NEW NUCLEAR?: New nuclear power plants may be built in the U.S. in coming years for the first time since the meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, pictured here, in 1979.
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One of the U.K.'s top nuclear officials said today that she was told the U.S. will okay plans to build the first nuclear power plants since the accident at Three Mile Island nearly three decades ago. Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, chair of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, said that the chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission informed her that the NRC will approve three applications for new nuclear reactors that it's currently considering.
"Dale Klein told me that those three nuclear applications will be approved," she told the State of the Planet conference at Columbia University today, the 29th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pa. (Subsequently, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Ukrainian Soviet Republic melted down in April 1986 in what would become the worst nuclear power accident in history, spreading radiation as far away as North America and leading to the evacuation and resettlement of more than 336,000 people).
"The politics is changing," she added, noting growing enthusiasm for nuclear power as the clean alternative to coal-burning plants. Even some environmentalists have begun to embrace nuclear power, because of its potential to reduce the greenhouse emissions that are blamed for global warming.
But critics question the safety of nuclear power, citing such concerns as the potential for catastrophic meltdowns, their potential vulnerability to terrorists, the lack of workable evacuation plans in the event of accidents as well as the problem of dealing with radioactive waste.
Among the pending applications: a plan to build two additional boiling-water reactors at the South Texas Project power plant near Houston. As many as 29 other reactors could be built, according to Bill Borchardt, director of the NRC's Office of New Reactors.
But neither the South Texas facility nor the applications for new reactors at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland and the Shearon Harris nuclear plant outside Raleigh, N.C., have completed the NRC's long design safety and feasibility evaluation, which could take years to complete. The commission does not expect to complete its review of the new reactors at the South Texas plant before 2011, according to NRC spokesman Scott Burnell.
"Once you build the power plants, it just keeps producing energy," Judge said, noting the potential benefits of electricity generation from nuclear fission. "It is part of what we have to do to deal with energy security and climate change."
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20 Comments
Add CommentExcellent news. It's either that or coal, and coal spews radioactives in larger quantities than all the uranium mined in the world each year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, an incredibly efficient and safe power source that doesn't emit pollution. Someone should have thought of this 60 years ago! Surely burying a few spent rods in a desert wasteland is better than global warming destroying the planet in 100 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe photo caption states: "New nuclear power plants may be built in the U.S. in coming years for the first time since the 'meltdown' at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, pictured here, in 1979." Correction, please: there was no "meltdown" at TMI, i.e., melt of the reactor core.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs it has been in the past, the question really isn't just about the possibility of radiation leaking from the generation of power and the obvious safety concerns, but one would be remiss if one also doesn't take in consideration the problems of mining the ore, and eventual dismantelling of what will eventually be irradiating hulks of concrete and metal unsuitable for recycling, requiring storage and protection...I see the need and accept prudent risk both from the safety and economic points of view, but ultimately we must view fission as a stop-gap energy production technique until fusion becomes a commercial reality, which could be sooner than we thought if recent advances in some alternative approaches to the Tokamak continue to make strides as they have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's about time! The danger of a meltdown that releases radioactive material is so small with modern designs that you have a higher chance of getting killed in a automobile accident on any single day of driving than you would of witnessing a meltdown in any US reactor in your lifetime.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStrange, there are no small projects of nuclear power plants like the Toshiba 4S nuclear reactor which was proposed as the power source for the Galena Nuclear Power Plant in Galena, Alaska. Such a nuclear reactor with molten sodium as a coolant has uranium as a fuel and it is designed to provide 10 MW of power for 30 years without any new fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe west will have monopoly on nuclear power plants. Only they and their stooges will get permit to build these plants. No one should dare to build it or will be bombed by mighty America.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real issue is educating people to the fact that radiation is not as deadly as they have been told it is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLow-level radiation is harmless. Period. Hiroshima and Nagasaki both prove it. Both cities have hundreds of thousands of people living in them. Today. Living long productive lives. Having lots of healthy children.
It's funny those that have never worked around low level radiation should know so much about it. People have died from the effects of low level radiation, that is a documented fact. If you think low level radiation is harmless, then you most likely still believe in the TOOTH FAIRY!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople do not die from long-term exposure to low-level radiation. They die when exposed to excessive radiation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce again, the fact that Nagasaki and Hiroshima are bustling cities of hundreds of thousands of people giving birth to thousands of healthy babies a year proves that long-term exposure to low-level radiation is harmless.
Like ALL substances, toxicity is in the dosage. The great lie about radiation is the lie that there is no safe dosage. This is false. Below a certain level, radiation is harmless.
I remember attending a lecture on fusion at Princeton University back in the 1980s. It was given by a member of the Plasma Physics research lab.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe talked about fission and joked how despite it being one of our most advanced energy sources, we still basically using heat to boil water.
Has there been any advances in using radition directly to create electricity? Cant they build a "radiation cell" that acts like a solar cell?
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Edited by jabailo at 04/01/2008 9:47 AM
The Navy has a long history of experimenting with electric propulsion as well as nuclear power plants. If it was feasible to extract electricity directly from fission I'm sure they would have done it by now.To the previous commentator; You have it wrong again. TIME is a very important factor in exposure to radiation sources. If you had worked around radiation, you would have been schooled in this. Your mention of 3rd generation Nagasaki & Hiroshima residents is pointless unless you're speaking of mutations. If you're addressing lingering contamination issues I'm reasonably certain most of the material was removed at the beginning of the American occupation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThings go wrong with new technologies, the fact remains that Nuclear Power is still the most efficient and environmentally safest way to produce electricity in the World. They are good for the environment and produce a huge amount of needed power. There is an obviously negative stigma with anything nuclear, unfortunately it is based on ignorance, there is still the problem of waste. I believe that when this problem is solved, humanity will really be at a golden era in energy capabilities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a perfect world envisioned by nuclear proponents 50 years ago, it would have been a safe, cheap & reliable power source. But the last 20 years demonstrated; when things go wrong, they go very wrong. That, no doubt, has in large part shaped public perception. Nuclear power in appears to look successful, maybe we could try again. But I think it's going to be an uphill battle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI meant to say in "Europe it looks successful". Slight omission there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an Engineer, I have designed, analyzed, and worked on sight on a number of Nuclear Plants. That was some time ago and now Im working in the Aerospace Industry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been involved on the retrofit of older plants to the newer regulations set by the NRC. Before TMI, plants were built very sloppy. After, they were expensive to repair. However, the repairs were extensive, with added systems and back-up systems. The NRC requirements in post TMI for construction were rigorous and very effective. The older plants are still being upgraded using the latest technology. The real problem was the expense to upgrade.
I have also had the experience of working with some of the best utilities in the county.
Im thinking of Duke Power (Now Duke Energy). The professionalism and outstanding workman ship of companies like Duke have shown me how good the operating company can be.
I have also worked for Westinghouse, which had built the most reliable reactor in the World. This reactor design was licensed to the French and Japanese. To my knowledge Westinghouse never had a major (or minor) accident.
My point is that a safe Nuclear Reactor is not only possible, it exist all over the United States.
To give you better prospective on my position, I am considered a political Liberal.
Nuclear Power waste is thousands of times smaller then coal. No greenhouse gases. If its power is used for automobile travel, it will keep billions of dollars in this country and create thousands of living wage jobs for Americans.
Any discussion of dangerousness of radiation exposure is filled with guess work. The last study that I saw showed that what was fatal for one person had no noticable effect on another, including mutations in offspring. You have to define "low levels of radiation". Drywall is radio active. All electronics radiate energy. Sunlight is a form of radiation. Cell phones and towers radiate energy to transmit information which is by definition radiation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI favor nuclear power plants for any country that wants them including Iran. The president of Iran may be a loon, but Iranians have just as much right to modernize as anyone else. If they prove to be a danger to others then they can be bombed back to the stone age.
I have yet to see any clean, safe power source. Coal has killed more people than nuclear, even including the two atomic bombs. Hydro causes earthquakes and when the dams break entire towns can die. Solar polutes terribly during production. The same is true of wind energy, which is a net energy loser in most of the country and is harder to maintain in working condition. Hydrogen burns clean but requires petroleum or coal to make and is a net energy loser. Same with ethanol.
When one factors into the energy equation such items as cancer and asthma causing pollution, loss of life in mining operations and in transporting fuels from their point of origin to their point of use..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen we examine the problems of waste disposal and climate change that may force whole populations to relocate etc
Then fossil fuels have an appalling record
Even the Chernobyl accident was a relatively minor disaster in comparison with these figures
Yes environmentalists are indeed slowly wising up to the advantages of the nuclear solution and the impracticability of other present proposals
So let's get on with it and get more nuclear power stations on line backed by a network of renewables, where such are practical and appropriate
We can almost certainly reverse climate change if we act now
In my own country of Australia past idiocy in government has resulted in the running down of nuclear technology in the very country that supplies a quarter of the worlds nuclear energy producing fuel
A sensible environmental movement would be one that accepts the nuclear solution however grudgingly and becomes directly involved in setting safety standards and in public monitoring. A stupid one is one that sits on the sidelines and sulks because the only available solutions to climate change and environmental degradation are not acceptable to their ideological tastes
Congratulations to the USA and their citizens on this!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear reactors may produce toxic waste and have a very low risk of meltdown, but these are local problems that can be managed or almost avoided. Global warming as a result of increasing ammounts of coal burnt to produce electricity in the States (also in China and Russia) are a global scale problem.
I'm quite sure American citizens are not fully aware of the bad image they have around the World by their ill-fossil-fuel consumption habits along with having dangerous groups of local, short-sighted, zealot, hyena-like environmentalists, capable of burning a whole showroom of SUVs in order to avoid them to throw CO2. One vast majority spoils the planet, and the other minority manage to ban nuclear reactors and other technologies that may be locally worse but are globally better.
Anyway, reducing energy consumption and promoting conservation of the soil will remain the best goals to promote. Meanwhile nukes are better than burning coal madly or give corn (or any food) the value of fuel. Burning food to operate a SUV to go to the gym to burn that extra calories got because they use their SUVs instead of walking is the kind of reasoning the rest of the planet is sick of hearing.
Excuse my bad English and my frankness, but I needed to say this.
Regards from Argentina
construction of 50 Palo Verde type installations (west of Phoenix AZ) would provide the basis of:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlug in hybird technology using off peak cycle power.
Co generation heating of green houses for food production and bio-fuel algae.
Coal to liquid fuel, oil shale to liquid fuel production.
Hydrogen production in homes using off peak energy for vehicles.
direct electric vehicle charging.
A study exisits that shows 50 Palo Verde type installations would cost about $ 1 to 1.4 trillion. The effect on US balance of trade: $500 billion of imported oil/yr becomes an export capacity of $250 billion/yr.
Pat Kean Maui Hawaii.