Lost Highway Times...Paths in Oblivion

Inspired by going past Kalama, which is one of Washington State's nuclear power facillities. The thing about nuclear power is that you expect the actual power generating process to be really high tech, to be something that's science fiction like, but the reality is something else. The nuclear process is geared to do one thing: heat up water into steam which drives a turbine which generates power. This is essentially the same process as hydroelectric or, if I'm correct, coal fired power, i.e. use an energy source to drive a turbine to generate power.

The only difference is that nuclear uses compounds that have the potential of wiping out entire towns, contaminating the ground for a millenia, causing birth defects and radiation poisoning, and generally melting down and exploding, causing fallout like that of a nuclear bomb.

Additionally, the way which it generates steam, heat generated from controlled fission being applied to water, which, after being turned into steam and used is either reprocessed or released into the environment, guarantees that there won't be any way to keep the water clean of radiation and radioactive particles. Nuclear plants release a steady stream of heated water into the environment and with that inescapably comes radioactive particles and radiation. People will say that these are just trace elements, but when you're dealing with an enourmous daily volume of water like nuclear power plants do, a trace amount, proportionally, is anything but small and insignificant.

Then there're the byproducts of nuclear power, which are extraordinarily toxic and, even though their usefullness in generating steam has passed, still emit radiation.

Nuclear power is like having monkeys attach a bomb to a windmill in order to make it spin faster. It's stupid and dangerous in the extreme and doesn't represent a real technological advance in the basic ways of creating power over that which we already have.

Solar, on the other hand, does...and wind does the same thing, use the same basic principle as the nuclear power plants, turbine generated power, without fucking with our basic ability to support life on this planet.

Viva alternative energy!