nuclear-news

Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game

BY HARVEY WASSERMAN 26 Apr 24

For the first time since 1954, no large new atomic reactors are under construction or on order in the United States.

On March 1, 2024, Vogtle Unit 4 connected to the Georgia grid …years behind schedule and billions over budget.   Once hyped as “too cheap to meter,” America’s last large light-water reactor thus forever froze the “Peaceful Atom” in financial failure.

Despite enormous public hype and subsidies, ZERO new US atomic reactors—large or small— are likely to become significantly available here for at least a decade.

The first will likely be an unproven “Small Modular Reactor” prototype already leaning toward a trillion-dollar failure.

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When it comes to the myth of nuke power helping to fight global warming…there’s no there there.

Atomic reactors cause climate chaos.  Some 415 reactors directly heat our air and water in concert with mega-explosions like Chernobyl and Fukushima.  All pour radioactive carbon 14 into a lethal brew of filth and wastes.

Despite the latest round of “Nuclear Renaissance” hype, the US lacks the industrial capacity to produce impactful new reactors—large or small— before 2030, if then.

The void comes when we most desperately need to reduce carbon emissions.  The mega-grift for unproven new nukes cripples the vital transition to renewables, multiplying the planet-killing impacts of fossil fuels…and of decrepit old reactors whose average age is now over 40.

The original fantasy that the “Peaceful Atom” would be “too cheap to meter” came from Atomic Energy Commission Chair Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey, Jr., in “Oppenheimer.”

Harry Truman’s 1952 Paley Commission Report on the future of energy had predicted an epic boom in renewables, including 15,000,000 solar heated US homes by 1975.

But in December, 1953, President Eisenhower—in a remarkably war-like speech—told the United Nations that “Atoms for Peace” would limitlessly power the planet.

On September 6, 1954, the Navy and Westinghouse began building the first US commercial reactor, which opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, on May 26, 1958.

In 1974 Richard Nixon promised a thousand US reactors by the year 2000.  There were in fact 104.  With Vogtle 4’s opening, there are now 94—and none on order or under construction.

Atomic power has become what Forbes Magazine called in 1985 “the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”

A 2014 study of 180 nukes worldwide said 175 of them cost 117% more than promised, while going 64% beyond schedule.

Despite the early hype, the Peaceful Atom’s financial catastrophes are too frequent to count, and with price tags too huge to compile, including…

X  the 1966 “We Almost Lost Detroit” accident at Michigan’s Fermi I, costing at least $100 million;

X  the 1979 Meltdown at Three Mile Island, which—aside from killing innumerable downwinders—converted a $900 million asset to a $2 billion liability;

X  the 1983 Washington Public Power System’s $2 billion pubic bond default, the first of its kind, killing four reactors then under construction;

X  Sacramento’s 1989 landslide vote to shut the municipal utility’s money-losing Rancho Seco reactor, where surrounding solar panels (unlike the dead nuke) still produce juice;

X  the Public Service of New Hampshire’s 1988 dump of Seabrook Unit Two, fueling the first investor-owned utility bankruptcy since the Great Depression;

X  the 1998 failure of New York’s never-to-operate $7 billion Shoreham, which shattered the Long Island Lighting Company;

X  the 2017 collapse of South Carolina’s VC Summer, whose $9 billion dead loss joined Vogtle’s $20 billion cost overrun to bankrupt Westinghouse;

X  NuScale’s 2023 SMR collapse in Idaho, fusing into financial failure the industry’s ever-escalating crises in safety, seismic instability, un-insurabililty, heat and radiation emissions, terrorism, war.

Massive explosions at Russia’s Kyshtym and New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project underscore the industry’s unsolved waste management problem.  So does radioactive devastation at California’s Santa Susanna and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.

After seven decades of experience, massive 21^st century catastrophes continue in the US, Finland, France, England.

Westinghouse’s Summer/Vogtle bankruptcy follows 70 years of a “negative learning curve.”

Finland’s Olkiluoto, France’s Flamanville and England’s double reactor project at Hinckley Point are all hugely over budget and years behind schedule.  Olkiluoto has occasionally shut to make way for cheaper wind and hydro.

Many of France’s flagship 56 reactors regularly curtail their output for generic repairs…or as rivers become too global-heated to cool the cores without serious downstream eco-damage.

But Germany’s 2023 final reactor closures allow more than half its power to come more cheaply and reliably from renewables.

California’s similar-sized economy now often gets 100+% of its power from renewables, dwarfing remnant double reactors at Diablo Canyon, now costing $1+ billion/year over market.

Undaunted, Brussels’ World Nuclear Summit just hyped a tripled global fleet, calling for investments beyond $5 trillion to fund a production schedule than many believe is simply impossible.

The international banking response has been a grim “Just Say No”…accompanied by a vote of confidence in a renewable future.

But most terrifying is the demand that decrepit reactors (average age 42+) operate without meaningful inspections or insurance…………………………………………. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/26/nuclear-powers-lethal-larcenous-end-game/

April 28, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs | Leave a comment