Nuclear Power in Utah
Two representatives from Utah are looking to place a nuclear power plant in the state for reasons that may include personal business interests, Jessica Kendrick, a field organizer for Heal Utah, said Thursday at a public meeting.
Heal Utah, which stands for The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, is working to keep a nuclear plant out of the state and protect residents from nuclear or toxic waste and dislikes the fact that two Utah legislators are working to get a nuclear plant in Utah when their business interests are pushing them that way, Kendrick said.
“These two men in very powerful positions are sitting on this committee with a huge conflict of interest,” Kendrick said. “We are going full steam ahead with (building a nuclear power plant) because of these legislators and their business dealings.”
Kendrick said she feels Utah has been receiving the brunt of the bad effects of nuclear power.
“For over four decades, Utah has been right in the bullseye. We have uranium mined from our own soil only to have it be returned to us as radioactive waste. What a legacy,” Kendrick said.
Kendrick said not only are there negative effects of having nuclear power plants, but the entire process of creating nuclear energy is dangerous.
“It begins with mining,” Kendrick said. “With uranium mining you not only have the typical dangers of working in the mine but you now have the effects of radiation.
After the uranium is mined it has to be milled, Kendrick said. Utah is home to the only current operational mill, and the mill has had adverse affects on the people around it.
“When the mill was first opened, house wives brought clothes inside instead of hanging them outside because the hazardous dust burned holes in the clothes,” Kendrick said.
The radiation can get to the point were it causes cancer, Kendrick said.
“In Monticello, a small town of 2,000 people, 427 of them have been diagnosed with cancer from this,” Kendrick said.
After the uranium is milled, it has to be enriched and then used in the power plants, Kendrick said. Utah does not currently have a nuclear power plant, but even without a power plant, Utahns are still getting the effect of it from the nuclear waste that is moved to the state each year, she said.
“96 percent of the country’s low level waste is dumped in the state each year,” Kendrick said. “Low level is not low risk. Some of this waste is still so hot it has to be robotically handled.”
Kendrick said some states have tried to move nuclear waste to Utah on the pretense that it will be moved to Yucca, Nev. when it opens.
“40,000 tons of high level nuclear waste was almost moved to Utah,” Kendrick said. “They claimed they were going to move it to Yucca after it opened, but it probably won’t open so then we would be stuck with it.”
Not only does nuclear power create a lot of waste, but it is also very expensive, Kendrick said.
“This is expensive power, not cheap power as the public has been led to believe,” Kendrick said. “Nuclear power is a high risk investment. More nuclear power plants are started and not finished then started and finished.”
Some companies have claimed they can make nuclear power more efficient by recycling the materials, but there is not much they can recycle, Kendrick said.
“The amount that can be recycled of a fuel rod is one percent,” Kendrick said. “It is like taking the tip of a pop can and recycling that and then throwing the rest of the can away. That can’t be called recycling.”
Kendrick said she and Heal Utah feel the best way to deal with nuclear waste is “you make it, you keep it.”
“If you are going to get the benefit of a nuclear power plant, don’t put another community at risk,” Kendrick said.
Kendrick said there hasn’t been a new nuclear power plant built in America in 20 years and now people are talking about building them again, saying “nuclear power is better and cleaner now.”
“Nuclear power is coming and asking us for a second chance,” Kendrick said. “But I don’t think it can be clean without a government crutch and so we need to look for other options.”
Kendrick said she doesn’t want to see Utah residents take the financial fall for a nuclear power plant.
“Nuclear power can turn a one billion dollar investment into a one billion dollar liability.”
Kendrick said if companies are going to start building more nuclear power plants, the companies need to work out the problems first.
“We don’t want to be the guinea pigs who have to front the money to work out the kinks in nuclear power,” she said.
-debrajoy.h@aggiemail.usu.edu