Japanese crisis may cost US
Source: Agencies |
March 17, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE reactor crisis in Japan has renewed anxiety about nuclear safety and could derail efforts to revive the United States industry as a clean alternative energy source.
The failure of the Japanese reactors' backup cooling systems and the explosions that followed are likely to lead to US regulators re-evaluating nuclear plant designs and safety. Heightened scrutiny could increase costs for new and existing reactors and make it harder to raise money for new plants.
The crisis comes just as the US nuclear energy industry is starting to build the first new reactors in a generation.
"This accident has the potential to tamp down any nuclear renaissance that we're poised to experience," said Tim Echols, a utility regulator in Georgia who supports expanded nuclear power.
Before the crisis, the US nuclear industry was enjoying more public and political backing than it had in years - 62 percent of the public, according to a Gallup poll done last year. That support grew out of concerns about greenhouse gases, a growing record of safe and profitable nuclear power production and volatile fossil fuel prices.
In Washington, nuclear energy was a rare issue on which the Obama administration and congressional Republicans agreed. President George W. Bush established an US$18.5 billion loan guarantee program to help build new plants. President Barack Obama wants to raise that to US$54.5 billion. Obama has also included nuclear power in his plan for a clean-energy standard.
Unlike wind or solar, nuclear reactors produce huge amounts of power, uninterrupted, for months. The 104 commercial reactors in the US supply about 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
But only two of nearly three dozen nuclear plants that were proposed in the middle of the last decade remain on track to be built. Low electricity prices and the huge expense of building new plants have contributed to the delay.
Industry analysts say few, if any, could be built without government loan guarantees, a low-carbon energy mandate, or both. That help is predicated on support from a public that may have grown more fearful about the safety of nuclear power after the Japan crisis.
The failure of the Japanese reactors' backup cooling systems and the explosions that followed are likely to lead to US regulators re-evaluating nuclear plant designs and safety. Heightened scrutiny could increase costs for new and existing reactors and make it harder to raise money for new plants.
The crisis comes just as the US nuclear energy industry is starting to build the first new reactors in a generation.
"This accident has the potential to tamp down any nuclear renaissance that we're poised to experience," said Tim Echols, a utility regulator in Georgia who supports expanded nuclear power.
Before the crisis, the US nuclear industry was enjoying more public and political backing than it had in years - 62 percent of the public, according to a Gallup poll done last year. That support grew out of concerns about greenhouse gases, a growing record of safe and profitable nuclear power production and volatile fossil fuel prices.
In Washington, nuclear energy was a rare issue on which the Obama administration and congressional Republicans agreed. President George W. Bush established an US$18.5 billion loan guarantee program to help build new plants. President Barack Obama wants to raise that to US$54.5 billion. Obama has also included nuclear power in his plan for a clean-energy standard.
Unlike wind or solar, nuclear reactors produce huge amounts of power, uninterrupted, for months. The 104 commercial reactors in the US supply about 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
But only two of nearly three dozen nuclear plants that were proposed in the middle of the last decade remain on track to be built. Low electricity prices and the huge expense of building new plants have contributed to the delay.
Industry analysts say few, if any, could be built without government loan guarantees, a low-carbon energy mandate, or both. That help is predicated on support from a public that may have grown more fearful about the safety of nuclear power after the Japan crisis.
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