nuclear-news

Earlier this month, the state Assembly passed a measure that would effectively lift Wisconsin’s ban on new nuclear power plants by eliminating two essential clauses. The clauses stipulate that nuclear power would be proven to be a cheaper source of energy to residents and requires a federal repository site for spent nuclear waste. ……..

energy experts like Al Gedicks, of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council, said they would rather see the state invest in renewable energy systems. While Gedicks said he agrees that nuclear energy is better than coal, natural gas and oil in terms of overall greenhouse gas emissions, he worries that nuclear plants take years to construct and get operating — years we can’t afford to spend when faced with such devastating consequences of climate change. Moreover, he said he fears extreme weather incidents could disrupt radioactive waste stored at nuclear power plants.

Gedicks also believes the bill would open the door to Wisconsin itself becoming a federal repository site.

“If you lift the restriction on no nuclear power plants without a waste disposal site, you are setting up the state of Wisconsin to become if not the first, then certainly the second nuclear waste repository,” he said.

Wisconsin already was targeted by the U.S. Department of Energy as a potential repository site to compliment Yucca Mountain back in the 1980s, according to Gedick. But massive opposition, including from four tribal nations, eventually led for the federal agency to look elsewhere. Soon after, Wisconsin implemented the moratorium.

Gedick said Wisconsin could remain an attractive location for a waste dump site because of granite rock formations in the northern part of the state.

“Wisconsin was high on the list in the 1980s and it is still high on the list now,” Gedlick said. “We  are essentially going into this blindfolded because we haven’t had a discussion on whether this is what the citizens of Wisconsin want if they lift that nuclear power moratorium.”…… http://www.wpr.org/energy-experts-are-split-whether-wisconsin-should-lift-ban-new-nuclear-power-plants