N-power is on the rise

N-power is on the rise

Mar 28 - Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

When Three Mile Island's Unit 2 sustained a partial meltdown 25 years ago, conventional wisdom held that the accident would cripple the nuclear power industry.

So much for conventional wisdom.

The United States now generates three times as much nuclear power as in 1979, by far the steepest increase among major sources of electricity.

Though no new reactors have been ordered since the TMI accident, 50 previously ordered units have been built, for a total of 103 in operation today. And owners have squeezed more power out of the old reactors, by burning more fuel per hour and by running the reactors practically nonstop.

Now, as the national thirst for energy grows amid increased concerns about environmental and economic costs of other fuels, nuclear power is enjoying renewed interest.

Owners are seeking to renew the operating licenses for older plants, 28 of which will expire by 2015. Among them is Oyster Creek in Ocean County, N.J., built in 1969 and tied for the nation's oldest.

President Bush is urging the construction of modern reactors, and the final version of the energy bill now before Congress is expected to contain incentives for that. Three companies, among them Chicago- based Exelon, parent of Philadelphia's Peco Energy Co., have applied for early site permits to build plants. None would be in this region.

Critics worry that the old plants are unsafe, and that the designs for new ones are unproven. Then there are the questions about terrorist vulnerability and where to store radioactive spent fuel.

Opponents of Three Mile Island, where two of the four cooling towers remain forever idle, say that society is forgetting the lessons of the 1979 accident.

"I think people have short memories," said Eric J. Epstein, chairman of TMI Alert, in Harrisburg. "I think the issue is not if we'll have another accident, but when."

Supporters counter that nuclear power helps ensure the nation is not overly dependent on any one fuel source, and that it causes no air pollution.

The burning of coal and natural gas -- the other major U.S. sources of electricity -- releases pollutants that can impair breathing and, according to many scientists, contribute to global warming.

In a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year, the authors said the world likely would need to build hundreds of nuclear plants in order to reduce the "greenhouse effect."

As for the safety issue, the 1979 accident led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to require safety upgrades in new and old plants. And various safety indicators are improving.

For example, the number of automatic "scrams" -- emergency- reactor shutdowns -- declined from 1.61 per plant in 1990 to 0.44 in 2002.

Yet critics warn that conditions are ripe for more accidents.

Inspections by the NRC are down sharply. In 1990, each reactor was inspected an average of 4,700 man-hours. In 2002, that number was 3,100 hours -- a decline of about one-third.

The commission says the decline is due in part to a more targeted approach, reducing inspections for safe plants and increasing inspections for those with problems.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge, Mass.-based watchdog group, is not convinced.

"When people get older, they tend to see a doctor more often," said Lochbaum, who once consulted for New Jersey's Salem plant. "Nuclear plants are doing just the opposite."

Less oversight, Lochbaum said, leads to problems such as the one at Davis-Besse, a troubled Ohio plant that was shut down in 2002 after acid ate through most of the reactor's six-inch steel lid, threatening the safety of the nuclear core.

Other such dangers are sure to follow without vigilant oversight, Lochbaum said, because the number of problems at nuclear plants, as with most technology, follows a "U-shaped curve."

That is, most problems occur when plants are new, as operators are getting the kinks out of the system, and when they are old and starting to wear out. In between are the middle years, marked by relatively few problems.

Most of the world's nuclear accidents have occurred within the first year or two of operation, Three Mile Island's Unit 2 included. The plant began full-scale operation in November 1978, five months before the accident.

The wear-out phase for older plants is fast approaching, Lochbaum said.

With old plants being relicensed and new ones on the horizon, the nation could be facing a spate of problems from both ends of the spectrum simultaneously, he said.

The fact that no new plants were ordered after 1979 is partly due to TMI. But some of that slowdown also was due to a sluggish economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In the 1990s, plants that burned natural gas became the favorite option, cleaner than coal and cheaper than nuclear.

Now that natural-gas prices have shot up in recent years -- they nearly doubled from 1998 to 2001 but have since declined slightly -- new nuclear plants are a topic of discussion once again.

They remain more expensive to build -- a fact that now has more significance in a deregulated energy market, with owners having to compete on a level playing field.

Nuclear plants cost 6.7 cents per kilowatt-hour to build and operate, according to the MIT report. Coal plants cost 4.2 cents, and the gas variety range from 3.8 cents to 5.6 cents.

But with an assist from the government, nuclear plants could become more competitive.

One version of the current energy bill includes production tax credits to encourage building the first batch of nuclear plants -- after which the cost theoretically would decline as Wall Street lenders became more comfortable with regulatory risks.

"The first one is a lot more expensive to build than the fifth," said Richard Meserve, former NRC chairman and now president of the Carnegie Institution, a Washington research body.

Another potential boost would be the adoption of carbon credits - - financial incentives for plants that emit less carbon dioxide. (Nuclear plants emit zero.)

The Bush administration does not favor this form of credit, but a regional approach of some sort is under discussion by a coalition of Northeastern states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Industry experts say a nuclear plant will not be built in the United States before 2010 at the earliest, because of regulatory requirements.

In the meantime, the future of nuclear power is the past. Regulators have approved license extensions for all 23 of the old plants that have applied to date, including Pennsylvania's Peach Bottom (which, like TMI, is on the Susquehanna River). In Montgomery County, the licenses for Limerick's two reactors expire in 2024 and 2029.

Nuclear plants provide 37 percent of the power generated in Pennsylvania and 50 percent in New Jersey.

And on average, the old plants are running full blast.

Hardware has been adjusted so the plants burn more fuel per hour, and the plants also are producing electricity practically nonstop. The average reactor is running 90 percent of the time, up from 61 percent in 1979.

Critics including Epstein, head of the anti-TMI group, say that trend spells trouble. But regulators and industry officials call it a positive sign.

Marilyn Kray, vice president of project development for Exelon's nuclear division, says the health of the industry's old plants is "excellent," due in part to lessons learned from TMI.

The company operates 17 reactors, most in the nation, including the still-functioning Unit 1 at Three Mile Island.

And with rising natural-gas prices, growing demand for energy, and concerns about pollution from other fuels, the company remains interested in building a nuclear plant someday. Said Kray:

"All of those rolled together say that the outlook for new nuclear is more optimistic now than it ever has been."