Re: Green peace actions.

[Hulltmsr@aol.com]

I'd just been doing a quick check then deleting these e-mails concerning
greenpeace until I caught your reference to electricity too cheap to meter.
While at Shippingport in the 70's, electricity cost about 1 cent/kwh from coal
and oil and about 2.5 cents/kw from nuclear.  Then came the oil shortage,
contrived or otherwise, and the cost from coal and oil shot up to 5 cents/kwh
and higher while cost from nuclear remained at 2.5 cents/kwh.

Around the same time protesters in the Pittsburgh area tried to shut down
Shippingport Atomic Power Station but were sent on their way by a public that
had already learned that nuclear was safe and by a utility that had their
"ducks in a row", i.e. safety was not an issue because the utility ensured
their staff was competent, and the utility did not try to cut corners on
safety.  Before they left, though, the protest leaders said "You have won the
battle but not the war."  "We ...will cost you out of business."

About a year and a half ago (1997) I attended a presentation at Northeast
Utilities Millstone Point Nuclear Station during which we were told that fuel
costs for electricity production from nuclear were in the range of 3 to 3.5
cents/kwh.  

Take a look at your electric bill and check on total costs to produce
electricity from nuclear.  Nuclear facilities are being closed never to
startup again, not because of plant degradation but because it is no longer
cost effective to keep them running due to tremendous extraneous and
unnecessary costs forced on the nuclear electricity supply companies.

Remember, as goes the industry, so goes many of our jobs.

These thoughts are mine and mine alone.

Thank you.

Tom Hull RO/SRO/HP/Elec-Mech Maint/IT/TW
509/374-8408
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