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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Toxic or magic? Nation needs a fresh look at nuclear power Toxic or magic? Jun. 27, 2005 12:00 AM The nuclear option is back. The real one. Nuclear power has been on the back burner in U.S. energy policy for years, with no new plants in more than a quarter century. But global climate change and rising demands for energy are compelling reasons to reconsider our nuclear options. Developing countries, with China in the lead, are showing an insatiable appetite for electricity. Meanwhile, the "greenhouse gases" emitted by traditional power generation are big contributors to global warming. Conservation and alternative sources of energy, such as solar and wind power, should be leading strategies to expand energy supplies. But we shouldn't ignore what nuclear plants can accomplish: Producing large amounts of electricity with virtually no emission of greenhouse gases. The nuclear debate in America is historically black and white. Supporters tend to dismiss any obstacles with the cheery optimism of the old Atoms for Peace program of the 1950s. Opponents are still pointing to the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, without recognizing the strides in safety and technology. America gets more electricity from nuclear power than most people realize: 20 percent of the total. The nation's largest plant is the Palo Verde facility outside the Valley. Using nuclear instead of fossil fuel is keeping tens of thousands of tons of pollutants and greenhouse gases out of our air in Arizona every year. There apparently are no plans for the state to get another nuclear power plant. Certainly, siting and water would be major hurdles. President Bush is eager to jump-start nuclear power - supporters note that it supplies 78 percent of electricity in France - and he underlined the issue by traveling to a nuclear generator in Maryland last week. Certainly, public perceptions are a barrier to building more plants. But the obstacles go far beyond public relations. One of the most vexing is how to store waste that remain highly radioactive for centuries. In the United States, the proposed storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has failed to go forward. So U.S. plants are storing reactor waste for decades, a task they were never designed to do. We need a solution for waste storage before adding nuclear facilities. Cost is another stumbling block. Although nuclear plants have an advantage in fuel costs - especially with soaring prices for oil and natural gas - the construction costs are enormous. Nuclear power proponents argue that we must supply a financial boost to start the next generation of nuclear power plants in the United States. There's already a substantial stepstool. Under a program designed to encourage new investment in nuclear power plants, for instance, a consortium called NuStart Energy Development is set to tap $260 million in matching funds from the Department of Energy. For too long, the words "nuclear power" have been either toxic or magic. Putting aside the rhetoric, there is real promise in nuclear power for meeting our energy needs and reducing global warming.
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#3. To: Mr Nuke Buzzcut (#0)
back in 1980 General Electric held a press conference and said that it cost 3 times as much to build a new nuclear power plant in the US than in France. The reason for this dramatic difference in cost is entirely 100% due to unreasonable regulations imposed by our government. They purposely put regulations onto the process that had no real bearing on safety at all, but drove costs sky-high. It was not easy to kill this industry, but our government did do it, they did it on purpose. It had nothing to do with the environment or safety. It was a purposeful desire to kill a very good industry.
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