In early February a group of power industry executives met in New Orleans at a meeting on "nuclear asset divestiture" to discuss the booming market for used nuclear power plants. One estimate is that the value of these plants has increased a hundredfold in three years. Since 1998, 13 older reactors have changed ownership. Companies are buying these plants in the hopes that their licenses will be extended by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in order to boost the overall supply of electricity. Entergy Corp. spokesman Jay Brister explained, "With these existing plants, you don't have to wait 10 years to build something. They're up and running from day one. The profits go straight to the bottom line." Entergy now owns 14 nuclear plants.

The energy monopolies' main concern is laying the groundwork to enable them to begin construction of new power plants, something blocked since 1978 by public opposition to the inherently dangerous facilities. For example, Charles Pryor, CEO of Westinghouse Electric, told reporters he hopes that the George Bush administration's energy task force will produce good news for the nuclear industry. According to the Financial Times, "Mr. Pryor is urging the adoption of a 'balanced energy policy' and argues that costs of nuclear power have fallen below the costs of coal."

Entergy Corp. executive Jerry Yelverton echoed this sentiment in an interview with the National Journal last fall. "If the U.S. sees a hot summer next year...and electric prices go real high, nuclear could be a much more acceptable option," he said.

To that end, Alaska senator Frank Murkowski is drafting legislation to provide the nuclear industry with more subsidies and incentives. These include raising the level of federally-provided accident insurance from $7 billion to $10 billion per plant, production incentives worth up to $2 million a year, a yearly $1 million gift for "efficiency improvements," and at least $60 million a year in annual spending for research and development.

The Nuclear Energy Institute has begun to lobby government officials to allow them to speed up the development and construction of new reactors. As Ron Simard, a senior director at the institute, said, "It's time to make this a little more visible."

John Glennon, editorial writer for the Richmond Times and author of an article titled "Current Crisis Illustrates the Potential of Nuclear Energy," stated, "Fortunately, we already have a source of power that is virtually nonpolluting, safe, dependable under all weather conditions, does not suffer from looming shortages, is under domestic control, and, once again, is quite cost effective. It is nuclear power."  
 
Three Mile Island
Nuclear power plants today produce about 20 percent of electrical power in the United States, while coal-burning plants produce 50 percent and gas-fired plants 17 percent. Most of the new electric generating capacity due to come on line around the country is powered by natural gas. There are more than 100 licensed commercial nuclear reactors in the United States, most built in the 1960s and '70s. No new reactors have been built since 1978.

The nuclear industry has had to live down the legacy of Three Mile Island, the worst commercial nuclear accident in the United States, which helped widen public knowledge of the hazards of nuclear radiation and the dangers of nuclear power. The arguments today that nuclear power is a clean, safe, and a cheap source of power are the same used by government and industry officials for several decades prior to the near meltdown of the reactor in Pennsylvania.

On March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island Plant 2 near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, overheated to disastrous proportions when a pump failed and coolant was flushed from the reactor. Part of the core was left uncovered, melting some of the fuel rods. More than 32,000 gallons of radioactive water was released, and radioactive water vapor was directly vented into the atmosphere for more than an hour. The plant teetered on the brink of "the China syndrome," in which a molten core burns into the ground until it contacts ground water. The ensuing steam explosion would release tons of highly radioactive material into the air. The public outcry, demonstrations, and teach-ins over this nuclear disaster made it politically impossible for the government and energy industry to move forward to build any new reactors. Of the 131 commercial reactors built and licensed in the United States, 28 have been shut down. Another 65 plants were canceled before construction.

The nuclear industry today is once again presenting itself as the answer to the energy crisis and a clean alternative to coal. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is touting an "environmentally friendly" nuclear power plant called a pebble-bed modular reactor, which uses 400,000 such pebbles and uranium fuel cells to heat helium gas to drive a series of turbines instead of water. Unlike water, helium would not corrode the containment building, cannot become radioactive, and if leaked would be harmless. Even if true, this new reactor still uses uranium, which produces radiation throughout the entire nuclear fuel cycle of mining, processing and enriching, power generation, and disposal.

Glennon of the Richmond Times maintains, "Not only are there no greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power plants, there are virtually no pollutants at all: no sulfur dioxide, no carbon monoxide, and no particulates. Also, nuclear power greatly reduces mining. The need for coal and petroleum can be significantly reduced and replaced with uranium, which involves far more modest mining." But the mining and burning of coal does not involve catastrophic accidents effecting entire regions nor does it have the problem of radioactive waste.

In fact, industry for decades operated on the basis of power obtained from burning coal without threatening a large percentage of the human race. And there are no coal-based bombs and missiles that can wipe away whole cities. Coal is "dirty" simply because the energy companies have refused to invest in the necessary equipment to scrub out sulfuric emissions produced when it is burned.

Fred Halstead, in his pamphlet, What Working People Should Know About the Dangers of Nuclear Power, explains that nuclear power is also used to undercut the power of the coal miners' union. "When miners demand better conditions, the competition from nuclear power is used as a threat against them," Halstead wrote. "When the miners strike for safe conditions, nuclear power is used during the strike. Nuclear power causes unemployment of miners, and weakens their ability to fight back. The elimination of nuclear power would put the miners in a much stronger position to fight for safe conditions."  
 
Radioactive waste
What nuclear power advocates cannot explain away is the reality of radioactive waste from power plants. The problem of keeping huge amounts of manufactured radioactive isotopes, which remain deadly for thousands of years, has not been solved. In fact, the government's approach towards this pressing social question can be seen in looking at the $3.1 billion nuclear waste site being built by Private Fuel Storage LLC on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. The consortium wants to store 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel at the site. A Cargill plant that produces salt and food additives is only half a mile from the special rail line that is being built to transport radioactive waste to the site. Refined uranium has a half-life of about 162,000 years.

These are some of the reasons why in this battle for public opinion, the labor movement must take the lead and say no to nuclear power. This must be a key plank in labor's energy program.

Bill Kalman is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 120 in San Lorenzo, California.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home