Nuclear reactor plants provide clean, safe, reliable power

Would-be nuclear engineer, Nick Coleman (Let's not get all aglow about nuclear power, Star Tribune, 8/29) thinks nuclear power is a glowing "pig in a poke" in his Star Tribune column. He refers to nuclear's "safety and security problem" and the costly plans of San Antonio to add two new reactors to the two now operating in San Antonio's South Texas Project. He doesn't know that the project's two existing reactors achieved a significant safety milestone recently, going 10 million labor hours without a significant injury or accident. They also produce power at a total operating cost, including fuel, of 2 cents/kilowatt hour(kwh).

Columnist Coleman refers to "a host of unsolved problems" without naming any except for a vague reference to nuclear spent fuel waste. The French store the spent fuel from 58 operating reactors in the floor of a single large room at La Hague by reprocessing the spent fuel. Ninety-five percent of it can be recycled into new fuel.

It was 52 years ago, on August 3 1958, that the nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, passed directly under the North Pole. Two days later, the Nautilus emerged, completing a four day 1830 mile voyage under the Arctic ice cap. The Nautilus relied solely on power from its nuclear reactor which propelled the big sub at a steady 20 knots. The design of the Nautilus pressurized water nuclear reactor, supervised by Admiral Hyman Rickover and his team, was the prototype for most of our current fleet of 104 civilian nuclear power plants.

Whether at sea or on land, those nuclear reactors provide clean safe power with the highest reliability and availability factor of any fuel source. It was an influx of management and technical personnel from the navy that helped our civilian reactors reach the 90 percent capacity factor (up time) they operate at today.

U.S. nuclear plants generate 800 billion predictable kwh/year, 20 percent of our electric needs. By contrast, all U.S. wind farms in 2009 did produce 72 unpredictable billion kwh, which was 1.75 percent of total U.S. electric power at a capacity factor of about 27 percent. With its consumer bills during 1Q 2010, Excel Energy included an insert titled

"Your Electricity"which listed all of its power plant fuel sources by cost and reliability. Nuclear power led both lists as the lowest cost and most reliable power source for our largest utility.

Coleman refers to Minnesota's nuclear power plants at Monticello and Prairie Island as reaching "the outer limits of their originally expected 40 year life spans." Actually both will operate for at least 60 years as Monticello has recently been granted a 20 year life extension, one of 56 granted so far by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Prairie Island should soon receive the same. Coleman refers to "old dangers" without refuting the fact that OSHA studies identify the nuclear power industry as our safest industrial activity. Cutbacks at the Tribune appear to have left the paper short of editors competent to review technical articles.

It's time for the Minnesota Legislature to join the the world nuclear renaissance and lift our state's ban on new nuclear power plants. Like the postman, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor other vagaries of weather stays those plants from the swift reliable completion of their obligations.

ROLF WESTGARD is a resident of Deerwood, a professional member, Geological Society of America and a member of the Brainerd Dispatch advisory board.