Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
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It's possible to be stupid about nuclear plants--let's not place them where earthquakes or tornadoes or hurricanes are likely. That still leaves wide swaths of the US that can safely generate electricity from fission. What are we waiting for, a written invitation?
Where many of us go wrong, though, is the assumption that the anti-nuclear crowd is genuinely afraid of another Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, or even a China Syndrome. They're not; that's just what they hide behind. They don't like capitalism, and they don't like success. Nuclear power would solve too many problems, making socialism harder to instill as the economy hums along on relatively inexpensive and non-polluting electricity. That's why they're against it.
It's not a science issue, it's a political issue for them.