Posted on 5-11-2002

Nuclear Renaissance or Nuclear Nightmare?
By Karl Grossman, Special to CorpWatch

Last month, nuclear industry executives and U.S. government officials got
together in Washington, D.C. for a conference called "The Nuclear
Renaissance"-- a gathering boosting a comeback of commercial nuclear power
in the U.S. "Renaissance" has replaced "revival" as the word being used by
nuclear proponents in the U.S. and around the world to describe their
desired recovery of the nuclear industry. There has not been an order of a
new nuclear power plant in the U.S. since the 1979 Three Mile Island
accident shattered public trust in nuclear technology. The 1986 Chernobyl
nuclear disaster damaged confidence in atomic energy worldwide. But the
nuclear industry and its allies in government are back for a "renaissance."

In March 2003 there will be a Nuclear Renaissance Forum in Chicago
sponsored by the nuclear plant manufacturers Framatome and Westinghouse. A
few days before last months Washington meeting, the World Nuclear
Association Annual Symposium in London featured a session on "Nuclear
Renaissance."
Russia and the US have teamed up to launch a new 'Atoms for Peace and
Prosperity' Program. At the session, Dr. Andrei Gagarinski, director of
international affairs at Russias Kurchatov Institute, said his atomic
research facility had teamed with the U.S. Department of Energy-owned
Sandia National Laboratories to put together "a new Atoms for Peace and
Prosperity Program." The program was considered at President George Bushs
summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in May, according to
Gagarinski.

In the U.K. in August, Robin Jeffrey, chairman of British Energy, called
for a "nuclear renaissance" telling the British Nuclear Engineering Society
that "working in partnership [we can] create a financial and commercial
framework for a programme of new build."

Meanwhile, as it prepares for its hoped-for "renaissance," the nuclear
industry has globalized:

* British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. has purchased Westinghouse (the worlds
largest reactor manufacturer) and ABB/Combustion Engineering (itself the
product of an earlier merger of the Swedish ABB and the U.S. corporation
Combustion Engineering).

* Siemens, the largest reactor builder in Germany, and Framatome, with
a monopoly on construction of French reactors, announced their intent to
merge most aspects of their nuclear businesses.

* General Electric (the world's second largest reactor manufacturer
after Westinghouse) joined with Mitsubishi to build new atomic plants in
Japan.

* Minatom, the giant Russian state-owned nuclear entity, is moving to
build new nuclear plants in Russia and internationally.

A handful of giant multinational energy corporations are positioning
themselves to become "the robber barons of the 2lst Century," says Michael
Mariotte, Executive Director of the Nuclear Information & Resource
Service/World Information Service on Energy-Amsterdam (NIRS-WISE
Amsterdam). Mariotte added that "perhaps no industry is embracing
globalization quite so fervently," in a field "where the stakes are
highest, where the threats to all life are most at risk."

Paul Gunter, head of the organizations Reactor Watchdog Project, who
attended the "Nuclear Renaissance" conference in Washington, said rather
than a renaissance, what is involved is "a relapse into the failed nuclear
energy policy" of the past. The "renaissance" also now comes with what
Mariotte says "may be the most ardently pro-nuclear power presidency in
U.S. history." The Bush administrations stance on nuclear power is
aggressive and minimizes the dangers of atomic technology. As Bushs
Secretary of Treasury Paul ONeill has told The Wall Street Journal, "If you
set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is
really is good."

The administration struck a close working relationship with the nuclear
industry well before taking office. Its energy "transition" advisors included:

* Joseph Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the
lead nuclear industry-funded trade group.

* J. Bennett Johnston who as a senator was a leading pro-nuclear power
figure in Congress and now runs a consulting firm that assists the nuclear
industry.

* Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute and former
head of the American Nuclear Energy Council, forerunner of the NEI, and a
friend of Bush going back to their days at Yale Representatives of four
U.S. utilities involved with nuclear power.

Two weeks after being sworn in, Bush set up a "National Energy Policy
Development Group" and appointed Vice President Dick Cheney as its
chairman. Its members included O'Neill and Andrew Lundquist, who also
coordinated the energy "transition" team was named executive director. "The
National Energy Policy Development Group supports the expansion of nuclear
energy in the United States as a major component of our National Energy
Policy," declared the group's report, issued ten weeks later. "America,"
said Bush in unveiling the plan, should "expand a clean and unlimited
source of energy: nuclear power."

This National Energy Policy whose recommendations were discussed at length
at the Nuclear Renaissance conference - would substantially increase the
use of nuclear power in the U.S. both by building new nuclear power plants
many on existing nuclear plant sites, and extending the 40-year licenses of
currently operating plants by another 20 years each.

Some observers might think the September 11th terrorist attacks -- and the
reported plans by Al Qaeda to strike at U.S. nuclear plants -- might hold
up plans for a "nuclear renaissance." But Richard A. Meserve, chairman of
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), struck positive notes at the
Nuclear Renaissance conference at which he was a keynote speaker. The NRC
was created in 1975 to impartially regulate nuclear power replacing the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which Congress deemed to be in conflict of
interest being set up to both promote and regulate nuclear power. "First,
the physical protection at nuclear power plants was strong before September
11th. I am aware of no other industry that has had to satisfy the tough
requirements that the NRC has had in place for a quarter of a century,"
stated Meserve. "Secondly, there have been no specific credible threats of
a terrorist attack on nuclear power plants since September 11th," he added.
"Third" Meserve concluded, "in light of the events of September 11th, the
NRC has recognized the need to reexamine past security strategies to ensure
that we have the right protections in place for the long term." "The agency
could not have presented the situation farther from the truth," noted
Gunter of the Reactor Watchdog Project. "Before September 11th, the
industry and NRC were mired in an endless dialogue on security deficiencies
and the rising cost of safeguarding nuclear power plants" he said. And
federal security exercises conducted since 1991 led to "failing grades"
half the time, according to Gunter.

Gunter said that after the September 11th attacks, the NRC closed down its
formal security exercise program. "The vulnerability of attacks from the
air and the water were never evaluated," he explained. "Contrary to Dr.
Meserves remarks, nuclear power plants remain both structurally and
programmatically vulnerable to sophisticated and premeditated acts of
terrorism," according to the head of the watchdog group.

Also making a presentation at the "Nuclear Renaissance" conference was
Westinghouse Vice President for New Plants Ernie H. Kennedy who described
"the post-TMI phase" for the nuclear industry as a "collapse of new plant
orders, cancellation of existing orders" and "sharply increasing O&M
[operation and maintenance] costs." But, he said, the nuclear industry in
the 1990s had been busy "getting the house in order" and "preparing for the
renaissance 2000s." Now, said Mr. Kennedy, there is "slow but sustained
improvement in public acceptance" and "improved political support."

Gail H. Marcus, Bush administration appointee as principal deputy director
of the U.S. Department of Energy, who is also president of the pro-industry
American Nuclear Society, began her presentation by quoting from report of
the National Energy Policy Development Group. She said new nuclear power
plants would be built under a "cost-shared" arrangement between the federal
government and utilities. This will be combined, she said, with the
Department of Energys "Early Site Permit" or expedited nuclear plant
process on three projects soon to be advanced.

The "cost-shared" and "Early Site Permit" arrangements will be initially
used in construction by:

* Dominion Energy for new nuclear plant at the current North Anna
nuclear plant site in Virginia

* Entergy for a new nuclear plant at the Grand Gulf nuclear plant site
in Mississippi

* Excelon for a new nuclear plant at the Clinton nuclear plant site in
Illinois.

Marcus said the new plants were expected to come on line by 2005 and some,
or all, of the "advanced" nuclear plant would be deployed by 2010.

The sponsors of The Nuclear Renaissance Conference -- Framatome, Canadian
reactor manufacturer AECL Technologies, Winston & Strawn, a Washington law
firm that represents clients involved with nuclear power, and EXCEL, a
provider of services for U.S. and international commercial nuclear power
facilities -- allowed one anti-nuclear advocate to make a presentation.
"The real question is: How should the nuclear industry be held responsible
for the health and environmental disasters that it has created?" Winonah
Hauter, director of the Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program at
Ralph Naders Public Citizen, spoke as part of a panel discussion titled
"How Should the Environmental Benefits of Nuclear Assets Be Valued?" "The
answer to the question about valuing the benefits of nuclear assets is
simple. There are none," Hauter stated. Then she fired off questions of her
own. "The real questions that should have been asked at this conference is:
How should the nuclear industry be held responsible for and required to
bear the full cost of the health and environmental disasters that it has
created? Why are our government agencies lapdogs for the industry? How has
the industry bought public policy?"

As to the claim of nuclear proponents at the conference that atomic plants
assist in offsetting global warming, Hauter pointed out that the nuclear
fuel cycle creates a vast amount of greenhouse gases. "An elaborate
energy-intensive process of uranium mining, milling and enrichment must
take place before the fuel rods can even be fabricated. All of these
processes use massive quantities of fossil fuels. The manufacture and
construction of reactors require more fossil fuels. And [as to] the back
end of the fuel cycleif the industry is successful in dumping waste on the
unwilling citizens of Nevadait will take more fossil fuel to move thousands
of shipments." "And even if nuclear energy didnt use fossil fuel," she went
on "the regular radiation releases from plants would way offset any benefit."

Hauter challenged the industry public relations campaign promoting nuclear
energy as a "clean" alternative to fossil fuels. "Nuclear power plants are
not cost-effective, which means they can only be built if nuclear
corporations are allowed special dispensation from the government. Let me
put that more clearly: the industry has to feed at the trough of taxpayer
money to survive. So the industry is looking for new ways to justify its
existence."

The Nuclear Renaissance Conference received uninvited guests, too.
Activists from Greenpeace crashed the conference with a 200-pound ice
sculpture depicting a nuclear plant melting. Carved into the ice statue
were the words No New Nukes. "Greeenpeace is putting plans for any nuclear
renaissance on ice" said Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace.
"Despite benefiting from millions of dollars of government subsidies,
nuclear power plants are still too expensive to build, too dangerous to
operate and too vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks." The activists
also distributed a broadside at the conference called The No New Nukes
Times . A New York Times-like front page featured stories with headlines
such as, "Once Touted As Too Cheap To Meter Now Too Costly to Matter" and
"Dr. Strangelove Hands Plutonium Over to Homer Simpson."

Conference attendee Gunter of NIRS/WISE Amsterdam commented that in order
to bring about a "renaissance" the nuclear industry faces a number of
obstacles. Chief among them he cited "increased public mistrust and growing
opposition to a proliferation of new nukes." "The meltdown of the industry
plans hatched in the early 1970s to build a thousand reactors by the year
2000 was in large part the result of a public unwilling to swallow the lies
of nuclear industrialists and their political cronies," said Gunter. "New
construction on the enormous scale the industry must contemplate will
provide the anti-nuclear movement with the opportunity to raise concerns
over the vulnerability and costs of security, the proliferation of an
already unmanageable nuclear waste problem and the inherent risk of an
accident associated with the most expensive and dangerous process
conceivable for boiling water to make electricity" according to the head of
the watchdog group.


* Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New
York/College at Old Westbury, is the author of books on nuclear technology
including Cover Up: What You ARE NOT Supposed To Know About Nuclear Power
and host of numerous television programs on atomic energy available from
EnviroVideo.