WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |Going Nuclear: Wisconsin's moratorium
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GENOA, Wisconsin (WXOW) -- "Right here's the nuclear power plant from the river," Mark Clements says.
Mark runs a boat across the Mississippi River many times a day. It's a shuttle service for his fishing resort.
"I'm a boat pilot, captain," Mark says.
He grew up in Genoa, Wisconsin and got used to the power plant.
"Growing up next to it, nobody even talked about it," he says.
Dairyland Power runs the Genoa plant. The facility generated power using nuclear. Now it's just coal.
"You get more pollution from coal than you do nuclear," he says.
Wisconsin has a moratorium on building new nuclear power plants.
"We have turned our back on one of the most efficient and safe and environmentally friendly sources of energy," says Rep. Mike Huebsch, (R) West Salem.
Lawmakers like Mike Huebsch want to lift that ban.
"While we can look at wind and solar and biomass and all of the other sources of energy that we're looking at and talking about, I think the center point, the hub of that wheel really needs to be nuclear power," Huebsch says.
Xcel Energy runs two nuclear power plants in Minnesota. Terry Pickens is a nuclear engineer and is Xcel's Director of Nuclear Regulatory Policy. He explains how nuclear generates electricity.
"What happens is, you get a neutron released from a uranium atom, and as that neutron travels, it hits the nucleus of a Uranium-235 atom. When that happens, it fissions. It splits apart. Every time that happens, energy is created. Heat," Pickens says.
Nuclear plants put uranium pellets in rods that fit in the core. The uranium pellets used in the rods are the size of ones fingertips, and five of them is enough to produce energy for a household for a whole year.
The process is carbon free, but the outcome is spent nuclear fuel.
Jennifer Nordstrom is part of the Institute for Energy and Environmental research. She says we should not invest in nuclear.
"The uranium, you stick it in. You use it once. It comes out as nuclear waste and then you have to deal with that nuclear waste," Nordstrom says.
Opponents also argue that building nuclear plants is too expensive. Xcel says the cost to build a plant the size of Prairie Island would top $4 billion.
Nordstrom believes banks wouldn't want to pay for nuclear because of those costs. She thinks the taxpayer or costumers would foot the bill.
"No reactor has been ordered and built since 1973, and there's a reason for that. And that is, it's really expensive," Nordstrom says.
Peter Bradford served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1977 to 1982.
"It's greatest vulnerability has been the very high costs that are associated with it," Bradford says.
He and Nordstrom say that money could go toward other renewable forms now, like wind.
Pickens sees nuclear as a good investment.
"It has an abundant fuel source. We have a lot of uranium available. We can produce power without any carbon emissions, which in this era of global climate change is pretty important these days. What we do here we think is pretty safe. So I guess we're passionate about it because we think it benefits society overall."
So what's next for nuclear in Wisconsin? Rep. Huebsch introduced a bill in late October that would lift the moratorium on building nuclear.
"I think we should build more," Mark says.
That's legislation Mark Clements supports.
