The Wall Street Journal recently published an opinion about pork barrel programs and nuclear reactors by Tom Schatz and Scott Denman.

I would like to further illuminate their audience about government spending on nuclear research.

The purpose of their opinion seems to be to denigrate the expense of research, calling the Advanced Light Water Reactor program “pointless.” There may also be an anti-nuclear agenda here.

True, there currently is next to no domestic market for reactors, but the overseas market has brought in a ton of money (jobs) via GE, Westinghouse, and ABB/Combustion Engineering.

Not every reactor ordered in the past 23 years, as stated by Schatz and Denman, was canceled—TVA just finished one. The problem with plant cost and time is the legal issue: every plant was challenged so stridently that all of the paperwork and court time required took forever.

Four or five years ago, a law was passed that allowed one-step licensing, which means one hearing about site suitability, and that’s it. So once the site was selected and approved, a plant could be constructed in a couple of years or so, and could operate shortly thereafter.

This was due to the ALWR project, which allowed certain designs to be approved by the NRC.

So a plant order for one of these designs would result in a constructed plant within five years, allowing two years for trials, which could actually be completed in several months.

As for the economic viability of nuclear power, it is possible to generate power at a price of two mills per kilowatt-hour; 10 mills make one penny. Compare this to your current price for your fossil fuel power(probably about 7.5 cents per kWh).

Schatz and Denman go on to state that 60 percent of the U.S.’s energy R&D money went to nuclear power programs between 1948 and ’96.

Let’s not forget that nuclear weapons were also the province of the Department of Energy during most of that time… and Lord knows our government and many others devoted a lot of money to such “black” programs, all the while saying the money was earmarked for other peaceful uses.

Even if this were not the case, the end result of the globe’s safest nuclear reactor designs should be considered well worth it.

Take a look at the Chernobyl disaster, which was the result of NOT taking the time to do things right.

These ALWR designs are more efficient and inherently safer than any reactors we have now, so I’d think we should love them by comparison.

Water is circulated by natural convection, eliminating the need for pumps (HUGE power input savings), and that reduces the possibility of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), which is the worst possible accident for any American reactor.

Three Mile Island had a partial LOCA, due to a stuck valve, which resulted in minor warping of fuel rods (meltdown stage 1), AFTER the emergency core cooling system was manually shut down by operators acting on incomplete instrument indications.

Still, there was no nuclear excursion, just some hot metal warping a bit. That is one safe reactor.

The one-step designs do not have these problems. Nor do they have all of the add-ins required by the NRC.

Any equipment is designed into them, then certified by the NRC, so the cost is again lower, because there is no need to upgrade or change systems. It reduces risk of malfunction, too.

People don’t want nukes because they think of Chernobyl.

They don’t understand that coal plants are far more dangerous—releasing more than 25 times the amount of radiation one would get standing next to a reactor containment building (something Chernobyl did not have), but in a breathableform! Internal radiation doses are WAY more dangerous than external.

People (and power industry execs) don’t seem to have begun to realize yet that the rate of our fossil fuel consumption is increasing.

Using Natural Gas for baseload power generation at more and more plants nationally is partly to blame for this.

The fossil reserves, in easily obtainable form, have long been expected to run out completely by 2015.

That will leave the difficult forms, which are more expensive and limited, to run our cars, etc., for maybe 10 years after that.

We are VERY quickly approaching that deadline, and synthetics use natural petroleum as a base, so tough luck there, too.

So enjoy your 10-15 years of relatively cheap power.

Back to candles, I guess.

The supply of fuel for nuclear power is unlimited. Reactors make their own fuel, and do it very efficiently with the right design. As it is, 93 percent of discharged fuel is still usable, so if we were to reprocess that fuel, as the French do, we’d have a very large resource of ready-to-use fuel, and an absolutely gigantic reduction in waste volume.

Who’d be disappointed by that?

About 20 percent of the U.S. power supply comes from nuclear plants, not the eight percent stated in the Wall Street Journal article.

The Simplified Boiling Water Reactor design was abandoned in favor of the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design. Evaluation and changes in design are a part of research and development, not a waste of funds.

How can we put a price on what it costs to develop safe, efficient, and clean power sources?

The $275 million dollar budget over the past five years for nuclear research is a drop in the barrel compared to other government programs, such as welfare.

So if the companies who’ve taken on this responsibility to provide us with safe, lasting power options make a little bit of money during this ALWR program, what’s the harm?

The profit is nowhere near these companies’ net worth.

Think of all of those unemployed GE and Westinghouse workers on welfare if this funding were cut.

Which costs more, welfare or the program funding?

I can guarantee it’s welfare, in a monetary and sociological sense.

Thomas E. Draur has a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Iowa State. He is a graduate student in environmental engineering.