Letters to the editor

FPL: Expand solar, not nuclear, power

I appreciated Armando Olivera's commentary (April 28) regarding Florida Power and Light's efficiency programs. It is clear that FPL is doing a fine job in trying to maintain necessary power to the public while using vital conservation habits at the same time. Reading the commentary brought two questions to my mind. The first question is why does FPL intend to spend the money, energy and time on expanding nuclear power to serve Florida when there are at least four persistent problems with nuclear power which must be solved before new nuclear power plants should be built? These problems are:

1. Nuclear waste: After over 40 years of struggling with this issue, we have not found satisfactory and safe places in which to put the waste. These waste materials need a safe repository that will contain them for tens of thousands of years.

2. Safety: The Union of Concerned Scientists cites in its magazine, the Catalyst, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not adequately enforcing its own safety standards.

3. Sabotage and terrorist attacks: The UCS and others also cite that the NRC's assumptions about security attacks are unrealistically modest. It has tried to avoid imposing high security costs to the nuclear power industry and therefore has set weaker security requirements than it should have.

4. Nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism: It is reasonable to conclude that expansion of nuclear power could increase the risk that more nations or terrorists will acquire the material needed to build nuclear weapons.

I believe that each of these four reasons is sufficient to keep FPL from carrying through plans to expand the use of nuclear power plants.

My second question is: Instead of nuclear power, why not spend the money, energy and time to solving the problems that solar energy expansion brings? After all, solar energy doesn't offer the very real dangers that nuclear power plants bring and we do live in the Sunshine State. Perhaps we should tap into this powerful resource for more than tourism and agriculture.

Helen Jo Williams
Bradenton

Ovulation reasoning off

I hesitantly write this letter as I cannot ovulate and as far as I know, I do not have a uterus. Nevertheless, with the hope offered by medical breakthroughs, I could perhaps one day be an ovulatory-American and freely express my opinions about the unborn without being ridiculed.

It is pathetic that a state legislator, purportedly an intelligent person, would state that men should not be involved in discussions or regulations regarding abortion because they cannot ovulate. If this passes for intelligent discourse, I would suggest that male doctors, who cannot ovulate, cease immediately from performing any abortions.

Frank Reda
Bradenton

Master Gardener passes

It's sad when you lose a friend. It's doubly sad when you lose a mentor and it's triply sad when you lose a very able leader. That's how we Master Gardeners feel over the loss of Chuck White on April 17.

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