Uranium Drive-In

I live in the resort town that is home to the environmental organization opposing the uranium mill in Uranium Drive-In. The resort town of Telluride is about sixty miles from the communities featured in the film. Early on in the process, I began to follow the issue of the proposed mill as meetings and debates began, outlining the pros and cons. I went into the project assuming that this mill was a bad idea—after all I consider myself an environmentalist and was concerned about the impacts of the new mill on our watershed. As well, I was wary of nuclear energy.

After spending two years in this community really getting to know people and why they so desperately wanted the mill, I grew to understand that the issue wasn’t nearly as black and white as I had originally assumed. Many factors need to be weighed when we, as a nation, decide on a sustainable energy future.

While I am still not a nuclear energy convert, especially in regards to the front end and back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, I am aware that it may need to be part of our energy future if we expect to dramatically reduce our planet’s carbon emissions. Several world-renowned scientists, who were formerly anti-nuclear, have revealed to me that they see no way for our survival without nuclear energy; they were very clear in their stance that renewable energy can never fulfill all of our energy needs. That does give one pause.