美国国家公共电台 NPR Waste, Families Left Behind As Nuclear Plants Close

Waste, Families Left Behind As Nuclear Plants Close

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The U.S. nuclear power industry is shrinking. Another plant goes offline today. Nuclear power is expensive compared to some alternatives. Frank Morris of member station KCUR reports that that's forcing the industry to reckon with what critics call a broken system.

FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE²: This plant where I'm standing³ is a good example. This is the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant half an hour north of Omaha, Neb. This plant is full of new equipment. There's a building right across from me, a white concrete box that's still under construction. It's licensed⁵ until 2033, but this plant is shutting down.

BROCK LINDAU: I think we're going 100 miles an hour running perfect and somehow they just took the wheels off from underneath⁶ us and now we're trying to skid⁷ to a halt.

MORRIS: Brock Lindau spent most of his career at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant. He helped install almost $700 million in upgrades that got the plant through a flood and a fire and helped get a license⁴ to operate until 2033. In turn, the plant's given Lindau a good income which he's used to buy a big house.

LISA LINDAU: So today, I have to paint the trim around the windows.

MORRIS: Lisa Lindau says they love this place, but they have to get it ready to sell when Brock loses his job.

L. LINDAU: And it's kind of sad because you think as you're painting, you think a lot, you know? And you can't help but think as you paint, you're painting for the next people.

MORRIS: If the Lindaus are perplexed⁸, it's understandable. The Fort Calhoun plant cranked out electricity for 43 years, and it was licensed for another 17. Decommissioning will cost up to $1.5 billion and take up to 60 years. Still, Tim Burke figures eating all of that is cheaper than keeping the plant in production. Burke runs the Omaha Public Power District, which owns Fort Calhoun, and he says that operating a small plant like this one, especially in a region with abundant wind power and natural gas just doesn't make sense.

TIM BURKE: So we had low-cost energy primarily due to increased wind, low cost natural gas and a lot of capacity now in this regional transmission organization.

MORRIS: And it's not like his customers are using more power. Across the U.S., demand has been flat for a decade. New capacity drives down price. Nuclear power with its stiff regulations and fixed⁹ expenses can have a hard time competing.

ALLISON MACFARLANE: There's certainly accelerated decommissioning. There's a lot more decommissioning going on now than there was, say, 10 or 15 years ago.

MORRIS: Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says it wasn't supposed to be like this. A decade ago, low carbon nuclear power had a bright future as a tool to fight climate change. Now the industry's shrinking.

MACFARLANE: There are now more plants going offline than coming online.

MORRIS: Then what happens to the nuclear waste?

MACFARLANE: Yeah. Well, that's an excellent question. It doesn't go anywhere (laughter). There isn't any solution for it right now, which is a big problem.

MORRIS: The government had a solution, Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Utility rate payers kicked in $34 billion to develop a long-term storage facility there. But Christina Simeone with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy says that plan's not going anywhere.

CHRISTINA SIMEONE: So what is happening is plants across the country are having to store waste on site. That's every nuclear power plant in the country is storing this high-level radioactive waste on site.

MORRIS: Simeone says that set up is, A, dangerous - nuclear power plants and de facto nuclear waste dumps are sited near water which can spread nuclear waste and, B, expensive - waste has to be stored in heavy concrete casks and guarded. The government has already paid more than $5 billion for that. And Simeone says that figure is likely to mushroom to about 30 billion minimum a decade from now. For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris in Kansas City.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

4 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

5 licensed   

adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The new drug has not yet been licensed in the US. 这种新药尚未在美国获得许可。
• Is that gun licensed? 那支枪有持枪执照吗？

6 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

7 skid   

v.打滑 n.滑向一侧；滑道 ，滑轨

参考例句：

• He braked suddenly,causing the front wheels to skid.他突然剎车，使得前轮打了滑。
• The police examined the skid marks to see how fast the car had been travelling.警察检查了车轮滑行痕迹，以判断汽车当时开得有多快。

8 perplexed   

adj.不知所措的

参考例句：

• The farmer felt the cow,went away,returned,sorely perplexed,always afraid of being cheated.那农民摸摸那头牛，走了又回来，犹豫不决，总怕上当受骗。
• The child was perplexed by the intricate plot of the story.这孩子被那头绪纷繁的故事弄得迷惑不解。

9 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。