To the editor:

Re: “Virginia must turn to its nuclear industry,” letter to the editor by April Wade, executive director of the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium, published Oct. 11.

Hold your nuclear reactors, Ms. Wade. I find it incredibly disingenuous of you to not tell the full story behind nuclear energy and all of its problems. Nuclear energy has a uranium footprint that is just as bad if not worse than a carbon footprint, just on a more localized scale.

I see you don’t mention what it takes to get uranium out of the ground in the first place. You don’t mention that there are groups out west who cannot drink their groundwater due to uranium contamination. You make no mention of the hazards of mining, transporting, refining or storing radioactive tailings, waste and spent fuel rods from a mining or nuclear facility.

Where does Surry store its spent rods? Oh, there’s no more room out west in the salt domes? Hum…. What are the dangers of dirty bombs made from nuclear wastes? How protected is Surry from a catastrophic flood of the James?

I think rooftop solar should be the main source of new energy.  This takes the pressure off of Dominion and other energy providers to have to frack more, build more plants or string more lines.

Claudia Lee

Suffolk