Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 4, 1992 TAG: 9202040390
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HINTS FROM AEP
ON HIS WAY into retirement as American Electric Power chairman, W.S. White Jr. said in December the country needs to find a way to use nuclear energy to generate electricity.A couple of days later, AEP - parent of Appalachian Power - said it will continue to rely on coal, which provides nearly 90 percent of its energy. Atomic power is an important option, said AEP President Richard E. Disbrow, but he added that the company's plans through 2011 include no nukes beyond one it already has in Michigan.
Disbrow recently became chairman. As president he was succeeded by E. Linn Draper Jr., a nuclear engineer and past president of the American Nuclear Society. That prompted new speculation about the atom.
Doubtless AEP, in the heart of coal-mining country, will burn lots of coal for decades to come. But with worries mounting about global warming and about other environmental and health effects of coal, it can also be expected that the company will take a long look at other possibilities.
The same is true of many electrical utilities. The peaceful atom long ago lost its post-World War II promise. It's been a lot costlier than expected, and its many safety problems still give pause. A death-like pallor has settled over the industry - no new reactor has been planned since 1978, and several in progress then have been scrubbed. Yet a utility as large and efficiently run as American Electric Power does not rule out nuclear power for the future.
Nor should it. Still, it is right to think hard before pulling the switch. If the atom is to become a viable option again, utilities, regulators and governments must face up to the painful lessons of the past 40 years.
First, nuclear-plant design must change. There are better and safer ways to build them than like Three Mile Island. Western Europe learned these ways better than America; after World War II, the U.S. government promoted nuclear energy - in part because of its links to nuclear weapons - with insufficient respect for its dangers.
Adm. Lewis Strauss, who headed the old Atomic Energy Commission, predicted the atom would produce energy "too cheap to meter." But not only did nukes turn out to be expensive and, often, inefficient to run; building and operating them also has incurred costs that don't show up in rate structures.
For one thing, our society has not come to terms with nuclear-waste disposal. That may be less a technical problem than a political one (finding acceptable sites); but it still involves sizable expenses that taxpayers must bear. A related problem is mothballing old nukes, such as Virginia Power's aging Surry plant: You can't just padlock and walk away from a highly radioactive facility. Like no other form of energy, nuclear power demands endless and undivided attention.
That's not what Americans are good at. We have a way of hiding, or hiding from, true energy costs. Coal and oil have them too. Whatever mix of fuels we rely on, we ought to know all the consequences - and prepare for them, instead of putting all that off onto later generations.