Published: June 19, 2009 02:37 pm      

First in 3 decades — 06/21/09

Piketon nuclear plant positive for economy and environment

While many others are looking at wind and solar power and other alternative sources of energy to reduce this nation’s dependence on fossil fuels, Duke Energy is returning to another more tested and proven source of alternative energy: Nuclear power. It’s a move that is a positive not only for this region’s economy, but also for the environment.

The plant, which Duke hopes to build on the site of the former uranium enrichment plant near Piketon, Ohio, would be the first nuclear-powered electricity generating plant built in the United States in more than three decades. Duke Energy will partner with AREVA, a French-based reactor manufacturer; USEC Inc. of Bethesda, Md., and Unistar Nuclear energy, a joint venture between French power group EDF and Constellation Energy Group.

Duke is smart to partner with the French companies. While America’s brief love affair with nuclear power soured in the 1970s, nuclear is the primary source of energy to generate electricity in France and nuclear plants are in use throughout much of Europe. Thus, the Europeans are way ahead of Americans in the peaceful use of nuclear power.

Duke Energy also operates two nuclear plants in North Carolina and one in South Carolina.

Duke Energy’s efforts to secure permits for the Piketon plant will be the first indication of just how much public attitudes about nuclear power have changed in the past 30 years. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a combination of three events caused many Americans to turn against nuclear power:

‰An accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, which resulted in no deaths or injuries.

‰The popularity of the movie “The China Syndrome,” which fictionalized a worst-case scenario of a nuclear accident.

‰A major accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in the Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union and was neither built nor monitored with the same tough safety standard as American plants.

The process of securing of a permit to build a nuclear power plant became so time-consuming and expensive companies turned to other sources of power. A nuclear plant under construction on the Ohio River near Cincinnati was switched to a coal-fired plant, and a nuclear plant under construction by the TVA in Hartsville, Tenn., never opened.

However, concerns about the role coal-fired power plants have in causing global warming have led many to reconsider nuclear power. Many now are touting as a clean energy alternative. Nuclear plants emit none of the greenhouse gases that coal-fired power plants do, including carbon dioxide.

“Climate change is real and restrictions on carbon emissions are coming,” said Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who is from Lucasville and represented Piketon in Congress. “We cannot wait to begin building our new energy future.”

To be sure, there still is a concerns about the storage of radioactive nuclear waste and the immense amount of water required to operate a nuclear plant, but there are dozens of nuclear plants in the United States and Europe that are proof that nuclear power can be a clean, dependable and safe source of energy.

Steve Burton, business manager for the Tri-State Building and Construction Trades Council, said he was excited over the prospect of the Piketon plant generating as many as 4,000 construction jobs over the 10 years it will take to build it. “There will be some security and long-term construction jobs there,” he said.

Once operational, the Piketon plant will have between 400 and 700 permanent workers, said Jim Rogers, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy, one of the partners in the venture. Additionally, Rogers said, the plant will generate hundreds of spin-off jobs and could eventually have an annual impact on the local economy of $430 million in sales of goods and services to support the facility.

The Piketon plant will be close enough to this area — particularly Lewis and Greenup counties — that many of the construction workers and even some of the permanent employees are likely to live in Kentucky.

“It’s a tremendous economic development project and, all in all, I think it will be very positive,” said Ashland Alliance President Jim Purgerson of the proposed Piketon nuclear plant. “I don’t see much of a down side to it.”

Neither do we. It’s unfortunate that nuclear power was introduced to the world by two horrific bombs in Japan. Fortunately, nuclear power has not been used to create mass destruction since that time, but has safely provided electricity to millions of homes throughout the world without polluting the air. That’s the good side of nuclear.