Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
Comments
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Thanks for listening
If the fuel storage facility was damaged, there likely would have been little impact beyond the facility site. Fuel storage pools have no active fission, and relatively low heat load compared to operating reactors. Spent fuel is often used by anti-nukes as a boogeyman. Once you understand what spent fuel is and the issues associated with managing it, the boogeyman vanishes.
That's rich, given that they never use that criticism when an author is critical of the nuclear power industry. If one must be a radiation or nuclear engineering specialist for one's praise to be valid, then surely one must be such a specialist in order for one's criticism to be valid as well.
Feel free to send a letter to your local editors pointing out the double standard. Of course, it sounds like they won't print it....