Three Mile Island power plant to shut down today... for good

[Dennis Donovan]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/462294-three-mile-island-power-plant-to-shut-down



BY MARINA PITOFSKY - 09/20/19 09:26 AM EDT

At noon Friday, the remaining nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island will generate its final kilowatt of energy as the infamous nuclear site shuts down permanently, USA Today reported.

Although the plant is licensed to operate until 2034, Exelon Generation, which owns the site, is shutting it down after the state of Pennsylvania refused to allow nuclear plants to charge more for the electricity they produce or enact reforms that would help make the energy from the site more profitable.

Officials announced that the site would be closed in 2017 if there was no change in state policies on charging for nuclear energy, CNN reported, although Friday marks the official end to its production. The company said it had not been profitable for five years.

Three Mile Island is primarily known for having the worst nuclear power disaster in U.S. history after a partial core meltdown at one reactor in 1979. The meltdown is credited with empowering the anti-nuclear movement, and it served as a catalyst to enact regulations on the nuclear power industry.

</snip>

...40 years after the accident.

[stonecutter357]

1. good !

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. there are much safer designs today

Still have the problem of spent fuel, though.

[Dennis Donovan]

3. Nuclear's clean, except for the waste.

Maybe they could store it on the moon?

[hunter]

4. Spent nuclear fuel isn't going to destroy our world civilization...

... but spent fossil fuel will.

The volume of spent nuclear fuel is small and containable.

The wastes produced by fossil fuels, both in extraction and as exhaust, are not.

Many toxins associated with fossil fuels, especially coal, have a half life of FOREVER.

A world economy powered exclusively by renewable, non-nuclear, energy would look nothing like the economy many affluent people now enjoy. It's also possible such an economy could not support the world's current human population, let alone increased population.

I think if fossil fuels were banned in some short time period, say ten or twenty years, opposition to nuclear power would evaporate.

As things stand now, the renewable energy industry is mostly greenwash for the "natural" gas industry. Natural gas does not serve as back-up power when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, instead natural gas is the primary energy source and sun and wind power are supplemental. There's no foreseeable renewable energy technology that will change this.

There's enough natural gas in the ground to destroy the earth's natural environment as we know it. Hybrid gas-wind-solar energy systems will not "save the world."

Fossil fuel use is increasing worldwide and anti-nuclear activism is one of the reasons.