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Power Companies planning to Expand South Texas Nuclear Project in Bay City, TX
by IMC Radio Crew
Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 at 5:38 PM
imc-houston-radio@[nospam]lists.indymedia.org
Even During Pledge Drive, Houston Indymedia Radio was able to squeeze in this 12 minute interview with Lara of the Southwest Workers Union of San Antonio about the planned expansion of a nuclear power plant in Bay City Texas.
audio: MP3 at 12.2 mebibytes
LETTER TO THE SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS: Two recent editorials published in the SA Express News October 10th and September 5th urge CPS Energy to pursue its plans to invest in two new nuclear reactors. However, they ignore serious economic as well as environmental concerns that call into question whether more nuclear power generation is the best choice for San Antonio.
Research published by MIT and the US Energy Information Administration concluded that nuclear energy will cost more per kilowatt hour than energy generated from coal, natural gas or wind.
The San Antonio Express News reported that energy bills will go up $4-5/ month just to pay for CPS’s $206 million in initial design work. While total construction costs for the reactors are estimated at $6 billion, according to the Department of Energy the average final cost of new reactor construction is over three times the original estimate. At the same time, prices for uranium have skyrocketed from $8 to $138/lb between 2002 and June of this year.
Nuclear also carries with it a huge unknown: what to do with the tons of radioactive waste. No one knows the future cost of disposing of it properly because viable sites or methods have still not been identified by the industry or regulators. Texas’ current agreement sending low level radioactive waste to South Carolina expires in 2008. In the meantime, high level radioactive waste, which stays deadly for 100,000s of years, will be stored at the reactor site, a huge health and safety risk.
San Antonio is being presented with a false choice: nuclear or energy starvation. According to the State Energy Conservation Office Texas could harness 250,000MW of energy per year from wind alone, four times what’s generated from all sources right now. Instead of taking us backwards, CPS should be striving to lead the nation in developing sustainable renewable energy like wind and solar power.
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