Nuclear power is dangerous and too expensive to build | Delawareonline.com | The News Journal - 0 views
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Energy Net on 17 Aug 09A recent letter advocated more nuclear power plants. There are too many problems with this technology. First, companies will not build nuclear power plants without the protection of the Price-Anderson Act which provides taxpayer compensation in case of an accident since no company in the world will insure them. Price-Anderson, however, only provides $500 million when the latest government report, states that depending on the severity of the accident, damages could run in the billions. Second, after 50 years of operation there is still the waste problem. Energy Secretary Steven Chu appeared before the House lawmakers on June 3 and declared the planned Yucca Mountain repository "dead." More than $9 billion have been invested developing this waste dump, which caused one lawmaker to say: "We got a mighty expensive dinosaur sitting there." This waste, which is lethal for thousands of years, now stays on site in fuel pools and dry casts for future generations to worry about. Minimum morality would demand that we, at least, stop producing it. Estimates as to the cost of this "eventual cleanup" are incalculable. Still the proponents declare nuclear as cheap energy. Third, uranium, like oil, is a finite fuel. Reprocessing, the separation of plutonium which can then again be used as fuel, was discontinued by the United States nearly three decades ago on nonproliferation grounds. Fourth, since 2005, cost estimates for building a new nuclear reactor have more then tripled. Nuclear energy, once declared to be "too cheap to meter," is now too expensive to pursue. Frieda Berryhill, Wilmington