Thank you for the FACTS!
In a March 17 article "Impact of reactors challenged," anti-nuclear activists, as usual, exaggerated negative effects and encouraged regulators to issue new requirements to delay the project.
Environmental effects will be determined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which recently held hearings in Augusta. But the public needs to understand the benefits.
The need for electricity is unquestionable. Nuclear plants offer clean, green, safe and economical baseload electricity -- i.e., it is available 24 hours a day, even when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. Our businesses and the quality of our lives depend on it.
The anti-nuke groups contend that Southern Nuclear and the NRC failed to fully explore the impact of these two new reactors on the river, such as the dredging necessary to deliver components to the site. The river has been dredged, off and on, for decades. In this instance, the effect will be miniscule. Southern Nuclear hired a licensed marine surveyor who estimates the amount of sediment removed will be about 36,000 cubic yards, far less than the 2 million cubic yards estimated by the anti-nukes.
Concerns were raised about low river flow during a drought, but Southern Nuclear does not consider this a problem. Recently, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reduced flows from Thurmond Dam to 3,100 cubic feet per minute to raise the lake level, the actual river flow at the Plant Vogtle site was 4,200 cubic feet per minute, and even flows as low as 2,000 cubic feet per minute were deemed adequate.
The groups also say that the quality of river water will suffer. They want the NRC to require a study be conducted of an untried "dry cooling system." The proposal is ludicrous. We must remember that they are not trying to improve performance of the reactors; they are trying to stop them!
Clint Wolfe, Ph.D
Aiken, S.C.
(The writer is executive director of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness in Aiken.)
Comments
Thank you for the FACTS!
It always amazes me that the same kooks who holler and scream for us to us alternative energy and reduce our use of coal and oil are always the same kooks who attempt to thwart the use of the ONLY viable alternative energy source we have today that could actually impact our use of fossil fuels. All they do is cost the consumer more money and obstruct progress.
If it's so economical ($14 billion) why did they bypass the PSC and get us to start paying for it early( of course the heavy power users are exempt)? Vogtle went online in 1989 yet Ga Power keeps asking for rate increases, occasionally being thwarted by the PSC. How about the shareholders shouldering the costs since this economical source of power will make them more in the long run? Since the Southern Co has paid a divdend every quarter since 1948, I guess it's very economical for them. They share none of the risk and all of the reward.
Why don't you buy some stock, Tech Lover?
Are they facts because this bozo says they are facts, CBBP? The river flows speed up on the many bends in the river at that point, but slow back down when the river straightens out. There is too much going on to the detriment of our river from Bush Field on down. TechLover is right. There is no risk for these a-holes. only reward, and - as always - at our and the environment's expense. Better you idiots start learning to live on less.
They are proven facts and not distortions that opposers put forward. I suppose that you power your house and the computer you're posting on with a bicycle!
The power generated by the new units is not needed locally and won't be needed for over 30 years. That power will be sold on the grid to Florida and Alabama. Hopefully, our basin can handle the extra load -- after all, all the stakeholders post-plant will still want the cfs they are used to receiving, even in drought. As population expands and more and more draw their drinking water from the river, we shall see how forward thinking this expansion and use of Westinghouse AP1000s instead of other reactor designs that use little or no water truly is. During an era of global warming and forecasts of more frequent and intensive droughts, we may be heading down the same short sighted gain in the short term, loss in the long term that hit this country's financial markets. Biomass, wind, dry cooling of nuclear reactors, these technologies exist. Limitless supply of water in the SRB -- that doesn't exist.
Biomass,almost as bad as coal and as expensive with cap and trade limits. Wind, more expensive than nuclear and not as environmentally friendly as you suggest. Dry Cooling, an unproven theory.
I wish that all the reactors would shutdown for one day and watch all these people scream that they don't have any lights or power. Maybe then they would just shut up!!!
Does anyone know where I can verify the amount of silt Southern claims to be in the river? 36,000 cubic yards over 140 river miles seems so low as to be insignificant.
And it's cubic feet per second, not minute. That factor of 60 makes a slight difference. :)
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