power generating station. The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a directive shutting down air space over the plant, the Omaha Public Power District has declared a Notification of Unusual Event and the national news media is beginning to cover the story. There is speculation that Fort Calhoun may become another Fukushima if the electrical power to the spent nuclear fuel cooling pools is lost. We are hopeful that a disaster will be averted as the flooding is bad enough.
Iowans are pragmatic when it comes to natural disasters. Maybe the practical nature of our collective agrarian background makes us this way. We understand that any man-made thing is built to specifications. Specifications consider and accommodate certain risks through engineering. If the specifications are exceeded in the actual conditions in which something exists or operates, there will be a failure. This is logical.
So Iowans are not in a panic over the Fort Calhoun flooding. We are trying to do something about it to minimize the impact of the natural disaster and avert catastrophe. It is often how we react to natural disaster and this behavior defines us as Iowans.
At the same time, how can Iowans continue to support nuclear power in the state when there are cost-effective alternatives to how we generate electricity? We could preserve our lifestyle and avoid the risk of a massive release of toxins associated with the failure of a nuclear power generating station.
Iowans should join Germany in saying, “Nuclear Power? – No Thanks.”
~Paul Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend editor of Blog for Iowa.
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