Apr 20 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rick Montgomery The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Save the polar bear? Go nuclear.

That is one way to beat climate change, or so says the Nuclear Energy Institute. When the industry group posted on its Web site poll results reflecting shifting opinions about nuclear power, it tossed in a picture of a polar bear traipsing across the tundra.

But industry opponents see a more threatening beast in their midst, like a hungry grizzly emerging from the woods after decades of hibernation.

The nuclear question is back. And this time the environmental front is divided -- a victim of its own success in sounding alarms about global warming.

Even in Pennsylvania, home to the Three Mile Island fright of 1979, the Democrats competing in Tuesday's presidential primary have signaled a willingness to consider nuclear power as an alternative to carbon-coughing electric plants fueled by coal.

Few voters have even pressed them on it.

"A whole generation has grown up here knowing nothing about Three Mile Island," said Judith Johnsrud, an adviser to the Pennsylvania Sierra Club. The plant's partial meltdown put proposals for new U.S. nuclear reactors on ice for a quarter-century.

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who calls herself "agnostic," or uncommitted, on the issue, blends urgent warnings about shipping and storing radioactive waste with pledges to put the nuclear option on the table.

"We do have to look at it because it doesn't put greenhouse gases into the air," she has said.

Similar remarks come from Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, which has the most nuclear reactors of any state. Both candidates have received donations from nuclear companies' employees.

The office of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, also a Democrat, recently outlined her views on national energy policy in the wake of rejecting a coal-fired plant's expansion in western Kansas:

She "recognizes that diversifying our energy portfolio is important ... and all options should be considered, including nuclear power."

President Bush on Wednesday announced a goal of stopping the growth of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has proposed billions of dollars worth of tax breaks and federally-backed loans for nuclear development.

Mood has changed

The nuclear industry, which produces most of France's electricity, faces many unresolved obstacles to its growth in the United States.

Wary insurers and enormous construction costs -- roughly $8 billion per reactor -- demand federal aid and loan guarantees.

Plans to store waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain Repository remain in legal and political limbo. The Energy Department was slated to begin accepting spent fuel there a decade ago.

Still, eight power companies have applied for federal licenses for new reactors. About two dozen sites have been pitched for new nuclear facilities. Currently, 104 reactors provide about 20 percent of the nation's electricity.

"What's held us up in the past," said Derrick Freeman, who directs legislative efforts for the Nuclear Energy Institute, "is that America took on a sour mood about nuclear power after Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl disaster" in the Soviet Union in 1986. The Chernobyl blast directly caused at least 50 deaths, and some areas around the plant remain off-limits.

"That (mood) has changed," Freeman said.

A few years ago the group Environmental Defense reconsidered its opposition to nuclear energy and now considers it a "low-carbon option."

While the public remains split, surveys show opposition to nuclear energy is slowly shrinking as concerns about climate change and energy dependency mount.

In a March survey by the Pew Research Center, 48 percent of respondents said they were opposed to "promoting the increased use of nuclear power," down from 53 percent in 2005.

Last year, a Gallup poll found 50 percent of Americans favored nuclear expansion and 46 percent opposed it. In 2001, the results were flipped: 44 percent favored it and 51 percent were opposed.

Some polls show that support for nuclear power rises or falls with oil prices. That puzzles experts, who note, with rare exception, the two energy sources serve different functions. Nuclear fission makes electricity, powering lamps and TVs. Oil is refined into gasoline and for making petroleum-based products.

"You ask people where energy comes from, and it's the proverbial switch on the wall," said Ann Bisconti, who conducts surveys for the nuclear industry. "The public isn't analyzing these issues in great detail."

As the industry tries to capitalize on fears of global warming (its lobbyists say the nation has avoided 8 billion metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions, thanks to nuclear plants), some anti-nuke groups are shifting their case away from the environment and toward economics.

"We're not foolish enough to blow all our money on nuclear energy" when cheaper alternatives such as solar and wind power exist, said Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace International.

But Riccio also recognizes the attraction, even among his staff, to nuclear plants over coal-fired ones. For people younger than 35, melting icecaps trump possible meltdowns, he said.

"The kids in my office, what they're really concerned about is global warming. It's the Vietnam of their generation," he said. "But for all the time and money we'd need to commit to more nuclear plants, it may cost us the opportunity to stop global warming."

Climate change was the stated reason that a Greenpeace co-founder, Patrick Moore, joined nuclear interests and became a co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which receives money from the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Moore now attacks Greenpeace and other nuclear opponents as being "stuck in the '70s."

Different threats

In the 1970s, global warming wasn't a worry. Activists at the time linked nuclear power to the Cold War arms race and mushroom-cloud imagery.

The anti-nuke film "The China Syndrome" topped the box office in March 1979, just weeks before the Three Mile Island accident.

Pumps at the Pennsylvania plant stopped running, and the No. 2 reactor overheated, resulting in the release of some radioactivity. Unlike the deadly and highly toxic explosion at Chernobyl, however, a worst-case scenario was averted at Three Mile Island, and reactors still operate there.

The threats are different for University of Kansas student Brian Sifton, who said he was "certainly open to nuclear."

A coordinator for the green group KU Environs, Sifton acknowledged his concerns about how the country would handle the extra waste. But he cited a distinction between the "localized" fears of nuclear mishaps and the "globalized" effects of greenhouse gases.

"We're a much more globalized world today," and one nation's gases may alter the planet for lifetimes to come, he said.

"The environmental movement is fractured down the middle on this. ... Given everything, unfortunately, I think you have to be open to nuclear."

Then again, Sifton was only 3 when Three Mile Island became a rallying cry. He doesn't remember the Chernobyl tragedy, either.

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PROS ...

--Electricity can be generated without the greenhouse-gas emissions of coal-fired plants.

--No major accidents have occurred at U.S. nuclear plants since the near-meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.

--Nuclear plants already produce one-fifth of the nation's electricity.

... AND CONS

--Construction costs and delays in obtaining permits discourage private investment. The last U.S. reactor to open -- Tennessee's Watts Bar, which went on line in 1996 -- cost $8 billion and took 23 years to complete.

--What to do with radioactive waste? U.S. storage sites already hold more than 50,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel.

--Terrorists can target plants and storage areas.

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WHAT THE PUBLIC THINKS

Do you favor or oppose expanding the use of nuclear energy?

Year

Favor

Oppose

2001:

44%

51%

2007:

50%

46%

REGIONAL NUCLEAR PLANTS

Callaway Nuclear Generating Station: Missouri's only nuclear plant may need a second reactor, according to AmerenUE Corp.

Wolf Creek Generating Station: A new Kansas law lifts property taxes for nuclear development near the Coffey County plant.

Cooper Nuclear Station: The Brownville, Neb., plant covers 1,250 acres near the Missouri River 20 miles north of the Kansas border.

Fort Calhoun Station: Its federal license was renewed in 2003. The utility has an easement to almost double in size.

WHAT THE CANDIDATES SAY

John McCain, Republican: "We have to go back to nuclear power. Why can't we look at what the French have done? About 80 percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear power."

Hillary Clinton, Democrat: "I don't have any preconceived opposition. I want to be sure that we do it right, as carefully as we can, because obviously it's a tremendous source of energy."

Barack Obama, Democrat: "I don't think that we can take nuclear power off the table. What we have to make sure of is that we have the capacity to store waste properly and safely, and that we reduce whatever threats might come from terrorism."

To reach Rick Montgomery, call 816-234-4410 or send e-mail to rmontgomery@kcstar.com.