LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Baltimore Sun

Power giant relies on costly subsidies

The Sun's report on Electricite de France's planned purchase of Constellation Energy Group stock to permit new nuclear reactor construction in the United States missed several important points that suggest readers should be skeptical about this deal ("Constellation in joint nuclear venture," July 21).

Michael J. Wallace, executive vice president of Constellation, says of EDF: "They are sending a signal to the market that they are serious about us and also sending a signal that they are in this for the long haul." But he fails to note that its experience really shows that nuclear power does not make economic sense and can only limp forward with massive government subsidies.

EDF is an energy giant, responsible for more nuclear power plants than any single entity in the world. But it is a socialist, state-sponsored giant, and one of the most deeply indebted corporations in the world.

EDF has a long history of receiving bailouts from the French government.

EDF's reactors were so expensive to build and operate that the utility now sells electricity to the United Kingdom for less than the cost of making it.

Is this the type of nuclear economics we wish to import?

If massive government subsidies are what it takes to fund energy sources that beat climate change, shouldn't we be investing in wind power and solar power, which, unlike nuclear power, get cheaper every year and leave us no highly toxic wastes to handle?

Michael Mariotte

Takoma Park

The writer is executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a nonprofit anti-nuclear energy information clearinghouse.

Nuclear power still too costly and toxic

The news of Constellation Energy Group's new joint venture with Electricite de France is, quite frankly, disconcerting ("Constellation in joint nuclear venture," July 21).

While there is virtually no pollution from the power-generation process once a nuclear power plant is completed, the fuel used by such a plant isn't renewable and the byproducts are toxic - unless, of course, we use them for weapons, in which case they're only deadly.

Factor in the pollution caused by the construction of the plant and the refining of reactor-grade uranium, and you have an apparatus that, over its life cycle, will create at least 20 percent of the pollution a natural gas-fired power plant will produce, and possibly up to 120 percent of the pollution a natural gas plant will create (with the actual figure depending on the quality of the uranium firing the reactor).

On top of the emissions from the nuclear power, we must consider the cost of nuclear-generated electricity: It's $3.50 more per megawatt hour than wind-generated power, $6.20 more than coal-generated power and $6.80 more than natural gas-generated power, according to 2006 U.S. government estimates.

That's right: Nuclear-generated power is the most expensive power we can buy.

So should we spend billions of dollars on power plants that still pollute and are more expensive to operate than any other source of energy?

Or should we start increasing our reliance on cheaper, renewable sources of energy?

I think we should call on Gov. Martin O'Malley to increase Maryland's reliance on renewable energy sources to 20 percent by 2020.

Twenty percent isn't much, but it's a start.

Charles Beebe

Cockeysville

The writer is a fundraiser for Environment Maryland.

New Israeli textbook a step toward peace

Kudos to Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir for approving an Israeli textbook that acknowledges the Arab perspective of the events of 1948 in Israel/Palestine ("Israelis OKs text giving Palestinian side of 1948-49 war," July 23). This is an encouraging move that I hope will promote understanding and dialogue among future generations of Jews and Arabs.

Recognition of its responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 is a step that Israel must take before there can be any reconciliation between the two peoples.

The truth often hurts. But for Israel and Palestine's future, it's the only way to peace.

Paul Baroody

Baltimore

Foes of the Iraq war right from the start

While I would not want to discourage Thomas Sowell's apparently recent insight that the war in Iraq is a catastrophe, it bothers me that he still couldn't resist blaming his ideological opponents - who had the sense to question the invasion - for this disaster ("Military victory, political failure," Opinion * Commentary, July 19).

In fact, the very people Mr. Sowell supports basically had a blank check for years to do what they wanted in Iraq.

Until recently, there was really no effective domestic opposition to the Bush administration, which gambled everything on being able to invade, occupy and pacify Iraq.

It crashed and burned miserably in the process.

Now, $500 billion spent and more than 3,500 American deaths and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties later, the administration doesn't have many political allies left - and even Mr. Sowell is abandoning ship.

But as The Sun's article "The long, hard haul from Iraq" (July 15) explained well, any withdrawal from Iraq today would be a difficult task, given our huge infrastructural footprint there and lack of allies. And even an ideal exit strategy would leave Iraqis thoroughly debased and dehumanized and leave Iraq in ruins.

Paul R. Schlitz Jr.

Baltimore

Prayer a moment of quiet reflection

I disagree with the letter writer who suggested that prayers at the opening of sessions of Congress be discontinued ("Why does the Senate offer a prayer at all?" July 20).

In this topsy-turvy world, where wrongs are looked upon as right, a few moments of quiet prayer and reflection on the Bible, where the ways of wrong and right are spelled out, is a welcome interlude for peace and thought for our representatives.

Philip Grossman

Baltimore

Would church listen if the laity spoke up?

Bravo to the writer of the letter that blasted good Catholics for not following their consciences and speaking up on behalf of the victims of the sexual abuse scandal in the church ("Catholics' silence let scandal fester," July 22).

However, I wonder: Not to make excuses, but would it have mattered?

After all, the Roman Catholic Church is not, and never has been, a democracy.

Sue Keller

Finksburg

Scrubbing the steps still a city tradition

Dorothy Robbins, the woman photographed in front of her Aisquith Street rowhouse while perpetuating the great and all but lost Baltimore tradition of scrubbing one's marble steps, is a true Baltimore hero and role model ("Tried and true," July 21).

I'm willing to bet she has more than something to do with the trashless, immaculate streetscape evidenced in the photo, which belonged on the front page.

Donna Beth Joy Shapiro

Baltimore

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