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Regarding the "Nuclear Redux" rebuttal to "Nuclear Empowered." The sarcastic tone of Eric Epstein's rebuttal connotes disdain for the substantial work associated with making meaningful comparisons. I fault the CEO of Westinghouse and Mr. Epstein for not using data in a meaningful way to make their respective arguments.

While Mr. Epstein provides a data point of 30 metric tons per year of nuclear waste (meaning that it would take 50 years of operation to fill a barge), he provides no estimate regarding the tons of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, particulate emissions, etc. (see Title V of the Clean Air Act) emitted by a similarly sized coal-fired plant. Thermal pollution is a nonargument because both fossil-fuel fired and nuclear technologies must reject heat to the atmosphere, and both can be designed with closed-loop cooling to mitigate the effect. The Yucca Mountain solution to the waste issue is rejected by people of Mr. Epstein's ilk.

The point is that all waste material costs, fuel costs, operating costs, maintenance costs and waste disposal costs for both processes should be compared on a per megawatt hour basis (don't forget about fly ash). My belief is that if this analysis were done correctly that nuclear would probably win out.

Lastly, damage to the environment (mountaintop removal, coincident elimination of streams) and human health (chronic lung conditions) resulting from coal-fired generation is arguably worse than what could be expected in a nuclear generation context.

 

JOSEPH BARRY
Ross