Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Pence Sees Marble Hill And Fukushima In Indiana's Energy Future

Maybe Mike Pence is better off not talking about the issues between now and election day. Apparently he sees a future for nuclear energy in Indiana, never mind PSI's Marble Hill financial debacle or last year's meltdown at Fukushima, Japan that's left vast areas of Japan unsafe for habitation. From the Journal-Gazette:
Nuclear power generation in Indiana got a boost Tuesday when Mike Pence – the GOP candidate for governor – said the time has come for it to be part of the conversation regarding Indiana’s future energy needs.
He said he has had some discussions with Indiana utilities about possible modular nuclear plants.
Pence said this new type of technology is not the same magnitude of a full-scale nuclear plant and “may well be an easier to sell to Hoosiers.” . . .
Pence recalled when the troubled Marble Hill nuclear plant was abandoned in Indiana in the late 1970s and also the recent meltdown in Japan.
“We want to go into this process carefully and thoughtfully but when you look at much of the industrialized world today the technology, the safety record of nuclear energy is one that I think Hoosiers ought to be willing to look at. In addition to developing all of our traditional sources of energy and our renewable sources of energy,” he said. “We ought to look at adding nuclear energy to our portfolio if it’s economically feasible and keeps our energy costs low.”

2 comments:

TMLutas said...

Modular nuclear power has several advantages that should lead us to seriously take a look at it as these reactors come onto the market:

1. It's standardized. This is taking nuclear power construction out of the craft age and into the assembly line age. That means lower costs
2. It's small. These modules don't require large financial commitments (as powerplants go) with massive build times.
3. It's lower maintenance. These are sealed units that you dig a hole, bury, wire up to the grid, and swap out every twenty years for another sealed unit.
4. It's safer. We've learned a lot since the 1950s when Fukushima's reactor modules were built. We know how to build plants so that they actually can't melt down. The nuclear chain reaction shuts down automatically when things go wrong.
5. Whole plant replacement means that every 20 years the whole installation gets a security and safety upgrade as part of the refueling cycle. Legacy plants like Fukushima with its 60 year old technology just don't happen with the modular deals.

Marycatherine Barton said...

The last time I reviewed the campaign contributions received by Indiana's Congressmen, AIPAC, the Israeli Lobby, gave a greater amount to Mike Pence than to any of the others. (In the Senate, Bayh was one of the biggest recepients.) Please, God of Love, may Indiana not allow nuclear reactors to be built here.