Small-scale nuclear plants big enough to satisfy all the power needs of towns the size of Salem, Ore., for example, can be built as a source of cheap, clean and safe electricity. Nuclear power engineers have long known that smaller plants can be built in the middle of a water pond or reservoir. And in case of an emergency, such as we are now seeing in Japan, the reactor can be cooled by manually flooding it without the need for back-up pumps or outside water sources.
Nuclear electrical power generation isn’t complicated. Stick a nuclear rod in your coffee cup, use the steam to power a conventional steam-powered electric generator — no different from a coal- or oil-fired steam plant. Nuclear power has been providing safe atomic steam turbine/electrical power to America’s aircraft carriers and submarines for decades. To shoot down nuclear electrical power is like blaming the rifle that shot President Kennedy for his death when it was the rifle’s owner who killed him.
Owners want big megawatt nuclear power plants that can provide large amounts of electricity to expand their national and regional electrical grid systems. They do not want the competition of a lot of smaller plants serving smaller markets eating into their electrical revenue monopolies.
Al Hayward
Washougal
