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As a lifelong environmentalist, citizen member of Gov. Jim Doyle's global warming task force, and former board chair of Clean Wisconsin, I urge the Wisconsin Senate to pass SB 288, removing outdated restrictions on building nuclear power plants in Wisconsin.

I had always opposed nuclear power because I considered it to be dangerous. However,

I now know that my opposition was not supported by science but was ideologically-driven, parroting many of the organizations on which I depended for my information. I have learned to look instead to the best sources of science: the National Academies of Science, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and consensus science generally.

The argument that the bill should not be passed because nuclear power is too expensive is disingenuous. As long as nuclear power is significantly more expensive than its alternatives, utilities will not invest in it. Cost is already a routine part of decision-making at the Public Service Commission — it doesn't need to be written into state law. If nuclear power does become cost-competitive some day, utilities should be encouraged to build what to date is the only carbon-free source of baseload power available to us.

Similarly, the argument that nuclear power is too dangerous does not hold up under scrutiny. While all sources of electric generation have their problems, not a single death has been attributed to nuclear power in the United States. Coal, on the other hand, has killed 10,000 people annually in the U.S. alone. not including its contribution to climate change.

The only three significant accidents at nuclear plants in the world confirm nuclear's safety. At Three Mile Island, a tiny amount of radiation was released, with no adverse health effects in the surrounding population.

At Chernobyl — the worst nuclear accident the world has ever seen and the only one that resulted in fatalities — fewer than 50 people died as a direct result of radiation, and approximately 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer in children were successfully treated.

Even at Fukuskhima, no deaths have been attributed to radiation exposure. It is now widely recognized that the greatest public health impacts of Fukushima resulted from fear of radiation, not radiation itself.

Another specious argument is that spent fuel from nuclear reactors is too dangerous. The fact is that spent fuel has been stored safely for more than half a century. And new generation reactors hold the promise of reusing that spent fuel. The waste from burning fossil fuels, by contrast, simply goes into the air where it is neither contained nor safeguarded.

Investment in conservation, efficiency, and renewables such as wind and solar will not suffer if this bill is passed since it rightfully keeps those three priorities before nuclear power. But conservation, efficiency and other renewables cannot reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

This is not merely "opinion." It is the conclusion of the vast majority of scientists who have studied the issue. A report from the National Academy of Sciences concluded that with accelerated deployment, electricity from non-hydropower renewable sources could reach 10% by 2020, potentially rising to as much as 20% by 2035. That's not enough.

Four of the world's top climate scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, released an open letter to the environmental community two years ago urging it to drop its opposition to nuclear power. Other prominent environmentalists who have changed their position on nuclear power include Stewart Brand, author of "The Whole Earth Catalog," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Mark Lynas, award-winning author of several books about climate change.

We need every tool available to us if we hope to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Senators should set aside their unfounded objections to nuclear power and support SB288.

Margi Kindig is a resident of Madison.