If Isaiah had been a nuclear engineer, he’d have loved this project. And the Trump Administration should too, despite the proposal to eliminate it in the FY 2018 budget.
The project is a
massive factory near Aiken, S.C., that will take plutonium from the government’s arsenal and turn it into fuel for civilian power reactors. The plutonium, made by the United States during the Cold War in a competition with the Soviet Union, is now surplus, and the United States and the Russian Federation jointly agreed to reduce their stocks, to reduce the chance of its use in weapons. Over two thousand construction workers, technicians and engineers are at work to enable the transformation.
Carrying Isaiah’s “swords into plowshares” vision into the nuclear field did not originate with plutonium. In 1993, the United States and Russia began a 20-year program to take weapons-grade uranium out of the Russian inventory, dilute it to levels appropriate for civilian power plants, and then use it to produce…
Here's the Wall Street Journal blog again:
Comments
Without new nukes, the state faces the clear prospect of becoming dependent on Russian LNG to keep the gas-fired generators spinning. What governor would want that as his legacy?
Joe Somsel
San Jose California
I'm not sure how the withdrawal from the Idaho clarifies anything.
Nuclear is politically very difficult in Oregon or Washington, but much less so in Idaho. I figured the plans were a way to meed the market need for new generation in Oregon and Washington without building new plants there - go around by building in Idaho. Canceling the plants stays that possibility.
I suspect we'll see something similar for California. There won't be additional plants for California; instead, additional Palo Verde units will be proposed. Close enough to transmit the power, but far enough away politically.
- Matthew B.