I’m sure you’ve seen anti-uranium mining propaganda displaying unsavory images of “dirty” uranium mines and the strip-mined wasteland they leave behind. It’s a favorite tactic of anti-industrial activists: show people how sausage is made, and they’ll hopefully never eat the stuff again. And they’ll fight tooth-and-nail to block any sausage factory from ever being built anywhere near where they live.

The tactic exploits our basic human fear of the unfamiliar and evokes an instant emotional reaction, but provides zero information. If you’ve never seen a mine before (or a sausage-making factory) you will be disgusted by the first sight of one. But most people have no idea what they’re looking at and have no way of contextualizing what they’re seeing. All they see is a gaping hole in the ground, scarred earth and puddles of presumably toxic water all around.

With no information or context, most people recoil at such images, and rightfully so. They’re not pretty. And because they don’t look pretty, you’re supposed to assume that they’re toxic, dangerous and threatening to your health.

The anti-uranium crowd in Virginia particularly loves this tactic, and never shies away from an opportunity to show you images of a dirty, open-pit uranium mine. Who would ever want something so vile and repulsive anywhere near where they live?!?

But let’s face it, industrial operations aren’t pretty. But just because you wouldn’t want images of most industrial operations as the centerpiece of your living room décor doesn’t mean they’re unsafe, or environmentally hazardous, or that they’re not completely necessary for all the amenities and comforts of modern life.

So let’s conduct a little experiment and see how the anti-uranium crowd likes the taste of their own shameless fear mongering.

Environmentalists love wind turbines, right? They’re so healthy and good for the environment, so pretty, innocent, clean. Environmentalists love peddling heartwarming images of wind farms basking under sunny blue skies and nestled in the bucolic embrace of verdant hills. People picnic under them, children skip and shout for joy at the sight of them!

But what environmentalists don’t show you is how wind turbines are made. So I will. Here goes: wind turbines are predominantly made of steel, and steel is predominantly made of iron. Manufacturing wind turbines requires extensive mining of iron ore, which means mountains and valleys get ripped to shreds. Not to mention all the other metals such as copper, nickel and  titanium that have to be dug out of ground to build every wind turbine displayed in those heartwarming images.

How do you feel about those pretty wind turbines now? Are they still clean? Are they still green? Are they still heartwarming and bucolic? Hardly. (I could also show you images of carbon-spewing cement factories that produce the cement bases for offshore wind turbines, or steel factories that actually turn iron ore into steel but I’ll save that for another occasion.)

My point isn’t that iron mining is dangerous, toxic or a threat to human civilization. My point is that when anti-uranium zealots bemoan the evils of mining and then make genuflections to a wind turbine, they’re not being straight with you. The fact is that pretty much everything we use in modern life — including every form of renewable energy you can think of — requires the extensive mining of raw materials from the earth. And mining isn’t pretty. But that doesn’t mean it’s unsafe or a threat to your existence. That’s why we have science, technology and smart engineers.

If environmentalists aren’t willing to parade around with images of iron mining (or steel and cement factories) then they shouldn’t be so frivolous with those uranium mining images either.

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Here’s a little secret that none of you will believe: The nuclear industry has no friends. Not even themselves. Now the anti-nuclear folks and the more cynically minded among you will snort dismissively at that; you believe we are all-powerful corporations that rule the world with our big profits and our radiation, blithely killing children and polluting the world’s drinking water and arable land. But rest assured, nothing could be further from the truth.

Case in point #1: For the 25 years I’ve worked in the nuclear industry Republicans have always strongly backed nuclear energy, not to mention any and all kinds of mining. In those two and a half decades I cannot recall a single national, state or locally elected Republican politician who has ever said anything negative about nuclear energy — and very few about mining, for that matter.

Yet here we are, in the middle of a rampaging public debate on lifting the moratorium on uranium mining in the usually genteel Commonwealth of Virginia, and Southside Republicans are leading the torches-and-pitchforks brigade generating the hysteria of “keeping the ban.”

Some of these same Republicans are selling out their usual mining industry allies and talking about the “dangerous radiation” of uranium mill tailings. Yet I bet they would be beside themselves with joy if Coles Hill sat on top of a big ol’ coal or natural gas deposit.

If that were to happen, you’d never hear them say anything about the dangers of those tailings or extraction byproducts, even though mining of coal and natural gas releases the same radon and other “dangerous” and radioactive stuff as mining uranium does.

Thanks, friends!

Case in point #2: Then there are the Democrats. For years I’ve urged my fellow Democrats to stop their automatic rejection of all things nuclear, study the data and the growing scientific consensus that modern uranium mining is safe and environmentally sound, and get with the climate change program by supporting uranium mining and nuclear energy. Because you can’t have one without the other.

In fact, most Virginia Democrats have been ridiculously opposed or loudly silent on the issue — with the notable exception of state Sen. Richard Saslaw, whose clear support for reversing the moratorium showed actual leadership on energy issues, simply by acknowledging the “hypocrisy” of supporting nuclear power without supporting the fuel it needs.

Instead, most Democrats simply refuse to believe that you can safely store radioactive material that came from the ground back in the ground it came from. Without ever being able to explain how or why, they will nevertheless claim that radioactive material will get into the groundwater and kill everyone, factual supporting evidence be damned.

That any groundwater that flows through the earth is naturally contaminated with radioactive material is clearly beside the point. As is the fact that municipal water districts routinely filter drinking water for “dangerous” stuff before it shows up in your kitchen tap.

Others are so-called “environmentalists.” With all the red-hot heat of a thousand fiery suns, they hate nuclear energy, uranium mining and “dangerous radiation” more than they hate greenhouse gases.

Besides spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about all things uranium, these are the same people who think that combining renewables like solar and wind with natural gas will cure all of our climate change problems.

Cleary beside the point: that solar and wind are notoriously unreliable, expensive and couldn’t provide enough electricity for the industrial plants that make solar panels and wind turbines; and that natural gas is dirtier and less efficient than nuclear energy.

Thanks, friends!

Case in point #3: The overwhelming silence of Virginia’s thriving nuclear industry. Just in case you didn’t know, the commonwealth is home to four nuclear power stations, a nuclear fuel processing plant, two nuclear plant design organizations and the U.S. nuclear Navy. Without uranium, none of them can operate.

Yet none of them — Dominion, Babcock & Wilcox, AREVA and the zillion defense contractors that service the U.S. Navy’s seven nuclear aircraft carriers and six nuclear submarines — has stepped forward to publicly state its support for lifting the moratorium or even stated for the record that uranium can be, and currently is, mined safely.

Instead of defending our incredible safety record or correcting the shameless, ignorant propaganda of the anit-nuclear folks and so-called “environmentalists,” the nuclear industry hides its head in the sand, preferring to go along to get along, worried that somehow we’ll lose our political chits and alienate our shareholders if we dare to speak up for ourselves.

And since nature abhors a vacuum, the lunatics, liars and crazies have filled the void, grabbing the big headlines and successfully infected otherwise rational, reasonable people — and the politicians they vote for — with fear and radiophobia.

You see, the nuclear industry is its own worst enemy. If we lose the fight to lift the moratorium on uranium mining, we will have no one to blame but ourselves, and our silence will have confirmed every myth. Thanks, friends.

This piece originally ran in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on January 25, 2013.

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We’re not sure when nuclear energy became a litmus test for political identification in the U.S. But we do know that it is high time Democrats embraced nuclear energy — and supported mining the uranium that fuels it — because nuclear energy can address many of the basic concerns that have shaped our liberalism.

Above everything else, Democrats value people. Are passionate about people. Not corporations. Not profits. But people, in all their glorious diversity. Democrats believe that the average middle-class American deserves a decent job with living wages, access to health care and a solid education, to marry the person they fall in love with and a safe environment in which to live and prosper.

That’s why Democrats were out in front of the curve in accepting the science on climate change. Democrats long ago recognized that if human beings keep dumping 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we will be putting a large portion of the Earth’s ecosystem — and ourselves and our chance to flourish — at risk.

The rivers, lakes, oceans and agricultural land will become substantially less productive. Destructive weather events will increase. Human health costs will rise.

The people who are already the most disadvantaged will be the most affected because they have the fewest resources to invest in adapting to the changes.

That’s why we two liberal Democrats believe that nuclear energy is the only type of electricity that reduces greenhouse gas emissions quickly, safely and cost-effectively – and creates the kind of decent-paying, highly skilled jobs that create the tax bases that enable the quality of life that Democrats want for themselves and all Americans.

Virginia is already ahead of the curve when it comes to nuclear energy (and voting Democratic in the last two presidential elections). It is home to four nuclear power stations, a nuclear fuel processing plant, two nuclear plant design organizations and the U.S. nuclear navy.

Four of those facilities enable Virginians to use all the clean electricity they need to cook dinner for their families, do a million loads of laundry each week and keep their children warm at night. Two of them keep Virginians and their fellow Americans safe. Two of them are designing advanced nuclear energy facilities that will be flexible, economical, reliable and even safer than the impressively safe facilities that already exist.

All of them employ hard-working people in four Virginia regions: Lynchburg, Louisa, Surry and Hampton Roads.

We question why, then, given these 12 compelling, local reasons to support nuclear energy, many Virginia Democrats are automatically against lifting the moratorium on uranium mining.

We wonder why Virginia Democrats accept the science of climate change, yet automatically dismiss the science of radiation and radiation health physics, and empirical proof that uranium can be safely mined, even in places that get a lot of rain.

We puzzle over why Virginia Democrats automatically reject the findings of several economic studies on uranium mining in Pittsylvania County. Each shows a measurable improvement in the local economy and the creation of hundreds of new family-wage jobs, high-tech skills and increased funding for math and science education as a result of allowing the mine to be developed.

At the end of the day, we are urging Virginia Democrats to end the moratorium on uranium mining in the commonwealth. In doing so, they will be taking a huge step toward creating the kind of communities in Southside that reflect Democratic values: fighting climate change, providing equitable opportunities, building strong public education systems and creating prosperity for all.

This post originally appeared in the Roanoke Times on Sunday, January 13, 2013 and was co-authored by Andrea Jennetta and Rod Adams, who publishes Atomic Insights. Adams is a former nuclear submarine engineer officer and works as an engineer/analyst for B&W mPower Inc. in Lynchburg. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Babcock & Wilcox Company.

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Apparently the heavy scientific evidence that favors lifting the ban on uranium mining is creating mining enthusiasts far and wide. Today, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Charles K. Ebinger laid down a strong case for mining uranium in Virginia.

Among my favorite quotes:

“Apparently these propagandists are unaware that a large volume of uranium mining in Australia sits in the path of almost yearly typhoons while uranium mines in Gabon sit in the middle of rain forests while those in South Africa lie directly in the path of violent weather in the Indian Ocean littoral.”

Thanks Charles. Welcome to the club of reasonable, fact-based mining advocates.

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