Jul
19
NRC Bureaucrats Need to Up Their Nuclear Game
“That’s just a bunch of crap.” — Ray Rothrock, former nuclear engineer
It’s not hard to find articles these days about rising electricity prices, overburdened power grids, “clean energy”, etc. I’ve posted at least a couple myself.
One of the strangest — or, perhaps, just more frustrating — things is the ongoing, anti-nuclear rhetoric and efforts by activists. While they might have a had couple worthwhile concerns in the past, the technology has improved, changed, even “gone green”. For example, “Private entrepreneurs are making better fuels and reactors that are easier to install.” Yet, despite these and other benefits of clean nuclear power, activists are still warning about improper disposal, meltdowns, etc., citing infamous incidents such as those at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima.
When President Trump recently ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to speed up licensing of new plants, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)) called it a “flagrant disregard for nuclear safety.” To which, former nuclear engineer Ray Rothrock says,
“That’s just a bunch of crap. They’re afraid of something that they don’t need to be afraid of.”
As investigative reporter John Stossel has pointed out,
“In America, new nuclear plants are pretty darn expensive, too. But that’s mainly because of the NRC’s cumbersome rules…. Regulators rarely adjust rules to account for new technology. The NRC required plants to be covered by a dome. But some new reactors, says Rothrock, are ‘not pressurized! There’s no need for a dome. But the rules say you have to build a dome!'”
If you haven’t already read Stossel’s recent, short article on this topic, then go do it already!
