New Nuclear for Kentucky?
A bill that would make it easier to build new nuclear power plants in Kentucky is making its way through the state legislature. New plants have been banned in the Commonwealth since 1984, unless the federal government finds a way to permanently dispose of the waste. Efforts to find such a place—like Yucca Mountain—have so far failed. Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Mitch Singer says another option could be reusing spent fuel rods.
“There definitely is an interest on the part of the federal government to look into what’s known as closing the fuel cycle, that is a fancy word for reprocessing and recycling.”
But environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council have testified before Congress that those technologies are still unattainable and haven’t worked as hoped in countries such as France and Russia.
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The elephant in the room that isn’t mentioned anywhere on this site but should be addressed, especially in regard to the issue of the aforementioned bill, is the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) in Paducah, KY.
The un-named bill under question is Senate Bill 26 and it was introduced by Sen. Bob Leeper of Paducah. It’s not an accident that the PGDP is in Leeper’s district. The “reprocessing and recycling” of spent fuel rods etc. that was mentioned by Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Singer is being proposed by Leeper to be at Paducah. In other words, Kentucky will become the substitute for Yucca Mt. as the nuclear waste dump of the nation.
Moreover, contrary to the nuke industry’s claims, nuclear energy is fossil fuel dependent. The nuclear enrichment process at Paducah and Portsmouth Ohio uses massive amounts of coal generated electricity. The PGDP alone uses more electricity per day than the city of St. Louis. It is the largest energy consumer in the entire state of KY. These coal fired plants are located primarily in the lower Ohio River and are responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gases in the eastern U.S.
If, as your mission statement suggests, the Ohio Valley Region is your focus then Paducah’s PGDF should be at the top of your list of issues. Even if it occupies a region of the state that is invisible to the rest of the state.
Please do not defer to your sister station, WKMS, at Murray. They won’t cover this issue either.
Thanks
Craig