Nuclear power's 'renaissance'?

The Washington Times ^ | June 18, 2006 | Joyce Howard Price

[T Ruth]

It's been 20 years since the deadly explosion and fire at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and with the passing of two decades comes a time of renewed interest in nuclear energy, given the high levels of safety and production at U.S. power plants and the advancement of technology.

Industry leaders are calling this the "renaissance of nuclear energy," . . .

. . . A partnership called UniStar Nuclear, . . . has told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) it expects to submit applications to build and operate reactors at both Calvert Cliffs and a site in upstate New York in 2008 and 2009.

* * *

Nuclear power plants were a pariah for many years after TMI 2 and Chernobyl, but now the mood is changing for these reasons: the overall performance and safety records of nuclear power plants; the fact that they are clean -- with no air-pollution emissions at all when they are operated correctly; plus the fact there are already designs on the books successfully being used for even safer reactors being built in Europe and Asia.

* * *

Nuclear power supporters include President Bush; his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Christie Whitman, former Environmental Protection Agency director and New Jersey governor; and Sen. Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico Republican, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development.

Mr. Kerekes of NEI agrees the future looks bright for nuclear power.

"We have 103 nuclear reactors operating in the United States, which represent 2,500 combined reactor years. So we have compiled quite a lot of experience."

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[T Ruth]

The amount of power output from nuclear has increased dramatically even though no new plants have been built.

How?

[BlazingArizona]

I think it's the only nuclear plant in the country that's not adjacent to a lake, a river, or the ocean.

Because of its desert location, the coolant is municipal sewage from Phoenix.

[BlazingArizona]

The amount of power output from nuclear has increased dramatically even though no new plants have been built. How?

Because of improved uptime. The whole problem with the previous generation of nukes has been lack of a standardized design. If every car were handmade to slightly different specifications, how much would it cost to keep a fleet running? Today we have standardized designs, like the AN-1000, with interchangeable parts.

[T Ruth]

Neat post. Thanks.

I agree with most of what you recommend, except that I am in favor of higher taxes on gasoline and oil (offest by reduced taxes on other things, e.g., income). This will skew the development of infrastructure away from oil, and thus reduce demand and price. The reason for the short- to mid-term inelascity of demand for oil is the existence of some 1 billion internal combustion engines worldwide that run on oil.

[mike70]

It's not the deaths or injuries, it's the psychology. The anti-nuclear forces have a much weaker argument in Illinios (for example) if the power plant is in Montana.

[backhoe]

Thanks for looking.

[ProCivitas]

Probably 'uprates' : running the nuclear plants under higher pressure, etc. exceding their design capacity. Probably dangerous. Hard to say why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows this crap.

Yankee Vernon (Vernon Vt.) an old early 1970's GE plant owned by Entergy Corp., recently started doing this, running at 20% over design capacity, and had to be shut down a couple of times due to a 'shakes' problem. Of the 103 nuclear power plants in America, how's the one in your region being operated?