[ RadSafe ] Overcoming America's nuclear power phobia

[John Jacobus]

So, do you think that if Rancho Seco had been owned by
a private utility rather than as a municipal
corporation it would have been in kept in operation? 
As a general question, are any other nuclear power
plants are owned by municipal corporations?  Finally,
do you think that the problem is confined to
California?

--- John Andrews <andrewsjp at chartertn.net> wrote:
> With respect to Rancho Seco, I recall that there was
> a decision point at 
> that plant on whether to change out the steam
> generators.  The plant was 
> a Babcock & Wilcox plant with once-through steam
> generators.  The change 
> out would, of course, be very expensive.  Since
> those days, steam 
> generator replacement has been refined and fine
> tuned and can now be 
> done at lower costs and with much reduced radiation
> exposures 
> (Westinghouse, anyway).
> 
> SMUD, a municipal utility, not a private
> corporation, had to decide to 
> make the change.  The hue and cry went up by the
> team of Hayden and 
> Fonda (yes, Jane!) and the result was a local
> referendum on closure of 
> the plant.  The anti-nucs won.  The plant was closed
> forthwith.  
> Programs were ended and people were laid off.  Seems
> that they still had 
> a license, however, and the NRC suggested
> emphatically that they 
> continue the required monitoring programs.  That's
> how I got to work 
> there supporting the environmental monitoring
> program and listening to 
> Rush Limbaugh who had just begun his broadcast
> career in Sacramento.
> 
> John Andrews, Knoxville, Tennessee
> 
> . . .

+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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