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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (241003)	3/22/2002 5:34:42 PM
From: Ish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

One of the big problems with nuclear power now is the regulations have pushed the cost out of sight. I've read where Con Ed in the Chicago area is closing two nuke plants instead of recoring them because the new regulations have raised the cost of recoring to more than they spent to build the plants. I've fished a couple of nuke plants in Wisconsin that were built in the early 70's and haven't had a problem. The Clinton, Illinois plant was built a few years later and was supposed to cost $200mm. New regulations were implemented during construction, plus a lot of union foot dragging to make the job last longer, and the cost went to $4 billion. And that plant has had so many problems it was given away.

To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (241003)	3/22/2002 6:22:08 PM
From: David R	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I think that you mistake me for someone who is opposed to Nuclear power. I am not. I am just concerned about the highly concentrated and highly toxic waste. AFAIK Nukes are cleaner than all current sources including solar (cells are a messy mfg process). The problem is that the waste from gas and coal plants is not highly concentrated so as to be capable of killing huge numbers of people in a short time (rather they get slowly choked over a long period of time). What I have read seems to suggest that if we develop a safe and secure reprocessing capability, then we can eliminate most of the high-level waste through re-cycling. I understand the problems with over-regulation, but Cherynobl is the result of under-regulating. There must be a balance between the two. Also, aside from the regulations, I suppose that liability insurance is very hard to come by for Nuke operators. A company that owns a plant would be bankrupted by a single major disaster.