Big Nuke's Desperate Ohio Reactor Hoax
Job-starved southern Ohioans are being promised a shiny new nuclear plant. But the announcement has come with a cruel reminder, and the scent of a desperate hoax.
Using the gargantuan corpse of the shuttered Portsmouth-Piketon uranium enrichment plant as his backdrop, U.S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) punctuated his enthusiastic endorsement the new nuke by proclaiming that, with his support, the US government has paid thousands of Ohio workers hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the health damage they suffered from being irradiated while working there.
What was he thinking?
Just north of the Ohio River, Portsmouth-Piketon was a mainstay of the nuclear power/weapons complex dating back to 1954 (it shut in 2001). Generations of workers and their progeny suffered a devastating plague of radiation-related diseases from the facility's radioactive fallout, inside and around the plant boundaries. It took decades of brutal, grinding grassroots campaigning to win even a modicum of compensation.
Now the heaviest of nuclear hitters want to use this same site for a 1600-megawatt French-designed plant that would anchor a "Clean Energy Park." In a region devastated by the enrichment plant's shutdown, and by the decimation of the American industrial economy, it would be a flagship for the "nuclear power renaissance."
It is a cruel hoax.
Voinovich was joined by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and a bevvy of heavy industry hitters that included Jim Rogers, head of Duke Energy, and representatives of Unistar, the United States Enrichment Corporation, Electricite de France and hundreds of plant workers who surrounded a tuxedoed band and the kind of high-profile reception that the bespeaks an excess of corporate cash.
But the most critical spot was occupied by Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA, the French government's nuclear front group. She ended her brief speech with a heavily inflected "Go Buckeyes!"
Lauvergeon is a top A-List industry hitter, the flamboyant, hard-nosed chief of the world's number one reactor pusher. But AREVA's finances have been hard-hit by an outdated technology teetering at the brink of collapse, even as its supporters push ahead with high-profile -- -but hollow -- events like this one.
After her talk, Lauvergeon continually referred me to her website regarding AREVA's catastrophic failures at its first "new generation" reactor project in Finland. It will be finished in 2012, she said, years after originally planned. It will be billions of Euros over budget. The problem, she complained, was that Finnish regulators demanded to see "so much documentation....Hundreds of thousands of pages."
There were no such problems in France, she said, where AREVA's Flamanville project is, nonetheless, also over budget and behind schedule. Nor, apparently, in China, where two reactor orders are on shaky ground because of worries excited by the problems in Finland.
Lauvergeon could not speak to the radioactive waste problem in the US, she said, because "that is a government matter." Elsewhere, "utilities have control of their wastes." In Finland they "will be disposed of right next to the reactor." Elsewhere, "recycling" reduces the wastes to "a fraction of their original volume."
Laugergeon's glib assessments are cruelly misleading. Radioactive fuel reprocessing is prohibitively expensive, extremely dirty and technologically suspect, at best. France's high-level waste problem is as unsolved as that of the US, where the Yucca Mountain Dump has been canceled, putting the industry back where it was fifty years ago.
The proposed Ohio project, which has received saturation media coverage throughout the US, is years away from getting any kind of license. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has never turned down an applicant. But the line for new permits is long and complex. Changes are still being made to the designs. The French entry has never been fully examined by the NRC, which must sift through thousands of pages of designs before issuing the inevitable permit, a process that nonetheless will take years.
Other bothersome details remain to be solved, most importantly: Who will actually pay for all this? Voinovich pledged his strongest efforts to provide federal funding. But resistance to such handouts continues to be firm. Wall Street has displayed little interest in funding new reactors. There is talk the French would finance it themselves, but the fiasco in Finland and the pressures of a declining European economy have cast doubt on that.
Nor has the insurance industry come forward to provide liability coverage in case of a major accident. New design criteria may require containment domes designed to resist a jet crash. But the cost requirements to do that may add to the already prohibitive financial burden.
Indeed, beneath all the hoopla lurk hints that the final deals between the various partners may actually not have been completed. The announcement ceremony was long on hype but short on contractual specifics.
Among other problems might be: where will the water come from to cool this plant? Reactors in France, Alabama and elsewhere have been forced shut because waste water has caused overheating of streams---up to 90 degrees Farenheit and higher.
Early polls indicate area residents appear to support the project for its job opportunities. But the residual wounds from the radiation diseases and deaths caused by the enrichment plant run deep. The local resistance may be small, but it is fierce.
Nor is the plant's timetable secure. With years needed to get a license, and untold years more needed to build it, there is no way this proposed reactor could generate any electricity until well into the 2020s. Even if nuclear power could help -- which it can't -- solutions to climate change, to which the speakers continually referred, must come far sooner.
By then, the high cost of atomic energy will be even more prohibitive than now. A definitive study of reactor economics released as the Ohio promoters spoke could adorn the tombstone of the entire "renaissance." Authored by Prof. Mark Cooper of the Vermont Law School,
"The Economics of Nuclear Power: Renaissance or Relapse?" says it would cost from $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more to generate power with 100 new nuclear plants than from a comparable combination of renewables and efficiency.
In a conference call, Cooper emphasized "a striking parallel" between today's "new generation" projections and those that led to the devastating cost overruns and delays that doomed the first generation of US reactors. Lauvergneon's AREVA experiences in Finland and Flamanville seem to underscore that parallel.
In the 1980s, Ohio also suffered a "Peaceful Atom" fiasco. The infamous Zimmer Reactor, built by a consortium of southern Ohio utilities, was virtually finished before a cascade of scandal wiped away its credibility. Constructed at nearby Moscow, on the Ohio River, Zimmer was plagued by thousands of construction defects. Finally, in face-saving desperation, it was converted to a coal burner, at a cost of hundreds of millions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars.
Given that experience, and all those questions and more surrounding new reactor construction in general, there's a sense of mystery surrounding this very forced high profile announcement in southern Ohio. Perhaps it was prompted by the fact -- sorrowfully announced at the beginning of this speech -- that Sen. Voinovich will be retiring next year. This project's backers may have thought it prudent jump in now, while their chief advocate might still wrest money from Congress for a project that will otherwise have a hard time funding it.
Whatever the reason, the announcement reeks of desperation. Duke Power, for example, has recently signed an efficiency deal that will save large quantities of electricity at far less cost than even the most optimistic nuclear boosters say reactors can produce it.
The true green reality is that in today's world, new power projects have far more credibility when announced before a backdrop of operating windmills or solar panels, rather than the seething corpse of a Cold War uranium facility.
Southern Ohioans are good people who deserve jobs and a real economic future. No matter how much Big Nuke spends on them, rushed high-profile corporate announcements touting a doomed technology can only add to their grief.
Harvey Wasserman's Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and senior editor of FreePress.org.
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Watch out for Nuclear PR BS about 2 cent per KWH electricity. It's a lie.
"A 2008 study based on historical outcomes in the U.S. said costs for nuclear power can be expected to run $0.25-.30 per kW·h.[37]
In 2009, MIT updated its 2003 study, concluding that inflation and rising construction costs had increased the overnight cost of nuclear power plants to about $4,000/kWe, and thus increased the power cost to 8.4¢/kW·h.[38][39]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants#cite_note-36
With rooftop solar, YOU OWN THE GENERATOR. So you actually pay 3 cents per KWH over 30 years.
Not so with utility power, which can change at any time for profit, greed inflation or other reasons.
I guess the idea of a new plant taking the place of a retiring one to provide jobs and continued economic growth was lost on Wasserman. Besides, had he done any research he would have found that the site is home to a brand new hi tech uranium enrichment plant as well as a new uramium oxide conversion plant to treat and dispose of depleted uranium from the now retired gaseoues diffusion plant. The addition of a nuclear electric generatng station is a perfect complement to an area trying to be in the lead for new energy technology.
Operating nuclear plants today provide cheap reliable electricity. Wasserman would have Ohio foregoe this based on a myth that wind or solar has any chance of providing reliable power 24-7 on a scale to meet the state's needs. If and when a large (1000 megawatts electric??)wind or solar farm is dedicated in Ohio I am sure the goveror will be there to celebrate. Donot think that govenor has yet been elected or even born yet
Nuclear power is not cheap, not reliable, not safe and not clean.
Nuclear power tech is the same as nuclear bomb the as India (and others) and our reaction to Iran prove.
The waste will cost quadrillions of dollars in lost land use and value over the million years it must be buried.
Uranium is already so scare we are trying to mine the grand canyon for it. Once through uranium proven reserve will only last to 60 years at today's rate of use.
Why risk the Apocalypse of world nuclear war, for 60 years of power and a million years of waste, that no insurance company will insure,
all for energy we can get cheaper faster, safe, from rooftop 3 cent/KWH solar:
Forever.
BioChar can supply all the fuels we need for transport and load leveling.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile
Nuclear electric is running half of what you claim for solar; about 1.87 cents per KWH. Plenty of fuel and more in the so called waste if fuel is recycled and bred, Waste is not a problem of technology; only politics NIMBY. Waste costs are already paid for by tax from utilites and are not ca-gillions as you indicate.
,
Solar is not forever. Only works when its sunny. Very expensive and a small supplemental source of power. Fine as a hobby and an add-on but will not power industry working 24-7..
France, Japan, China, India, russia all with growing nuclear power programs. How does it benefit the world for the US to deny itself the use of this valuable resource. As you indicated, any country can develop a nuclear weapon without the US power technology.
(posting up top as new thread to reset the margin... but this continues the earlier thread)
"Nuclear waste is being dumped all over the planet", you say, but it is not true. Nuclear power plants take great care to maintain and isolate their spent fuel.
Yucca, while it is a mountain not a river bed, (pretty serious mistake that, you must be blushing), is not the only, nor necessarily the best, answer of what to eventually do with whatever remains of the spent fuel.
The only apocalypse likely is the one we bring on ourselves by continuing to ignore the climate consequences of fossil fuel burning.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/132852/the_french_nuclear_industry_is_bad_enough_in_france%3B_let%27s_not_expand_it_to_the_u.s./
France generates and dumps THOUSANDS of tons of radioactive waste around the world.
France generates HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TONS of radioactive mining tailings, they dump in Russia.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html
http://archive.greenpeace.org/odumping/radioactive/reports/history.html
IT"S A SALT MINE! how do you think it was deposited?
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/feis_a/web_pdf/vol_2/eis_l_bm.pdf
"Floodplain/Wetlands Assessment
for the Proposed Yucca Mountain
Geologic Repository"
France does not dump thousands of tons of radioactive waste around the world. That would be anywhere that burns coal, among which France would be low on the list. Mine tailings should be treated properly - which I would never argue against - but are not fundamentally hazardous radioactive material, despite widespread mythology. Asn heaps are far FAR bigger in mass and at least as radioactive, not to mention being concentrated reservoirs of other more hazardous toxins.
Yucca is not a salt mine. You may be confusing it with the WIPP at Carlsbad, NM, which is an underground repository in a salt dome. However, I would also point out that not too many rivers are salty...
Do you post links at random? they seem to have little to do with the points under discussion.
And the hoax was? What? It's in the headline, but somehow Wasserman never quite gets round to saying what hoax he's talking about.
He has the usual weak argument about length of construction, which presupposes that things will be fine in ten years' time, and begs the question about why he was opposing these power plants ten years ago, as he certainly was.
He also has the usual deception oabout insurance, which of course is required, and commerically purchased, by every power reactor operator.
His invocation of Zimmer is interesting. Sustained barratry - multiple lawsuits intended to harrass - from the anti-nuclear movement produced the predictable result of more fossil fuel burning. Only from the "nuclear is evil" viewpoint can this be regarded as anything other than a loss for the environment.
say you. So what. No links to disprove, just denial.
My profile proves Nukes are Evil.
Nuke lead to nuclear war from proliferation, for instance india Pakistan korea etc...
Start there, try and disprove that.
Links? You see links in Wasserman's piece? Well there are two, but they don't actually support any of his colorful assertions.
Nuclear power plants do not lead to nuclear war, or even to nuclear weapons. Your reasoning is simply wrong on this point. The reactors and processes that have been used for nuclear weapons are distinctly different and separate from the power plants.
Plenty of nations have nuclear power plants but do not have nuclear weapons - Canada, Sweden, South Korea, and indeed Japan.
India, Pakistan and NORTH Korea produced bomb material from dedicated reactors. Not power reactors.
In fact the main effect today is in the opposite direction: power reactors are destroying nuclear weapons material, reducing the level of such material in the world.
Nuke power is dirty, deadly, slow to install, has fuel that has is scare and increasing in cost and will be gone in 60 years or less.
Nuke power = World Nuclear war, sooner from proliferation like India etc.., for electricity we can get from rooftop solar and BioChar FOREVER.
Rooftop solar is already 3 cent's per KWH over 30 years for commercial roofs, and about 6-9 cents per KWH for individual homeowners BEFORE SUBSIDIES AND REBATES.
Go to my profile for proof.
Nuclear power is simply more money and power for the military industrial bankster Cabal.
I live in Ohio very close to where they want to implement this plan. I am against it. I don't care how many jobs it creates. If you die trying to make a living what is the point? Until corruption, greed, and liars are not running everything, nothing will change.
The really cruel hoax is the one perpetrated by Harvey Wasserman, the long time advocate of Solartopia, a mirage that asks gullible people to believe that night no longer exists and that the wind is not only always blowing somewhere, but that the people in the areas where the wind is blowing will gladly send you their power for little or no cost when your breezes stop.
Providing clean, reliable, affordable energy is hard work. Building and operating machines that can do the job for 40-60 years cannot be done overnight, but it certainly can be done. The operating record of the 104 nuclear power plants that are running today proves atomic fission is an affordable way to generate emission free power.
Partially because of their productivity and partially because uranium is an incredibly cheap source of heat, the average operating and maintenance cost of nuclear power plants in the US is about 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour, 20% less than the cost of the average coal fired power plant and about 1/3 of the cost of the average gas fired power plant.
Solar and wind industries - made up of such small and disadvantaged companies as General Electric, Siemens, Vestas, Shell Oil, Chevron, Kyocera, Sharp, and FPL - are completely dependent upon federal and state direct payments and are increasingly vocal about demanding mandated market shares and carbon taxes in an attempt to keep them profitable.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
I agree.
Often children like Wasserman pay attention only to the visible and not the invisible.
Denmark uses little of the wind energy it produces since it has little gas and no hydroelectric power to compensate for wind fluctuations; it exports that energy to Sweden which has hydroelectric. In exchange, Denmark imports 10% of its energy needs mainly from Sweden's nuclear plants.
40% of Sweden's energy needs is met by Nuclear and Sweden's economy and fiscal health is pretty good.
80% of France's electric energy needs is met by Nuclear and France's economy is doing pretty well since much of Denmark's and Spain's industries have moved to France for the more stable energy base. The industrial output per capita per year has been decreasing for Spain and Denmark.
So far, solar energy is not beneficial overall for an economy: ask Spain. Germany soon will stop the solar subsidies and we will see what happens.
Utilities are in the energy business and do not care about the source. Solar and Wind have been
around for centuries and if they were disruptive technologies the utilities would be using only solar
and wind in a split second.
Pure BS, link to prove a single word you have said.
Utilites are in teh busines of making money and keeping thier monolpoly, Duh.
Rooftop solar in CA cost 3 cents per KWH and replace 80 cents per KWH peak load.
That's why CA has and continues to install many times as much rooftop solar and the rest of the world.
Learn something.
Denmark USES ALL OF THE WIND ENERGY IT PRODUCES. It either uses in Denmark or they sell it to Sweden and others. That Sweden sell power back from nukes has NOTHING TO DO WITH DENMARK'S WIND PROFITABILITY. What a twisted argument!
Solar and wind world wide have replaced megatons of pollution and billions of profits to the middle east anti western countries.
Good article.
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