At the same time I can appreciate the concern of the TV audience about nuclear safety. Nuclear is inherently safer than many of them can understand, but they know what could happen in the event of a bad nuclear accident. And given certain unfortunate cultural changes that have taken place in the US over the last thirty years or so, bad events of various kinds are certainly possible.

This crap is nothing more than outdated propaganda straight out the anti-nuclear propaganda mills of the early 80s. If you had read anything relevant to industry impacts in past 40 years except dogma you would have come to far different conclusions. What do you do with your monthly copies of Nuclear News? If you choose not to read them you should as least give them to your local library.

Given that a man of your background should know better, ignorance of the truth is not possible. I can only conclude that you, Mr. August, are liar.

No industry in the history of mankind has changed so profoundly from a single catastrophe than did the nuclear industry after the wreck at Three Mile Island. Heads rolled, ownership changed, and designers, managers, operators, trainers, and support engineers at every level either got a new religion (a.k.a. improved safety culture) or got out. Regulators and regulated alike were revolutionized, top to bottom, side to side.

The proof is in the performance --- >90% capacity factors and safety on a level of magnitude higher across the board than existed in 1979.

I could write several pages citing specifics, but let’s put it back on you, the maker of extraordinary claims. Either come back with specific charges or extract your statements.

I am proud to have served the industry "before the TMI event and after" - and I am proud to have contributed to the pace in which gave birth to the new religion you mentioned.

Thank you, as well, Mr Banks for mitigating a "flux" about this article which, without proper response, could've caused a SCRAM.

TCE

The other recent major study assumed a successful terrorist attack on one of the Indian Point power plants. Indian Point is the nation's most populated site and evacuation would be very slow. The assumed terrorist attack hypothesized that a huge hole had been created in the containment building (no small achievement) and a core melt sequence started one half hour later. This study by RBR Consultants made great technologiclal improvements in determining the time dependent locations of evacuating people. The bottom line here , just like the SNL results, is that zero or near zero early fatalities were calculated even for these extreme assumptions. There might be some long term health effects from this postulated terrorist attack due to the released radioactive material. However,these latent effects would be so small compared to normal background causesd of cancer fatalities, they would be statistically undetectable.

Contrary to what the author has said, great safety progress has been made since TMI, including the development of probabilistic risk assessments for every nuclear plant in the country. No member of the public has ever been killed from the operation of nuclear power in the US for over 40 years. Even Wonder Bread can't claim that.

What is happening in Washington now to nuclear power is a massive political onslaught and the environment and people will pay very dearly for it. Herschel Specter mhspecter@verizon.net

The author of this article clearly says that "America cannot prosper without nuclear power, ...."

That's the bottom line, the thing that the TV audience needs to understand. At the same time there is no point in telling that audience that everything is simply great with nuclear, even if it is true, because they don't want to hear that, and as a result won't believe it. In Paris last year somebody asked me what would I say after one of these facilities '"exploded", and I don't mean somebody in a nightclub show, but from one of the 'grandest' of the grandes ecoles.

Hershel Specter says that there is a massive political onslaught on nuclear. I don't know if it is true that it is "massive", but maybe it is a good idea if someone explained to the Energy Secretary that he should use at least a part of his time in office to educate the American people on what their energy future would look like without nuclear.

Ontario recently solicited bids for at least two new reactors to add to its Darlington power plant. The Canadian company AECL's bid was the only compliant bid and was poised to win the contract, but its price tag was far too high for the Ontario government. Quoted below from today's Toronto Star on-line newspaper article "$26B Cost Killed Nuclear Bid" by Tyler Hamilton, found at http://www.thestar.com/business/article/665644 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Ontario government put its nuclear power plans on hold last month because the bid from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the only "compliant" one received, was more than three times higher than what the province expected to pay, the Star has learned.

Sources close to the bidding, one involved directly in one of the bids, said that adding two next-generation Candu reactors at Darlington generating station would have cost around $26 billion.

It means a single project would have wiped out the province's nuclear-power expansion budget for the next 20 years, leaving no money for at least two more multibillion-dollar refurbishment projects.

"It's shockingly high," said Wesley Stevens, an energy analyst at Navigant Consulting in Toronto.

Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman announced on June 29 he was suspending a competitive process for the purchase of new reactors for Ontario. He cited the price tag as "billions" too high, but would not reveal the amount of the bid from AECL, deemed the only compliant proposal out of three offers.

AECL's $26 billion bid was based on the construction of two 1,200-megawatt Advanced Candu Reactors, working out to $10,800 per kilowatt of power capacity.

By comparison, in 2007 the Ontario Power Authority had assumed for planning purposes a price of $2,900 per kilowatt, which works out to about $7 billion for the Darlington expansion. During Ontario Energy Board hearings last summer, the power authority indicated that anything higher than $3,600 per kilowatt would be uneconomical compared to alternatives, primarily natural gas.

Much of the dramatic price increase relates to the cost of labour and materials, which have skyrocketed over the past few years. Nuclear suppliers and their investors also have less tolerance for risk.

The bid from France's Areva NP also blew past expectations, sources said. Areva's bid came in at $23.6 billion, with two 1,600-megawatt reactors costing $7.8 billion and the rest of the plant costing $15.8 billion. It works out to $7,375 per kilowatt, and was based on a similar cost estimate Areva had submitted for a plant proposed in Maryland." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It does seem incredible for costs to skyrocket so much since 2001, especially in the current economic environment to boot, I agree completely. The question it begs is - who is gouging who ? AECL is no doubt fighting in any way it can to survive under federal government ownership. If the Feds cut them loose though, I wonder if they would survive without massive cuts to their employees' salaries and much lower bid prices.

"Federal recovery money is making a difference in Pennsylvania," Governor Rendell said. "Our citizens are ambitious and innovative. They have great ideas on how to conserve energy, make our environment cleaner, put people to work, stimulate the economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The " PA Conservation Works!" program will help do that."

Energy conservation works one time, when you have the energy to conserve. A silly impression I have is that we have less and less to conserve, with all things considered. Maybe I'm just so numb to the manipulation, that seems to be thicker than peanut butter, that I would like to see plans for "Energy Reservation".

I've said this before ~ "Later IS Now!" We will not succeed on continuing to have the "cart before the horse" for much longer; every day, led around by wireless devices, takes us further from future. Shuffling prioriities in a debt shrouded mode is all we are doing. No wonder the General Public can't get past the "Fear Factor".

The day construction begins on just one new nuclear power plant, is the day we head back to the black.

I have previously felt that the type of reactors we should build was a secondary issue, and that the important thing was just to get a building program restarted and the industry back on its feet. But I'm now at least half way to becoming a "believer" in the LFTR design (Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor). The technical, environmental, and economic advantages that it appears to offer over other fuel cycles are compelling. I'm still looking for "flies in the ointment" -- beyond the obvious. (The obvious being that it's new, and will have to run the guantlet of certification. Along with the opposition of those who don't want any energy solution beyond "conservation and renewables".)

Any one have a reason to question this outburst today by EPRI?

"...In the future, the concept of "clean coal" will be a punch line and not a policy, and plans to put carbon dioxide back in the ground may be particularly hilarious. In the long term, nuclear power is inevitable, if we are to maintain or expand civilization and the world population. Like it or not, we will go nuclear. We have no choice. It would be best if we know what we are getting into better than we, as an industrial-world population, are presently aware. "

KEY WORDS: expand civilization and the world population

" I learned things writing this book. I started to see patterns and unobvious trends emerge from the noise of history. There is nothing particularly safe about releasing thermal energy at the rate of a billion watts in a moderately sized concrete building. The most dangerous thing we can do is to become so used to safety in nuclear plants that we no longer think about it. As long as you treat nuclear power like it wants to kill you, an excellent level of safety can be achieved. (This, if) As President, I would be aware that this vitally important, inevitable form of energy has yet to win the hearts and minds of the American people. A way to get there, eventually, is to keep the injury levels so low that the press finds it uninteresting. "

Just sharing, I apologize for some outbursts of mine, let alone EPRI - Gentlemen of your status well may have heard of Dr. Mahaffey, I never did. He seems to respect all rational views, howvever, remains on a "forward path" as all of you usually do.

Thank you, and good day!