Skip to main content

Grassroots Environmentalists Begin to Rebel on Nuclear Opposition

By Eric McErlain
Last week, a coalition of 232 environmental groups released a statement reiterating their opposition to the expansion of the use of nuclear energy. One of the organizations that signed on to the document was the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG), that state's chapter of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, U.S. PIRG.

Reading through their statement, you'd get the impression that just about everybody inside these these organizations was dead set against nuclear energy.

And that impression would be wrong.

Recently, blogger and WISPIRG supporter Phil Nelson received an email from Jennifer Giegerich, WISPIRG's State Director, urging him to join the fight against the incentives for new nuclear build contained in the comprehensive energy bill that just passed the Senate yesterday.

Phil had other ideas. He expressed them in an email he recently set to WISPIRG and published on his blog:
I am a paying member and long time supporter of your organization, however I really disagree with your point of view on this topic. I live in Green Bay, within site of a large coal pile and downwind of the output of the Pulliam power plant as well as an industrial stack. Between coal dust from the piles and output of the stacks, I have to breathe this every day. I have to clean it off my house every day. The consequences are real, and they are real now, something that is not the case with the 2 nuclear power plants within 30 miles of my house . . .

The policies WISPIRG and others support can at best only slow the hard decisions about what to do, unfortunately prolonging the existing problems rather than building a complete vision of a long term strategy that could actually work. I think nuclear power should be in that vision along with a set of inspired plans for dealing with the waste. The waste is a huge problem, but not bigger than the combined size of a Montana strip mines, Green Bay coal piles, coastal oil slicks, melted artic tundra, lost Atlantic shoreline, sunken pacific islands, forests and lakes lost to acid rain or wars fought to "protect" our oil supply. Please consider making some of these hard choices when you formulate your policies going forward.
As we've said before, as hard as some environmental extremists might try, they can't spin away the fact that cracks are developing in their community when it comes to nuclear energy.

POSTSCRIPT: The two plants that Phil refers to are Kewaunee in Carlton Township, and Point Beach 1 and 2 in Two Creeks. Together, these three reactors supply more than 20 percent of Wisconsin's electricity.

Technorati tags: , , , , ,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more