Energy Secretary Bodman has proposed new legislation to reduce the construction risk and to speed up licensing of four nuclear power plants that could be completed by 2014. The laws would apply to four nuclear plants planned to be built using new designs by General Electric and Westinghouse. The legislation would provide insurance against costs incurred because of regulatory delays and rules to make it harder to stop a plant from operating once it has been built. See this article from the San Diego Union-Tribune for more details.
We will need a large number of electric power plants to be built in the future due to obsolescence and increased demand, regardless of any efforts to conserve or use of renewable energy. While I prefer clean coal or IGCC plants with sequestration, they probably cannot be built fast enough to meet our requirements. Besides we need to continue to develop other technologies on a reasonable basis as we will, for all practical purposes, run out of fossil fuels in 50-100 years. While I have no strong objections to this legislation for the first four plants, it does set a precedent and must be written carefully too prevent it from being too lenient. I realize there are some who think this is not possible, but now is the time to lobby for responsible legilation, not after the plants have been approved through a proper review process.
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Why don't you think we could build four IGCC plants in 9 years (i.e. by 2014)? That doesnt seem impracticle at all, in fact, why couldn't we do it in less time (5-6 years)? I still say go with IGCC and not nukes.
As for the legislation, I am wary of the part about the govt. offering insurance on any losses due to regulatory delays. That gives the govt. a huge incentive to ignore any opposition to the plants, well-founded or not, and to railroad these plants through the environmental permitting processes. In short, it puts the govt. on the side of the special interest (the developers of the nukes) against the public interest (i.e. those concerned about quality of health, environment etc.).
I don't want to let simple NIMBYism keep these plants from opening but we all know there are many valid concerns about security, environmental impacts (I have yet to hear any convincing plan to get rid of the radioactive waste these plants will produce) etc. These concerns should be answered before these plants are built. If they can't be answered, than maybe they simply shouldn't be built.
Posted by: JesseJenkins | October 22, 2005 at 02:58 PM