Bunker Mentality

Dear media colleagues —

This is hot off the servers today.  More material on this topic — interesting to you, I hope — can be found here.

I’ve been in Washington, DC for 2 of the last 5 weeks, talking to people on and near The Hill about NNSA weapons programs and related matters.  In the smarter, more awake places I hear serious concern about budgets — NNSA’s, DoD’s, and the whole federal budget.  You don’t have to go to Washington to hear that.  There are multiple train wrecks coming, and where truly stupid monuments-to-folly are concerned, like this one, we need some “off ramps.”

Many of us have gradually realized that our society has no more than a decade, and possibly less, to change direction before financial and economic problems overwhelm our attempts to do so.  The CMRR-NF, which would be an order of magnitude more costly than any public project in the history of New Mexico in constant dollars, would, if built, be by far the biggest thing we can expect to build in this state between now and 2012.  Speaking loosely, “we” don’t have the capital to build CMRR-NF (which both embodies and symbolizes a new and higher level of nuclear-military identification) and build a sustainable society.  An investment on this scale is an either/or choice for us.  That’s why it’s important.

I believe the federal cost of this facility would be enough, if wisely spent, to replace nearly all the coal burning going on in New Mexico with renewable energy, employing many thousands of people, as I would be happy .

Best,

Greg Mello