Sunday, January 15, 2012

Barack Obama Stands by Nuclear Power

WASHINGTON—Obama administration officials Monday brushed aside calls for a freeze on new U.S. nuclear power development, and sought to reassure the public the nation's nuclear facilities are safe and the threat of harmful radiation reaching U.S. soil from Japan is minimal.

Meanwhile, the U.S. was sending more technical experts to Japan to get more information about the damaged nuclear reactors there as Japanese crews scrambled to prevent meltdowns at the facilities.

As of Monday morning, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had two technical experts in Tokyo, said Gregory Jaczko, the NRC chairman. The Japanese also requested equipment from the U.S. to help cool the reactors damaged in last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

Mr. Jaczko said U.S. authorities don't have "detailed information" about the problem afflicting the reactors but added that "it is a situation in which there has been a loss of the normal type of cooling mechanisms to the reactor."

The damage done to Japanese nuclear facilities has given new ammunition to critics of nuclear power, just as the industry and many of its supporters in Washington were hoping for a revival of U.S. nuclear power as an alternative to coal-fired electricity generation.

The Obama administration has said it wants to speed construction of nuclear-power facilities as part of a strategy to support sources of energy that emit little or no carbon dioxide or other gases linked to climate change.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that Mr. Obama continued to support nuclear power, and that the administration would incorporate lessons from the Japanese accident into regulations.

But some in Mr. Obama's party want to evaluate the U.S. nuclear industry's safety practices and record in light of the crisis in Japan. Some lawmakers have proposed a halt to new nuclear construction.

In a letter Monday to Republican congressional leaders, senior Democrats on a House panel that oversees the NRC noted that the commission recently voted to renew an operating license for a Vermont nuclear plant they said is of the same design as some of the troubled Japanese reactors.

"We hope the nuclear industry's self-confidence is warranted, but we should not accept the industry's assurances without conducting our own independent evaluation of the risks posed by nuclear reactors in the United States and the preparedness of industry and regulators to respond to those risks," wrote the lawmakers, led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.).

U.S. officials also sought to reassure the public that American nuclear facilities are safe and played down the likelihood of harmful radiation reaching the U.S. from Japan.

It was "very unlikely" that harmful radiation levels from the damaged Japanese reactors would reach U.S. shores, Mr. Jaczko said during a White House briefing. "You just aren't going to have any radiological material that, by the time it traveled those large distances, could present any risk to the American public."

Mr. Jaczko said the administration believes U.S. reactors continue to operate safely. He said the country's nuclear facilities are built to withstand natural disasters"All our plants are designed to withstand significant natural phenomena like earthquakes, tornadoes and tsunamis," he said. When pressed whether they would be able to handle an earthquake of this scale and resulting tsunami, Mr. Jaczko said: "I don't want to speculate on anything like that at this point."

David Lochbaum, the director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Nuclear Safety Program, during a conference call Monday, questioned the safety of U.S. nuclear plants that rely on batteries to back up the power supplies for cooling systems.

"Any reactor in the country that is faced with a station blackout or a loss of power and a backup is not as well-positioned as the reactor in Japan," said Mr. Lochbaum., who suggested U.S. regulatory agencies reevaluate plant safety

The U.S. has 104 nuclear plants in 31 states. Together, they produce 20% of the nation's electricity.

Even before the disaster in Japan, the U.S. nuclear industry's ambitious expansion plans were running into trouble. Natural gas has been so cheap that utilities have turned to it to generate electricity, rather than contemplate building multibillion-dollar reactors. The recession also has damped demand for electrical power, further diminishing the appeal of investment in nuclear facilities.



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