Nuclear reactors might sneak into Utah if legislators have their way
Text 
No comments [ Add Comment ]By Robert W. Reynolds and Dynette Reynolds
Guest commentary
T
he Utah legislature is currently considering a proposal to build a nuclear power plant on the Green River in Emery County. This plant has been promoted by two legislators from Springville and Kanab who own or work for companies that would benefit from its construction. They have denied any conflict of interest, insisting that nuclear power is necessary to reduce carbon emissions in Utah and to meet future electricity needs.
Utah does not need a nuclear power plant in order to reduce carbon emissions. The latest filters for coal-powered plants are extremely effective at reducing emissions. Nor should we be concerned about power shortages, because we currently produce an excess of power, which we sell to other regions. There is no reason to consider nuclear power in Utah, other than as a money-making project for certain privileged individuals.
These legislators intend to enrich their own pockets at the expense of Utah taxpayers. They claim that the people of Utah "want" nuclear power. Is that true?
Utah has a tragic history with nuclear technology. The people of Utah suffered from radioactive fallout generated by above-ground bomb explosions at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1962.
Additional fallout covered Utah over the next 30 years when underground nuclear explosions either leaked or vented into the atmosphere. It took nearly 40 years of government secrecy before Utah researchers were able to establish that people had been harmed.
Even now, only a few Utah families have received minimal compensation from the government for their deaths and illnesses, which are continuing into the third and fourth generations. Researchers are beginning to learn that northern Utahns were also Downwinders.
Many Utahns were also exposed to radiation while working in the uranium mining and milling industry. They were told their exposure was at "safe" levels, although very little inspection was done to establish that. As the Crandall Canyon mine disaster demonstrates, mine inspection and regulation programs are still underfunded and unreliable. Even if inspection funding were to magically appear, determining a safe level of exposure to various radioactive elements is difficult. Safe levels have been constantly reduced over the years as more and more cancer cases cropped up among those exposed.
Many medical experts now believe there is no such thing as a "safe" level of radiation exposure.
New uranium mines are opening in Utah, before the problems of the old ones have been solved. Toxic tailings from uranium mills are still present in many parts of Utah, continuing to contaminate our water and soil. The tailing pile in Moab is well-known, and that waste will take many years and millions of dollars before it is cleaned up. But many people don't know that a uranium mill also existed in Salt Lake City. The cleanup of that mill created the EnergySolutions low-level radioactive waste site in Tooele county, which opened the door to accepting out-of-state waste.
Utah's fight to keep high-level radioactive waste out of the state will be compromised by having a nuclear power plant inside our borders. No longer could we claim that waste should not even travel on our highways during its journey elsewhere. We would become a de facto high-level waste repository, because the waste generated by the proposed nuclear power plant would be stored on site next to the Green River until another site is ready to accept the fuel. If any leakage occurred, as it has at other nuclear reactors, the Green River -- a favorite recreational site -- would be irreversibly contaminated.
Furthermore, electricity generated by nuclear power plants is enormously expensive. Nuclear power costs more than 13 cents per kilowatt hour -- twice the cost of existing fossil fuel plants. This does not include other expenses like regulation, insurance, security against terrorist attack or accidents, and waste disposal. Until now, the high cost of building and running nuclear power plants has kept most power companies from building them. In fact, the power industry has refused to build a reactor in Utah unless the state pays all construction costs.
Even then, the plant would not have to generate a single kilowatt of electricity in order to get paid, if the proposed plan passes. In other words, Utah taxpayers would pay the bill while industry would take the profits. That's definitely not the free market at work. That's corporate welfare to the extreme.
Some might argue that environmentalists' lawsuits are what make the cost of nuclear power so expensive. The fact is that even the first U.S. commercial nuclear power plant, which came online in 1957 in Shippingport, Penn., was never able to compete economically with other types of power plants -- and that was long before lawsuits. Huge government subsidies have always been necessary to make nuclear power competitive with fossil-fuel plants. The nuclear energy industry receives more government subsidies than any other kind of energy, and it is still the most inefficient source of power in existence.
Reactor safety is another concern. New reactor designs are much safer than earlier designs, but they are also more complex. More complex designs are more likely to produce accidents. No matter how many backup systems are included, accidents are a part of all complex systems. Engineers would like to believe that nuclear accidents will never occur, but scientific theory and common sense says they are wrong.
When an accident occurs at a coal-powered plant, it does not cause a major disaster. When an accident occurs at a nuclear power plant, it has the potential to affect thousands or even millions of people, and contaminate land for generations.
Most people know about Chernobyl and the Three Mile Island accident, but few know that the world's first catastrophic reactor accident occurred in 1961, just north of Pocatello at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The real scope of that accident was kept secret for two decades, even after rescue workers began dying of cancer. How many other, less catastrophic accidents have been suppressed? Are there any legal safeguards that can ensure the public knows when radiation has been released?
Don't let a few elite lawmakers make this important decision for all of Utah. Write the governor and your local legislators immediately, before any kind of deal is made behind closed doors. This plan is an affront to all Utah residents who care about the economic and physical health of our state.
Robert W. Reynolds is an associate professor of sociology at Weber State University, specializing in environment and technology. Dynette Reynolds is a Ph.D. student in American Studies at the University of Utah, working on a dissertation about atomic testing and Cold War culture.
