(NJ) Salem reactors poised to play a vital part in nation's new energy policies

Spikes of corn stalks are scattered along miles of fog-shrouded fields in Hancock’s Bridge on a spring morning — an eerie suggestion of the bayonets used in the Revolutionary and Civil War battles that were fought there.

On the horizon is the billowing cooling tower of the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, which is taller than the length of a football field. It is a stark reminder that this historic rural hamlet relies on an industry that is playing a major role in the nation’s debate over energy policy.

The contrast is not lost on Ellen Pompper. Her family moved to this farming community in South Jersey when she was a girl. She stayed, married a local boy and raised a family in Lower Alloways Creek. For the past six years, she has been mayor in this Salem County township, whose largest employer and taxpayer is PSEG Nuclear.

Pompper and her neighbors accept the nuclear reactors — Salem 1, Salem 2 and Hope Creek — as a fact of life, despite periodic operating problems since the first one was built in 1977.

"Back in the ‘90s when they were in shutdown mode for a couple of years, my husband and I wondered what would happen to us if it was closed," said Pompper, whose husband Steve, a control room operator, has worked at the plant for 24 years, and whose son, Phil, has worked there for three.

View of the cooling tower for the PSEG Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lower Alloways Creek Township, April 1, 2010.

Marios Kafantaris, training manger at the PSEG Salem Nuclear Power Plant, inside the Salem Control Room Simulator.

While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a federal watchdog for safe nuclear plant operations, is likely to support Salem’s license renewals, the state Department of Environmental Protection might not sign off unless the company adds cooling towers to Salem 1 and Salem 2. Hope Creek, which was built later, has a cooling tower. Such towers are important because they vastly reduce the amount of water needed from the Delaware River to convert steam used in the production of electricity back into water, and limit the damage to fish and plants.

That is a huge lie.

Using cooling towers actually would require the plants to draw more water from the river.

Cooling towers are huge evaporators. More water would be drawn from the river because hundreds of thousands of gallons a day would be dumped in to the atmosphere.

Cooling towers are a huge waste of money. The envirofreaks tried to stop the nuclear industry by saying that the plants would dump huge amounts of waste heat in to lakes and rivers and boil the fish alive. The electric companies came up with the cooling towers to placate the nuts.

The plants may draw more water with out towers but it all goes back in the river

The recurring issue of operator sloppiness and errors, is exactly what anti-nuclear activist Norm Cohen is concerned about. Cohen is the coordinator of UNPLUG Salem, a group opposed to the South Jersey reactors.

I bet this guy is a major share holder in the ACME Candle Company.

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