The audacity of Michael Leigh to describe nuclear energy as cheap, clean and safe was breathtaking ("Want cheap, clean fuel? Go nuclear," Dec. 13 commentary)
Construction costs for a single new nuclear power plant are ballooning to $12 billion. They are so expensive that the owners won’t even pay for them. Those now under construction in Georgia and South Carolina are being subsidized in advance by ratepayers...
Leigh would like to keep Virginia pristine. He presumably favors the continued ban there on uranium mining. But the fuel for his nuclear plants will have to come from somewhere. Mining and processing uranium not only adds to the costs that Leigh omits, these processes release CO2, radiation and heavy metals into the environment, and consume vast quantities of often scarce water supplies.
Costs of decommissioning are also estimated in the billions of dollars. Nuclear power never was and never will be "too cheap to meter...”
MORE: Gunter: Cheap? Clean? Nuclear power is neither - Roanoke Times: Letters
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
International Specialist at
Beyond Nuclear www.BeyondNuclear.org
TAKOMA PARK, MD
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