remains far from satisfied about the possibility of nuclear accidents and environmental hazards, and two states-California and Iowa—have adopted policies effectively halting nuclear construction until more is known about waste disposal and decommissioning costs. Three other states have enacted laws against waste disposal sites within their borders. Antinuclear public demonstrations are becoming a commonplace of the 1970's. None of that is necessarily an argument for banning further nuclear development (although the General Accounting Office has reported that "the unsolved problem of radioactive waste disposal threatens the future of nuclear power"). It does raise the question why the American energy effort has been and continues to be so heavily concentrated on a single, costly, controversial, possibly hazardous and none-too-efficient technology. Solar energy, by contrast, is available everywhere, has no public opposition and offers no safety or environmental hazards. It is highly suitable for such lowquality energy demands as space and hot-water heating, while to use electricity produced by nuclear fission for such homely needs is an expensive form of overkill. Solar heating units could be built with the skills of, say, automobile workers. Capital costs would be high at first-one estimate is $320 billion at $4,000 a system to equip all American households within 20 years-but there would be little further cost to the consumer. James Benson of the Council on Economic Priorities has calculated, moreover, that installing the systems would provide 500,000 construction-skill jobs a year-three times as many jobs for each dollar spent as would be provided by further nuclear development. The rapid development of solar energy-and geothermal and steam cogeneration could be of immense utility in meeting the energy crisis safely and economically. But that development is not now in prospect, as the Government continues to concentrate on nuclear power. No doubt there are many reasons for that concentration. But it is hard not to conclude that the established energy companies-oil, gas, coal, electricityand their representatives are a major force behind it. None of them can charge a rate for, or make a profit from, the sun's inexhaustible rays. [From the New York Times, Nov. 8, 1977] MORE NUCLEAR DEBATE (By Tom Wicker) President Carter says his first veto, which killed $80 million appropriated for the Clinch River breeder reactor, was intended to preserve his "policy to curb proliferation of nuclear weapons technology." Symbolically, it may be more than that a first step back from the Government's undeviating postwar commitment to the development of nuclear power plants, at whatever cost. Breeder reactors utilize nuclear fuel reprocessing, which creates the plutonium needed for bomb manufacture. Mr. Carter has thus given antiproliferation policy priority over further development of nuclear power technology-a decision already under heavy fire from nuclear-power proponents more accustomed to Government support. The wrath of the nuclear industry and its supporters also was roused by three articles in this column, appearing between Sept. 27 and Oct. 2, 1977, and inquiring generally whether nuclear power had been "pushed with too much zeal and with too little concern for the consequences” and also “to the exclusion of alternative energy programs," notably solar energy research. Since many letters of response labeled articles "one-sided" and accused me of trying to "kill' or eliminate nuclear power, it seems appropriate to make public both the major criticisms and my rebuttal. In the first place, the original articles did not advocate an end to nuclear power. Coincidentally, on Sept. 29, Gus Speth of the President's Council on Environmental Quality did declare that "a further commitment to nuclear power [should] be deferred until there is an acceptable solution to the radioactive waste problem." My articles did not go that far, but Mr. Speth's speech tends to validate the quesions I raised. A major complaint among letterwriters was that I was wrong when I wrote that "at the moment, the necessary technology and regulations to deal with [radioactive waste] have not been developed." That view was based primarily on a report by the General Accounting Office, and several correspondents questioned that agency's competence in nuclear energy matters. As conceded in the Sept. 27 article, the Energy Research and Development Administration "promises safe and permanent disposal facilities somewhere deep in the earth by 1985." But the fact is that while the technology for doing so is widely believed among scientists to be feasible, it has not as yet been demonstrated sufficiently for public acceptance and it is not now actually in use. Nor is a suitable site certainly available. Mr. Speth referred to the "flawed, worrisome history of waste management," and it certainly is that. Leaks of radioactive wastes have occurred at Hanford, Wash.; West Valley, N.Y.; and Maxey Flats, Ky. Plans for a deep-earth permanent storage facility in Kansas had to be abandoned because of public resistance. Will there be public acceptance the next time a site is selected? It's true that the leaking tanks at Hanford were of early design, not as secure as tanks available today. But the fact that high-level wastes once were stored in tanks ultimately found inadequate only raises doubts about the assurances offered to the public. Are today's assurances more reliable than yesterday's? Even the claim that a technology for waste disposal is at hand is not uncontested. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the American Physical Society, in separate reports, have questioned whether rocks might not be better than salt for deep-earth disposal; and the U.S. Geological Survey is concerned about the interaction of high-level heat from the wastes with salt in the earth. The California Energy Commission has concluded that waste disposal technology is not available, and California has passed a law requiring nuclear plants to have a proven means of waste disposal. Samuel McCracken, assistant to the president of Boston University, wrote in Commentary (September, 1977) that there are not yet enough wastes to make permanent storage facilities economical. That is not the view of the G.A.O., of the Council on Environmental Quality, or of Representative John E. Moss of California, who wrote to President Carter last August that 20 reactors might have to shut down within six or seven years for lack of storage facilities. But even if Mr. McCracken is right, he is not reassuring, since he asks the public to take it on faith that, when needed, the solution will be there. If nuclear reactors are going to continue to generate wastes as well as electricity, the public is entitled to more assurance than that—for example, to a functioning permanent disposal facility at a publicly accepted site, with safeguards that can be demonstrated and a record that can be audited. [From the New York Times, Nov. 11, 1977] MORE NUCLEAR DEBATE: II (By Tom Wicker) When President Carter supposedly vetoed the Clinch River breeder reactor the other day, what he actually vetoed was an authorization bill for the Energy Research and Development Authority. But an $80 million appropriation for the breeder project is tucked away in a separate bill that requires it to be spent despite Mr. Carter's veto. The President fears the breeder reactor will make nuclear weapons proliferation more likely. But if he vetoes the second bill, a wide variety of other needed appropriations-including one that embodies the decision to halt B-1 bomber production-will go down with the breeder reactor. Making the breeder so difficult for Mr. Carter to kill is one more example of the length to which Congress, the nuclear regulatory agencies and most Presidents have gone to develop nuclear power at almost any cost. When questions about this zealous Government commitment were raised in three articles in this space, from Sept. 27 to Oct. 2, numerous responses from nuclear proponents suggested that the articles were an effort to "kill" nuclear power through one-sided criticism. It was charged, for example, that the costs of decommissioning outmoded nuclear facilities had been exaggerated. The cost of dismantling a nuclear plant at Oyster Creek, N.J., had been cited on Sept. 30 as $100 million, or more than 150 percent of its original cost, $65 million (although the original cost figure is in 1959 dollars). The $100 million figure, provided in testimony by Jersey Central Power and Light, was correct; but the company is in fact planning to "entomb" the Oyster Creek plant at a cost of "only" $35 million, which is still more than half its construction cost. But entombment, which does not necessarily put a permanent end to the plant and its radioactivity hazards, requires monitoring for years. Ultimately, that method of decommissioning may not be found adequate for other nuclear facilities. And the point of the original criticism was that no standards had yet been set for decommissioning; companies are not required to make financial provision for this "back-end" process; and the consequence might be escalating costs to ratepayers in the future, or to taxpayers if the Government has to pick up the cost of decommissioning abandoned nuclear facilities. At the moment, for example, the State of New York is stuck with a $600 million decommissioning bill for a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at West Valley; the state is asking the Federal Government for help. While Jersey Central Power and Light has been authorized to include the cost of decommissioning in its rate base, that appears to be a rare exception to the statement in the Sept. 30 article that "no private utility is setting aside a fund for ulimate decommissioning costs." Nor are any required to do so by regulatory bodies. The Oct. 2 article questioned "why the Federal Government continues to emphasize nuclear power development over all other energy sources, to the effective exclusion of such promising technologies as solar and geothermal." Responses to that criticism generally suggested that major solar development is far in the future and offers only limited promise for the near term, leaving nuclear power as the cleanest and cheapest energy atlernative to oil. There's no doubt that the use of coal creates environmental problems, and that solar energy is more expensive than nuclear. But three Federal studies have shown that by 1985 solar energy could be reasonably competitive in broad sections of the United States. In a speech last month, Gus Speth of the President's Council on Environmental Quality reported that "new developments are being reported monthly, and it now appears that solar [energy] can make a significant contribution to our energy needs much more rapidly than had been considered possible." Yet, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado recently pointed out that the "solar energy budget" for 1978 was only $285 million, compared to $4 billion for NASA; and that the entire research and development budget for waste heat recycling is only $500,000 this year, the equivalent of just 16 hours of nuclear power research. Meanwhile, in Sweden and Germany, energy recycling already provides about a fifth of their energy needs. Accelerated efforts in that field alone, Mr. Hart said, could "reduce consumers' untility bills by 15 percent, cut the number of nuclear plants in half, reduce the need for additional power plants, and create less air pollution." It isn't an effort to "kill" nuclear power to cite such possibilities. Nor is it unfair on one-sided criticism to point to nuclear power's safety, waste, cost and decommissioning problems, or to question the Government's heavy emphasis on nuclear power. A greater effort to develop other energy sources, a more rational, cost-and-safety-conscious nuclear program-these are neither incompatible for impractical, just necessary. Preliminary Analysis of an Photovoltaic Utilization Program Department of Energy (FEA Task Force on Solar 20 July 1977 Energy Commercialization) Second Printing - Nov. 1977 FEDERAL ENERGY ADMINISTRATION ACTIVITIES (Functions Transferred To the Department of Energy per P.L. 95-91) The Federal Energy Administration (FEA) is involved with the development and use of solar energy encompassing a broad range of interests including: the direction of the Nation's solar-related endeavors as part of our National energy strategy; the policy, planning and overall coordination of solar energy commercialization; and certain regulatory and resource management functions which affect the use of solar energy. FEA's legislative authority for solar-related activities is based on a number of laws "Develop a national plan for the accelerated commercialization of solar energy "Develop commercialization plans for each major solar technology;" "Develop such major commercialization projects as, but not limited to, the 'Southwest Project,' the 'Solar Energy Government Buildings Project,' among others." "Develop State solar energy commercialization programs." In addition to the preliminary Federal Photovoltaic utilization Program Initiative analysis, FEA is involved with or initiating a number of efforts which could affect the commercialization of photovoltaics. These include: support of the President's proposed National Energy Plan which recommends residential and business tax credits, utility regulations for peak load and declining block rate pricing reforms, and regulations and taxes discouraging use of oil and gas, analysis of near term markets for photovoltaic systems within DOD; Southwest Project; Export Market Initiative; loan guarantees for renewable resource energy measures; and certain new photovoltaic initiatives. |