BOB MCCRACKEN Nye County History Advertisement

In my last column on the 31st, I explored beliefs about ogres -- imaginary, dangerous villains who appear with various names and descriptions in the folklore and beliefs of people worldwide. I noted several, including Water Baby, Mountain Man, tommyknockers, and the headless trammer, who are found in Nye County and other areas in the American West.

Ogres have likely been with us since humanity's infancy and, as we have seen, they can take many forms. Human beings everywhere seem to have a large capacity -- even a deep psychological need -- to create ogres and believe in them. Fear of ogres can be used to manipulate the thinking and behavior of others, even the most sophisticated individuals.

I believe that in the last 25 years or so, many Americans, including a significant number of Nevadans, have succumbed to belief in a new type of ogre. This new ogre is thought to possess prodigious power to make people sick and kill them and, given half a chance, it will ruin the world. This ogre is much worse than any necrophage, bloody bones, or headless trammer.

Like the invisible arrows shot by the Shoshone's and Southern Paiute's dwarf ogre Mountain Man, it can't be seen. You could stand next to it and not know it. As presently conceived by many, it may well be the most malevolent ogre in world history.

This menace must be avoided at all costs. It must not be allowed on the highways. It must be kept out of our neighborhoods. Keep it out of the state; if it appears in Nevada, unimaginable disaster will befall us all. Since the ogre already exists, it must be kept in the communities where it was born; let the unfortunate souls living there deal with it.

I am, of course, referring to the nuclear power/nuclear waste ogre.

The production of nuclear power and the storage and reprocessing of the resulting waste obviously must be rigorously controlled. Carelessness can result in costly and deadly consequences. (The term "waste" is actually a misnomer and is used to cultivate fear and dissent; most of the energy originally in the nuclear fuel is still available.)

Modern society is replete with devices and substances that can be exceedingly dangerous -- for instance, nuclear weapons, high explosives, Boeing 747 airliners, gasoline, natural gas, deadly viruses and bacteria stored in laboratories, and poisonous materials such as arsenic and mercury.

Yet there is no outcry: "Keep nuclear weapons and deadly viruses out of our state," "No more 747s."

These potentially damaging materials are not perceived as ogres in the way nuclear power and spent nuclear fuel are.

As with most ogres, the fear of nuclear power and spent nuclear fuel varies from one country to another and within the United States.

On the international scene, France obtains 75 percent of its electric power from nuclear reactors and has a safe and successful ongoing program of spent fuel transportation, storage, and reprocessing. Belgium gets 58 percent of its power from nuclear reactors and has experienced 20 years of success in transporting spent fuel by truck, rail, and ship.

Japan obtains 36 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy and ships its nuclear waste to France via truck, rail, and ship with no reported disasters. Finland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland all get more than 30 percent of their power form nuclear energy and successfully transport and store or reprocess spent fuel. No nuclear ogre there.

The Navy is highly dependent on nuclear power and uses it to propel about 40 percent of its ships and submarines with no mention of serious accidents. The states of New Mexico, South Carolina, and Tennessee, among others, have both nuclear reactors and huge nuclear research facilities, all with strong public support.

In contrast, there are those Americans who quake in fear at the supposed dangers of the nuclear power and nuclear waste ogre. Rather than lead the public in a rational examination of the topic, many political leaders in Nevada have fanned the flames of fear.

Such fearmongering has blinded a segment of the public to the benefits of nuclear energy and the important role nuclear energy can play in the state's economy, not to mention maintaining the habitability of our planet. Moreover, some of the same high-profile anti-nuclear leaders have tried to threaten and intimidate Nye County's elected officials when they have had the temerity to question the wisdom of these leaders' anti-nuclear policies.

I would argue that fears of the nuclear waste ogre promoted by many of Nevada's leaders over the past 25 years are analogous to Native American fears of dwarf Mountain Men and miners' fears of tommyknockers and headless trammers.

The promotion of such fears, perhaps more than any other single factor, has hamstrung for more than two decades the development of nuclear power both in the United States and at many sites overseas. I believe the exploitation of such fear for these past decades has resulted in more harm to the earth's environment than any single other action one can point to during this time.

Impeding the expansion of nuclear power through cultivating fear of the nuclear waste ogre has made it impossible for nuclear power to contribute to the United States' energy supply at a level approaching that currently seen in France or Belgium, and has led directly to the construction of a large number of coal- and gas-fired power plants both in the United States and overseas.

These plants are now having, and will continue to have for decades to come, a significant negative impact on world climate. Moreover, by furthering our dependence on foreign oil, fear of the nuclear power/nuclear waste ogre has likely played a role in causing the war in Iraq, current estimated cost $2.4 trillion.

Making nuclear waste/nuclear power into an ogre is not supported by the facts.

The future habitability of our planet, not to mention substantial economic opportunity for Nevada, to a large extent hangs in the balance unless this myth is dispelled. Some facts I find interesting:

? Nuclear power plants and spent fuel disposal sites cannot explode like a nuclear bomb.

? Not one person died in the accident at Three Mile Island, and the reactor next to the one that malfunctioned has produced electricity on an ongoing basis since the accident in 1979.

? The largest health consequence of the breakdown at Three Mile Island was not at Three Mile Island. Instead, it was the lives lost through replacing that nuclear power with fossil fuel as an energy source, which is inherently more health damaging.

? 100 people are killed every year in transporting coal to the nation's coal-fired power plants.

? It takes 38,000 rail cars a year to supply fuel to one 1,000-megawatt coal-burning plant; it takes six trucks of uranium fuel to supply a nuclear plant of the same wattage. 50 times more lives are lost to industrial diseases in mining coal than for the same amount of energy from uranium.

? Air pollution from coal burning causes 30,000 real deaths in the United States per year.

? 70,000 children in the United States suffer neurological damage from the mercury released from burning coal each year.

? Nuclear power is green and renewable. In so-called nuclear waste, most of the energy that was originally in the uranium or plutonium remains; it only has to be reprocessed and "reburned" in a reactor to release that energy. This can be done with minimal negative impact on the environment.

? Ten percent of Nevada's electricity comes from nuclear power generated in other states.

? Non-nuclear renewable energy sources--wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal--have a vital role to play and I support them 100 percent, but folks, you can't run a modern society on them exclusively, and you won't be able to for the foreseeable future. The more quickly people give up that fantasy, the better off all life forms that inhabit the magnificent celestial body we call Earth will be.

It's fun to be scared once a year, but every day in Nevada doesn't have to be Halloween.

Junior Master Gardener

The 4-H is currently organizing a Junior Master Gardener group for youth ages 5-19.

Projects will include gardening in the Cooperative Extension Demonstration Garden, propagation, garden and nature related crafts, hydroponics, container gardening and food and nutrition.

Meetings start in November and will be held in the 4-H building located at 1351 E. Calvada Blvd.

Contact Melinda at 775-537-1287, or Debby at 775-727-5532 for more information.