On Thursday the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the first nuclear power plant in the US since the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania back in 1979. The Southern Co. based in Atlanta already operates two reactors at its Vogtle site near Augusta, and has just been granted permission to build another two reactors.
The Southern Co. President and CEO Thomas Fanning said that the approval was “a monumental accomplishment”, not only the company, but also the nuclear industry as a whole. “We are committed to bringing these units online to deliver clean, safe and reliable energy to our customers.” The reactors are projected to come online in 2016 and 2017 and will cost more than $14 billion to construct.
Many protests were raised against the nuclear reactors over fears of the structural safety and ability to withstand earthquakes and the like, following the March 2011 Disaster in Fukushima. Fanning assured that once all lessons have been learned from the Fukushima incident, that new safety changes will be designed and made to both existing and new reactors.
Many of the protestors are from local communities who claim that cancer has increased in the area since the opening of the first two Vogtle reactors. Willie Tomlin, pastor of the Thomas Grove Baptist Church in Waynesboro said of the decision, “I think it’s a sad day for the people who live in this area.” Although there are also members of the community who are all for the new power plant. Vogtle is already the largest employer in the county and both city officials and local residents are looking forward to the 5,000 construction jobs and extra tax revenue expected.
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I just wonder:
Are these power-plants really made for destruction of surplus nuclear bomb material?
Normally nuclear power-plant run their reactors so long that the fuel in them is not weapons grade.
The closing down of other nuclear plants mean that there comes a question of what to do with old nuclear warheads.
I saw somewhere that there is a real problem with old cold war nukes. Those people that build them have all retired – or died a natural death. So there is definitely a need to get rid of old nukes – you just don’t blow them up as you might with other explosives that have passed last sales date – you really don’t.
I can understand the need – and not end up like Russia with a huge nuclear waste problem. It is probably the best way of getting rid of the stuff.