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Environment

Hydropower is clean. It prevents the burning of 22 billion gallons of oil or 120 million tons of coal each year. Hydropower does not produce greenhouse gases or other air pollution. Hydropower leaves behind no waste. Reservoirs formed by hydropower projects in Wisconsin have expanded water-based recreation resources, and they support diverse, healthy, and productive fisheries. In fact, catch rates are substantially higher on hydropower reservoirs than natural lakes.

Cost

Hydropower is the most efficient way to generate electricity. Mod­ern hydroturbines can convert as much as 90% of the available energy into electricity. The best fossil fuel plants are only about 50% efficient. In the U. S., hydropower is produced for an average of 0.7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). This is about one-third the cost of using fossil fuel or nuclear and one-sixth the cost of using natural gas. Hydropow­er does not experience² rising or unstable fuel costs.

Renewable

Hydropower is the leading source of renewable energy. It provides more than 97% of all electricity generated by renewable sources. Oth­er sources including solar, geothermal, wind, and biomass account for less than 3% of renewable electricity production.

Recreation

Reservoirs formed by hydroelectric dams provide many water-based recreational opportunities including fishing, water sports, boating, and water fowl³ hunting. Hydro-operators own a significant amount of land around many reservoirs that is open to the public for uses including hiking, hunting, snowmobiling, and skiing. Hydro-oper­ators provide many recreation facilities at their hydropower projects including boat landings, swimming beaches, restrooms, picnic areas, fishing piers, hiking and nature trails, canoe portages, and park­ing facilities.

Unit IX

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Nuclear Station Performance Fuels Industry Renaissance

The US is producing not only more electricity than ever, but also more favorable consideration as a viable part of the nation's energy mix. Consider that, for the first time in decade, political leaders are proposing nuclear power as an important, long-term energy solution. And utility companies that canceled nuclear projects in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Ireland accident are studying the feasibility of resurrecting these projects, while other power producers are investi­gating new nuclear plants orders. Even the mainstream media - known for its harsh treatment of the industry - has begun talking in terms of a nuclear industry "renaissance".

The near-term impetus for this turn-around stems from recent events - regional power shortages, increased natural gas costs, and premium mar­ket prices for electricity. However, the fact that nuclear power is in the position to be favorably considered is a result of the substantial perfor­mance improvements achieved at US plants during the past decade.

Most important, these performance gains came with equally im­pressive improvements in safety indicators. For instance, the number of unusual events reported to the US NRC dropped from 151 in 1990 to just 18 in 2002. The challenge for individual nuclear stations is to con­tinue this momentum by solidifying competitive gains already achieved and squeezing further improvements from each unit.

US nuclear plants have done an excellent job of maintaining and improving plant design margins and operating reliability. Extensive monitoring and surveillance testing of plant systems, structures and components such as containment building, reactor vessel, reactor cool­ing system pressure boundary, steam generators, pressurizer, piping, pump casings, and valve bodies are performed yearly to verify the plant is maintained in excellent condition. Few if any nuclear plant compo­nents will require replacement specifically to achieve extended opera­tion for an additional 20 years.

TMI, Chernobyl, Now Tokaimura

Japan, which ranks second only to France in the size of its nuclear power plant fleet, has suffered an accident that could become Asia's version of the US's Three Mile Island and Europe's Chernobyl. In terms of severity, however, the accident is nothing like Chernobyl but more serious than TMI, according to observers.

At the fuel reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, about one hour from Tokyo, workers apparently mixed nuclear fuel with nitric acid in viola­tion of government and company procedures. The fuel was for Japan's experimental breeder reactor.