Comments on: Nuclear Power and The Chicago Tribune

By: Carl from Chicago

Carl from Chicago — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:04:55 +0000

I worked for a while in Des Moines with the former Iowa utility that was bought up as part of MidAmerican which is now owned by Buffet. They owned part of a plant owned by NPPD – Cooper nuclear station.

Nebraska is almost all public power and a lot of Omaha too… the OPPD over there.

Unfortunately they couldn’t even think of building a plant today, too expensive.

I worked with MEAG in Georgia they put together one of the last publicly owned nuclear plants in the nation and it almost killed all of them.

I should do a post on the various public utilities someday.

Thanks for the comments, keep ‘em coming

By: Miki Ellis

Miki Ellis — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:12:45 +0000

Pigs must be flying. This is the second positive mention for nuclear power I’ve seen today. The other was an editorial in the LA Times.

By: James C. Bennett

James C. Bennett — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:23:02 +0000

Nebraska, which has a state-owned utility system, might be a candidate for nuclear construction.

What would help in general would be a national-security assessment of the various alternatives as part of the environmental process. If any option, including the “no-action” option were determined to be detrimental to national security, it would have to be eliminated from considertaion.

Maybe when we get a city nuked something like that will get passed by congress.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:03:04 +0000

I think the myth that solar and wind power can provide significant amount of reliable electricity drives most of the hysterical opposition to nuclear power. I think a lot of activist believe that if they can just cripple all other forms of power that “the man” will finally have to build solar and wind facilities to provide clean renewable energy. Its a fantasy.

We face a real power crises in electricity in the United States in the next ten years or so. Nuclear plants produce 20% of electricity now but most of those plants will approach the end of their life-cycles soon. What will replace them? Are we going to replace them carbon emitting coal or natural gas burning plants? I doubt it.

By: david foster

david foster — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 17:06:24 +0000

Meanwhile, France is generating 70%+ of its electricity from nuclear power.

There are quite a few industries whose location decisions are based in substantial part of reasonably-priced electrical power, and if we have significant increases in coal and nat gas prices, then countries that have a lot of nuclear will have a competitive advantage over countries that don’t.