Nuclear Is Back
by E. Ralph Hostetter
Issue 96 - November 21, 2007

Nuclear energy, at long last, appears to be making a comeback following the passage of the Energy Act of 2005.

The latest Gallup Poll taken in March 2007 shows 53% of Americans now approve pursuing atomic energy. This is consistent with other polls taken as far back as March 1994.

During the past two years the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been refining provisions of the Act which provide loan guarantees of up to 80% of the cost of the nuclear facility, $125 million tax credits for eight years, insurance that would cover regulatory delays, limits on liability for catastrophic accidents, plus shared application costs.

NRC is now open for business and is accepting applications. It expects as many as 32 new nuclear reactor applications over the next two years.

New Jersey-based NRG Energy on September 24 was the first to file a full application for a new nuclear power plant since the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pennsylvania, in 1979. Constellation Energy Group has filed a partial license application to add a nuclear unit at its existing site at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland.

Envirocrats have raised their heads, as expected. Having lost the safety issue with respect to atomic energy plants over the last 50 years, they now complain that new atomic energy plants will be excessively costly. They complain electrical energy will be prohibitively expensive, costing more than natural gas.

The Nuclear Energy Institute reported that for 2002 the nation's 103 nuclear reactors were the lowest cost producers of any source of expandable, baseload electricity. This was the fourth straight year that nuclear energy was the low cost leader. Production costs — which encompass fuel, plus operations and maintenance at a plant — averaged 1.71 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) at nuclear power plants in 31 states.

Nuclear power production costs were lower than coal-fired plants, 1.85 cents/kWh; natural gas plants, 4.06 cents/kWh; and oil-fired plants, 4.41 cents/kWh.

The Nuclear Energy Institute report continues: fuel cost for nuclear plants in 2002 was 0.45 cents/kWh compared to 1.36 cents/kWh for coal and natural gas was 3.44 cents/kWh. By comparison, natural gas costs over seven times as much as nuclear fuel.

In addition, nuclear fuel is not subject to wide variations in cost. From January 1999 to July 2000, only 18 months, the cost of natural gas increased by 88%. From 1990 to 1999, a nine-year period, nuclear fuel costs decreased by 46%.

The construction cost of the fossil-fuel power generating plants as compared to nuclear is also an important factor.

According to Resources for the Future, an independent research organization, these are the relative costs for the various types of power plants: Based on 2006 construction costs in Japan and Korea and estimates from vendors who would likely build plants in the United States, a new 1,000-megawatt (MW) nuclear plant would cost about $2 billion and take five years to build. By contrast, a new 1,000-MW pulverized coal plant would cost $1.2 billion and take three to four years to build.

A definite attraction to nuclear power, once built and paid for, is the extremely low cost of operation.

There is one major glitch in the advancing of nuclear energy development in the United States today. The principal builder of the present atomic energy plants in the United States was Westinghouse Corporation. Through a series of transactions beginning with the acquisition of Westinghouse Corporation by Columbia Broadcasting Corporation (CBS), ostensibly to acquire Westinghouse Broadcasting, the Westinghouse nuclear division was later sold by CBS to British Nuclear Fuels. British Nuclear Fuels got contracts for five Chinese nuclear plants and then sold Westinghouse Nuclear to Japan, which is building an additional five nuclear plants for China. China itself is using Westinghouse technology to build four new nuclear plants.

Steve Mufson, Washington Post staff writer, in an extensive article on nuclear power, reports “about nine necessary nuclear power plant components, including giant pressure vessels and steam generators, can be made only by a Japan Steel Works facility (formerly Westinghouse Nuclear). Some of these parts have a six-year lead time.”

Regardless of the obstacles that may seem to impede this new breakthrough to nuclear power, the United States must use every means possible to take advantage of this window of opportunity which can prove a major step toward energy independence.

The rest of the world, particularly China and Japan, is turning to nuclear. Europe is far advanced, with France producing 80% of its electrical needs with nuclear power; Belgium, 70% and little Lithuania, 90%.

If America is to compete in the global market, it must pursue this nuclear opportunity.

The rewards are enormous. Fully implemented, a nuclear program will provide the necessary power to move into electrically operated motor vehicles, reducing and perhaps eliminating America's dependence upon foreign oil imports.

And lastly, it’s time to discard the yoke placed around America’s neck by the naysayers, far-left radicals, the greens and associated watermelon Marxists. They have had their say for over 40 years. They now cry that the cost is too high.

How high is the cost of losing a substantial part of the U.S. economy brought on by a cut-off of a major portion of America’s imported oil? We dare not overlook this nuclear opportunity.

E. Ralph Hostetter, a prominent businessman and publisher, also is an award-winning columnist and Vice Chairman of the Free Congress Foundation Board of Directors.