The Nuclear Phoenix

E: The Environmental Magazine, Nov-Dec, 2001 by Karl Grossman

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS PUSHING AHEAD WITH A FULL-SCALE REVIVAL OF ATOMIC POWER

The last time anyone ordered a new nuclear power plant in the United States was in 1978, but if you think that means nukes are dead forever, guess again. The Bush Administration and the nuclear industry are making an intense push to rehabilitate nuclear power in the U.S. "It's like reviving Frankenstein--this is the sequel," says Robert Alvarez, executive director of the Standing for Truth About Radiation (STAR) Foundation and co-author of Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation.

Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) uses another word when describing the Administration's work. Says D'Arrigo: "It's the push to relapse."

Ever since the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl shattered public trust in atomic power, advocates in government and industry have been laying the groundwork for a nuclear energy comeback. An unbridled drive has started under George W. Bush in what "may be the most ardently pro-nuclear power Presidency in U.S. history," says Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based NIRS. The Bush Administration's stance is aggressive, and it minimizes the dangers of nuclear power. As Bush's Secretary of Treasury, Paul O'Neill, told The Wall Street Journal, "If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear power really is good."

IN BED WITH THE INDUSTRY

The Bush Administration struck a close working relationship with the nuclear industry well before taking office. The administration's energy "transition" advisors included Joseph Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which describes itself as "the policy, organization of the nuclear energy and technologies industry"; J. Bennett Johnston, who as a U.S. Senator was a leading pro-nuclear power figure in Congress and who now runs a consulting firm that assists the nuclear industry; Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, former head of the American Nuclear Energy Council (forerunner of NEI) and a reported "Bush buddy" going back to their days together at Yale; and representatives of four nuclear utilities. There were no advisors representing renewable energy or environmental organizations.

Two weeks after being sworn in, Bush set up a "National Energy Policy Development Group" and appointed as its chairman Vice President Dick Cheney. Its members included O'Neill and other top administration officials. Ten weeks after it was organized, the group issued a report declaring its support for "the expansion of nuclear energy, in the United States as a major component of our national energy policy." The plan would substantially increase the use of nuclear power both by building new nuclear power plants--many to be constructed on existing nuclear plant sites--and extending the 40-year licenses of currently operating plants each by another 20 years

"Many U.S. nuclear plant sites were designed to host four to six reactors, and most operate only two or three; many sites across the country could host additional plants," says the energy policy group's report. "Building new generators on existing sites avoids many complex issues associated with building plants on new sites." It could also greatly amplify the impacts of an accident, notes Paul Gunter, head of NIRS' Reactor Watchdog Project. If one nuclear plant in a cluster of facilities undergoes a catastrophic accident, there is the potential, says Gunter, for a "cascading loss amplifying the release of radiation."

According to the policy report, "the licensing of as many as 90 percent of the currently operating nuclear plants may be renewed." There are 103 nuclear plants now in the U.S. They are, on average, 19 years old. Of the longevity of nuclear plants, "No one foresaw them running for more than 40 years," says Alvarez of STAR, who was also senior policy advisor at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 1993 to 1999. The effects of intense radioactive bombardment, especially on metals, have been seen as limiting the operating life of nuclear plants. And then there's the standard deterioration that occurs when any machine gets old. "These reactors are just like old machines, but they are ultra-hazardous," says Alvarez. By pushing their operating span to 60 years, he says, "disaster is being invited."

NEW NUKES?

The Bush Administration's policy also supports "advanced" nuclear power plants--supposedly new-and-improved nukes. "Advanced reactor technology promises to improve nuclear safety," it says. One example the report provides is "the gas-cooled, pebble bed reactor, which has inherent safety features." In fact, says Gunter, the pebble bed reactor is not new; it's just "old wine in a new bottle." It's a hybrid of the gas-cooled, high-temperature design that "has appeared and been rejected in England, Germany and the U.S." And far from being "inherently safe," a reactor of similar design, a THTR300 in Germany's Ruhr Valley, spewed out substantial amounts of radioactivity in a 1986 accident, leading to its permanent closure.