The Los Angeles Times reports on the end of a thirty-year moratorium on building new nuclear power reactors.
A consortium of utilities in the South won government approval Thursday to construct two new atomic energy reactors at an estimated cost of $14 billion, the strongest signal yet that the three-decade hiatus of nuclear plant construction is finally ending.
Several new projects will test whether new technology and streamlined government licensing can help the industry avoid the economic and safety disasters that have tainted its past, nuclear experts say, though critics condemned the action by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The commission’s 4-1 approval of the construction and operating license to expand the capacity of a Georgia nuclear power plant came 11 months after the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi facility left a wide swath of radioactive contamination.
How do you feel about this? It’s been 34 years since the NRC issued a new nuclear construction license. Despite the meltdown at Three Mile Island, the moratorium wasn’t an accident. It came about as the result of community organizing by a dedicated group of people, including Al Giordano. He reflected back on those times recently:
The 1979 Wall Street occupation – it only lasted for two days! – is historic not because of the occupation itself, but, rather, because it inspired a change in the movement’s direction and language, bringing it more coherently in line with everyday people’s daily life concerns and worries, which are not about the environment or the morality of what we do as a society to future generations, but about next month’s bills and making ends meet. This helped shift public opinion more solidly against nuclear power, and many opportunistic state Attorneys General began filing lawsuits against utility rate increases. That nearly bankrupted some public utilities. The great economic “ratings” houses began to tick down their grades on the nuclear industry’s health as an investment. And dozens of nukes that had been proposed were cancelled.
And I would like to be able to say that this is a fairy tale where everyone “lived happily ever after.” But movements, even those that win, like life, are not like that. The truth is that the Wall Street occupation in 1979 was also the regional anti-nuclear movement’s last gasp.
Yes, it destroyed the nuclear industry in the United States. But, like a mother who dies in childbirth, it gave its own life to do so.
Al’s article is about the shortcomings of the modern #Occupy Movement, but it has a lot of personal history on the effort to “destroy the nuclear industry.”
If it was destroyed, though, it appears that the nuclear industry was arisen again, like Lazarus. It has new champions, like Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE). Yet, what has really changed? As the Los Angeles Times says, “The heyday of nuclear plant construction almost bankrupted the electric utility industry and saddled ratepayers with high bills for decades.”
Former NRC member Peter Bradford, now a law professor in Vermont, said Thursday’s approval did not change the poor economics of nuclear power. What makes a difference in Georgia is that the state has ruled that customers are going to have to pay, he said.
If it isn’t profitable unless the consumer gets soaked, is there any reason that we would choose the shadow of the second worst nuclear accident in history to end our moratorium?
You know, people care more about their bills than about a possible meltdown, but:
Commission Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko, who cast the lone vote against approval, said in an interview that he was not satisfied that the license would compel Southern Co. to adopt safety improvements that result from the ongoing review of the Fukushima accident. Jaczko said it would be “very difficult” to get Southern’s compliance after the license was issued.
I mean, seriously. I understand the attractiveness of nuclear energy. I understand the downsides of coal and gas and oil. But the case has not been made that nuclear power can be safe, profitable, and good for the consumer.
What do you think?
