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* The setup…

A bill to lift the state’s long-standing prohibition on building new nuclear power plants has won approval in a state House committee and may soon get a floor vote. […]

The action surprised environmental groups, some of which adamantly oppose new nuclear plants. They had little warning of the committee hearing and vote.

[Rep. JoAnn Osmond, R-Antioch] said she moved to lift the moratorium on new plants — first approved in the 1980s following the near-disaster in 1979 at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania — after learning of the ban’s existence during recent discussions with Exelon about a fast-track plan to reclaim a shuttered plant in north suburban Zion. (Zion is in Ms. Osmond’s district.)

“Do I have someone on the side who’s ready to place a nuclear plant in Illinois? No,” Ms. Osmond says. “But I think we should look at it again. It’s been 30 years.”

She referenced recent moves by power generators in other parts of the country to consider building new reactors as the industry responds to heightened concerns about global warming. Coal-fired plants are major sources of carbon emissions tied to global climate change; nuclear plants are not.

* The question: Should the state’s moratorium on building new nuclear power plants be abolished? Explain.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 10:40 am

Comments

Although nuke plants could be part of the mix of energy energy sources in the future, the cost and time it takes to build one is prohibitive. Siting is another issue, as is disposal of radioactive waste…I don’t think nuke plants answer the challenges presented by increasing cost and demand for limited energy resources…I’m not against the bill per se, but feel that the revenues could be put to better use by utility companies to further renewable resaerch and test pilots of greener, cleaner energy resources…

Comment by Anonymous45 Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 10:55 am
Yes. With few new coal plants coming online, the US is heading toward a power shortage. NIMBY is usually effective, but it’s going to be less compelling years from now when the natural gas and electricity shortages start.

Comment by Greg Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 10:57 am
Unfortunately, this question isn’t as simple as yes/no, though it ought to be.

Yes, I believe the moratorium should be lifted. Nuclear reactors can provide extensive, inexpensive energy when properly run (see Exelon now). As much as people would like it, wind and solar power alone will not provide for future energy needs.

However, IL should also push for the approval and opening as soon as possible of Yucca Mountain waste storage facility. The moratorium lifting and support for Yucca should go hand in hand.

Comment by South Side Mike Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 10:58 am
I think they should lift the moratorium, but combine it with incentive plans for other energy generation methods as well. We need a real solar power program that would make it realistic and cost effective for most homes to add panels. This would help reduce the energy required from other soruces. We should also provide tax breaks for conversions to flourescent lightning in homes, and replacing appliances with more energy efficient units.

Comment by Ghost Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:05 am
Yes, I believe it should be lifted because nuclear energy does not pollute the air and is relatively cheap to produce, thus beating coal and oil burning power plants.

However, I do not support Yucca. If an area of the nation, such as IL, wants to benefit from nuclear power, it ought to provide it’s own storage facility for the spent rods rather than putting the burden on a less politically powerful region.

Comment by cermak_rd Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:05 am
Yes,
They are going to get built, we might as well get the construction jobs, technical jobs, etc here. We can build them with ponds in areas that could use the tax base help and would less risky is something went wrong.

Comment by OneMan Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:07 am
I think a nuclear generating station should be buildt next the the “new” childrens museum in Grant Park. Think about it, such plants need a few thousand gallons of water to operate and Lake Michigan is just a few yards away. It is a win win situation. Hey it could even power the new casino that Chicago will get. You know, all those slot machines need power from somewhere.

Comment by SLICK Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:13 am
Yes. Nuclear should be part of the mix along with reduction/energy efficient/green technologies/coal/natural gas. No credible source of energy to meet our needs is risk-free or benign. I think for most, fear of the China Syndrome has gone the way of disco and Billy Beer.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:22 am
Cermak,

Yucca was chosen for two reasons- 1. Geology and 2. remote location. IL lacks Yucca’s favorable geology. And related to #2, it’s safer for the nation to have one secure, stable location for nuclear waste than sporadic locations scattered around the country.

Finally, power lines and the power grid don’t care about the location of an energy source. IL would not be the only state to benefit from nuclear power plants. The energy could be and would be sold to customers throughout the Midwest.

Comment by South Side Mike Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:26 am
Exelon’s is the only company that has remotely suggested building new nukes in Illinois, and their PR two-step is very cute. John Rowe is on record stating that they will not consider building new nukes until the waste issue is resolved, they acknowledge that that this isn’t their bill, yet they supported it anyway.

There are several reasons why the moratorium should not be lifted. Quite simply, the plants are not needed. Illinois is a net exporter of electricity, so we do not need new capacity to meet our energy needs. The new energy efficiency requirements that were part of the rate relief bill last year are designed to meet any new electricity growth through efficiency programs that are coming online, rather than increasing supply. In addition, that same bill set up a renewable energy requirement that will ultimately lead to 25% of our power coming from renewable sources such as wind - a clean way to meet our needs through locally generated resources.

Also, the moratorium is in place for a reason. There still is no long term nuclear waste storage facility, after years of wrangling over this issue. Zion is in the early stages of being decommissioned, but the only place to to put the waste is in giant concrete casks sitting on the edge of Lake Michigan. We’re already stuck dealing with the problem of waste from the existing plants - let’s not add to that problem.

Comment by Jonathan Goldman Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:34 am
Absolutely. Finally sanity reigns in the discussion of energy.

Anonymous45 talks about the prohibitive costs. Well, one reason for the prohibitive cost is all the hoops that have to jumped through to get approval. There is definitely a way to remove the “red tape” hoops while keeping the safety related hoops in place. This is one of those red tape hoops.

Comment by Trafficmatt Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:39 am
Yes. Nuclear energy is relatively cheap and clean. Our country has many excellent sources of energy, yet we handcuff ourselves to the point of creating a crisis. Allowing the construction of new nuclear power plants will alleviate some of that crisis.

Comment by Fan of the Game Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:45 am
Absolutely not. It should not be lifted until there is a solution to the “unmaking” of the nuclear waste produced that doesn’t involve taxpayers paying to securely store it for its radioactive life, or the federal government providing reactors with free “disaster insurance” at the cost of taxpayers, while the utility company “profits” from this corporate welfare.

Uranium is not a renewable or sustainable resource. Like coal, you can only dig so much of it up out of the ground. Plus, most uranium used in the United States comes from overseas; so if you’re talking about nuclear, forget about energy independence!

Comment by Squideshi Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:56 am
Illinois produces more energy than it consumes and exports the rest around the country. With the electricity producers committing to increasing production efficiency 2% a year, that would cover any increase in energy usage. Bottom line, Illinois does not need additional capacity and will not need additional capicity in the near future. This is not a debate over capacity, but a debate over profit.

Comment by John G Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 11:58 am
“Illinois produces more energy than it consumes and exports the rest around the country…This is not a debate over capacity, but a debate over profit.”

That’s an excellent point. The flip side to exporting energy here is importing pollution. Essentially, the state is being asked to import pollution for the profit of a private company.

Comment by Squideshi Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:18 pm
Expand existing Nuke plants where they now exist. Takes care of the NIMBY issue, mostly. Most nuke sites could double their capacity with expansion, and some old plants like Dresden will eventually need to be torn down anyway…and could provide a place to put a new one. As far as nuclear waste storage, the existing fuel should be re-processed as much as possible, and the remaining waste collected every 10 years from all the plants and loaded onto a rocket to the sun. Of course, we would have our fingers crossed at Cape Canaveral that a Challenger-like incident won’t happen. Maybe a deep-sea burial in the Mariana Trench would be an alternative.

As far as solar and wind energy, most of the blades I see around these parts are not spinning most of the time, and solar panels seems to be energy-inefficient and costly to manufacture. North and South Dakota have far better wind profiles than IL. However, I see a lot of promise in those plans to put giant plants in Arizona and other sun-rich states to generate electricity by solar heat.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:20 pm
No, not until the waste issue is resolved. It is immoral for us to satisfy our desire for cheaper energy today by creating a problem we haven’t yet solved for our children. It is no different than the borrow and spend policies most of the commentators here usually decry. Please be consistent.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:22 pm
Yes,
If global warming environmentalist preclude any coal plants it may be the only feasible alternative

Comment by downstate hack Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:22 pm
I’m sorry for commenting so much on this topic; but you know something, I can’t BELIEVE that legislators would even consider this, allowing those like Exelon Nuclear to whisper in their ears, after even the State of Illinois knows about their horrendous track record and has gone so far as to sue them.

Comment by Squideshi Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:25 pm
Since when have energy producers agreed to increase efficiency 2% a year? That would be great if it were true, unfortunately the average U.S. centrally generated power plant is only 33% efficient and hasn’t improved its efficiency in fifty years - yes, you read that right - 5 0 years. By comparison, a typical cell phone has more computing power than the Apollo missions and that’s only 40 years ago.

While it is true that Illinois is a net exporter of power, that will no longer be true within 10 years. With power demands growing at a rate of 1.12%/year (roughly 500MW of growth every year), power will have to come from somewhere. Clean coal is one answer. Removing regulatory barriers to decentralized power (cogeneration or waste energy recovery plants) is another. Nuclear might be a third if many things change including the waste problem. But we’re a long way off from that becoming a reality. And with Nuclear plant lead times in the ten year range, I don’t see nuclear solving the problem for some time to come.

Finally, wind and solar will be great someday, but they only produce power when the wind blows or the sun shines. There are no megabatteries to store that power, so while they can supplement the current system, they cannot realistically replace the need for baseload power.

Comment by DaveChgo Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:28 pm
Wow, so much to comment on

high cost

As someone else said, cut the regulatory delays (and prevent lawsits to add to delays) and the cost becomes reasonable.

uranium limited

Can you say “breeder reactor”? Nukes are the ONLY source that is, literally, unlimited.

disposal

Yucca is totally safe. We just need to guts to open and ship it there. Transportation is an EASY to solve issue. The Army even has armed trains for escort (not to mention helicopters and Spookies).

We have a bill that guarantees 25% renewalable

Want to talk about ethanol? How well is that doing? Where to put the wind farms so that they dont eat too many birds? Pass all the bills you want, there won’t be 25% renewable in your kids lifetime.

we export energy

And why is that a bad thing? Is exporting energy any diferent from exporting cars or corn? Should we not WANT to export things?

import pollution

From a nuke?? See above for waste disposal.

Comment by Pat collins Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:39 pm
Ditto me on concerns for the waste issue. Beyond that, I’ve never bought the “nuclear is safe” argument if we the taxpayers get stuck with the liability. Call me when the energy companies can get their own insurance. Until then, forget it.

And anyway, look at nuclear in Europe. During really hot summers they end up having to dump too much hot water in their streams and lakes. That can’t be good for the environment, either.

Comment by yinn Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:45 pm
Sure we should have nukes.
I believe we should build one in Chicago’s eighth ward.

Comment by Skeeter Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 12:57 pm
“Should the state’s moratorium on building new nuclear power plants be abolished?”

Ending the moratorium should be considered, but only if coupled with new, more stringent, safety regulations and energy company commitments to investment in non-fossil, non-nuke energy sources.

If that is too high a price for the energy companies, then the answer should be, “No.”

– SCAM
so-called “Austin Mayor”
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com

Comment by so-called "Austin Mayor" Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 1:06 pm
If Illinois doesn’t need the power, then there should be no discussion of lifting the moratorium. And there would actually be more opposition to nuclear energy if Yucca Mountain were opened. Once millions of tons of high-level radwaste starts rolling through hundreds of communities in the US, the country will think twice before ramping up this energy source again.

Also not brought up in the discussion of nuclear power is where the uranium comes from. A uranium mine is highly destructive to the environment.

Also, in 10-20 years, there may be no need for centralized power generation. What if every house had a hydrogen fuel cell?

Comment by Lefty Lefty Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 1:21 pm
I would bet anything that the folks on here that oppose new nuclear are also the first to gripe when their electric rates hike.

Comment by Anon Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 1:47 pm
you go Skeeter–DUDE!!

Comment by Anonymous45 Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 1:50 pm
It is baffling why the rush to lift the moratorium on new nuclear construction when:
1.) there STILL is no demonstrated environmentally acceptable means of permanent geologic disposal of high-level radioactive wastes (the reason the moratorium was instituted), and new contruction would add to the inventory with no place for the added wastes to go except onsite next to Illinois rivers;
2.) there is currently no need in Illinois for the extra power, which would be sold on the market benefitting Exelon Corporation while potentially inflicting all the negative aspects of nuclear power on the residents and ratepayers of Illinois; and
3.) new nuclear construction totally, deliberately undercuts and sabotages the recently passed Renewable Energy Portfolio standards legislation of 25% renewable energy by 2020 by denying the vitally needed market share that would help reduce costs of renewables via economies of scale.
4.) Finally — since no new reactor is currently proposed, there is no need to rush.

It would seem that this is thinly veiled attempt to once again sabotage Illinois’ pursuit of a renewable energy future — one that does not have the risks of nuclear waste, accident, and high costs associated with it.

The California state legislature just defeated two such unreasonsbale proposals. So should the Illinois legislature.

Follow the law — get to 25% renewables and dispose of the 8,000 tons of high-level radioactive wastes FIRST; then discuss lifting the moratorium.

Comment by Dave Kraft, Director NEIS Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 1:53 pm
Nuclear plants produce clean efficient power compared to fossil fuels. It’s the nukular ones in Texas we should think twice about. Lift the moratorium, build the plants and sooner than later lower the price of energy. Lessens the cost of environmental problems - scrubbers, sulfur dioxide neutralizing waste etc.

Comment by A Citizen Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 1:56 pm
The erection of nuclear power plants in Illinois needs to be re-visited. There is much more new information of them versus what was available 30 plus years ago. I believe that the building of nuclear power plants can be rigidly structured and monitored so that public safety and environmental concerns are met and satisfied.

Comment by Beowulf Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 2:03 pm
Also, lifting the moratorium and building the plants will be a huge economic boost to the tradespeople, planners/engineers, and suppliers, statewide. The resultant economic engine(s) would be a source of significant revenues for generations to come. Much more positive than casinos and tax increases.

Comment by A Citizen Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 2:05 pm
Just a follow-up comment to illustrate how viable nuclear energy is: When nuclear fuel rods are removed and replaced at nuclear power plants, they still retain 80% of their total energy within them. When the day comes that a university or research group is finally able to discover how to utilize or reclaim this remaining wasted power from these used nuclear fuel rods,the question of nuclear power’s viability will forever be a mute question. When General Electric, Toshiba, Westinghouse, or some other corporation or possibly some university can figure out how to recycle these fuel rods, then the world will have been given the winning Lotto Ticket.

Comment by Beowulf Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 2:14 pm
I live just downwind of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion uranium enrichment Plant near Metropolis, which is the site of the the Honeywell uranium coversion plant. I live in Illinois, but I sat on the Dept. of Energy’s official Citizen’s Advisory Board for 8 years and was elected chair for 6 of those 8.

The whole notion that nuclear energy is “greenhouse gas friendly” is a sham. It takes two coal fired plants just to operate the enrichment facility at Paducah. The entire fuel processing cycle to produce nuclear fuels and then dispose of the waste requires vast amounts of electricity, most of which is generated by coal plants.

Nuclear power has been a disaster to this country that is still growing. The Paducah facility has spent over 1.5 billion dollars trying to clean up and hasn’t even scratched the surface. DOE keeps pushing the clean up completion day back and dropping key components of the clean up, such as trying to clean up what is one if not the worst groundwater contamination plume in the U.S., leaking into the Ohio River up river from the water intake for Cairo, a poor almost all black, economically depressed community in far southern Illinois. No one seems to care about them.

If not for all kinds of government subsidies - from the Price Anderson act to the cleanup of the fuel cycle sites to the disposal of the fuel rods - this industry would never have survived. It’s an environmental and economic disaster, and if we haven’t learned from it by now, then we deserve the continued disaster that increasing our reliance on nuclear power will bring.

Comment by Mark Donham Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 2:29 pm
Everything said in the recent posts by Beowulf and A Citizen apply equally to renewables, the mis-information on today’s blog about costs and performance notwithstanding. Today’s renewables are more efficient, lower in cost and provide many high paying skills jobs that remain in the local economy; not disappear after huge construction projects are completed. They provide energy with far less pollution than nuclear at its best.

Earlier posters are wedded to obsolete and inaccurate visions of renewables use, and so reach wrong conclusions about both viability, capability and efficiencies. I will prepare a current resources list and post it later so people can see the real potential and actuality of today’s renewable energy MIX — not the inaccurate mythology promulgated by nuclear and fossil-fuel based utility executives and PR hacks.

And while Beowulf is confident about “when the day comes” for reprocessing spent fuel (a disaster of a plan already being played out across the ocean waters of Europe), renewables (and aggressive energy efficiency are here TODAY — and do not need new technologies to be implemented, bringing all those benefits NOW, not “when the day comes” in some magical future. All without any of the downsides of nuclear.

Comment by Dave Kraft, Director NEIS Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 2:30 pm
I was in college when a nuclear problem occurred at some plant out east. The spokesman for the power company was politely answering the reporters questions in the live press conference. However, the reporters kept peppering him with same questions regarding possible “meltdowns”, etc. He answered the same question several times.

Finally, the spokesman, in exasperation, said, “Listen, there have been fewer people killed in US nuclear accidents than have died on the bridges of Chappaquidick.” Suprisingly (or maybe not) CNN immediately broke away their live coverage of the event.

Comment by Downstater Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 3:13 pm
NO. The state’s moratorium on building new nuclear power plants SHOULD NOT be abolished.

“…nuclear energy does not pollute the air and is relatively cheap to produce, thus beating coal and oil burning power plants…” NOT TRUE.

Nuclear energy does pollute the air. Uranium mining, milling, enrichment, reactor construction-decommissioning, and waste management activities all produce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the bulk of world uranium
resources are located outside the United States. So much for energy independence.

Nuclear energy IS NOT cheap if you just talk dollars. Nuclear energy is actually expensive, artificially low-carbon power ($0.09 - $0.10/kWh delivered) compared to $0.025-$0.030 for end-use efficiency improvements; $0.06-$0.07 for wind; and $0.026-$0.04 for recovered heat co-generation).

Nuclear waste IN NOT cheap because all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle involve potentially harmful, or in some cases disastrous
environmental impacts (e.g., Chernobyl),
requiring continuous and vigorous regulation,
with significant financial penalties exacted for
poor environmental and safety performance to
ensure compliance.

Comment by Anonymous 30 Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 3:22 pm
Yes, Yes a thousand times yes.

Modern reactors are more efficient and can be less expensive to install these days due to standardisation.

Where do you think the power will come from to power the electric cars, and generate hydrogen for the fuel cell cars?

No human injuries have occurred in the world outside of the primitive reactors in the Former Soviet union.

Luddites who use the old tired arguments need to read about the modern generating facilities on the drawing board.

More people have been killed in coal fired generating stations than in nuclear ones. Do we want to close them too?

Comment by Plutocrat03 Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 3:43 pm
Solar and wind power in this area are not practical on a large scale because of weather, not being reliable in steady winds and high availability of sunshine. Homeowners should take the opportunity to install equipment on their own to reduce their own footprint. Maintenance of a electrical grid requires a constant source of power. If the wind stops or the solar panels lose production, a stand by power plane has to be ready to kick in very quickly to prevent a grid crash. ( Happened in Texas recently) Transmission from Arizona is not practical due to the losses experienced in power transmission. Besides what will generate the electricity when it is dark?

Flourescent light bulbs are likely to be problematic due to the mercury contained inside. It is nearly a hazmat job to deal with a broken bulb. Additionally no US production of flourescent bulbs in the forseeable future. Fortunately we are likely going to see LED or other technology give us the efficient light we need. We need to figure out how to manufacture the bulbs HERE.
If the experts are wrong, and we do have generating capacity to give away, we could actually shut down some old style coal plants and eliminate those sources of CO2.

France is doing a decent job with reprocessing of their nuclear waste. The need less new stuff and the tired materials do not pile up as quickly as in our system. We can do at least as well as the French, likely better since their systems were put in place years ago.

The ethanol footprint is much larger than was thought recently. We are also learning that using a food product as a fuel disrupt almost every food commodity we use. The ethanol of todays is a bad idea. We need to retool that thought.

Electricity from renewable resources will be more expensive, will not produce good jobs and will continue to contribute to the CO2 output.

From “Physics Today” Feb, 2006
Some two dozen power plants are scheduled to be built or refurbished during the next five years in Canada, China, several European Union countries, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and South Africa. In the US and the UK, governmental preparations are under way that may lead to 15 new reactor orders by 2007.

Do we want the foreign companies to have the high tek jobs of designing these plants? Worse, we will have to buy them from others.

There are solutions out there. It makes no sense to walk away from a valuable resource because people do not understand the process. Design them now, build it right and export to the world.

Comment by Plutocrat03 Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 4:16 pm
Should the Illinois legislature lift the prohibition on building new nuclear plants? Absolutely NOT. It would be great if EVERY state had such a prohibition. nuclear power is not safe, not clean, not green, not renewable, fantastically expensive, and furthermore is not necessary. Why should we even consider it?

Thank you Mark Donham (above) for exposing the myth of nuclear power being free of greenhouse gasses! This is NOT TRUE at all, when the entire fuel cycle of nuclear power is considered, from mining all the way through storage of radioactive waste (for incomprehensible spans of time.) The only part of the nuclear fuel cycle not producing greenhouse gasses is when the fuel rods are within the containment dome.

“Spent” fuel is a misnomer indeed, for the “spent” fuel is thousands of times more radioactive than the new, unused rods. Nuclear fission has produced radioactive isotopes not found naturally, such as plutonium which has an half life of 24,300 years and a lethal to hazardous life of 240,000 years This is longer than homo sapiens has been erect! Is guarding these wastes really the legacy we want to bequeath to our descendants?

There is NO solution to the problem of nuclear waste! Yucca Mountain is seismically active; containers placed deep within it, which were to last for hundreds of years, have already corroded due to unexpected moisture. Transport of nuclear waste would put “mobile Chernobyls” on our highways, waterways, and train tracks, passing near or through major metropolitan centers as well as small towns, exposing millions of persons to radiation 40-500x the Hiroshima bomb in case of an accident.

As for burying wastes in the deep sea, there no longer is any “away” to “throw away” to. Everything on the planet is connected, as the climate crisis is all too dramatically showing us. Nuclear is no way any sort of solution to “global warmning.”

Illinois has 14 nuclear power plants, 11 still operative, but with radioactive waste at every site. Plus additional nuclear waste dumps. We have more reason to be concerned about the dangers of nuclear power than any other state. Why would we want to add additional risk?

Sanity will reign ONLY when we say NO to nuclear power, forever
(if then)!

Billions and billions of federal–taxpayer–subsidies keep the moribund nuclear industry afloat. Without these, the industry would collapse.

Today, wind and solar power cannot generate sufficient electricity to meet all our demands. Today. But if subsidies to nuclear power were ended, and those very same dollars were given to development and support of renewable energy, very quickly we would have enough renewable power to meet our needs. “Green” jobs are being created and will rapidly multiply as we transition to the energies of the future. These will be permanent jobs building a healthier environment.

Energy efficiency is the most important source of “more energy.” The Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that every dollar invested in increased efficiency can save 7 times as much energy as can be produced by a dollar invested in nuclear power.

For all these reasons, and hundreds more, Illinois legislators should support prohibition of nuclear power plants, and invite the federal government to do the same. All of our descendants, and all the species, will benefit from such choices.

Comment by Carolyn Treadway Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 4:35 pm
No way should the ban be lifted. The deadly serious problem of nuke power which lead to the ban on new plants have not gone away. In fact the risks today are greater than ever before. Why would we want to pre-position more potential nuclear weapons in our state? Let’s actually start to move forward and embrace and invest in a clean energy economy and leave our children a future worth living.

Comment by Lionel T Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 4:38 pm
Yes, not only lift it build some….you can take solar and wind power and the won’t do anthing compared to nuclear…If the US would do what Europe and Japan do - which is recycle the unspent rods…we only use about 1/3 of the rods and then discard them…

Comment by Power Man Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 5:07 pm
Nuclear power is a choice of putting radioactive posions in the atomosphere, soil, and water, lasting for eons. We have no moral right to make our greed for energy haunt future generations. Conservation, efficiency, and solar and wind energy can provide the minimal energy we really need. We should not change the law in Illinois to require safe disposal of nuclear wastes before new nuclear power plants are built in Illinois. Yucca mountain is not safe and does not qualify for very long-term storage of nuclear wastes; no place is safe.

Comment by Devil's Choice Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 5:42 pm
I’m fine if the state wants to lift the moratorium, but nuclear plants are incredibly inefficient (fuel to electricity ratio is less than 40%) and the industry is still heavily subsidized. We need to move to a more decentralized approach to generating electricity, utilizing renewable resources that don’t produce toxic waste, or serve as targets for terrorists.

Comment by go green Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 6:21 pm
Illinois has a large number of nuclear power plants that were all built within a few years of each other and served us well in general… and they are all going to be at the end of their service lives at about the same time, roughly in a decade. It is largely because of our nuclear plants that we have an energy surplus that we export, but in ten years the plug gets pulled, and with no new plants replacing the decommissioned ones, we will be in a deficit and energy importing situation. That’s not good for many reasons, not least of which is that prices for the power go up, costs for business and manufacturing go up, our economy suffers even more.

But also, the replacement for those atomic plants would be coal and natural gas “peaker plants” scattered all over the grid and in your communities. Even with the best scrubbers, that’s a lot more Co2 we’ll be putting out, a lot more pollution we’ll be breathing and making our kids and elderly breathe.

Yes, it costs energy and some pollution to get the fuel for reactors. Coal mining is worse, you have to burn way more coal, and tear up way more land, for the same energy than you do uranium, and we don’t just have uranium available, we also have Thorium which is way more plentiful right in the USA. And if we stopped sniffing patchouli long enough, we could look at what France has successfully done to reduce nuclear waste: they BURN it and weapons-grade material in another kind of reactor, making power, and using it up and cutting it’s half-life so that it’s only “hot” for fifty years instead of five hundred or more. When you only have to keep it safe for fifty years, suddenly the geological issues are not as big a deal, you can afford to engineer containment that will hold up plenty well. We could relax a little about Yucca Mountain being the “only” choice. Or go ahead with it, knowing it is gong to be way safer.
Yes, mining fuel for any type of power plant is dirty.
But the atomic power plants themselves do not emit pollution. Did you know burning coal releases more natural radioactivity into the air than any nuclear plant releases, ever?

And a lot of the protests from the granola-munchers are based on outdated assumptions. Things have changed and evolved in thirty years. The new nuclear technology is based on high-temperature gas-cooled systems, also known as “pebble bed” reactors. The important thing to know about such reactors: they don’t use water as the reactor coolant. Water going thru a reactor gets irradiated and you get tritium and other chances for radioactive leakage, the water corrodes pipes and valves. Pebble-bed reactors use helium gas for the reactor’s heat-exchange loop instead of water, there is no radioactive water to leak or touch the generation loop, the reactor has far fewer pipes of any sort going in and out, and the helium never gets radioactive, it can’t. This system can be much more reliable than the old water-based designs, which were adapted from Navy submarine power plants. Great for subs, not so much for the land. Pebble-bed reactors work at higher temperatures to make the steam to drive generator turbines, they are much more efficient. Plus, the extra heat can be put to work.

The extra heat of a HTGC reactor is perfect for cracking water into hydrogen, its way more efficient than electrolysis. If you want hydrogen for powering cars trucks and busses via clean internal combustion as well as electric vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells, reactors are the best way to get that H2. Much better than cracking it from coal or oil or even from biomass. Wanna talk about something that uses up lots of water and productive farm cropland, biomass from corn is the real bad choice. Burning food for fuel, who thought that was a really a smart thing to do? Not people who have seen their food and milk prices rise. Time to rethink corn power.

The heat from the pebble bed reactors can be used to pressure-cook organic and inorganic waste products into harmless, reusable constituent compounds, preserving landfill space and preventing toxic waste like that from hog farms and chicken and dairy farms from getting into the water supply or polluting the air. A modern nuclear plant is a like a technological and economic cornucopia; it can give us WAY more than just cheap electricity! It can generate jobs and industry and clean air and water and land.

Regarding the arguments about spent fuel and waste and accidents. I have always said that we have decent powerplant technology already, what has been needed all along is an evolution in OVERSIGHT of plant operations. If somebody at Excelon tries to cover up a water leak, you don’t just fire some nameless guy in coveralls, you throw the entire management team in jail and you sue their butts. Then these things stop happening. Chernobyl was a very primitive design, but it worked: the actual accident occurred from a failure of management and mistakes in operations policy. They were doing testing and broke their own rules and violated their own procedures because management let them cut corners, nay ORDERED them to cut the corners. You can see similar accidents happen in any heavy industry, that’s why we have and need powerful regulation and official oversight, and total accountability on the part of top management. When his butt is on the line too, the head guy will protect YOUR butt.

Finally, back to the tremendous potential for pebble-bed reactors: they get their name from how the fuel is made and kept. Instead of rods, tiny pellets of fuel are encased in ceramic spheres, like gumballs in a gumball machine. The fuel is permanently encapsulated in the spheres, it cannot be removed to make into weapons, each ball is already a perfect long term storage and transport container for the spent fuel. Because of how the balls stack inside the reactor, the fuel can never get too concentrated, so there is no physical way to get a meltdown. In fact, you could turn off all the cooling for a pebble bed reactor and it will reach a higher temperature that actually DIMINISHES the nuclear reaction, reaching a steady, stable fail-safe condition. To stop the reactor a lever releases a quantity of the gumball spheres into a holding bin and you’ve turned the unit off. Easy.
Experts say because these reactors are able to be built much smaller without all the water piping, (even small as tractor-trailer sized) and can’t melt down, they could be built without expensive containment buildings, or, more likely in our current security climate, they could retrofit into existing containment buildings to replace our retired atomic plants. We could re-use existing plant sites.

Heck yes we want to get these kinds of plants built in Illinois. We need to get started YESTERDAY, so they are on line and making power when the old guard plants are turned off in a decade. The clock is running, we need to MOVE!

Comment by Techboy Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 9:38 pm
While Techboy is certainly well-intentioned, his post is riddled with factual errors, unrealistic or unfounded wishful thinking for the future, and distortion of the present nuclear power situation nationally and internationally.
1.) “[Illinois’ nuclear reactors] are all going to be at the end of their service lives at about the same time, roughly in a decade.” This is totally incorrect. While the initial operating licenses for Illinois 14 reactors (11 currently operating) were for 40 years, Exelon has already obtained regulator permission to extend the licenses at some of its older reactors and additional 20 years; and intends to ask for this permission for all of the rest. Further, some at NRC and in industry have already scheduled conferences to discuss issues that would enable the reactors to operate 20 years more past this initial 60 years of operation. In short — no likelihood of an energy shortage from the reactors closing anytime soon — unfortunately. Therefore, no damage to the economy, and no increased reliance on coal.
2.)”the replacement for those atomic plants would be coal and natural gas “peaker plants” scattered all over the grid and in your communities…”
There is no logical reason to believe this. In fact, the renewable energy portfolio standard passed last legislative session REQUIRES utilities to achieve 25% renewable energy generation by 2020. Coupled with aggressive energy efficiency programs (the quickest and cheapest means of meeting legitimate energy needs), there is no foreseeable need for future fossil or nuclear plants in Illinois for decades — IF the law if obeyed and not waived. No new fossil fuel plants, no increase in CO2.
3.) The French reprocessing system is often brought up as a success story for nuclear waste management. This is fiction, if not outright fraud.
First, while the French system does reduce the VOLUME of HIGH-LEVEL radioactive wastes, it does not reduce the radioactivity; and ends up generating a class of wastes we do not use in the US called “intermediate” wastes; compared to the high-level wastes, 10 TIMES the volume of these intermediate wastes are generated in reprocessing, and the radiation content of these wastes would require them to be disposed of as high-level wastes were they in the US.
Second, reprocessing in France and England has resulted in the radioactive contamination of the oceans bordering northern Europe. The hundreds of millions of gallons of annual radioactive “discharges” from LaHague in France pollute the oceans all the way to the Arctic. Twelve other European nations brought France to the World Court to stop the polluting discharges; but England and France defeated this effort. If instead of the direct pipeline into the sea used by the French, these wastes were instead placed in 55-gal. drums and dropped overboard into the sea, France would be in violation of the 1970 London Convention against Ocean Dumping. But I guess if you dump it in the sea with a big pipe, that’s okay.
Third — because of the 10-fold increase by volume of the intermediate wastes from reprocessing, France ALSO still needs a geological disposal repository like the one the US is trying to build at Yucca Mt. Nevada. And they are having just as much (lack of) success as we finding such a satisfactory site.
Fourth– only about 1/3 of the French reactors are capable of using this “reprocessed” MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel; and the MOX fuel is only about 30% of the fuel used by these 20 reactors. Using MOX fuel adds and additional 2 cents/kWh to the cost of electricity generated by these 20 reactors.
Fifth — the time frame needed to store shorter-lived fission products is not merely 50 years — it is closer to 600 years; down from the tens of thousands of years needed to today’s spent reactor fuel. So we can’t “lighten up” on the failed Yucca Mt. site.
In short — France and reprocessing are no where near the nuclear success story the nuclear industry tries to get gullible uninformed reporters and the public to believe.
3.) ” But the atomic power plants themselves do not emit pollution.” They most certainly do! And could not continue operating if they did not. Radioactive gases are permitted to be released from ALL reactors; coupled with radioactive discharges of tritium into waterways. This IS pollution.
4.) “The new nuclear technology is based on high-temperature gas-cooled systems, also known as “pebble bed” reactors.”
This is untrue, in the US at least. High-temp gas cooled reactors (HTGRs) have been around for a long time. But the nuclear industry has repeatedly rejected using them. Only one operated commercially in the US — and it was the worst performing commercial reactor in US history.
While new designs are out there, few are HTGRs. And none are being chosen internationally by the nuclear industry yet.
The pebble-bed reactor (PBMR) Techboy extols has not received design certification in the US, and therefore cannot operate here. Exelon Corporation was part of the initial South African design consortium; but left the project. While an improvement in some ways over other designs, the PBMRs have their own unique vulnerabilities not present in other reactors. And the fact that the industry proposed building them without reinforced containments like those around present-day reactors makes them very vulnerable to sabotage; yet building them WITH such containments makes them unaffordable. Lose-lose.

It would be good if posters did a LOT more reading about nuclear power before they spread more mis-information to an already uninformed public. We clearly already have an uninformed legislature, if HB2971 Amendment 1 is any indication.

Comment by Dave Kraft, Director NEIS Thursday, Apr 10, 08 @ 10:40 pm
Nuclear power is not sustainable due to the raioactive waste produced. Wind and solar power are our only safe future.

Comment by bob Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 7:12 am
Wrong. You can’t put wind farms just anywhere, solar power requires a tremendous amount of square acreage, again, you can’t put it everywhere. Atomic plants have the smallest physical footprint compared to the amount of energy they make.

Solar and wind should be part of an energy source mix, no question. When scientists perfect ultracapacitor batteries, putting solar panels on your roof or a turbine in your yard will finally make sense because you’ll have a reasonable way to store the power, and you could take your home off the grid for the most part. We should spend more research dollars to make that happen. But until it does happen, we need nuclear plants to make the bulk of our electricity.

Comment by Gregor Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 7:26 am
Gregor –
While you are correct that one cannot put wind and solar everywhere, the same is true for nuclear power. Reactors require water sources which will become more fragile and unpredictable possibly unavailable — in an increasingly global warming world. This actually happened in Illinois in the drought summer of 1988 — when 100 days of reactor operation were either limited to 33% capacity, or total reactor shutdown. Not exactly a reliable energy resource.
The “footprint” issue is a pretty insignificant one. Wind farms or scattered turbines can be placed on land for dual use; crops can be planted under turbines without effect. You can’t do this around a nuclear reactor. Further, farmers renting small 1/2 acre plots of land to site turbines make far more money in rent for that 1/2 acre than with any cash crop around today (except for poppies and marijuana I suppose — j/k). Can’t do that with nuclear. No farmers are lining up to rent land to store radioactive wastes that I know of. Who’d buy their other crops?

Homes already exist that are 100% off grid and selling power back to the grid. What has already happened must therefore be possible. While this is not currently achievable everywhere and for everyone, that too is an economy of scale issue that nuclear (and other large generation capacity) often stifles.

And finally, some forms of solar store energy WITHOUT needing batteries. Compressed air storage obviates the need for batteries where feasible.

We have a lot of the pieces available; they are just not being integrated properly, or are being forced to fit in old, obsolete models of power supply. I would suggest getting a copy of the January 2008 Scientific American issue to see the kinds of things that are possible — today. This is only one of many well-researched alternative concepts that leave fossil fuels and nuclear power out of the equation.

Comment by Dave Kraft, Director NEIS Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 7:50 am
Keep the moratorium until a safe and permanent waste solution is demonstrated, and a globally effective arms control regime is established. The last thing we need is more unsecured waste and bomb-grade material.

Comment by Ed Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 10:16 am
Rep. Osmond’s reasoning is based on the false premise/lie evident in the last sentence of the setup, “Coal-fired plants are major sources of carbon emissions tied to global climate change; nuclear plants are not.”

The fact is that nuclear energy is fossil fuel dependent and consequently, cannot operate without the use of coal fired plants.

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah Ky, across the Ohio River from southern Illinois , enriches the uranium used in the nation’s nuclear plants. It uses more electricity daily than the city of St. Louis. This electricity is furnished by 2 huge coal fired power plants, one in Illinois and one in Ky. The same is true of Paducah’s sister plant in Portsmouth Ohio.

The greenhouse gases emitted by these sites are responsible for a significant amount of CO2 etc. in the Ohio Valley Region and subsequently the NE U.S. Without enriched uranium for fuel, no nuclear plant could operate.

Add to that the fact that when CFC’s were banned the only exception made was for the enrichment of uranium. Ninety plus percent of CFC’s produced in the U.S. are for nuclear energy.

It’s time we put to the lie the propaganda that nuclear energy is greenhouse gas free. When you add to that the intractable waste problem, the expense of new plants which won’t come online for a decade, human error, the dwindling supply of uranium, the necessity for taxpayer subsidies like the Price/Anderson Act, you can’t help but conclude that nuclear energy is obsolete and should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Our money could be better spent on alternative, greenhouse gas free energy.

Comment by Josephus Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 10:38 am
Regarding TechBoy’s statement promoting pebble bed reactors, “Instead of rods, tiny pellets of fuel are encased in ceramic spheres, like gumballs in a gumball machine. The fuel is permanently encapsulated in the spheres, it cannot be removed to make into weapons, each ball is already a perfect long term storage and transport container for the spent fuel.”

The process used to encapsulate these spheres is vitrification, which is a ceramic process involving very high temperatures that produce radioactive fumes that inevitably escape into the environment. There’s no such thing as a closed loop system.

The end result sounds almost as innocuous as the “gumball” analogy but the process requires toxic emissions as deadly as the material being encapsulated. It is not by any means, a proven technology.

Regarding the lack of space for solar panels, every roof in the nation would be enough for a decentralized, and thus secure, grid.

Comment by Craig Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 12:21 pm
NEIS is three ex-hippies in a basement still waiting for Jackson Browne’s third encore, calling themselves a think tank. They are a dedicated and declared anti-nuclear propaganda organization and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Comment by Gregor Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 1:18 pm
Gregor has demonstrated here above a fine example of an ad hominem attack. How about addressing the facts?

On a separate note, I’m not sure that there can be any real discussion of this issue without also talking about the federal government’s proposal to ship nuclear waste from around the world, and import it into Illinois, to be “reprocessed” near Morris, Illinois (extracting only a very small percentage of usable fuel from spent nuclear fuel, while leaving much more radioactive waste.)

This project is euphemistically called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and would be centered around General Electric’s failed high-level nuclear waste dump across the street from the Dresden nuclear power plant. It also involves building an “experimental” breeder reactor at Argonne National Laboratory.

Incidentally, Jason Wallace, the Green Party’s candidate for Congress in the 11th District, unlike his Democratic and Republican opponents, is OPPOSED to this proposal, just like the proposed airport in Peotone, which is another reason that he’s doing so well with rural voters in southwestern Will County, in addition to rural voters in southeastern Will County.

Comment by Squideshi Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 2:09 pm
Gregor wrote: “NEIS is three ex-hippies in a basement still waiting for Jackson Browne’s third encore, calling themselves a think tank. They are a dedicated and declared anti-nuclear propaganda organization and should be taken with a grain of salt.”
– While NEIS is certainly anti-nuclear, and does not hide this fact, we arrived at that conclusion after 27 years of hard work and daily investigation. We try to engage in discussion of the facts, and while we may disagree on these, we have to question the assertions you laid out. If you cannot prove what you wrote, we will ask the moderator to remove you from the posts.
Now — isn’t it better to stick to the issues and facts, regardless who you think is saying them, and whether you agree with them or not — rather than engage in baseless name-calling?

Comment by Dave Kraft, Director NEIS Friday, Apr 11, 08 @ 3:37 pm
Many thanks to Dave Kraft and others for posting factual information about nuclear reactors and nuclear waste. Public myths need to be dispelled by such facts. Enormous amounts of such facts are available for anyone to read; see the websites of beyondnuclear.org, nirs.org, neis.org. Twenty seven years of diligent research and committed action provide an awesome knowledge base. Those of us who have not been as diligent and committed would do well to do our research first and express our opinions later.

Nuclear power plants could be called “teapots from hell.” Nuclear fission-of all things–is used simply to boil warer (to create steam to turn turbines). This is like using a chain saw to cut soft butter.

Let’s leave the nuclear dinosaur behind! Safe, clean, quicker, and far cheaper alternative technologies are already available and can be developed to meet ALL Illinois and USA energy needs! If our government would use all dollars currently handed out for nuclear subsidies to support this development, many kinds of alternative energies could take off immediately.

As far as having no space to put up solar panels, try putting them in the medians of countless interstate highways across the country. There IS more than enough space already, if we would use it. We need to DO it, as our time for reversing the climate crisis is running out.

Comment by Carolyn Treadway Monday, Apr 14, 08 @ 10:22 am