A rational newspaper article.

[maury@webtexas.com (Maurice Siskel)]

Politics of nuclear waste
By Ernest Klema
Copyright 1998 Bangor Daily News
September 30, 1998
 

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With Maine Yankee shut down, one thorny issue that must be resolved is
what to do about the U.S. Department of Energy's shameful refusal to
meet its legal obligation to take highly radioactive spentfuel that is
still sitting at Maine Yankee and other nuclear power plants around the
country.
 
Environmental claims notwithstanding, the nuclear waste "problem" is a
political issue that can be overcome with the right strategy and
leadership.  Electricity consumers have contributed more than $ 14
billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund that was set up in 1982 expressly to
pay for federal managmement and disposal of spent fuel rods.  Maine
ratepayers have paid more than $ 170 million to the fund.

But the Energy Department has spent less than $ 7 billion on the waste
program, while Congess has diverted the balance to offset the federal
budget deficit and fund other programs.  Certainly the government has a
responsibility to do better than just pocket the money.
 
Meanwhile, dozens of nuclear plants are running out of on-site storate
capacity.  Regrettably, the opening of a central storage facility in
Nevada has been held hostage by politicians of various stripes who are
trying to curry favor with small but vocal anti-nuclear constituencies,
despite a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals affirming the federal
government's obligation to take the spent fuel.
 
Congress must resolve this impasse.  The House and Senate need to iron
out differences over bills to establish the Nevada facility -- and do so
by a  veto-proof margin.
 
But perhaps the strongest case to be made for resolving the issue is
that
our nation's economic and environmental health depends on nuclear power,
the only major source of electricity that produces no acid rain, smog or
greenhouse-gas emissions.  Wouldn't it be ironic if public opposition to
nuclear power, led by environmental activists, resulted in a world beset
by rising levels of greenhouse gases and other pollutants from
fossil-fuel plants?
 
If nuclear plants elsewhere in the country are forced to shut down
prematurely in the face of economic pressures aggravated by the
spent-fuel standoff, the trend toward greater use of fossil fuels in
electricity production will speed up, pushing greenhouse emissions ever
higher.

That is a real danger.  The Energy Information Administration,
data-collecting arm of the Department of Energy, has warned that 24
nuclear plants might close prematurely,reducing U.S. nuclear capacity
from approximately 100,000 megawatts to about half that by 2020.  Carbon
emissions would rise to 45 percent above the 1990 level.  Keep in mind
that the Clinton administration approved a global warming treaty last
December that commits the United States to reducing greenhouse emissions
to 7 percent below the 1990 level in a little more than 12 years' time.
It is difficult to see, therefore, how carbon emissions can be reduced
if there is less nonpolluting nuclear power.
 
In reality, far greater quantities of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides
would be spewed into the atmosphere -- not a comforting thought at a
time
when health authorities estimate that almost 100,000 Americans a year
are
dying prematurely from air pollution.
 
Most everyone applauds technologies that reduce air pollutoin.
 
Yet nuclear power has never received credit under the Clean Air Act for
reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide and other pollutants that would
otherwise spew from the smokestacks of fossil-fuel plants.
 
Congress needs to rectify this oversight by allowing utilities to
receive
tradable credits for nuclear power.
> 
Anyone who questions nuclear power's importance in the years ahead
should
consider that utilities in Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia have
submitted applictions to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep
nuclear plants in those states operating beyond their original 40-year
licensing period.  To rely on wind power rather than nuclear power, the
utility in Maryland calculated, would mean building enough windmills to
cover 400 square miles.
 
Hydro power?  That would require flooding 2,600 square miles.  Solar
power? Far too expensive?
 
Let's recognize nuclear power's important contribution to clean air.  If
the era of environmental responsibility has arrived in national
politics,
let construction of a central storage facility for spent fuel be its
first victory.
 
Ernest D. Klema of Northeast Harbor is dean emeritus of engineering at
Tufts University and a fellow of the American Physical Society and the
American Nuclear Society.
====================================================
The above newspaper item poses an interesting contrast with other such
items we've been seeing on Radsafe.
Cheers,
Maury Siskel        maury@webtexas.com

----- 
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the
freedom to demonstrate.                       Charles M. Province
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