Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 1991)
la Opinion [ Monday, September 16,1991 The Battalion Page 9 i Califoi; ip win-' •ng foul mentte-i at 4-6, toumarj iernoon | ate, 15-; he day, J hree gaiJ moor,;;! e wintJ 14-16, li. I hey finiili a which , third ph The top; made; • aeket w; | ' console;; -ggies :{ lationbrc ;s t0 WeB ;ht, 15-( | 7. 1 jrday, A'4 S ion seel! ie handil ■, 6-15,l:{ e wento: at bv dell 1 gies re:: en F. Aej n G. M 7:30 p.ni| 1-yard t;{| ust tours Randy i a sore J ds outttR id early® as rushe;i on his I -efore leJ previoj [ touch;ji threw hi:§ ^gie carei .ss to runninpl' ■ft side;* . his set iext play he right: ss than ond hat A&Mi ; on thee ■unnim jght al n quarte: 'S later. ■e things ay in thf said. y would: d half p Kicker' red a 31 ■play, 75 irter. Th: 30-yard; 8-yard s' i zone to i ■avel to i Anti-drug campaigns should not advocate cruelty to animals "Shoot pigeons, not drugs" was part of the theme of the Hegins, Pa., annual Labor Day pigeon shoot this year. The slogan is more than an effort to steer the area youth away from drug use — it is an at tempt to legitimize a cruel, sil ly tradition that has been drawing more and more protest from animal- rights ac tivists every year. According to an article in this week's U.S. News & World Report, the pigeon shoot operates something like this: Around 8,000 pigeons are trapped or bred for the event and brought to Hegins for the shoot. They are put into small traps and released when the gunners yell "pull." Occasionally a few escape, but most are shot. The birds are then collected from the field and put into 55-gallon drums that are placed behind wood en screens so that they are hidden from the audience. Some of the birds are dead; some merely injured. Sometimes the necks crippled birds are wrung; sometimes they die of their in juries after they are left in the drums. Live-bird target shoots are not more challenging than shooting trap or skeet. While live birds may be more "unpredictable," as one gunman told U.S. News, clay pigeons are quite a bit harder to hit, since they always come out flying — live birds are often disoriented and can barely flutter six feet off the ground. Some never actually fly before they are shot. Animal rights activists aren't just a vocal minority trying to end a tradi tion, either. Pennsylvania is one of only four states that hasn't banned live target shoots. The shoots are little more than well-publicized animal abuse. The kill isn't eaten or used in any way. It isn't even used for trophies, though hunting for merely trophies is hardly a legitimate excuse to kill animals. The pigeons are just left to rot, and everybody eats some barbecue and drinks some beer and goes home. And now shoot organizers are ask ing us to trade one social ill for another — instead of do ing drugs, they would prefer that we kill these pigeons for no reason. Certainly, live target shooting is less of a social problem than drug abuse. But why should we be asked to trade one social ill for an other? The Hegins shoot orga nizers were not the first to pick up on the "Shoot (insert the animal of your choice), not drugs" slogan — other states have already imple mented a pro-hunting, anti drug campaign. But the Hegins shoot reminds us that not just anything is an acceptable substitute for drug use. Like live target shooting, trophy hunting is not the sport that it is tout ed to be. Hunting animals just for trophies is senseless, and nothing more than an endeavor taken on to elevate the hunter's ego. It has gotten out of hand. Even if some tro phy hunters are truly proud of their hunting prowess, they can hard ly be proud of the recent scandal that has plagued their sport. Several months ago in Texas, game wardens confiscated the bodies of rare and endangered big cats that had been imported and sold to people for tens of thousands of dollars to shoot for trophies. The animals were let out of cages and immediately shot at point-blank range by the "hunters." Sure it was easy, but won't that pelt look great in the study? This isn't a sport. The word "sport" implies a challenge. If we're going to suggest alterna tives to drug use, let's suggest read ing books or taking up photography or learning judo, not animal cruelty. Drug abuse is definitely a prob lem. But so is killing animals for the fun of watching them die. Ellen Hobbs Hobbs is o senior journalism major. DANTES INFERNO MA&SO-IES Cons of nuclear power Dangers outnumber benefits A s a biologist, ecologist and science educator, I /jk feel compelled to respond to a column that ap- JL JLpeared in The Battalion on September 6. Matt McBurnett proposed nuclear power is the best solution to future shortages of electricity and some current envi ronmental problems; a solution without any problems. In advocating more nuclear power plants, McBurnett seems to forget one of our major concerns during the Persian Gulf War and since its end: does Iraq have a nuclear capability? Why did the Israelis bomb a nuclear power plant in Iraq in 1981? Does he feel comfortable knowing countries like Iran, Iraq, Libya or North Korea may di vert fissionable material from domestic power plants to weapons? India has done just this. His statements about the radioactivity of spent fuel show either incredible naivete or incredi ble ignorance. While he does say spent fuel "does remain radioac tive for quite a while," he gives the impression the re maining 5 percent radioactivity ("95 percent of the ra dioactivity dissipates as heat within six months") is but a minor problem. His flippant comments about mutations further documents his lack of knowledge or understand ing of the serious damage radiation can cause. If spent fuel is so harmless (like "a drought in the Brazos Valley"), why is there so much concern about finding a stable, impervious geologic formation where at can be buried safely for tens of thousands of years? Why has no country with nuclear power found a permanent solution to this problem? His attempt to minimize the size of the spent fuel accumulation is deceptive. If there is such a small amount of this waste, why are most of the cooling ponds where it is currently being stored filled to capacity? Surely, a cooling pond the size of a football field is not very big. He states "all commer cial nuclear power plants" to date have produced only 17,000 tons of waste. This is incorrect on two counts. First, the amount quoted is a low value; I have seen a value of 22,500 tons. Second, the amount, either the 17,000 or the 22,500 tons, is just for the United States, accounting for about one-fourth of the nuclear generating facilities worldwide (110 of 426). McBurnett repeats one of the most common decep tions of the nuclear power industry: It is the "cleanest form of power production." While it is true no green house gases are generated, the steps involved in produc ing nuclear fuels (called the fuel cycle) —its mining, milling, enriching, fabrication into fuel elements and re processing to recover reusable elements — produce toxic wastes. A few facts were not mentioned in McBurnett's column: • Underground mining of uranium results in expo sure to radon gas and its decay products. This major health hazard significantly increases the mortality rate of uranium miners due to lung cancer. • It takes one ton of uranium ore to produce four or less pounds of uranium oxide, the fuel for nuclear poaver plants. Huge piles of these mine tailings, containing ra dium, are deposited on the earth's surface and can leach into ground water. (Radium, discovered by Marie Curie, was responsible for her death.) Currently there are more than 200 million tons of this material in the United States, mainly in the western states — Arizona, New Mex ico, Utah, and Wyoming. The amount of radium in these wastes is about 100 times their concentration in ordinary surface rock. • The workers face dangers in all parts of the fuel cy cle and in the nuclear facilities themselves. • A huge volume of low level radioactive waste is produced during various stages of nuclear fuel cycle. At one time, much of this was dumped into oceans in metal drums. The corrosive sea water has rusted them and has released their contents. Preliminary data indi cates plutonium is now widely distributed in the oceans and may be entering the food chain. It is estimated by the year 2000, in the United States alone, there will be one billion cubic feet of these wastes. If this waste was placed on the playing area of Kyle Field, it would be 55,555 feet, or 10.52 miles, deep. • One nuclear reprocessing plant in New York state was shut down due to excessive radioactive emissions. One of the early ad vantages of nuclear generated electricity was it would be an inexpensive source of en ergy, " too cheap to meter!" With increasing knowledge about the properties of radioactive materials, it became critical to design nuclear facilities much more carefully than previously thought necessary. The inherently dangerous properties of nucle ar fuels make power plant construction of prime impor- tance, with redundant systems to anticipate all conceiv able scenarios. This adds significantly to the cost of the power plant. It also, invariably, leads to rate increases for subscribers of the utility. The partial meltdown of Unit 2 at Three Mile Island in 1979 is used by both pro- and anti-nuclear groups. The pro- side insists it demonstrated how safe nuclear power plants are because even though it was the most serious accident in U.S. history, no one was hurt. The anti- side points out this near disaster, about a minute away from a total melt down and a release of radiation approaching that of Chernobyl, indicates how dangerous nu clear energy is. Over 2000 lawsuits have been filed against GPU N uclear, the owners of the Three Mile Is land plant. Some have been settled out of court— GPU Nuclear, however, not admitting any guilt. Since the ac cident, GPu Nuclear has spent over $1 billion to clean up Unit 2, and they are not finished. Another $200 million was spent for storage of radioactive rubble in Idaho, this expense being covered by federal tax dollars. A problem facing all nuclear power plants is what to do with them when they have worn out. You simply cannot lock them up and walk away from them. They have to be decommissioned. To date, only one commercial nuclear reactor has been decommissioned. Tire 72 megawatt reactor from Shippingport, Pa. was transported to the Hanford Mili tary Reservation, via the Panama Canal, and buried. The demolition of the containment building and the moving of the 1000 ton reactor cost $98 million. Within the next 40 years, all the existing nuclear reac tors in the United States must go through this procedure. How much will it cost to decommission a full-sized 1000 megawatt plant and how will the public utilities finance it? As it turns out, nuclear energy is not cheap. McBurnett implies a shift from petroleum based elec trical generation to nuclear will prevent future energy crises. However, uranium ore resources are not plentiful and the United States would run out of its known re serves before the middle of the next century. Even with breeder reactor technology, fissionable material is still a finite resource. McBurnett dismisses alternative energy sources (solar and wind ) as being unreliable. Promising advances have been made in these areas, despite the lack of sup port for research during the 1980s. 'The use of solar energy (photovoltaic cells and vari ous solar collectors) to generate electricity is becoming increasingly common, since the price per kilowatt-hour is getting competitive with conventional generation methods. Wind generation is also becoming more practical. In the future, power generation will become more decen tralized, with more than one method being used. Solar, wind and geo-thermal are all methods of generating electricity without adding greenhouse gases to the atmo sphere. These technologies are less capital intensive and are particularly applicable to remote regions of the Unit ed States and developing countries. Even processes that require combustion have new technologies. A clean coal can be achieved through new pressurized-fluidized-bed combustion (PFBC) process. This coal has 90 percent of the sulfur removed and has lower emissions of nitrogen oxide (more than 50 percent reduction) and even carbon dioxide. McBurnett describes those who oppose nuclear ener gy as having a "basic misunderstanding of nuclear pow er," and people who are "mishappen radicals." While people fitting these descriptions exist in all movements, including pro-nuclear, it does not describe the majority of the anti-nuclear movement's proponents. The Union of Concerned Scientists has addressed problems with nuclear power. It is doubtful they fit McBurnett's description. The truth is McBurnett is mis informed. There are at least two sides to every argument and he has looked at only one of them. It is our duty to educate ourselves on all aspects of a controversy and then decide which view we support. Determining the accuracy of information is often dif ficult Pro-nuclear sources contend radioactivity from fuel rods or emissions from nuclear power plants are nothing to be concerned about. Anti-nuclear sources contend they are extremely dangerous. Who is to be believed? Readers Opinion Steven P. Lewis is a Ph.D. and lecturer in the biology department. n t E Mail Call Move bus stop away from MSC ❖ Whoever chose the location for the new bus stops made a bad choice. There is always a lot of pedestrian traffic going and coming from the MSC. The bus stops being where they are make it 10 times worse. Consider the MSC grass. It's bad enough with all the construction. What about all of the cars entering and leaving the loop by the MSC? What a pain. Instead of just complaining, I have a suggestion. Move the whole thing over to Houston street be tween Bizzell Hall and the Coke Building. There aren't as many people there all the time and the sidewalks are much wider. People will have a place to sit and there are plenty of trees for shade. The traffic can't be any worse. Bus Operations has nothing to lose and everyone benefits. How about it? Frank Stephens '93 Sex education should remain private choice ❖ In his call for mandatory sex education classes on campus, David Nash bemoans ignorance about sex. Nash implies prior sexual experience would benefit the young couple. Compare the cases of two couples, one in which neither partner is sexually ex perienced and one in which both partners are sexual ly experienced. • They won't know how to please their partner. That's what the honeymoon is for. Performing as a novice for a few days causes no shame if one's part ner is equally naive. The experienced couple cannot be equally experi enced and will inevitably make comparisons to previ ous partners. As the number of previous partners in creases, the probability that the current partner is the most sexually satisfying diminishes, as do the chance both partners will remain contented for a lifetime. • They won't know how to prevent conception. Pre-marital sex can only increase the expected number of unplanned pregnancies. Accidental preg nancies may occur most frequently during a person's earliest sexual encounters but could be minimized by sharing those relations with one's spouse (with whom contraception has been discussed). If a chance pregnancy does occur, it is best to occur within a marriage, where parents are better prepared to sup port a child. • They zvon't know ho tv to prevent infection. They won't need to. Mutual monogamy accom plishes absolute protection against sexually transmit ted diseases. Mr. Nash fails to understand the differences between denying the reality of extramarital sex, and opposing its glorification through required sex edu cation classes. Russ Miller is a graduate student in statistics. Have an opinion? Express it! The Battalion is interested in hearing from its readers. All letters to the editor are welcome. Written letters must be signed and include classification, address and daytime phone number for verification purposes. Anonymous letters will not be published. The Battalion reserves the right to edit all letters for length, style and . accuracy. There is no guarantee letters will appear. Letters may be brought to 01 3 Reed McDonald, sent to Campus Mail Stop 1111 or can be faxed to 845-5408.