Charlotte Business Journal: New nuke plants planned by NC,TN, VA companies

[jdj]

This is from the Charlotte Business Journal, April 16 '04:

"Duke Energy Corp. expects to join a new consortium of big energy companies to speed the process so that new nuclear plants can be built."

-snip-

"Last November the U.S. Dept of Energy unveiled a "Nuclear Power 2010" plan that expects to have a new nuclear reactor liscensed by 2010 and operating two or three years later.

In response five major electric utilities joined with nuclear reactors vendors GE energy and Westinghouse Electric Co. to start the consortium."

this is a must read, 3 pages

http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2004/04/19/story3.html?page=1

This is depressing. The TN company is TVA, which has already polluted western NC and poisoned the Pigeon River. The VA plant is North Anna.

[Streetdoc270]

1. 2 edged sword...

We need to reduce dependency on foreign oil, but no one wants a Nuke plant in their backyard....

[struggle4progress]

2. Maybe unclear whether nukes really are an alternative ...

By the time you consider the mining, isotope enrichment, all the facility engineering required, plus all of the operations costs, then the waste disposal, it may actually be only government subsidies that keep nukes going. The latest subsidies will include Yucca Mountain plus government essentially supplying the fuel. Plus nukes are the original foundation of the national security state and will remain so. They also encourage corporate monopoly rather than decentralized generation.

How about really trying wind and solar, public transportation, cities really designed for biking, methane generation from separated garbage, ethanol support etc instead.