History of nuclear energy isn't pretty

Dear editor:

Many of us have questions concerning the issues of nuclear energy. We have all heard the many success stories of France and their nuclear energy program which is a source of 80 percent of their electricity. We have heard very little of the other side of this story, which is nuclear waste (which France does not store in their own country), accidents (numerous), abandoned Uranium mines (280 in France) and contaminated waterways and lands belonging to other countries and the world. The claim that this fuel is reused or recycled is extremely misleading and in most cases false and no reprocessing facilities exist in the U.S. The half-life of this spent fuel is 24,000 years for Plutonium 239, a byproduct of nuclear power. (A half-life is the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.) Please take time to be more informed on this issue. An excellent website for information is www.beyondnuclear.org. There is an article titled the French Connection which is most informative.

Pam Swenson

Nancy Orr