THE RESURGENCE OF
NUCLEAR POWER IN AMERICA

If the next decade does not bring new reactor orders, the U.S. nuclear industry may no longer possess the requisite expertise to design and construct nuclear plants. Indeed, energy secretary John Herrington recently warned that without a speedy nuclear resurgence, the United States will be importing reactors from Japan in the 21st century.

But, the nuclear industry slump does not stop at the U.S. border. Since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, reactor orders have dwindled worldwide. In France, for example, which has long had the most ambitious nuclear program anywhere, projections are for one or less new reactors per year. Heavily-nuclear Belgium recently cancelled a planned reactor. In West Germany, revelations of unreported near-accidents at nuclear power plants have brought the industry under intense criticism. Most other countries are scaling back their nuclear plans.

The effect may be most profound in the Eastern bloc. New environmental and anti-nuclear movements have blossomed since Chernobyl, and already have achieved some success. Despite an official policy that calls for increased reliance on nuclear power, the Soviet Union recently acknowledged that planned nuclear projects at six sites have been cancelled because of citizen opposition and concerns about earthquakes. In addition, conflicting reports indicate that two operating units in Armenia will either be shut down or extensively modified to withstand earthquakes.

Despite the long nuclear drought, the nuclear industry, especially in the United States, is more optimistic now than it has been since its glory days of theearly 1970s.

Indeed, the industry is actively preparing for - and expecting - a resurgence. Its approach is multi-pronged, and relies heavily on its allies in Congress and the federal government. The key to the hoped-for resurrection is to counter environmental opposition by portraying nuclear power as a benign solution to the prime environmental problem of our time: the greenhouse effect.

Other aspects of the industry's strategy include easing regulations to virtually eliminate public participation in the licensing process, particularly involvement of state and local governments; removing emergency evacuation planning as an issue in reactor siting and licensing; reducing the cost of radioactive waste disposal by deregulating some nuclear waste; and forcing taxpayers to pay for development of "advanced, inherently-safe" reactors.

The Greenhouse Effect and Advanced Reactors

Public and congressional concern over global warming--the result of the greenhouse effect--soared as the unusually severe summer of 1984 blistered pavements and rain refused to fall. Droughts were especially severe in the Midwest. Subsequent studies suggest that last summer's heat was due more to normal climatic occurrences than to the early arrival of global warming, but the overall message of the year was inescapable: whether the greenhouse effect is here yet or not, it is most certainly coming.

To the nuclear industry, the greenhouse effect is a godsend. Carbon dioxide accounts for roughly half of the gasses that contribute to the greenhouse effect. In the United States, about a third of carbon dioxide emissions are produced by burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. With widespread agreement that the use of fossil fuels must be curtailed (both in electricity generation and in cars), the nuclear industry began shifting its pitch from battling foreign oil demons to arguing that since nuclear power is not part of the problem (it contributes little to the greenhouse effect), it must be part of the solution.

Conveniently overlooked in this new industry P.R. blitz is the overwhelming environmental baggage of nuclear power itself: the production of deadly and long-lived radioactive waste - with no long-term storage solution in sight; the routine releases of radiation, with an unknown cumulative effect on the land and water and to plant, animal and human life; and the ever-present threat of permanent environmental devastation as a result of major accidents.

The industry has won some powerful new allies with this approach, most notably Sen. Timothy Wirth, D-Colo. At the center of new legislation introduced by Wirth on the greenhouse effect is funding for research into "advanced, inherently-safe" nuclear reactors. The money is just the first drop in the bucket, however; to actually complete the reactor could cost anywhere from $2 billion to $5 billion or more.

To Wirth and other moderates, such as Rep. Morris Udall, D- Ariz., the key is the new generation of advanced, inherently- safe reactors. They view the present generation of reactors as, at best, a necessary evil, and believe nuclear plants must be made safer and more cost-effective if they are ever to achieve enough public acceptance to play a meaningful role in the nation's energy future.

Although there are different types of advanced reactors competing for taxpayer development dollars, they share some things in common: they rely on passive safety systems rather than the massive, redundant cooling water piping found on current reactors; they do not have the containment structures the U.S. industry championed after Chernobyl (their passive safety systems do not permit them, and were they to be required, the cost could be prohibitive); and, for the most part, they exist only on paper.

The advanced reactors share one other trait: despite the claims of would-be developers, they are not "inherently safe." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's own Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) already has sounded a warning that it is not prepared to declare advanced reactors without containment structues to be sufficiently safe. In a July 20, 1988 letter to NRC Chairman Lando Zech, the ACRS spelled out its concerns: In the case of Liquid Metal Reactors (LMR), being designed by both General Electric and Rockwell International, "a contemporaneous failure of the guard vessel and the reactor vessel, coupled with a sodium fire, would seem to lead to severe consequences." As for General Atomics' High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR), the ACRS warned, "... a fire in the graphite moderator, perhaps permitted by massive failures of the reactor vessel and core support, might also have severe consequences." It was, of course, a fire in the graphite moderator that caused severe consequences during the Chernobyl accident.

The ACRS also harshly dismissed manufacturers' claims that the ability of reactor operators is less important for the safe operation of advanced reactors. "The designers of the three reactor proposals seem to be claiming that the designs are so inherently stable and error-resistant that the questions of operation and staffing, so important for LMRs, are unimportant for the advanced reactors. And that, in fact, the advanced plants can be operated with only a very small staff. We believe these claims are unproven and that more evidence is required before they can be accepted."

The ACRS went on, "the two major accidents that have been experienced in nuclear power, those at TMI-2 and Chernobyl-4, were caused, in large measure, by human error. These were not simple 'operator errors' but instead were caused by deliberate, but wrong, actions.... There seems little merit in making claims for the improved safety of new reactor designs if they have not been evaluated against the actual causes of the most important reactor accidents in our experience."

Actually, some in the industry are beginning to downplay claims that advanced reactors will be inherently safe. First, it is unlikely such a reactor could in fact exist. Moreover, calling as-yet undeveloped reactors "inherently safe" is an indirect indictment of current reactors, which are obviously not inherently safe. As one industry official told the trade newsletter Inside NRC, "We're putting our resources toward chipping away at the notion that we need an inherently safe reactor."

General Atomics (GA) has been the most aggressive marketer of advanced reactors. This may have less to do with the company's confidence in its product, however, than with the fact that the company was virtually shut out of the first binge of reactor construction. It designed only Colorado's Fort St. Vrain plant, which recently closed permanently because it simply does not work--its lifetime capacity factor was a dismal 14 percent.

GA's HTGR is the design most likely to receive taxpayer funding if a greenhouse bill to develop new reactors is passed. General Atomics is not placing all its bets in one pot, however. It succeeded in convincing the Department of Energy (DOE) to ask for funding to build four modular HTGRs in Idaho for use as tritium production reactors for nuclear weapons, and, not coincidentally, as civilian demonstration plants--further blurring the line between commercial and military uses of the atom. In addition, GA is attempting to convince Los Angeles area authorities to build an HTGR as a saltwater desalinization plant to overcome the region's perennial water shortages.

As a whole, however, the industry is counting on concern over the greenhouse effect for its resurrection. But there are a number of reasons, even aside from the obvious environmental disadvantages, why the use of nuclear power would do little to ease global warming and, in fact, could be counter-productive.

The major factor is cost. Nuclear power remains the costliest method of producing electricity ever devised, and there is no reason to believe the advanced reactors will be any cheaper than their forbearers. Indeed, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, moving from a fossil fuel to a nuclear-powered future would require building a new reactor every one to three days for the next 40 years and would cost about $200 billion per year. Even if this were technologically or economically feasible, and it is not, it would at best reduce global warming by about 20 percent. A study by two Swedish scientists was even more pessimistic: it concluded that there would be no reduction in global warming by switching to nuclear plants.

With a limited federal budget, every dollar spent on nuclear research and development is a dollar unavailable for solutions that offer the most hope of reducing greenhouse gases. For example, the Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that each dollar spent on increasing energy efficiency is up to seven times more effective at reducing carbon dioxide than is a dollar spent on nuclear development.

One-Step Licensing

Even if the industry is successful in convincing Congress to allocate taxpayer dollars for a demonstration reactor, it will not be enough to achieve a nuclear resurgence. Recognizing that the public does not accept nuclear power, and likely will act to block construction of proposed plants, the industry for years has sought legislation, known as "one-step licensing," that would remove the public from the licensing process. Congress, however, has never approved the proposal. Not to be dissuaded, the NRC last fall proposed a rule initiating one-step licensing on its own.

Under the current licensing process, a utility first applies for a reactor construction permit. Mandatory public adjudicatory hearings are held to resolve siting, design and other problems. When the plant is nearly completed, the utility applies for an operating license, at which time the public can bring up new issues for adjudication, such as quality of construction and emergency evacuation planning.

The public's effect on reactor licensing has been profound. In some cases, such as Zimmer and Midland, nearly completed reactors were cancelled following public revelations of construction defects. In other cases, such as Diablo Canyon and Comanche Peak, public intervention succeeded in causing sweeping changes in the plants, making them safer than otherwise would have been the case.

Under the NRC's proposed rule, a utility could apply for a site permit 10, 20 or more years before actually beginning work on a reactor. At the site permit stage, the utility would only need to show that the area is amenable to emergency evacuation planning (although projecting population growth and road networks 20 years or more into the future is a risky business). After it obtained a site permit, siting issues could not be brought up by the public again.

When it was ready to build the reactor, the utility would apply for a combination construction/conditional operating permit, and would be able to reference a standardized design.

The standardized design would be pre-approved, and, according to the rule's provisions, could be approved without ever having undergone legal public scrutiny.

At this combined permit stage (which could take place a decade before the plant begins operating) all emergency evacuation issues would be disposed of, along with other safety issues. When the plant was near completion, the utility would ask the NRC to allow it to use its conditional operating permit. Although hearings could be held at this stage, the threshold for entering hearings would be so difficult that it is unlikely any member of the public, or even a state or local government, would ever be allowed to intervene to challenge the adequacy of the plant's construction.

The NRC's proposed rule would also make it virtually impossible for the public, or even the NRC itself, to make safety improvements in reactors using standardized designs. Utilities, however, would be able to receive license exemptions and amendments that could weaken safety standards.

For the industry, one-step licensing is necessary because Wall Street, having been burned before, is unlikely to provide financing for a reactor which could be delayed, or even halted, by public opposition.

Emergency Planning

Besides taking steps to reduce the importance of emergency evacuation planning in the licensing process, the NRC and DOE, under industry pressure, are attempting to remove emergency planning as an issue altogether.

The first step came in 1987, when the NRC approved a rule that would allow utilities to develop their own emergency planning procedures for state and local governments to follow in an emergency, if state and local governments refused to participate in emergency planning (as they did at Seabrook and Shoreham). This "realism doctrine" was upheld by the courts in 1988.

To ensure that state and local governments got the message that the federal government would not allow them to block reactor operations at unsafe sites, President Reagan signed an executive order in November 1988 which requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to develop and implement emergency plans when state and local governments refuse to do so (and presumably when utility-developed plans are found inadequate).

Since FEMA is already responsible for approving emergency plans, this puts the agency in the uncomfortable position of being forced not only to develop plans, but to then approve the plans it has developed as well. But the order was signed despite FEMA objections that developing and approving plans represented a conflict of interest, and that, in any case, it does not have the resources to develop and implement emergency plans at a large number of reactor sites.

DOE now hopes to push through the ultimate solution to emergency planning imbroglios: eliminate emergency planning entirely. For the past year, DOE has been trying to convince the NRC that the so-called advanced reactors are so safe that no emergency planning is necessary. Not only would this remove a sore spot in reactor licensing, but the DOE believes that ending emergency planning would convince the public that nuclear reactors are safe.

The NRC has found the DOE's argument attractive, but, so far at least, insupportable. More likely is a new effort to reduce the size of the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zones so fewer people could question the adequacy of emergency planning.

Deregulating Nuclear Waste

Perhaps the most insidious step the government is taking to pave the way for a nuclear resurgence is an effort to reduce the huge costs of radioactive waste disposal by deregulating certain nuclear wastes and allowing them to be disposed of without public protections.

Under this policy, more than 30 percent of the radioactive waste currently considered "low-level" would be relabelled "below regulatory concern". This waste could then be disposed of in ordinary landfills, sewers, or even incinerators.

Because the waste would be deregulated, no one would know how much of the waste was being dumped in any given location or cumulatively. Further, this policy allows such waste to be recycled, raising the horrifying potential for it to eventually find its way into consumer goods.

After the Greenhouse

The nuclear industry believes that a resurgence is on the horizon. With the help of the greenhouse effect and an amenable administration and Congress, the industry hopes that the 1990s and beyond will bring a new nuclear age. There is reason for such optimism: Congress has in recent years repeatedly shown itself to be far more pro-nuclear than the public it represents; the NRC and DOE are safely under industry control; and President Bush, and his chief of staff John Sununu, represent the most vocally pro-nuclear administration ever.

Yet there is some basis for hope that the resurgence will fail. The dramatic ramifications of unchecked global warming may cause legislators to understand that we live in a new era. It is no longer sufficient to simply clean the environment; it is essential to prevent the destruction of the environment. We must not only ensure that our energy sources are clean and safe, we must also ensure that no more radioactive waste will be accumulated. It is unthinkable to trade global warming--for nuclear power and waste. At one time, the atomic age may have offered some hope for mankind.Now, with the environmental stakes even higher, nuclear power offers no solutions, and can only inhibit the healing.

Michael Mariotte is executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.