Nuke industry makes pitch for expansion

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, March 5, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nuclear industry officials and government regulators told Congress today that nuclear power should be expanded in the United States.

The nation's 104 nuclear plant reactors, which produce roughly 20 percent of the nation's electricity, are safe, secure from terrorists and running more efficiently than ever, Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Richard Meserve told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.

Meserve testified during a hearing aimed at restarting the failed efforts of Congress last year to draft a comprehensive energy policy.

"Significant increased demands for electricity will need to be addressed by construction of new generating capacity of some type," Meserve said. "As a result, industry interest in new construction of nuclear power plants in the U.S. has recently emerged."

The debate over nuclear power expansion is controversial and important to Nevada because President Bush and Congress last year approved a plan for the nuclear industry's most radioactive nuclear waste: burying it in tunnels under Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Energy Department has said that barring budgetary delays it could have the waste repository open as early as 2010.

Nevada officials and environmental groups have long strongly opposed the first-of-its-kind, $58 billion project, and they oppose nuclear power expansion unless another waste solution is adopted.

Nuclear power is unsafe and uneconomic because there is no safe solution to its long-life waste, Anna Aurilio, legislative director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said in prepared testimony today.

"All aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle pose a risk to humans and the environment," she said. "It should be phased out as soon as possible and should not be encouraged as a future energy source."

No new U.S. nuclear plants have been ordered since the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster, in part because of public opposition. Market forces and the cost and regulatory hassles of constructing new plants have put off investors.

But new interest has been sparked in Congress by lawmakers who point to nuclear power benefits, and they note that the industry has a good safety record.

Nuclear industry officials say nuclear power is relatively cheap to produce once the plants are constructed. And nuclear power is environmentally friendly because it produces no greenhouse gases, unlike coal and gas-fired plants, industry officials say.