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State lawmakers took a look Wednesday at the safety record of nuclear power with eyes on the disaster at the still-unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and the prospect of Utah's first nuclear plant in Green River.
"We believe it is extremely unlikely that an accident at a U.S. reactor will have serious consequences," Nils Diaz told members of the Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee.
A former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and chief strategic officer for Blue Castle Holdings, the company proposing the 3,000-megawatt Green River plant, Diaz said the United States nuclear industry already has a robust system for designing, building, operating and emergency response. Moreover, he said, new plants will further reduce the likelihood of any harm from nuclear reactors because of new-soon-to-be approved designs.
In contrast, Matt Pacenza, policy director for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said the same human and technical errors that have compounded the troubles at Fukishima over the past two months already happen at U.S. nuclear plants.
He also noted that Diaz, in the early days after the earthquake and tsunami that has led to radiation leaks in Japan, grossly downplayed the hazard at Fukushima, putting the radiation risk at 2 or 3 in the International Atomic Energy Agency scale of 1 to 7. Current estimates are that the hazards at Fukushima are close to those from the Chernobyl meltdown 25 years ago, at or around 7 on the scale, he said.
"What happened in Japan," said Pacenza, "is a really big deal."
But, in the end, Pacenza said his group's main beefs with nuclear energy are the high cost, compared with other energy sources and the industry's thirst for the West's limited water resources.
Committee members learned that Blue Castle Holdings, which is preparing to file an NRC early site application for the Green River Plant next summer, has not chosen a specific plant design and that the NRC has yet to approve any of the four standard reactor designs that are under review. Lawmakers also were told that Blue Castle expects to sell about 50 percent of the power generated by the Green River plant in Utah to out-of-state customers.
Rep. Fred C. Cox, R-West Valley City, said he wanted to see a comparison of water use by coal, gas and nuclear plants. Rep. Roger Barrus, R-Centerville, said the nuclear industry is already safe and will be more so with new plant designs.
"I am one," Barrus said of the full array of energy sources, "who says we need them all."
Sen. Ben McAdams, D-Salt Lake City, said lawmakers are faced with weighing the probability of an accident and the possible consequences of one. While the likelihood of an accident might be low, the consequences of an accident in Green River could be quite high, he said.
"We're making a risk assessment today," said McAdams, wondering aloud if it is a risk Utah will bear for the benefit of power users in California and if residents are willing to take that risk.