Protesters’ Nuclear Reaction

It is discouraging to read a letter like Tanja Winter’s “Nuclear Power Not the Safe Alternative” (April 9).

She says it’s wrong to build a plutonium-fueled power reactor in Russia--”Has Chernobyl taught us nothing?”

She ignores the fact that the Chernobyl reactor was built from a primitive, inherently unstable design. As it heats up, the power level increases, ultimately to runaway condition. Modern power reactors in France, England, Japan and the United States slow down as the temperature rises and distorts the geometry of the fuel load.

But the big point she misses, and that seems to elude the entire anti-nuke community, is that using up plutonium in power reactors will solve a dreadful problem: As we dismantle bombs and missiles, the plutonium taken from the warheads remains intact, ready to be reloaded into newer and better delivery systems should a new war scare heat up.

How to get rid of the potentially catastrophic fuel? The best way would be to extract its power slowly and under controlled conditions in reactors producing peaceful electric power.

I sometimes wonder if anti-nuke people really want the problem of ever-growing stockpiles of plutonium solved. Or would they prefer that the problem remain with us forever so they can continue their hysterical hand-wringing?

ROBERT F. MACKNESS, Sierra Madre