[ RadSafe ] Overcoming America's nuclear power phobia

[John Andrews]

John, I don't know if the Rancho Seco steam generators would have been 
changed out.  However, being a municipal utility made the use of the 
local referendum possible and that process was exercised.

John Andrews, Knoxville, Tennessee

John Jacobus wrote:

>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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