By Karen Albrecht
Daily Bruin Reporter
The future of the United States energy industry may see an
increasing dependence on nuclear power.
No new nuclear plants have been requested since 1979 but growing
energy demand, exacerbated by the California energy crisis, may end
the dry spell, said Melanie White, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear
Energy Institute. The NEI provides policy direction for the nuclear
energy industry.
“We believe there will be new nuclear power plants within
the next five years,” said Mitch Singer, NEI spokesman.
In California, energy demands are increasing by 4 to 6 percent
annually, a rate twice the nationwide increase.
But there has been no new plant construction in the state in the
past 15 years, Singer said.
Issues including the disposal of spent fuel, safety risks
associated with reactor operation and development of national
policies to curb energy overuse and unnecessary economic growth
should be addressed before nuclear power plants are licensed and
constructed, according to a statement by the Sierra Club.
“Despite what virulent environmentalists say, nuclear is
one of, if not the most, environmentally friendly forms of
power,” Singer said.
Nuclear power currently provides 20 percent of the
nation’s energy, at rates slightly lower nationally than
either coal or natural gas, White said.
In California the rate discrepancy is more substantial.
Since May 2000, electricity has been selling at the rate of 20
to 30 cents per kilowatt hour.
In comparison, the current rate for nuclear-generated energy is
4.2 cents per kilowatt hour at the San Onofre plant in San
Clemente, said Ray Golden, spokesman for Southern California
Edison.
“In California there have been a lot of unnecessary road
blocks in building new plants due to both legal issues and
environmentalists,” Singer said.
Four units were initially proposed for each of
California’s two nuclear power plants at San Onofre and
Diablo Canyon, but only two reactors were installed at Diablo
Canyon and three at San Onofre, Singer said.
Because of additional legal and environmental opposition, costs
for new plants in California have been higher than in other areas
of the nation, Singer said
Proponents of nuclear energy, including the Bush administration,
tout the environmental advantages of reactors in comparison with
other major power producing mechanisms.
Recently, Vice President Dick Cheney publicly addressed the
future of nuclear power and praised the safety record of the
nuclear power industry.
“I would like to see (the percentage of electricity from
nuclear power) go up because I think it’s one way to deal
with the whole question of global warming, of greenhouse
emissions,” said Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC
News’ “Meet the Press.”
In 1999, California’s nuclear power plants avoided
emitting 181,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 7.7 million metric tons
of carbon, according to the NEI.
Additionally, water discharged from plants contains no
contaminants, and nuclear plants require less land than alternate
sources of energy.
But other obstacles stand in the way of increased nuclear energy
reliance.
“One issue that could potentially stall development of
nuclear power plants in the future is our ability to permanently
dispose of used fuel,” Golden said.
Highly radioactive waste is currently stored on nuclear plant
sites in wet and dry storage containers.
For more than 20 years Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been
proposed as a nuclear waste dump site. The area served as ground
zero for nuclear weapons testing during World War II.
Because the area has not yet been approved for nuclear waste
disposal, some facilities, including the San Onofre nuclear plant,
have applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for new, costly
storage facilities, Golden said.
The fission reaction used by nuclear power plants produces heat,
which in turn generates steam that turns turbines like any other
plant.
Fission produces a different uranium isotope and plutonium,
which is discarded as radioactive waste.
Only one percent of the uranium core is used. With recycling and
isolation of the plutonium produced, almost 100 percent of the core
could be used.
But reprocessing of nuclear waste was indefinitely banned in
1977, due to the high cost of the procedure and the potential for
unauthorized personnel to divert the purified plutonium for weapons
production, according to Spurgeon Keeny, president and executive
director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C., in an
interview with “Frontline.”