Nuclear power a ‘dead-end road’
Skeptical author analyzes ‘coverup’
By Katharina Marrtll
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"I don't think there would be an
issue of nuclear power if it hadn't
been covered up," says author
Karl Grossman "If you look
through the records, it’s the blind
blinding themselves. ”
After studying government and
industry documents on nuclear
power obtained through the 1957
Freedom of Information Act,
Grossman wrote "Cover Up:
What you are not supposed to
know about Nuclear Power He
reviewed the contents of the book
in his lecture Thursday night at
the Lane County Conference
Center
Grossman, a broadcast jour
nalist and journalism professor at
the State University of New York,
lectured on the 13th annual Earth
Day as part of campus Earth
Week programs
Wien it comes to researching
nuclear power, 'don’t believe any
source," he said. "But what the
source can do is lead you to the
truth."
The federal government and
large corporations have tried to
"push and manipulate" the
country down a "dead-end road”
with nuclear power, Grossman
said After the discovery of the
atomic bomb, the government
and corporations searched for
other ways to use the fission
process.
"They were looking for
something to keep it all going,'' he
said.
Wien the Price-Anderson Act
passed in 1957, the nuclear in
dustry became legally obligated
to pay up to $560 million for
damages resulting from a nu
clear accident Under provisions
of the act, the government pays
the first $500 million A recently
University Bookstore
selling more books
Sales are up about 5 percent over the last fiscal year, according to a
report at Thursday's meeting of the University Bookstore Board of
Directors
The annual meeting, which drew an audience of about 40, included
board nominations and a complaint about the Bookstore selling
Playboy magazine
Bookstore sales currently total about $5 2 million, said Ted Shiman
uki. the University Bookstore Treasurer
"We are very pleased with this sales growth,” Bookstore president
Bobbie Weidner said. "I think this will be fairly stable until the end of the
year (June 30).”
The largest single item sales growth is a 52 percent jump in used
book sales. SNmanuki said, adding that sales of T-shirts and sporting
goods are down.
Seven students were nominated for student-at-large positions on the
Board of Directors, the most of any position receiving nominations.
Nominated were Ronald Taylor, Ricky Lee Smithrud, Mark Tone, Martin
Moll, Michael Larson Kevin Thomas and Jon Gimre.
Two students were nominated for the two sophomore board posi
tions: Dale Penegor, an unsuccessful candidate for the Incidental Fee
Committee during the ASUO primary election, and Andy Storment
Graduate students Holly McLaen. David Gold. Craig Edwards, and
Mark Tranzer were nominated for the graduate position. Muriel
Jackson, assistant for administration in the University president's
office, was nominated for the faculty position and Fred Wilhelm,
currently respresenting classified staff on the board, was re-nominated
for his current post
The bookstore board of directors election will be held May 13 and 14,
with members elected for two-year terms.
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proposed amendment would
raise the level to $280 billion,
Grossman said
Also in 1957, a report done by
the nuclear power industry said a
nuclear plant accident could re
sult in 3,400 deaths and 43,000
injuries, killing everyone within 15
‘The Columbia
may be the most
radioactive river
in the world'
miles of the plant and injuring
people within 45 miles.
In an updated version of that
report, the nuclear industry con
ceeds that "if you have machin
ery, there will be breakdowns,”
Grossman said. “The emergency
core cooling system cannot be
If
made foolproof,” the report
states.
While "China Syndrome” type
of accidents involving loss of
coolant is the most widely pub
licized kind of nuclear accident,
he said reports state that this is
not the most serious type of major
accident.
The most serious accident
would be a nuclear runaway,
Grossman said. This would occur
as the result of a broken control
rod leading to the release of
fission products and a reactor
explosion.
It would happen in a second, he
said. “There is no time to
evacuate — no time to run."
Recovery plans are not much
use, Grossman said. “Once you
create these toxic poisons,
there’s no keeping them in." Even
if people could avoid contamina
tion, food sources couldn’t, he
said.
The waste produced by nuclear
power plants is another danger to
human lives, Grossman said. It
was originally dealt with by putting
the radioactive material in salt
mines, but there was a heat prob
lem with this method.
At the Hanford nuclear power
plant they experimented with us
ing "cribs” that had sides but no
bottoms. "The Columbia river has
been called the most radioactive
river in the world,” he said.
Putting 55 gallon drums filled
with nuclear waste in the Pacific
and Atlantic oceans was stopped,
Grossman said, but “Reagan is
moving to start it again.' ’
Burying the waste is another
way to deal with the problem, but
Grossman found a report that
suggests it may be possible to
smelt the material and make it into
consumer or capital equipment.
"There's just no place to hide,”
he says.
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