The mail.

After reading "Fight Terror: Drill in America" (SCAN, December 2001) I find I am in agreement with everything said--except the mention of "economic, safe, and dean power from nuclear energy." Economic? Safe? The Long Island Lighting Company's Nuclear Power Plant was so costly and unsafe it was shut down before we even got one watt of power. Clean? We would be counting hundreds of thousands, not thousands, of dead had terrorists struck the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant instead of the World Trade Center. So, let us stay with your opening premise--Fight Terror, Drill in America.

 
Bill Lynch 
Miller Place, New York 

Aside from safety concerns, and figuring in waste disposal and other costs, the real cost of nuclear power has never been resolved. No wonder the public is still somewhat uneasy about nuclear power (OPINION PULSE, September 2001).

Cleanup costs at existing processing sites are projected into the billions. There is also the matter of overall efficiency or lack thereof. A study performed at the University of Wyoming in the early 1970s indicated that the equivalent of up to half the electrical output of a U.S. nuclear power plant is required for mining, concentration, and enrichment of the uranium fuel.

The overall efficiency of atomic power can be less than 5 percent of the theoretical thermal rating of the nuclear fuel. The same remarks can be extended to wind-powered electrical generating systems, solar collectors/converters, and fuel cells.

Hence, then, a toast to the conveniences of oil and natural gas, wherever they may be found--and as long as they may last, and as long as we may not be gouged too much!

 
E. J. Hoffman 
Laramie, Wyoming