Another reactor is too much of a burden for Calvert

Friday, July 18, 2008

Here’s a thumbnail historical perspective: This year we ‘‘celebrate”the 70th anniversary of humans splitting uranium nuclei, opening the door to both bombs and reactors. Professor Otto Hahn and his associates, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann, let the nuclear genie out of its bottle late in 1938 in Berlin. Their experiment showed that splitting uranium and thorium nuclei by capture of neutrons was possible; because additional neutrons were released by the ‘‘split” nuclei, the experiment implied that chain reactions might be used to make atom bombs and, if controlled, to generate a steady supply of heat, and hence electricity.

A remaining challenge was to slow the emitted neutrons to an energy where they are readily captured by neighboring nuclei. The God of War would promptly adopt the nuclear genie as his own, and our world was changed forever.

Only a year later Hungarian emigre Leo Szilard, who had already in 1933 predicted that nuclear fission and chain reactions should be possible, drafted his historic 1939 letter to President Franklin Roosevelt. Szilard asked Albert Einstein to co-sign the letter — due to Einstein’s fame, not to his involvement with fission (Einstein didn’t think chain reactions were possible). The Germans might build such a bomb, so America had to get one first. The Manhattan Project was the result, with the first man-made nuclear explosion (Trinity) conducted on July 16, 1945. Hiroshima was annihilated on Aug. 6, 1945, against the pleas of Einstein, who wanted a demonstration blast to be conducted in front of the Japanese military before we vaporized women and children.

After the U.S. nuked Japan, as nuclear arsenals grew and additional nations wanted their own nukes, Einstein regretted ever having signed that letter to Roosevelt. Although the global stockpile of nukes (now called WMDs) peaked in 1986, there are still more than 20,000, not counting disassembled warheads, which could easily be reconstituted. Whether by accident or intent, the detonation of even one of those 20,000 near humans is terrible to contemplate. Eight nations now own nukes, and only one (South Africa) ever voluntarily gave up a successful program (maybe North Korea makes two).

We have to trust that none of the eight nations in our current ‘‘nuclear club” would start a nuclear war, but many, including the U.S., consider nukes a valid response to conventional attack under some circumstances. We often hear about the tight security, but earlier this year, a U.S. Air Force bomber accidentally flew five nuclear-armed missiles down the middle of our country. Meanwhile, fuses for nukes were recently shipped to Taiwan by mistake. Are you reassured just because nothing bad happened? And that’s just in the U.S., where we put a higher premium on safety than others do (having sailed on Russian oceanographic ships, I can attest to this myself, although not in the nuclear area).

Today, we face shadowy groups of fanatics who really want nukes (as we heard just recently from Al Qaida), or at least ‘‘dirty bombs” (concentrated radioactive material dispersed with conventional explosives) but who lack the technical know how and facilities of nation states. However, what terrorists lack in know how they make up in willingness to die for their causes. By contrast, leaders of the U.S.S.R. were not suicidal, and neither are the leaders of Iran.

When the Shippingport power plant was decommissioned in the mid-1980s, it cost more than $200 million in today’s dollars. No reactors the size of the two existing at Calvert Cliffs have ever been decommissioned. Are we to believe those at Calvert Cliffs will continue to be recertified until hell freezes over, and if not, the decommissioning cost (nearly $4 billion) will be indirectly passed on to consumers? While many accidents have happened at nuclear power plants through the years, only a very few were serious (e.g., Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986). As with cars, airplanes, tools, etc., nuclear power plants have become safer over time.

However, if they were completely safe, why do nuclear power plant operators require the U.S. government to provide disaster insurance? If we, the taxpayers, didn’t promise to pay, investors would not step forward.

If nuclear power is so safe, what is the connection between nuclear WMDs and nuclear power plants? First, nuclear power plants are choice targets in wars and terrorist assaults. We can be certain that Calvert Cliffs was figuratively stenciled on one or more Soviet missiles. Is it smart to locate the largest U.S. reactor closest to our nation’s capital?

Second, and perhaps most important — the same type of uranium ore has to be mined and then enriched for both bombs and power plants. The enriched uranium then has to be centrifuged to concentrate the slightly lighter U-235 isotope (relative to the 140 times more abundant U-238) for both bombs and reactors to work. This is at the heart of the controversy with Iran, which is concentrating the U-235 isotope to make fuel for power plants, or so it claims. Is the U.S. going to attack every nation merely for concentrating uranium?

Many of the world’s non-nuclear nations have not agreed to forego enriching their own uranium.

The more uranium mining and enrichment around the world, the greater the possibility for diverting some for bombs.

Health risks are also the reason why the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is still not up and running. So radioactive waste continues to pile up at Calvert Cliffs. For how much longer? 50 years? 500 years?

In the 1970s, when commercial nuclear power was still rather young and more deserving of subsidy, BG&E did not ask the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners for any tax credits. Nor did the board offer any. However, some locals formed the ad hoc Calvert Taxpayers’ Association to pressured the board to lower the tax rate, never mind that it was not then high.

It’s unacceptable for Calvert County and its supporters in state government to offer the utility —already subsidized by various U.S. government handouts — a tax credit worth at least $300 million over the first 15 years of operation of a potential third reactor. No one needs to feel sorry for Constellation Energy Group Inc. if this giant has to pay 100 percent of Calvert County taxes, just as other Calvert businesses and residents have to do.

Of course, if we didn’t waste electric power, there would be no need for any new power plants, nuclear or otherwise. In my opinion, waste, especially energy waste, is unpatriotic. Reducing per capita grid electricity use by 1 percent or more per year (by conservation, solar and geothermal), Maryland can easily compensate for its 1 percent annual population growth. Perhaps the current financial and energy crisis will finally turn the tide on waste — if so, no new power plant is needed. If waste requires new power plants and new power plants are good for business, does that mean waste is good for business? Let’s hope this is not true.

Peter Vogt, Port Republic