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Fresno Wants Nuclear Energy

By Eric McErlain
From the Fresno Bee:
The Fresno Utility Commission's 11 members were directed last week by City Hall to unleash their imaginations in coming up with ideas to fix the financial mess at the Public Utilities Department.

Commission Chairman John Hutson has taken this broad charge to heart -- he wants the city to consider building a nuclear power plant at the city's wastewater treatment plant west of downtown.

Hutson is urging the commission to study the feasibility of building a 400- to 600-megawatt plant as a possible long-term solution to the city's energy needs and Public Utilities' money problems.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
About time someone had the guts to speak for nuclear power. This is the safestand best power humans have ever invented and to not utalize it because we are scared of it is just plain stupid. I am tired of paying for foreign oil and lining the pockets of other countries. Let go nuclear!
August 8, 2006 at 6:39 PM
Anonymous said…
What's foreign oil (for internal combustion engines) got to do with nuclear power (for electricity)?
November 8, 2006 at 12:46 PM
Eric McErlain said…
The reason why we don't use oil to generate electricity anymore is because nuclear energy displaced it in the 1970s.

As for the transport sector, adding new nuclear to the grid will help take pressure off of natural gas supplies, freeing it up for use in natural gas powered vehicles.

Finally, nuclear is currently the only way to generate hydrogen in sufficient quantities without emissions -- hydrogen that could be used in fuel cells in the transport sector.
November 8, 2006 at 1:19 PM
Anonymous said…
There is no new science to de-radiactivate the waste. We would be curing generations for millions of years.
This is insane!
The best thing for this are woudl be "manure to electricty converters", which pay for themselves in three years, provides the energyneeds fo farms and surroudnign neighbors free, and ahas a by-product of mehtanol, which is a clean vehicle fuel and does not put the nergy crsis into our food cahin.market like ehtnaol. Waste to enrgy is the bet way togo. This would also clean up 40% od our locxal air pollution.
DEMS and SWARTZNEGGER have put a 4% limit on the debit/credit meters while free enterprise alone demands we let it goto the level it can. If ever ther was a smart invesstment these Dairy POwer Porgrams would be it.
Nuclear waste is not a solved probelm and we should freeeze all nuclear production. Diablo Canyojn had a major explosion just yeateday and of cours eas they always do they d=said not radioactive release, Ha!
C'mon people nuclear reactors is liek settingup nuclear bombs in our back yard for terrorists!
December 14, 2006 at 11:53 AM
Anonymous said…
david@silvhra is right. We were lucky with Three Mile Island. Nuclear energy IS NOT safe, especially in a earth-quake zone. It is impossible to go nuclear by replacing our current power plants. There is not enough uranium to do this, it is a limited resource and has to be trucked or shipped ship from all over the world. The waste last five hundred thousand years and is huge problem that no one addresses. These plants only last fourty years before they have to be shut down, which cost billions to do also. Nuclear accounts for approx. 15% of world's energy presently, we can save 15% easily by just being a little smarter. If we spent the total amount money involved with one nuclear site on solar panels... I could go on and on, but don't listen to me, do a little research.
February 17, 2007 at 11:21 AM
Anonymous said…
Large, centralized power plants, whether coal, gas or nuclear, are as obsolete as dinosours. We need to evolve towards a much more efficient, safe and economical sytem of distributed, networked power generation. The technology is available and being implemented in some locations. Don't put a millstone around Fresno's neck with a huge investment in yesterday's technology.
February 19, 2007 at 1:29 AM
Anonymous said…
I cannot believe that the topic of bringing nuclear power to the Fresno area is even on the table. We live in California where sun and wind are abundant. What happened to solar or wind energy? Everybody wants to bring cost into the factor but as I see it the cost of just one malfunction at a nuclear power plant not only in actual cost of building such a plant but in human life and health far out weighs any argument about the cost of bringing more solar or wind power to the valley. Wake up Fresno.
February 27, 2007 at 11:49 AM
Anonymous said…
The Fresno City Council members such as Jerry Duncan and Mayor Alan Autry ("Bubba" ) would like the public outside of Fresno to believe that Nuclear Power is desirable to its' citizens. Even local news are touting special segments on painting nuclear power as safe and clean. On 2/23/07 the investors and supporters (one in the same) hosted a forum featuring Patrick Moore-self proclaimed co-founder of Greenpeace. Surprise! The real co-founders dispute this claim and even question his membership. Most who know this man say he has been bought by those Greenpeace fought for at least 20 years. If there was to be a convincing debate, why bring in this biased and dispised imposter? Why should we be hoodwinked by those seeking to make money while putting hard working citizens at risk for a power source nobody wants in in their own back yard?

Mr. McErlain said that Nuclear energy helped displace use of oil for electricity in the 1970's. Did he mention that the U.S. has not built a Nuclear Power Plant since 1973 because we have no plan, no place for disposing of nuclear waste. Let us remember Cherynobl, Three Mile Island and the constant potential danger of existing power plants.
I hope that proponents of this project continue to research all before breaking ground.
February 27, 2007 at 8:36 PM
Anonymous said…
I am a native of Fresno. I majored in nuclear engineering at MIT. I would die a happy man if we could build a nuclear power plant in Fresno.

Nuclear power is safe, the waste issue is an easy engineering problem, and the technology is nearly cost-competitive with coal, and blows solar away.

If you lived in an area with as much air pollution as Fresno, or had a decent understanding of the science, you would support nuclear in the valley as much as we do.
May 9, 2007 at 7:53 PM
Marla said…
I am not familiar with nuclear power so I am looking at various comments. One states that water cools the nuclear reactor's core at a much higher pressure than its surroundings. "Thus, the water is susceptible to leaking, producing a meltdown of the core. It the core melts, intensely radioactive substances may well be released into the environment, causing deaths and injuries and making large areas of land uninhabitable. Safety inspections are conducted in an attempt at heading off leakage. The designs of the inspection systems are seriously flawed, but the nuclear industry and its federal regulatory agency refuse to correct the flaws."

Until now, my concern was that the 40+/- city-wide "secret" I uncovered, was a threat to our water source. When no one would listen to me I created a web page with pictures and more information. Now that I am reading about nuclear power, I am even more terrified. Please look at this and tell me how this ties in to an already horrible situation: www.myspace.com/marlalk or http://blog.myspace.com/marlalk
July 4, 2007 at 12:55 AM
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