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Nuclear lobby ignores aging, cracking reactors

As U.S. Probes Radiation at Three Mile Island, Christian Parenti on Enduring “Zombie Nuke Plants” Nationwide Democracy Now 25 Nov 09 Interview with Christian Parenti “………One of the problems is that radiation makes metal brittle, so these plants are in serious disrepair. There were designed to last 40 years and now will be used for 60 years. On top of that, there’s a process called uprating whereby these operators can apply to increase the rate in which to operate the plant and in some cases up to 120% of design capacity. For example, Vermont Yankee outside Brattleboro, Vermont runs at 120% of its design capacity and it’s at the end of its life. All over the country there are these problems of leaks, emergencies and it remains largely under the radar. Many in the environmental movement talk about atomic power in terms of the future and whether or not we should build a new fleet of atomic power plants, how we’ll fight climate change.

That is really not the issue, because new atomic power plants are extremely expensive. If all goes well, which never has in the construction of a single plant in the U.S., it would cost about $10 billion-$12 billion. Generally, they cost more. There’s $18.5 billion on the table.The problem is, the federal government has ensured 80% of any private loans that will be made to build the new plant. But no one in Wall Street is prepared to invest in these things unless they get 100% public insurance. So there’s really not much investment there for it.

There are these firms that would love to get on the gravy train of building atomic power plants; whether or not they ever come on line is another story. They would like to continue to build these indefinitely. That is the lobby behind pushing for atomic energy. Also, basically it functions as a canard to hide the real issue, which is that we continue to burn coal which is extremely dangerous for the climate and the real use of atomic power is to run this fleet of old plants into the ground and we have constantly these small accidents such as the leak a few days ago at Three Mile island.

As U.S. Probes Radiation at Three Mile Island, Christian Parenti on Enduring “Zombie Nuke Plants” Nationwide

November 25, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, safety, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, radioactive