Ode to a Plutonian Ode

It’s practically beyond belief to see the initial stunning photographs of Pluto we’ve received through the 12-watt transmitter of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, 3 billion miles away. High resolutions of icy mountains as tall as Hyndman and a toy box full of planetary mysteries for mission astronomers to gleefully analyze in coming years – and this success merely 112 years after the Wright Brothers.

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Meanwhile, here on solid Earth, most people have forgotten the protests over the 24 pounds of Idaho made plutonium that’s powering this extraordinary mission. According to the January 16, 2006 N.Y Times: “NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy put the probability of an early-launch accident that would cause plutonium to be released at 1 in 350 chances.”

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The Times also reported in 2006 that NASA estimated the cost of decontamination, should there be a serious accident with plutonium released during the launch, at anywhere from $241 million to $1.3 billion per square mile, depending on the size of the area.

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 This is not a farfetched scenario. Of 28 U.S. space missions that used plutonium preceding 2006, three have had accidents, the worst in 1964 in which a plutonium-powered satellite broke up and spread toxic radioactivity wide over our planet.

Interestingly, soon after the European Space Agency begin using solar energy to power spacecraft past Jupiter, NASA retracted its earlier claims that plutonium would be needed for spacecraft to be operational beyond Mars and admitted that solar will work in deep space. This of course, affects the future of the highly profitable market of INL plutonium production.

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Recently, I read an interesting Reddit article that speculated about the increasing speeds we will probably achieve in future space travel. The author suggested that within a few generations, we may very well develop probes capable of reaching the Outer Oort Cloud within a few days. Not only that, but we could even possess the capability of capturing an earlier probe and then retrieving it for education purposes to a contemporary space museum.

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If humanity achieves this ability in another 112 years, I would suggest to future generations that they do not return the New Horizons spacecraft full of deadly plutonium back to a museum on fragile Earth, but rather create a safe outpost museum on faraway Pluto.

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And if you’ve read his book Plutonian Ode in which leading Beat Poet Alan Ginsberg spoke broadly about this most deadly element under the sun, I think you’ll agree he probably would have smiled at the idea. 

Beware of Putrid Plutonium Propheteers

The powerful politically connected nuclear industry has been consistently campaigning to construct new plants in Idaho and many are prepared to buy it. Some have written letters beseeching Idahoans to embrace nuclear power, so that we can be first in something for once.

To paraphrase environmental-watchman Lee Halper from a recent radioactive-hot forum:

“Idaho is already first in many things. We're almost first in cow crap. We're first in lack of ethics in the Legislature. We're first in ignoring what doesn't work in other states will work here and we're first in having the most NUCLEAR waste seeping into our drinking water. We could be first in geothermal, wind, solar, hydrogen and conservation of energy but people who look for the silver bullet like NUCLEAR, are those who want us to be first in line for Superfund status.”

I agree with Lee; let’s not be first in foolhardiness. The poisonous nuclear industry kills much more than charging windmills do birds. For the next 40,000 years, we will have to develop warning signs decipherable long after the English language has died out. Think about it; the proud legacy nuclear waste leaves, will endure an epoch tenfold longer than the most ancient Egyptian pyramid.

Now an experienced French company “committed to fueling the nuclear renaissance,” is on the verge of gaining generous tax breaks for mining Idaho uranium. While it’s true France uses 80 percent nuclear power, there is a big brouhaha going on over there about the wasteful thinking. And where do the elite French position their insidiously deadly toxins to rest for millennia? Why it’s being shoveled into poor (Muslim) peoples backyards, which leave long-term radioactive stains, that will stink ten million times worse than simple cow-crap.

Beware of Putrid Plutonium Propheteers

The powerful nuclear industry has been campaigning to construct new plants in Idaho and many have been preparing to buy it. Some have written letters beseeching Idahoans to embrace nuclear power, so that we can be first in something for once.

To paraphrase Lee Halper from a recent radioactive-hot forum, “Idaho is already first in many things. We're almost first in cow crap. We're first in lack of ethics in the Legislature. We're first in ignoring what doesn't work in other states will work here and we're first in having the most NUCLEAR waste seeping into our drinking water. We could be first in geothermal, wind, solar, hydrogen and conservation of energy but people who look for the silver bullet like NUCLEAR, are those who want us to be first in line for Superfund status.”

I agree with Lee; let us not be first in foolhardiness. The poisonous nuclear industry kills much more than charging windmills do birds. For the next 40,000 years, we will have to develop warning signs decipherable long after the English language has died out. Think about it, the proud legacy nuclear waste leaves, will endure an epoch tenfold longer than the most ancient Egyptian pyramid. The gist of it is; no one wants to be known as the one who killed the goose that lays golden eggs, even if they are speckled with plutonium.

Now a French company “committed to fueling the nuclear renaissance,” is on their way to getting generous tax breaks for mining Idaho uranium. Let’s be first in common sense again, by swatting away pests who desire to salt our fragile freedom-fry spud fields with a radioactive twinge. While it is true that France uses 80 percent nuclear power, don’t think that there is not a big brouhaha going on over there about the wasteful thinking. And where are the elite French trying to lay their insidiously deadly toxins to rest for millennia? Why it’s being shoveled into poor peoples backyards, of course. Affecting many Muslim communities. And that’s just dandy?

Perhaps Idaho newspaper editors should convene to develop a writing contest, for us to draft letters of apology to our grandchildren’s grandchildren, for how we have wrongly ‘warshiped’ Mother Earth, to insert in a time capsule, next to the Yucky Mountain radioactive warning cryptograms. Winners could receive protection suits, fitted with alarming Geiger counters.

The bad spin about wind turbines is very overblown. Improved energy gaining methods from the wind have been developed using large high-tension bands, which kill no birds. Think how much better off we will be, when we invest only one-tenth as much Research and Development into the dozens of other viable solar and wind parametered projects, as we do into killing innocent civilians over oil-Euros.

Although most of us are now war-weary, it’s inspiring to see that many Idahoans are not allowing themselves to be blinded by plutonium propheteers rushing in with desperate short-term energy solutions, which leave long-term radioactive stains, ten thousand-fold worse than cow-crap.