NRDC Misfires on Nuclear in Illinois Energy Poll

We have to hand it to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Their recent poll tries as hard as it can, but it can’t quite hide the truth about Illinois energy and its relative cleanliness, the subject of the poll.

It finds, quite reasonably, that people there are much in favor of clean energy, which NRDC is quite sure includes only renewables. Why should that be, I wondered – well, until I looked at the questions.

This is one of them:

Some people/other people say we should transition to more clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar power in Illinois. Illinois residents already get most of their electricity with nuclear power; the last thing we need is more safety risks from building more nuclear plants.

This is part of another question.

We already have more nuclear energy than any other state, and it is too risky for our health and environment.

Yet, even with statements like that to ponder, 33 percent of respondents favor expanding nuclear energy in the state. Frankly, we expected pitchforks and hot tar, so this was surprisingly high.

Another finding asks respondents to choose their favored energy resource for an Illinois climate change reduction plan and doesn’t include nuclear energy as a choice. It just doesn’t rate.

Obviously, this comes as close to useless as any poll on this subject could be. Numbers can always be turned to just about any purpose – polls complicate this because the numbers hide behind questions that can be fairly ridiculous. NRDC does this by associating nuclear energy with environmental and health impacts that it hasn’t had. “Would you vote for so-and-so, convicted kitten killer?” has about as much validity. It’s to NRDC’s credit that it posted the findings of its polling firm, Public Opinion Strategies, but it just makes the results look horribly skewed. And NRDC has really fouled the pot.

I can’t speak to NRDC’s motivation in taking this approach, but it does come on the heels of other news. Recent legislation in the state house includes nuclear energy in the state’s clean air portfolio, because, after all, it really does produce no emissions, which is what the standard is all about. NRDC concedes that nuclear has a heavy presence in the state, but fails to say what that means: that 47 percent of the electricity in the state is already emission free via nuclear energy (renewables add another 5 percent, so 52 percent total). Illinois has further to go, but a lot less than states that are not suffering those imaginary safety risks.

How Nanomaterials Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer and More Efficient

The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors.

Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it with a …

Missing the Point about Pennsylvania’s Nuclear Plants

A group that includes oil and gas companies in Pennsylvania released a study on Monday that argues that twenty years ago, planners underestimated the value of nuclear plants in the electricity market. According to the group, that means the state should now let the plants close.

Huh?

The question confronting the state now isn’t what the companies that owned the reactors at the time of de-regulation got or didn’t get. It’s not a question of whether they were profitable in the '80s, '90s and '00s. It’s about now. Business works by looking at the present and making projections about the future.

Is losing the nuclear plants what’s best for the state going forward?

Pennsylvania needs clean air. It needs jobs. And it needs protection against over-reliance on a single fuel source.

What the reactors need is recognition of all the value they provide. The electricity market is depressed, and if electricity is treated as a simple commodity, with no regard for its benefit to clean air o…

Why Nuclear Plant Closures Are a Crisis for Small Town USA

Nuclear plants occupy an unusual spot in the towns where they operate: integral but so much in the background that they may seem almost invisible. But when they close, it can be like the earth shifting underfoot.

Lohud.com, the Gannett newspaper that covers the Lower Hudson Valley in New York, took a look around at the experience of towns where reactors have closed, because the Indian Point reactors in Buchanan are scheduled to be shut down under an agreement with Gov. Mario Cuomo.

From sea to shining sea, it was dismal. It wasn’t just the plant employees who were hurt. The losses of hundreds of jobs, tens of millions of dollars in payrolls and millions in property taxes depressed whole towns and surrounding areas. For example:

Vernon, Vermont, home to Vermont Yankee for more than 40 years, had to cut its municipal budget in half. The town closed its police department and let the county take over; the youth sports teams lost their volunteer coaches, and Vernon Elementary School lost th…

NEI Nuclear Notes

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