Radiation Sickness

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

America's atomic program is ailing, but Reagan wants to try to cure it

The nuclear industry has had its problems lately, hasn 't it?

--Robert Szalay, vice president of the Atomic Industrial Forum

Among atomic understatements, that one is a classic, ranking perhaps with initial descriptions of the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island as "a normal aberration."

Even before the near-disaster in Pennsylvania, the growth of nuclear power had been slowing steadily. Since then, it has been stopped cold. The share of the nation's electricity generated by fissioning atoms has been stuck since the Pennsylvania "event" at 11.4%, nowhere near the exalted levels that had once been expected.

Even the current proportion may not be maintained for long. This month the Power Authority of the State of New York has shut down an operating reactor at Indian Point because of cracking and leakage in the plumbing of its steam generator; the cities of Austin and San Antonio have developed severe doubts about a big reactor abuilding in Texas; and a Washington State utility combine is faced with -'an uncontrollable termination"--that is, complete cancellation--of two reactors under construction. Surveying the ballooning cost of building nuclear plants, Merrill Lynch, the giant investment firm, coldly suggested in March that one of the best ways for utilities to improve their financial position would be to scrap 18 of the 78 reactors for which construction permits have been issued. Since then, three of the projects on the Merrill Lynch hit list have indeed been junked.

Now, however, nuclear power advocates have found a powerful champion dedicated to reviving the industry: Ronald Reagan. In a policy statement early this month, Reagan committed his Administration to a program to speed the construction of nuclear plants. Said the President: "One of the best potential sources of new electrical energy supplies is nuclear power. [But] the Federal Government has created a regulatory climate that is forcing many utilities to rule out nuclear power as a source of new generating capacity. We must remove [these] unnecessary obstacles."

To begin with, Reagan lifted the ban imposed by Jimmy Carter in 1977 on reprocessing the uranium in spent fuel rods into plutonium, which is used in atomic bombs. That ban was supposed to help check the spread of nuclear weapons. Lifting it may in the long run help power companies get rid of some of the nuclear garbage piling up outside their plants, but its immediate impact will be small. Only one reprocessing plant now exists in the U.S., in Barnwell County, S.C., and it is operating as a research rather than as a commercial facility.

Far more important, Reagan ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed up procedures for licensing nuclear plants, so that the time from first blueprint to the start of electricity production, which now is as long as 14 years, can be cut to six to eight years. NCR Chairman Nunzio Palladino is thinking of standardizing nuclear-plant designs. Also, Reagan ordered the Administration to work with industry on developing safe methods for the permanent disposal of nuclear wastes. The Government would like to open demonstration sites to test methods for burying atomic garbage safely underground.

Whether this multipronged program will bring any turn-around is highly problematic, important parts of it need approval by Congress and are certain to face stiff opposition. Nuclear skeptics point to design flaws recently discovered in plants in late stages of construction as proof that lengthy licensing reviews, cumbersome though they may be, are still needed. And while everyone agrees in theory that the Government must help industry find safe methods to dispose permanently of nuclear waste, choosing the sites for demonstration dumps will be a gigantic headache. No Congressman's constituents will want to live next door to one.

Even nuclear power executives greeted the Reagan program with restrained enthusiasm. They expressed pleasure at discovering that the U.S. now has a President who is wholeheartedly in favor of nuclear power. But they cautioned that a revival of atomic power depends quite as heavily on the success of Reagan's economic program as on any specific help for their industry.

If atomic power is to have much future, the President's program of tax and budget cuts must bring down the towering interest rates that help balloon the costs of nuclear plants, which are built mostly with borrowed money. The White House also must pep up the economy enough to speed the consumption of electricity. Power demand, which was growing by about 7% a year in the early '70s, when many nuclear plants now under construction were first proposed, has leveled off at about a 3% annual increase.

For the nation as a whole this indicates salutary energy conservation as well as a sluggish economy, but for the nuclear power industry, the slower growth of electricity demand spells trouble. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority has deferred additional work on five of the twelve reactors it is building until power consumption rises enough to justify finishing them. Says an official of the Atomic Industrial Forum, the industry lobby: "If the demand for electricity doesn't take a big leap, the demand for nuclear isn't going to either."

Meanwhile, the industry's troubles continue to deepen. On the day before the Reagan Administration announced its pro-nuclear program, a federal appeals court in California dealt the industry a heavy blow by upholding a state law that permitted California to prohibit the construction of nuclear plants until an acceptable way is found to dispose of wastes. Two U.S. district courts had earlier ruled that Washington had exclusive authority to decide which reactors should operate and which should not.

But the three-judge appeals court decided that a state can enforce its own rules, as long as they do not conflict with specific federal standards governing radiation hazards. Unless reversed by the Supreme Court, the ruling means that a state can prevent operation of a reactor licensed by the Federal Government.

Even the industry's rare victories these days seem to turn to ashes.

The start-up of the big Diablo Canyon plant in California last month was supposed to give nuclear power a much needed boost. Televised noisy demonstrations by protesters who contended that the plant had been built too close to an earthquake fault had failed to stop it. But then, just as fuel was about to be loaded for test production, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the plant's owner, discovered a startling error: pipes meant for one area of the plant had been installed in another. P G & E halted operations until the foul-up could be rectified, which will happen in a month -- maybe.

Moreover, Diablo Canyon is only the most conspicuous and embarrassing reverse the industry has suffered. Some other setbacks that have occurred in the past three months:

-- Northern Indiana Public Service Co. in August permanently scrapped plans for its big Bailly plant. The esti-'"mated cost of the facility had multiplied almost ten times, from $ 187 million when first proposed in 1970 to $1.8 billion, but the big objection was the site. The installation is 30 miles from Chicago's Loop and 6 1/2 miles from Gary, Ind., closer to major population centers than anyone now thinks wise.

-- Boston Edison Co. in September abandoned plans for its Pilgrim II plant in Plymouth, Mass. When first proposed in 1972, the plant was supposed to cost $402 million and begin producing electricity in 1979; by last month the cost was estimated at $4 billion and start-up projected for 1990.

-- The city council of San Antonio this week will vote on whether to pull the city out of a project to build a nuclear plant near Bay City, Texas; residents of Austin will make a similar decision in a referendum on Nov. 3. The cities are partners with two utilities in the project, which is now expected to cost up to $4.8 billion, four times the $1.2 billion estimated in 1973, and has developed other difficulties.

A consulting firm has found defects in the electrical and ventilation systems serious enough, in its judgment, to threaten the plant's ability to win an operating license.

-- Washington Public Power Supply System last week failed to raise $150 million in emergency loans from participating utilities and prospective customers for two nuclear plants in the state. It had sought the cash not to continue construction on the reactors, but merely to put them in mothballs for two years. Lacking the money to do that, WPPSS (pronounced whoops) this week will consider proposals for scrapping the plants.

As if all that were not enough, the industry is still plagued with the problem of cleaning up after the Three Mile Island accident. The mishap left the containment building of TMI Unit No. 2 awash in eight feet of radioactive water. Decontamination crews late last month began moving the water through filters designed to remove radioactive material. The water will then be pumped into storage tanks on the island and held until the remaining radioactivity drops low enough to permit it to be dumped somewhere or other, which could take 40 to 50 years.

The cleanup will cost an estimated $1 billion. General Public Utilities Corp., parent company of the plant's operator, has spent all the money it could recover from insurers and is $760 million short.

Pennsylvania Governor Richard Thornburgh has proposed a complex plan under which the cost would be split among G.P.U., other utility companies, the Federal Government and the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where G.P.U. also operates.

In Thornburgh's view, success for his plan is the key to the survival of nuclear power. Says the Governor: "If this nation does not raise the $760 million I am told it will take to remove a certified threat to the health and safety of Pennsylvanians, it certainly has no business debating public and private investment in nuclear energy for the rest of the country."

So far, portents are favorable. The utility industry has decided to chip in, and David Stockman, Reagan's chief budget slasher, announced a few days ago that the Administration would ask Congress to contribute. He did not specify an amount, but the federal share is estimated at $100 million.

Even after that, can the nuclear industry be rescued? And should it be?

There are still compelling arguments in favor of atomic electricity: it does provide an alternative to imported oil, and for all the justified concern over safety, no consumer has yet been killed in an atomic accident. But nuclear plants are turning out to be extremely expensive to build, and their advantage in operating costs over coal-fired plants has dwindled to the vanishing point; the Department of Energy figures that in 1980 nuclear reactors produced electricity at an operating cost of 2.320 per kilowatt hour, vs.

2.330 for coal-fired plants. For all Reagan's backing, the industry has yet to prove that it can deliver power safely at an acceptable cost.

--By George J. Church.

Reported by Gary Lee/Washington and Peter Stoler/New York, with other U.S. bureaus

With reporting by Gary Lee, Peter Stoler

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