Nuclear Energy and US Double Standards

The White House allows construction of nuclear reactors for the first time since 1979

The U.S. has given the green light to two new nuclear reactors (the reactors will be either from Westinghouse or Toshiba — there are different versions of the story). They will be constructed by a group called “Southern Company” in its plant in Vogtle, Ga. These are the first licenses granted by the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Committee since 1979; the year when a horrible nuclear accident in Pennsylvania paralyzed this sector of energy production.

At four in the morning on March 28, 1979, iodine and toxic nuclear gases began to accidentally escape from the reactor. Later it was affirmed that cleaning up the entire area would cost $1 billion and wouldn’t be over until 1993.

The two new reactors will be operational in 2016 and 2017, will cost roughly $14 billion and will supposedly create 25,000 new (direct and indirect) jobs — good news for a deteriorating labor market.

However, there are other elements to emphasize in the opening in the U.S.’s nuclear energy market, where already 104 reactors are in operation at 64 plants that generate almost 20 percent of the country’s electrical energy. This act offers a clear view of the double standard the U.S. maintains regarding nuclear power issues. The U.S. benefits from a power-generating source as an alternative to oil (as they seek to reduce their reliability on this substance), yet they deny others the possibility to do the same.

The most notorious case of this double standard is with Iran’s nuclear program and has almost led to war on many occasions. Washington, Israel and its Western partners in NATO continue attempting to obstruct Iran’s peaceful nuclear development, alleging that their nuclear reactors — and the uranium necessary to make them function — would be destined to construct atomic weapons.

The hypocrisy is more than obvious. At the same time that the U.S. made its announcement to build the reactors, the Exterior Minister of Israel, Avigdor Liberman, (with the support of many members of the UN Security Council) promised that his government would consider “all options” about what to do with Iran if the current sanctions do not restrain Iran’s nuclear program.

In the end it is the United States, who possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and Israel, whose number of nuclear weapons is more than 200 — sufficient for them to destroy the entire planet — who are attempting to deny Iran’s authority to continue with its nuclear program, saying that Iran is “the greatest threat to peace and security in the world.”

If the matter weren’t so serious, one would laugh out loud. Especially if they considered the recent article in The Washington Post that reported that the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, is convinced that an Israeli attack targeting Iran’s nuclear installations is imminent and could happen in “April, May or June.”

However the United States, as they authorize the construction of new reactors do not constitute a new threat. The irony is that the U.S. doesn’t even have to hide that they possess atomic bombs. Those bombs, scattered throughout the world are at their disposal whenever they may choose to use them — which they have already done in 1945 to make sure that they would come out of World War II as the masters.

So, the International Atomic Energy Agency or the U.N. Security Council — always ready to knock out the weak and rebellious — are not at all interested in looking into what “secret purpose” could be behind the new reactors in Georgia.