Power struggle

Monday, February 7, 2005

Power struggle
President calls for nuclear energy; environmentalists express concerns

Battles between nuclear power advocates and environmentalists that were waged across the country in the 1970s could soon be rekindled.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush called on Congress to enact legislation to support an energy program that includes safe, clean nuclear power.

During a recent visit to Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Nils J. Diaz predicted utilities would soon seek permission to build new nuclear power plants.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ready to do its role if the nation needs to start building nuclear power plants," Diaz said. "I believe we have several new designs that are coming up. I think there is a significant possibility that in the next two to three years a decision will be made regarding new units. We are certainly planning to be ready for it if that is the case."

Diaz does not expect a boom in nuclear plant construction like the 1970s when utilities around the country built reactors.

"I predict that it will go slow. It will be a few plants and then a few more. Then the nation will have to decide if this is really part of the right mix," he said. "This boom is already happening in some places. China is about ready to build 30 nuclear power plants in the next 15 years."

Diaz said India, Korea and Japan also are expanding their nuclear power industry.

He expects the ultimate decision of how many new nuclear plants will be built in the United States to be made by federal lawmakers.

"We have other options. We do have natural gas, oil and coal. I think the bottom line will come when the economics and the environment are put together. What is the right place for nuclear power, and

This file photo shows the Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry Nuclear Station near Athens. In his State of the Union address, President Bush called on Congress to enact legislation to support an energy program that includes nuclear power. COURTESY PHOTO/File

issue for the Congress of the United States to decide," Diaz said.

Tennessee Valley Authority is part of a U.S. Department of Energy study into the feasibility of building a newly designed reactor at the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant near Scottsboro.

TVA Chairman Glenn McCullough Jr. stresses that the study is a Department of Energy project and that TVA has not made a decision about building new reactors at Bellefonte, where construction on the two reactors initially planned there was halted in 1988.

Jackie Tipper, an environmental advocate who lives in Lawrence County, worries about the apparent rush to build new nuclear plants.

Tipper said that before considering building new nuclear reactors, a place must be found to dispose of the waste from existing plants.

Diaz said he expects the U.S. Department of Energy to apply for a license later this year to operate a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

The repository, which has been in the planning stages since the late 1970s, would accept waste from 161 nuclear sites around the country, including Browns Ferry and TVA's Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear plants in Tennessee.

The waste at Browns Ferry is now stored in pools of water. When the pools are filled to capacity later this year, TVA will begin storing the waste in concrete casks outside the reactor building.

"I think they are putting the cart before the ox. Before they even think about building a new nuclear plant, they need to do something with all the radioactive waste they already have," Tipper said.

Diaz said during his Browns Ferry visit that the repository planned for Nevada would not solve the nuclear waste dilemma. "I have heard they can expand Yucca Mountain, but the law the way it exists now has a capacity. That capacity is already essentially taken. So Congress will either have to expand Yucca Mountain or will have to find a way of providing a another permanent repository."

The Yucca Mountain project, which has been in the planning stages since the 1970s, faces tough opposition from Nevada officials and residents.

Sara Barczack, safe energy director for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, also questions the wisdom of considering new nuclear plants while there is still no permanent location to store radioactive waste.

Tipper and Barczack said instead of promoting nuclear energy, federal officials should help utilities find ways to produce electricity in more environmentally friendly ways.

Diaz said the NRC will not allow any nuclear plant to be built if it would endanger the public.

"We happen to be an agency that's fully dedicated to public health and safety," he said.

Barczack worries that with the nuclear industry's history of firing employees who raise safety concerns, the federal agency might not be alerted to potential problems.

Among the former nuclear workers who have shared their stories with Barczack is James Speegle, of Tuscumbia, who contends he was fired as a painter foreman for a TVA contractor at Browns Ferry for alerting the NRC about paint that had been applied improperly to part of the Unit 1 reactor's safety system.

firmed there was a problem with the paint and that the problem has been corrected.

he has yet to be allowed to return to work or receive back pay.

Seagle calls himself a proponent of nuclear power. But he worries that if a new round of nuclear plant construction begins, employees will be reluctant to alert the NRC of safety lapses over concerns they will be fired.

Diaz said nuclear employees should never hesitate to alert federal regulators and he is confident the federal agency is alerted when problems are detected.

Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@timesdaily.com.