Exaggerated Danger of Nuclear Power

Re “An End to Nuclear Fishin’?” (Dec. 9):

Every form of power production has an environmental impact. When a total cost assessment is performed--taking all environmental effects into account--nuclear power comes out looking much better than might be suggested by the portrayal in the article.

The amount of waste heat produced by power plants is more a function of the amount of power produced than it is of the type of fuel used to make the power.

The article fails to mention the fact that a nuclear power plant offsets a tremendous amount of pollution that would otherwise be created.

To generate the same amount of power as a nuclear plant, a coal-burning power station produces millions of tons of waste annually. Nuclear power plants in the U.S. are estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions alone by over 100 million tons of carbon each year.

Another means of power production, the automobile engine, arguably poses a greater threat to marine life than all of California’s coastal power plants, nuclear and nonnuclear, combined. Surface runoff from automobile oil residue imposes a tremendous load on the environment.

One is left wondering why one power plant--of a type that does not emit any pollutants--has been singled out to perform environmental remediation.

RICHARD BOYER

San Clemente

* Once again, newspaper reporters and environmentalists are an inflammatory mix.

In “An End to Nuclear Fishin’?”, you state, “Environmentalists say the [San Onofre] nuclear plant, which uses 1.6 million gallons of seawater per minute, then recycles it back to the ocean, has irreparably damaged the marine environment from Point Conception to the Mexican Border.”

Get real!

San Onofre is only one of 10 power plants between Point Conception and the Mexican border that uses water for cooling.

So, either these environmentalists are poorly misinformed, or they desire to misinform the general public by using willing accomplices to disseminate their propaganda.

BREWSTER COTTON

Costa Mesa