Rebirth for Nuclear Energy (7/10/99)
Op-ed published in the Washington Times (July 12, 1999)

Possible New Spurt in Nuclear Energy

Twenty years after the Three Mile Island accident, atomic energy in the United States is gaining a new lease on life. This may come as a shock to the folks at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC and to other environmental groups which are convinced that nuclear reactors are on their way out and have been busy in writing obituaries. In their zeal to abolish the atom, they ignore the fact that nuclear plants don't obstruct the run of salmon, don't pollute the atmosphere, and cannot be blamed for smog, acid rain, or global warming.

Nuclear power made history earlier this year: The first sale ever of a U.S. nuclear plant, when AmerGen, a partnership of British Energy and Philadelphia-based PECO Energy Co., snapped up the Three Mile Island reactor, owned by GPU, Inc. This is a working reactor, sitting right next to its twin, the TMI No.2 reactor that was involved in the country's worst nuclear accident.

Whatever possessed AmerGen to buy a reactor and compete against coal and highly efficient natural-gas power plants? The answer was certainly NOT global warming; they just wanted to make a profit. It helps, of course, that they were able to buy the TMI reactor for less than 20 cents on the dollar, including 16-cents-worth of nuclear fuel already contracted for. This is a phenomenal deal for AmerGen; the TMI reactor is selling for about $30 per kilowatt of generation, compared to the more than $500 per kilowatt for a coal-fired plant recently sold by GPU. GPU thinks it's a good deal for them also; it clears up their balance sheet. And with electricity deregulation in the works, they see their future as a distributor, not as an owner of just one nuclear power plant. As their chairman put it in an interview, with nuclear you can't be "just a dabbler in the business."

The stock market has been taking note of this, even if the general public doesn't have a clue about what's happening. British Energy was privatized in July 1996 and went public at 105 pence a share, sold for 696 pence on February 2, announced higher profits and immediately went to 723 pence. BE supplies 25% of British electricity, owns eight nuclear plants, and reported a ten-fold increase in before-tax profits for the first half of the past operating year.

This may be part of a growing trend. The average nuclear plant, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, produces electricity at an operating cost of 2.48 cents per kilowatt hour; the most efficient ones for only 2 cents.

Even as the number of US nuclear plants is declining, nuclear electricity generation is increasing -- as the capacity factor moved from 58% in 1980 to 70% in 1990, and to 80% for the past three years, indicating increasing efficiency of reactor operation.

Similar nuclear production records were set in Spain, Finland, and South Korea, according to the February 1999 issue of Nuclear Energy Insight. The magazine also reported a survey of electric utility executives, who increasingly believe that existing nuclear plants will operate through the end of their current license periods, that most plants will be able to extend their licenses, and that existing plants can compete against most other production, except for some low-cost hydro units. One reason for their upbeat view is the move within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to a more enlightened system of regulation. These ongoing reforms, in turn, may be largely due to the more successful operation of the plants, putting less political pressure on the NRC. Natural selection may have eliminated the "bad apples" and the bad operators, taking the wind out of the sails of the nuclear opposition.

Some of the anti-nuclear fervor in Europe may also be in for a change . A French publication reports on a "pro-nuclear-power" demonstration in Bonn, Germany, on March 9. The 35,000 people there protested the decision of the German government to quit nuclear power; it reportedly included a group called the Association of Ecologists for Nuclear Power. As other speakers forecast massive increases in unemployment, the German economics minister who tried to explain his government's nuclear policy was heckled and hooted. We don't recall reading about this anti-Green demonstration in the New York Times.

The Bonn event was reinforced by a speech by Ms. Kerstin Muller, co-president of the German Greens, at the Party Congress in Erfurt on March 6. She had to admit that there were really no substitutes available for nuclear power. But since the Greens also oppose the use of coal and lignite, the only solution would be a massive increase in electricity imports from nuclear France, coupled with a loss of jobs and the loss of nuclear expertise. As a coalition partner in the present German government, the Green Party is willing to accept a phaseout of nuclear within a twenty-year timeframe. This is a bitter pill to swallow for a group of ideologues that has held the anti-nuclear position for 25 years.

Sweden seems still determined to eliminate nuclear energy. Supporters of nuclear power have launched an international appeal to prevent the shutdown of the operating Barseback reactor in Southern Sweden. If they fail, as seems likely, the world will have an object lesson on the damage that environmental zeal can cause. Meanwhile, however, China has announced that it plans to triple its nuclear power production from 1% to 3% in less than a decade.

Even Japan may be coming round, as reported in Nature, March 18. Against strong environmental opposition, parliament is considering a plan from Japan's Environment Agency for reducing fossil-fuel use by adding 20 nuclear plants by 2010, increasing nuclear electric generation by 50 percent. Who said that the Kyoto Accord (to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide) was all bad?

S. Fred Singer, PhD
The Science & Environmental Policy Project
1600 South Eads Street, Suite #712-S
Arlington, VA 22202-2907
Tel/Fax 703-920-2744
Email: singer@sepp.org
The writer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and the president of the Fairfax-based Science & Environmental Policy Project, a non-profit policy institute. He has held several academic and governmental positions, including as the first director of the US Weather Satellite Service.