[ RadSafe ] Mark Cooper says USA’s ‘nuclear renaissance’ is just not going to happen

[franz.schoenhofer at chello.at]

Roger,

How can you take serious any comment by somebody (Christina MacPherson, obviously a journalist) or a Mark Cooper, according to your post a "senior fellow of economic analysis etc. etc.". Will they determine the future of nuclear power? Probably their like will, if nobody dares to stand against those self appointed "experts" on nuclear issues. 
Yes, it is the almost openly declared goal of these people as well as for so-called environmental groups, the worst of them is the multinational profit organisation called Greenpeace, to block (not only) nuclear power but also any hydroelectric power by "legal" tricks, which have already delayed in many countries all kind of power plants or they were even abandoned (you should in the USA know these stories very well!) Of course absurd distributions about the "deadly risks, the cancer incidences etc." are another important mean of influencing the public.  The other hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths caused by other tsunamis, hurricans, inundations, avalanches, diseases, malnourishment etc . etc. are never mentioned by those environmental groups -well, they do not serve their purpose. A good question is in what time we live - paranoia time?

I recommend to take such comments not serious. This journal might seem to be important in a very small (!!!) area of the world, but sure it is not worldwide! 

A caveat not only for you but to many (most) other US-users of RADSAFE: Do not forget, that this list is called "International Radiation Protection Mailing List". My impression is and this has been confirmed by many collegues from non-US countries  that unfortunately those collegues feel to be "quenched" by the US collegues with their contributions and questions on US legislation and their comments on US specific problems, sorry Roger, but yours is a striking example. It seems on RADSAFE that the radiation protection world ends at the borders of the USA, with very sporiadic questions mostly from neighbouring countries. And then there might have been one and another sting by 

 

Best regards,

Franz


> The anti-nukes are crowing -
> 
> "USA’s ‘nuclear renaissance’ is just not going to happen"
> 
> posted by Christina MacPherson
> 
> Report: U.S. nuclear renaissance unlikely after Fukushima Los Angeles
> Times, December 28, 2011 A new study released Wednesday said that the
> regulatory fallout from the Fukushima power plant disaster in Japan in
> March will short-circuit the U.S. nuclear renaissance of new power
> plant construction.
> 
> The report, "Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Economics," was written and
> presented by Mark Cooper, a frequent critic of the nuclear power
> industry. The report can be found here. Cooper is a senior fellow for
> economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at
> the Vermont Law School.
> 
> Cooper said that past nuclear disasters, such as the one at the Three
> Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, have tended to
> greatly raise regulatory barriers and have also severely multiplied
> the cost of reactor construction. After Three Mile Island, for
> example, the report said, the cost of nuclear power plant construction
> doubled in most cases and trebled or quadrupled in some rare
> instances.
> 
> "This is an important moment to compare what is really likely to
> happen over the next 10 years with the industry’s expectations" of a
> nuclear renaissance, Cooper said. "When that comparison is performed
> properly, it becomes clear that we are witnessing not a revival but a
> collapse in expectations for new reactor construction."
> 
> The report comes just days after a panel appointed by the Japanese
> government released a scathing assessment of the reponse to the
> disaster, which was caused when a huge earthquake generated a tsunami
> that struck the facility....
> 
> A recently updated online report by the World Nuclear Assn. said that
> as few as four of the 26 new nuclear facilities that have been
> proposed or planned in the U.S. will be finished by 2020. But it did
> not mention Fukushima and instead said the primary reason was the fact
> that a boom in domestic natural gas production has "put the economic
> viability of some of these projects in doubt."
> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/12/a-new-study-released-today-said-that-theregulatory-fallout-from-the-fukushima-power-plantdisaster-in-japan-last-marchwill-pro.html
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--
Franz Schoenhofer, PhD, MinRat
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
mobile: ++43 699 1706 1227