WaPo Reports Nuclear Power Comeback
The Washington Post reports that nuclear power is poised for a comeback.
CHEROKEE COUNTY, S.C. — Two decades ago, after Duke Energy abandoned its partly built nuclear power reactors here, the site was sold and turned into a movie set. Director James Cameron used it to film "The Abyss," a 1989 movie about civilian divers who encounter aliens while trying to rescue a stricken nuclear submarine. Cameron filled the unused nuclear containment building with water and hauled a section of an oil rig, a tiny submarine and fiberglass rocks inside to make convincing underwater scenes.
Now there's a new twist in the plot: The nuclear power industry is trying to come back from its own abyss. With natural gas prices volatile and people anxious about climate change, the nuclear power industry is touting its technology as a way to meet the nation's growing energy needs without emitting more greenhouse gases. Over the next two years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects applications to build as many as 32 new nuclear reactors.
Duke Energy could be among them. It reacquired the Cherokee County site and has been tearing down old buildings so it can ask the NRC to let it start all over again. On a hot mid-September afternoon, a giant wrecking hammer was prying huge chunks of concrete from the walls of the old containment facility. They dangled from steel reinforcing rods like stones tottering from the ruins of an ancient coliseum. Inside, the props for "The Abyss" lay covered with dust.
Other utilities and independent power companies are also laying the groundwork for a new wave of U.S. nuclear plants. On Sept. 24, NRG Energy filed the first full application for a new nuclear unit since the partial meltdown of Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant in 1979. Then the Tennessee Valley Authority approved plans to build two new reactors in northern Alabama, where it abandoned two mostly finished units in 1988 when electricity demand failed to meet forecasts. Earlier, Constellation Energy Group filed a partial license application to add a nuclear unit to its existing site in Calvert Cliffs, Md.
NRG Energy chief executive David W. Crane proclaimed "a new day for energy in America."
Anti-nuclear zealots got a lot of press and the positives of nuclear power were completely ignored for many years. Now the press is starting to back away from their position that held the nuclear industry hostage for so long. About time. The newest generation of reactors are even more safe than the old designs - which were very safe, indeed. This is long overdue and good news all around.
By Anna, Monday, 8 October , 2007 @ 10:38 am
I remember when the idiots picketed a NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) conference in New York City because it had the word “nuclear” in it. That’s one reason they changed the term to MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) instead.
By Steev, Monday, 8 October , 2007 @ 6:29 pm
This is great news for America and the Environment.
I object to Gore passing himself off as the environmental savior riding in on a white horse.
Gore, through politics and legislation participated in the destruction of the Nuclear Energy Industry.
- His family has ties to the Coal industry.
Nuclear is the only clean alternative to Fossil Fuels.
- None of the renewable energy sources produce enough energy to replace a single fossil fuel (let alone all three).
So Gore is essentially trying to save us from Carbon emissions that he played a part in increasing.
That’s what bothers me.