The Times and U-T San Diego coverage mentioned the closures of the Kewaunee and Crystal River plants, but low in their main stories and, in passing, as part of he-said, she-said arguments between supporters and opponents of nuclear power. (The U-T San Diego website also contains an Associated Press story on other nuclear plant closures.) Times reporter Abby Sewell said she agrees that the larger financial context for nuclear power is a subject worthy of coverage. But she said that she’s a metro reporter and that she feels such overarching coverage would be in the province of other sections of the paper. “I didn’t necessarily see that as within my jurisdiction,” she said.
U-T San Diego reporter Morgan Lee said he was very careful not to exaggerate the implications of the closing of San Onofre, which was caused by problems with steam generators designed specifically for that plant—problems that he summarized as “just a plain, simple screw up not seen elsewhere.” Even so, Lee acknowledged that he was “perhaps too cautious” in exploring the nuclear industry’s wider economic problems.
Of course, media organizations have their own economic problems to worry about, and many metro daily newspapers have focused their reportorial resources ever more closely on local coverage. But some stories that begin locally cannot be fully explained without examining their national or even international ramifications. This is especially true in regard to the nuclear power industry, which would likely not have come to exist but for the efforts and financial support of the federal government.
As illustrated by the recent film, Pandora’s Promise, in which former environmentalists advocate for an expansion of nuclear power because of its low carbon footprint, the nuclear power debate involves climate change. As the continuing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan shows, the debate involves safety. And as Germany’s decision to embark on its Energiewende (energy transition) shows, the debate involves politics. Germany is in the process of shuttering its considerable nuclear power industry by 2022, shifting its energy mix overwhelmingly in the direction of renewables and making it no longer politically unthinkable that a country with nuclear power would forgo it.
The United States is also changing its energy mix—but in a less direct and urgent way. As the Environmental Protection Agency implements new carbon dioxide emissions limits for electrical generating facilities, coal-fired power plants appear to be headed the way of the dodo. An explosion in hydraulic fracturing has expanded the supply and lowered the cost of natural gas, making gas-fired power plants a cheap electricity source. Wind and solar power have greatly increased their contribution to the national energy budget. The uncertain economic outlook for US nuclear power is an important part of the debate over the country’s future energy mix.
The closure of San Onofre could have been the news hook that anchored an important discussion of these larger trends. For the most part, however, in the Southern California papers, this larger context was given short shrift (even as The New York Times reported on it.)
I know well the frantic terror of covering a competitive beat during a major newsbreak, and I dislike Monday morning media quarterbacking that ignores the practical challenges involved in assembling major news packages about large events on relatively little warning. Both Sewell and Lee say they had no early tips on the announcement of the San Onofre shutdown, the specifics of which they reported well, comprehensively, and with obvious energy on a tight timeline. But even as I commend them, I feel compelled to say that they and their papers could have done—and could still do—a better job of connecting the San Onofre specifics to the more general national and international aspects of the story, helping readers understand that when it comes nuclear power, not all politics—or economics—is local.
To that end, here are a handful of resources for reporters working the nuclear power story:
After forty years in energy engineering, a score of nukes, two score fossil fueled power plants and decades assessing advanced technology, what is coming? the barriers? when? how much? (I never worked on SONGS.) I can state with certainty:
The bedrock issue with nuclear power is survival, both economic and societal. Whoever gets it right, will survive. Others will not.
There were two dots, one inch apart, under the ocean near the Japanese coast. In a a few seconds they separated by over 180 feet, and killed some 20,000 people. The utility had been told, years ago, by an expert in tsunamis, that the Fukashima plants, located in the 1960s, was not conservative, had risk of flooding. "That is one man's opinion" was their response. I engineered nine such plants in the US; knew the decision makers. Locating emergency electrical gear in the basement was cheaper. And dumb anywhere flooding was a risk. The largest tsunamis on earth have been recorded, over centuries, along that coast. Thus far, one man has been killed there; he fell from a height.
It is probable that the steam generator engineer, knowledgeable in flow induce vibration, and tube design, is dead, or running a restaurant. He may have been laid off twenty years ago. The problems with Fukushima, SONGS, or Crystal River (split concrete containment) have a common root: no experienced engineers, and where the remnant exists, they are ruled by financial, political, or legal types. The US Congress is devoid of engineers, the nuclear regulatory commission was chaired by an avowed enemy of nuclear energy, an academic, picked by the Senate Leader. We have experienced the death of a American profession; the knowledgeable people now live in China, or France. China produces far more engineers than America; we produce lawyers, ball players and movie actors. US colleges quit teaching this power technology decades ago; their graduates could not find work.
The result is, and will be, a lowered standard of living because energy will be priced beyond the ability of common people to buy it. Any business which used lots of energy have left, or will leave, in order to survive. Our aged grid may collapse one very hot day (or a New England blizzard). Think a ten year outage: no toilets, drinking water, lights, or heat, for millions.
Everybody has to die. That is the bedrock risk assessment involving energy, of every type. In my judgment the KBG would have done a better job for America. In energy policy, a complex topic involving risk, we listen to fools.
#1 Posted by R. L. Hails Sr. P. E., CJR on Tue 16 Jul 2013 at 11:02 AM
WIth all due respect to Mr. Mecklin, his lens still isn't broad enough .... Since 2010, according to Ventyx, the U.S. has seen 14,600 MW of coal-fired power plant closings; another 11,700 MW of natural gas plant closings and, among the balance, 3,500 MW of nuclear plant closings. So 10 percent of the total closings of 35,500 MW of power plants closings has been nuclear. That leaves 90 percent that's something else. If you believe this is strictly a "nuclear" story, you're mistaken; it's an electricity story.
#2 Posted by Steve Kerekes, Nuclear Energy Institute, CJR on Tue 16 Jul 2013 at 02:35 PM
To take Mr. Kerekes comments a little further,
This is also a story about legal mandates regarding Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) not just a nuclear story.
Recent information and studies are showing that existing plants being taken off-line for several reasons inlcuding larger economic picture. However those studies performed by people and companies closer to the generation side are also pointing out that the artificial legal framework of state mandated RPS's are forcing utilities to use critical resources on wind and solar when those resources could be used for other more rate payer beneficial purposes.
Legal mandates for intermittent power sources are having more of an effect on utility long range decision making then many believe.
#3 Posted by Bill Rodgers, CJR on Sat 20 Jul 2013 at 09:12 AM