Jon Gertner’s report on nuke power in the New York Times Magazine is one of the best written and fairest I have seen. Jon Gertner is an excellent writer who has done his homework. I found only one minor error….”steam would turn giant, magnetized turbines.” Turbines are not magnetized; the generator is on the same shaft and has magnets that rotate in coils of wire.
The original concept of nuclear power as “base load,” with pumped storage hydro is now, more than ever the best, most efficient way to satisfy demand for electricity. It truly was too cheap to meter, at least with our computer system.
Generation is run according to its thermal efficiency, the amount of electricy produced per pound of fuel used. The most modern computer measured the cost of fossil fuel in dollars per megawatt (MW), where nuclear fuel cost was in pennies per MW. The disparity was so great that the nuclear generation is left out of the computer.

On the strength of that concept, the Power Authoity of New York built a pumped storage hydro plant at Niagra Falls, New England Electric built one on the Deerfield River in Massachsetts and Northeast Utilities built Northfield Mountain. Water is pumped up from the Connecticut River to a resevoir at night when loads are so light that the nuclear plants would be at or close to zero power and would have to give away power or reduce generation. Then water is run throught four 250 MW generators during the day when the cost of generation is high. For every three MW used to pump at low cost, two MW are generated and sold at high cost. The plant could also provide help in the spring floods by using a spillway from the upper resevoir to Quabbin Resevoir. Politics interfered with that idea over cost and payments.

The down sides of nukes are well known. Waste could become a problem. Safety is always a concern. After forty years on rotating shifts, I am well aware of the toll the work takes on the body. Mistakes are made between four and seven AM when the body temperature goes down. With the research Florida Power has done on shift work and the long term experience with mercury boilers at Portsmouth, New Hampshore and the South Meadow plant in Hartford, Connecticut, coupled with the forty years experience with nukes, I feel safe. The five nuclear plants supervised by CONVEX had the best safety record in the industry.
Arguments for nukes are many, but the most important one for Florida is never mentioned; fresh water. The millions being spent on reverse osmosis is a waste. Nuclear plants produse an abundance of steam. The cost of a source of heat to boil sea water is the main draw back to evaporators. Steam as a nuclear plant by-product can produce an abundance of fresh water. The evaporator technology is well known and simple to learn.

Gene DesRoches
Largo

P.S. I was a Systen Operations Supervisor retired from the Connecticut Valley Electric Exchange (CONVEX), the dispatching center of the generation and transmission of electricity for Connecticut and Western Massachusetts