Nuclear Power’s Commanded Heights (Part II)

Note: This is Part 2 of a 2 Part Series.

It was nuclear energy’s dependence on the start and stop policies of the Federal Government that crippled the industry in the 1970s. Civilian Nuclear Power Plants built in the 1960s and 1970s were designed to use ‘recycled‘ uranium fuel rods multiple times before their ultimate disposal. Multiple uses of the same uranium fuel rods reduced waste disposal costs and were central to the economic assumptions of nuclear providing “cheap, safe and virtually unlimited” electrical power of Tesla’s dream.   

In 1971, President Nixon established liquid-metal fast-breeder reactor technology as the most commercially-viable reprocessing technology, and ordered the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (soon to be re-named the Energy Research and Development Administration and later the Department of Energy) to accelerate development of that “fast-breeder” reactor technology. The AEC chose the Clinch River of Eastern Tennessee as the site for its fast-breeder nuclear reactor. 

There were several reasons for the choice of this site. Foremost among them was that the AEC still had the facilities used to enrich the uranium used for weapons. 

Nuclear power suffered a series of blows in the mid-1970s. India tested its first atomic bomb in October 1976. Because India had used reprocessed uranium fuel rods to produce its explosive materials, President Ford issued an executive order banning commercial reprocessing of uranium fuel rods in the U.S. This meant that the government-owned Clinch River Breeder Reactor would be the sole-source for ‘recycling’ uranium fuel rods for U.S. nuclear power plants. 

Then in April 1977, President Jimmy Carter banned even the U.S. Government reprocessing uranium fuel rods out of concern that civilian nuclear reactor fuel-rods could be diverted to weapons-use like India had.  Fundamental assumptions of nuclear power—repeated use of the same fuel rods—and the reduced quantity of nuclear waste, were ‘canceled’ by the Carter decision.  

Then on March 15, 1979, Hollywood released a Sci-Fi thriller, The China Syndrome, starring left-wing actors Jane Fonda, Jack Lemon and Michael Douglas.  The film depicted heroic news reporters Fonda and Douglas exposing corporate shills that concealed design flaws in a nuclear power plant.  When Jack Lemon discovers a design flaw he is threatened and ultimately murdered so the utility company does not have to spend several million dollars complying with Nuclear Regulatory Administration (NRC) regulations. In short, because of corporate greed, nuclear power risked a ‘melt-down’ that would burn all the way through the Earth all the way to China.   

Just about the time box-office sales were trailing-off and scientists—including Edward Teller, were ridiculing the disaster film’s pseudo-science, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania had a partial meltdown on March 28, 1979.  At the same time, President Carter, was facing declining popular support and a possible challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy. As a nuclear engineer trained by the U.S. Navy, President Carter took personal charge of ‘keeping the public informed’ about the dangers posed by the Three-Mile Island incident.  This merging of an over-hyped minor incident at TMI with the mythical meltdown of the movie, cemented in some Americans’ imagination the dangers of nuclear power. 

While President Reagan lifted Carter’s ban on reprocessing, the costs of nuclear power had vastly increased following Three Mile Island. Commercial reprocessing now required substantial subsidies that were anathema to Reagan. Moreover, Congressional action was required to pass such subsidies and anti-nuclear environmentalists had gained control of the Democratic Congress. 

Just as the U.S. Department of Energy was about to re-launch its plans for privatization of uranium enrichment facilities, the Soviet-built nuclear reactor at Chernobyl did come close to The China Syndrome in 1986. The Communist Government of the Soviet Union behaved exactly as the fictional corporate officers in The China Syndrome had. They denied anything had happened until it became obvious. Then, they covered-up the deaths of first-responders. The people living in nearby Prypiat were told to leave their homes and wait—outside—for evacuation buses that did not arrive for many hours—exposing them to radiation that the concrete walls of their apartments would have shielded them from. 

Following the Soviets’ mismanaged evacuation of the town of Prypiat (now in Ukraine), the NRC doubled the size of the evacuation zone nuclear power plants had to have plans for in the event of a similar accident. For the Long Island Nuclear Power Plant, their continued operation required them to have a credible plan for evacuating New York City. Liberals also took control of the NRC and blocked approval of the permanent nuclear waste repository site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Then-Senator Harry Reid’s staffer made this his singular goal when Reid secured the staffer’s appointment as Chair of the NRC. 

Ironically, it was the same liberal environmental groups opposition to nuclear power that kept Americans dependent on the “Fossil Fuels” industry in the four decades since. But “Big Nuclear” has found a ‘new friend’ in President Joe Biden—and some of those same liberal environmental groups that shut them down in the 1970s.  Replacing nearly 300 Million petroleum-fueled vehicles with electric cars will require a lot more electrical power generation than exists today.  Environmentalists would prefer that we all use public transportation—but outside our largest cities, there is no such thing. So after four decades in mothballs, the nuclear power industry has a second chance. 

In a future in which all ‘green energy’ is subsidized by Washington, Big Nuke is elbowing its way in line for handouts. The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has the two government and “Big-Nuke” sharing a bed against their common enemy: the oil and gas industry.  The IRA’s only nominally fights “Inflation” but is camouflage for the “Green New Deal” with $400 Billion in Federal spending and tax credits another $280 Billion in subsidies for manufactures. This centerpiece of Bernie Sanders’ Presidential campaign and the ultra-liberal “Squad” of Democratic liberals was buried deeper than nuclear waste in the IRA. 

To make them forget The China Syndrome worse, some major players in nuclear power are now funding liberal interest groups to keep their silent support.  But there is more at stake here than fuel source—or even how we generate electricity.  “Big Nuke” is now ‘central’ to central planning and the Biden Industrial Policy. Dependence on so-called “Green Energy”—which is, in-turn, dependent on government subsidies, places the Federal Government at the “Commanding Heights” of the U.S. Economy. The Commanding Heights of an economy are its natural resources and utility services and the terms of their trade. By controlling access to fuel and prices of resources, government can control virtually all aspects of the economy.  Alarmingly, this is where government control of nuclear-powered generation of electricity and the “green energy” takes us, because the economy becomes based on allocation of subsidies to favored interests. Alarmingly, its road-map theory was Vladamir Lenin’s “New Economic Plan” and a Trotskyite book, “The New Economics” published nearly a century ago in 1926 (Stalin executed its author in 1937 and Trotsky in 1940). 

Because the Big Nuke interests have surrendered to big government and become their instrument. Nuclear Power is in danger of becoming the vehicle for Socialist Central Planning.  Not only is nuclear power dependent on the government for the uranium fuel rods used for generating electrical power, but even the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will subsidize favored companies. The SEC has published a proposed rulemaking that will favor “green bonds” for nuclear waste disposal for companies that meet ESG standards. To curry favor with the left, some companies are spending shareholders’ money on BLM and other left-wing-causes.   

Terry Campo is an attorney and an energy policy consultant.