New Jersey Nukes: The Broken Promise?

<v Richard Scott>New Jersey, three nuclear power plants are about to be joined by a fourth. <v Richard Scott>The Hope Creek reactor is scheduled to go online next year. <v Richard Scott>Its owners, Public Service Electric and Gas and Atlantic Electric, say Hope Creek <v Richard Scott>will provide economic and safe electricity for their customers. <v Richard Scott>But how safe and economical is nuclear power? <v Richard Scott>Critics of nuclear energy say its early promise of being an energy source that's too <v Richard Scott>cheap to meter has been a broken promise. <v Richard Scott>What does the future hold for nuclear energy in New Jersey and elsewhere? <v Richard Scott>Tonight, Larry Stuelpnagel begins his four part series, New Jersey Nukes The Broken <v Richard Scott>Promise. With a look at the costs of nuclear power. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>[Machinery noises] These fuel rod assemblies are some of the latest pieces to fit into <v Larry Stuelpnagel>place as the Hope Creek nuclear power plant prepares to go online next year. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The plant is 99 percent complete. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Its cooling tower dominates the south Jersey skyline of lower Alleyways Creek in Salem <v Larry Stuelpnagel>County. At 512 feet the cooling tower for Hope Creek is the tallest structure <v Larry Stuelpnagel>in New Jersey. But Hope Creek came with a high price tag, approximately 4 billion

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>dollars. And the question now is, how do you pass that cost onto the ratepayers. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Next month, Hope Creeks', principal owner, Public Service Electric and Gas <v Larry Stuelpnagel>will ask the Board of Public Utilities for a record 750 million dollar rate hike <v Larry Stuelpnagel>that will help pay for the plant. <v Lawrence Codey>Well, the overall rate hike, we would expect that as part <v Lawrence Codey>of this filing we're going to make at the end of this year, they hope Kreig revenue <v Lawrence Codey>requirement would translate to an average of about a 15 percent increase <v Lawrence Codey>for customers. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>[Welding noises] That will spark a jump in the average consumer's electric bill, up from <v Larry Stuelpnagel>58 to 67 dollars a month in the summer and from 54 to 62 dollars <v Larry Stuelpnagel>a month in the winter. According to Codey, that 15 percent increase will be built in for <v Larry Stuelpnagel>the life of the plant, which is approximately 30 years. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>New Jersey's public advocate says that means expensive interest costs will also be passed <v Larry Stuelpnagel>on to the ratepayer. <v Alfred Slocum>They're saying the ratepayers will ultimately have to pay as much as twice as much <v Alfred Slocum>as the actual cost of the nuclear facility.

<v Alfred Slocum>And I'm not certain we want to put ourselves ou- in that pot because we're mortgaging <v Alfred Slocum>the future of our children as well as ourselves if we do that. <v Alfred Slocum>And that's a grave concern to me. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Another concern is the performance of PSE&G two other nuclear plants. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Between 1983 and last June, refueling a serious <v Larry Stuelpnagel>accident, a generator, fault control rod repairs and a mistake made during <v Larry Stuelpnagel>those repairs combined to keep the Salem Unit 1 nuclear power plant offline for <v Larry Stuelpnagel>367 days. Next door at Salem too, the problems were worse. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Refueling and condenser tubing, generator repairs followed by a generator failure <v Larry Stuelpnagel>and then a generator replacement and another mechanical failure added up to 595 <v Larry Stuelpnagel>days when the plant was off line. <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>Those problems were primarily caused by the massive generator failures <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>occurred at each one of those stations. <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>Those were beyond the control of the public service itself. <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>They were equipment failures.

<v Corbin McNiell Jr.>We're currently in litigation with the manufacturer of that equipment. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>At Jersey Central Power and Light Oyster Creek plant, what started out in 1982 <v Larry Stuelpnagel>as an 11 month outage for refueling and plant modifications turned into a 20 <v Larry Stuelpnagel>month shutdown when its operator, General Public Utilities, found more problems <v Larry Stuelpnagel>than it anticipated. <v Leonard Coleman>New Jersey's utilities have not performed well with regard to keeping nuclear <v Leonard Coleman>plants online. A national average would be somewhere between 60 and 65 <v Leonard Coleman>percent. Our statewide averages hovering a good 10 percent <v Leonard Coleman>below that national average. So that truthfully, we hav- our <v Leonard Coleman>utilities have not done a good job in that area. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>And when those plants are not operating, the utility has to buy electricity from other <v Larry Stuelpnagel>sources and customers are asked to pay for those expensive replacement power costs. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>When the Salem plants are down, PSE&G spends an average of 10 million dollars a month <v Larry Stuelpnagel>for replacement power. Just last summer, the BPU approved a 137 <v Larry Stuelpnagel>million dollar rate hike to pay for the problems at PSE&G's plants. <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>They should be operating at a higher level.

<v Corbin McNiell Jr.>The nuclear industry, all of the nuclear utilities in the country have set a goal for <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>themselves of 70 percent capacity factor by 1990. <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>The public service, we've set our sights a little higher than that and we're trying to <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>achieve by that time frame an 80 percent capacity factor on our units. <v Alfred Slocum>When I was a child, my mother used to admonish us as children that a promise made is <v Alfred Slocum>a promise kept. And to the extent that the utilities had made <v Alfred Slocum>a promise to the ratepayers that they can provide cheap electricity <v Alfred Slocum>as a consequence of nuclear power plants. <v Alfred Slocum>I'm in no way persuaded that that promise has been kept. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Salem Unit 1 last month set a national record by running 278 straight days <v Larry Stuelpnagel>at 99 percent capacity. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>However, Unit 2 continues to have problems. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>It's run at 49 percent capacity so far this year. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Oyster Creek has enjoyed its best year in 6 years before it was shut down for <v Larry Stuelpnagel>modifications in October, it had run at 74 percent capacity. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Tomorrow night, we'll look at the history of nuclear energy and a proposal to make it <v Larry Stuelpnagel>less costly to the consumer.

<v Kent Manahan>According to the state energy commissioner, New Jersey, three nuclear power plants have <v Kent Manahan>performed poorly, costing consumers millions of dollars when they were shut down. <v Kent Manahan>Industry spokesmen say when the plants are running, they save ratepayers millions. <v Kent Manahan>Just how did we get started in this controversial form of producing electricity? <v Kent Manahan>And how can the plants be made to operate more effectively? <v Kent Manahan>Those are some of the issues that Larry Stuelpnagel examines tonight in his series, New <v Kent Manahan>Jersey Nukes: The Broken Promise? <v Larry Stuelpnagel>One time things were looking up for nuclear energy. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Thirty years ago, we were fascinated with the atom. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>And TV stations like KTLA in Los Angeles covered atomic bomb tests live. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>[News reporter talking] <v News Reporter>And it is with the most out of words that we pay tribute to this fearsome creature <v News Reporter>that we sincerely hope will be used only in a peaceful effort and not <v News Reporter>in other ways. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>That search for a peaceful use of the atom was strongly supported by the federal <v Larry Stuelpnagel>government. The commercial nuclear industry would have had a hard time getting started <v Larry Stuelpnagel>without the help of some friends in high places.

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>In 1953, that friend lived here at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and Dwight <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Eisenhower's program was Atoms for Peace. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>[Applause] The president launched the plan in this speech at the United Nations. <v Dwight Eisenhower>The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy <v Dwight Eisenhower>is no dream of the future. <v Dwight Eisenhower>That capability already proved is here now, today. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>One federal official said years ago nuclear energy would generate electricity that would <v Larry Stuelpnagel>be too cheap to meter. But history shows most plants are built either behind schedule <v Larry Stuelpnagel>over budget or both, producing red ink before a watt of power is even generated. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Work at New Jersey's 4 billion dollar new plant, Oak Creek is ahead of schedule, but <v Larry Stuelpnagel>almost 100 million dollars over budget. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The state's oldest operating plant, Oyster Creek, was 26 months behind schedule and <v Larry Stuelpnagel>20 million dollars over budget when it went online in 1969 and <v Larry Stuelpnagel>its Lacey Township neighbor, JCP Annells for Good River Nuclear Plant, was canceled <v Larry Stuelpnagel>in April 1980 midway through construction.

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>After 450 million dollars had already been invested. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Costs like those all contribute to skyrocketing electricity bills. <v Robert Williams>Over the last decade in the state of New Jersey, for example, the average price <v Robert Williams>of residential electricity corrected for inflation went up about 50 percent since <v Robert Williams>1972, before the first oil shock, the average industrial <v Robert Williams>price of electricity doubled since 1972. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>And customers already paying for a nuclear plant and increased base rates <v Larry Stuelpnagel>are then asked to pay again in replacement power costs when a plant is shut down. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Just last summer, a 137 million dollar PSE&G rate hike was <v Larry Stuelpnagel>approved by the Board of Public Utilities. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The state energy commissioner says New Jersey utilities have not done a good job keeping <v Larry Stuelpnagel>their plants online. To improve that, he is proposing a carrot and stick approach to <v Larry Stuelpnagel>rate increases. Companies would be rewarded when their nuclear plants operate <v Larry Stuelpnagel>at or above the national average of 65 percent capacity, but penalized <v Larry Stuelpnagel>for poor performance.

<v Leonard Coleman>If you do not keep the plant online, then <v Leonard Coleman>utility should be penalized for not doing so. <v Leonard Coleman>And the rate at all those rates not passed on to a ratepayer. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Why is the system like that in place right now? <v Leonard Coleman>Just traditionally, it has not been utility practice, <v Leonard Coleman>regulatory practice to do so. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>But utilities and their regulators disagree on an acceptable operating level for the <v Larry Stuelpnagel>state's nuclear plans. <v Lawrence Codey>I would think something above 65, as <v Lawrence Codey>in terms of a standard, should be where you start to get <v Lawrence Codey>an incentive payment uh for performance and there probably should be a dead <v Lawrence Codey>band, perhaps maybe between 55 and 65. <v Lawrence Codey>That that's kind of where you should be. <v Alfred Slocum>Oh, I think that's too low. <v Alfred Slocum>I think 55 percent capacity is too low. <v Alfred Slocum>We ought to go back and find out what kind of need was established and say, okay, are <v Alfred Slocum>you meeting the need that you said you would meet?

<v Alfred Slocum>If you're not meeting it, then you're ineffective and the rate may- payers shouldn't be <v Alfred Slocum>responsible for that. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>[Stuelpnagel and Curran talking] In the middle of the debate is the president of the Board <v Larry Stuelpnagel>of Public Utilities, Barbara Curran, <v Barabara Curran>55 to 65 percent is basically national average. <v Barabara Curran>We have looked at trying to set a number in stone. <v Barabara Curran>Very tough to do, Larry. <v Barabara Curran>But would that be a consideration for the board in future cases? <v Barabara Curran>Absolutely. Would that be a consideration in regard to Hope Creek? <v Barabara Curran>Absolutely. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>But don't expect a performance level to be established in the near future, even if the <v Larry Stuelpnagel>issue is raised next month in the Hope Creek base rate case, there is still the matter of <v Larry Stuelpnagel>New Jersey's three older nuclear plants and what would be an acceptable level for them. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Coleman says the issue could take some time to resolve. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Tomorrow night, we'll examine plant safety and visit the site of the nation's worst <v Larry Stuelpnagel>commercial nuclear accident, Three Mile Island. <v Marc Levenson>Just how safe is nuclear power? <v Marc Levenson>Was the accident at Three Mile Island the lesson the industry learned from or a warning <v Marc Levenson>of what is to come? Well, how safe are New Jersey's nuclear power plants

<v Marc Levenson>and how do their neighbors feel about plant safety? <v Marc Levenson>Those are the questions Larry Stuelpnagel looks at tonight as he continues his series, <v Marc Levenson>New Jersey Nukes: The Broken Promise? <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The cooling towers of Three Mile Island were just part of a pastoral Pennsylvania <v Larry Stuelpnagel>landscape until March 28, 1979. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Now they are symbols of the accident that day that jolted the people of Middletown and <v Larry Stuelpnagel>the entire nuclear industry. <v Linda Brash>I dealt with energy from the switch to the light bulb, and <v Linda Brash>all I did was worry about changing the light bulb and all of a sudden <v Linda Brash>a nuclear accident happened. <v Linda Brash>That woke me up and I didn't really want to be woken up. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Experts now say a combination of mechanical breakdown and human error sent TMI's <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Unit 2 reactor out of control before the plant could be shut down. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Temperatures in the reactor core reached 5,080 degrees. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Melting nuclear fuel and releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Despite the ominous implications of the partial meltdown, a State Health Department study

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>found no evidence of an increase in cancer because of the accident at Three Mile Island. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The state health secretary says the report is the first scientific analysis of cancer <v Larry Stuelpnagel>among area residents who live within 20 miles of the plant. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>[Stuelpnagel and Reid talking] But the mayor of Middletown, who now keeps a radiation <v Larry Stuelpnagel>monitor on his desk, doesn't believe the survey results. <v Robert Reid>I would have to say they diluted the whole darn study by including <v Robert Reid>a large area. <v Robert Reid>I think if they would have taken possibly a 5 mile <v Robert Reid>radius of the plant, they would find that the cancer rates are probably higher. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The operators of Three Mile Island General Public Utilities of Parsippany say the <v Larry Stuelpnagel>radiation protection systems worked and the nuclear industry is safer now <v Larry Stuelpnagel>because of what happened here. <v Doug Bedell>While the accident was certainly a traumatic experience for the public and it's been a <v Doug Bedell>very costly experience for our company and for other elements of the industry, <v Doug Bedell>the light of history, I think, is going to show that that experience has made the <v Doug Bedell>technology a stronger, more reliable technology.

<v Plant Worker>Site protection, this is a drill, this a drill site protection come in please this is the <v Plant Worker>control room. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>How to deal with an accident similar to Three Mile Islands is now rehearsed regularly, <v Larry Stuelpnagel>along with other scenarios at New Jersey's 4 nuclear power plants. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>This drill was at the Hope Creek plant in Salem County. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>It's scheduled to go online in the middle of next year. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Hope Creeks' wwner, Public Service Electric and Gas knows the price of safety failures. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>In 1983, the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission fined PSE&G <v Larry Stuelpnagel>a record 850 thousand dollars. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The NRC said PSE&G Salem Unit 1 reactor suffered the most significant <v Larry Stuelpnagel>safety system malfunction since Three Mile Island, when twice in three days <v Larry Stuelpnagel>an automatic shutdown mechanism failed during low power startup tests. <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>The lessons that we learned from that particular incident are institutionalized in <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>the organization so that we minimize the chance of anything happening similar <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>to that, again. We'd point out to you that there was, in fact, a safety system failure. <v Corbin McNiell Jr.>However, the reactor was shut down normally by the operators.

<v Robert Pollard>The event at Salem and what happened wasn't serious, you see? <v Robert Pollard>What could have happened under slightly different circumstances with the plant at a <v Robert Pollard>higher power level could have been quite serious. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>[Pollard and Stuelpgnagel continue talking] Robert Pollard was once a safety engineer for <v Larry Stuelpnagel>the NRC, but he quit because he believes the agency puts industry profits ahead <v Larry Stuelpnagel>of plant safety. He's now a consultant for the watchdog organization, the Union <v Larry Stuelpnagel>of Concerned Scientists. <v Robert Pollard>In my view, every time you build a nuclear power plant, you have decided <v Robert Pollard>that it's acceptable to have an accident that will kill a few thousand people <v Robert Pollard>as long as it doesn't happen too often. <v Doug Bedell>There's a fixation on danger, in some quarters in the <v Doug Bedell>public, which grows out of incorrect assumptions, the feeling being that there's <v Doug Bedell>something perhaps lurking around the corner in a plant that hasn't been detected hasn't <v Doug Bedell>hasn't hasn't been spotted. <v Doug Bedell>These plants have been gone over with absolutely fine tooth comb. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>In the event of a major accident, New Jersey has plans to evacuate everyone within a 10

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>mile radius of either the Salem or Oyster Creek plant sites. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>That means moving 13,000 people near the Salem Hope Creek plants and <v Larry Stuelpnagel>71,000 residents around Oyster Creek. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>But nuclear plant neighbors in New Jersey don't seem to worry about an accident. <v Interviewee 1>That doesn't bother me. It really doesn't, no. <v Interviewee 2>Good management, nuclear, I believe safe. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>But back in Pennsylvania, another Middletown resident, Paula Kenny, wonders if her <v Larry Stuelpnagel>daughter's ovary cancer wasn't result of what happened at TMI. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>And with Unit 1 restarting, she fears another accident. <v Paula Kenny>It's uh very difficult. <v Paula Kenny>When you have to live with this thing <v Paula Kenny>hovering over you, it's like a tornado that keeps circling your home constantly. <v Paula Kenny>And it's so unfair. <v Paula Kenny>It's so not here in America. <v Paula Kenny>It's so unfair.

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>Paula Kenny says she and her family are moving. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>However, there is no moving away from the one billion dollar cleanup cost at Three Mile <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Island under the so-called Thornburg plan, the federal government will pay one hundred <v Larry Stuelpnagel>ninety million dollars toward the cleanup, with New Jersey taxpayers kicking in an extra <v Larry Stuelpnagel>11 million dollars to be paid in installments. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The remaining costs are to be paid by the state of Pennsylvania. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The utilities, their customers and the nuclear industry in general. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Tomorrow night, we'll conclude this report with a look at nuclear's fading future. <v Marc Levenson>When New Jersey's 4th nuclear power plant, Hope Creek, goes online next year, it will <v Marc Levenson>become part of a dying breed. <v Marc Levenson>At one time, as many as 10 plants were planned for the state, but six were scrapped. <v Marc Levenson>They were part of 75 cancelations nationwide since 1978. <v Marc Levenson>Still, over 100 plants will be operating by the end of the decade. <v Marc Levenson>But after that, the nuclear program apparently is at an end. <v Marc Levenson>There are no new orders for plants. <v Marc Levenson>Still, the industry is fighting to keep nuclear power alive. <v Marc Levenson>Tonight, Larry Stuelpnagel looks at what happened to nuclear power and the prospects for

<v Marc Levenson>its future as he concludes his special report, New Jersey Nukes: The Broken <v Marc Levenson>Promise? <v Larry Stuelpnagel>In many ways, the skeleton of the Forked River nuclear power plant in Lacey Township <v Larry Stuelpnagel>represents the future of commercial nuclear energy. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Jersey Central Power and Light abandoned the project in 1980 because of the billion <v Larry Stuelpnagel>dollar cost and another of its plants, the crippled Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>TMI, which is run by General Public Utilities in Parsippany, did more than stop work <v Larry Stuelpnagel>at Forked River. It left a lasting psychological scar on the public about nuclear <v Larry Stuelpnagel>safety. A partial meltdown at TMI's Unit 2 was the worst commercial nuclear power <v Larry Stuelpnagel>plant accident in U.S. history. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Industry spokesmen say safety improvements have been made since then, but many scientists <v Larry Stuelpnagel>think that with more nuclear power plants coming online, the odds are increasing that <v Larry Stuelpnagel>there will be another accident. <v Frank von Hippel>Three Mile Island occurred after there had been about 500 <v Frank von Hippel>reactor years of operating experience in this country. <v Frank von Hippel>We hav- know about 100 reactors operating in this

<v Frank von Hippel>country. And so about every 5 years you'd expect such an event. <v Doug Bedell>Fortunately, the plants are being run by odds makers. <v Doug Bedell>The plants are being run by people interested in safety and then running them properly <v Doug Bedell>and correctly so that accidents don't happen. <v Doug Bedell>And that's where our concern and attention is. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>After the Three Mile Island accident, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required <v Larry Stuelpnagel>expensive safety modifications at all plants. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The United States has invested 125 billion dollars in its nuclear power program, <v Larry Stuelpnagel>more than the cost of the Vietnam War. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Industry analysts now say that's the result of a lack of a standard plant design, huge <v Larry Stuelpnagel>cost overruns, spiraling interest rates, opposition groups and a decreasing <v Larry Stuelpnagel>energy demand. <v Robert Williams>I think that nuclear power has probably suffered some of the most <v Robert Williams>sharp rises in energy prices of any almost any electricity <v Robert Williams>source that we that we have. And it's even large in comparison to the price <v Robert Williams>increases that have taken place for some other fuels as well.

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>In the 1950s, when President Eisenhower began a nuclear power plant by remote control <v Larry Stuelpnagel>with an atomic wand, the government touted nuclear as an energy source that would be <v Larry Stuelpnagel>too cheap to meter <v Lawrence Codey>If it was a promise it was broken, because it's certainly uh not cheap <v Lawrence Codey>enough that you can ignore metering it. <v Lawrence Codey>Uh it's uh it's still one of the cheaper alternatives. <v Lawrence Codey>And with some changes in regulation, some changes in design, <v Lawrence Codey>in terms of standardization, it still may be the cheapest alternative in <v Lawrence Codey>the future. <v Commercial Narrator>[Background music] It's possible, you know, it's possible to become too dependent on <v Commercial Narrator>energy from other countries, but that energy can be taken away...[Commercial continues] <v Larry Stuelpnagel>You may have already seen these TV commercials. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The U.S. Committee for Energy Awareness, an industry funded organization, is spending 20 <v Larry Stuelpnagel>million dollars a year to promote conservation and two central sources of power... <v Commercial Narrator>[Background music] ... coal and nuclear energy. They're part of the homegrown energy <v Commercial Narrator>America can count on.

<v Harold Finger>We think those are the two principal sources of the electricity we'll need. <v Harold Finger>More important than that, we just need more electricity. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>Is your organization engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of the people for <v Larry Stuelpnagel>nuclear energy? <v Harold Finger>No, no. We're trying to get that's a good way to put it. <v Harold Finger>And I'd love to have that happen. But the point is, we're trying to put out as factual a <v Harold Finger>set of information as we can about the role of electricity and the sources that can be <v Harold Finger>that can provide it. <v PSA Narrator>This year, the nuclear industry is spending millions to sell you on nuclear power. <v PSA Narrator>Let's look at the facts. Conservation and solar energy have saved consumers...[continues <v PSA Narrator>talking]. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>An environmental coalition the Safe Energy Communications Council produced this public <v Larry Stuelpnagel>service announcement to counter the industry's advertising campaign. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The council says the nuclear industry wants more than just streamline plant regulations. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>It wants the federal government to once again become its working partner to underwrite <v Larry Stuelpnagel>the future of nuclear power. <v Robert Pollard>Probably the industry's plans are to find some way again to have a taxpayer <v Robert Pollard>bailout this industry, just as the taxpayers having to pay for

<v Robert Pollard>developing waste disposal methods and paying for that. <v Robert Pollard>I think the industry basically could not survive on its own <v Robert Pollard>in a competitive marketplace. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>And now nuclear faces competition from cheaper sources of energy like co-generation. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>That and nuclear is problems, have caused New Jersey's energy commissioner to write new <v Larry Stuelpnagel>nuclear power plants out of the state's master plan. <v Leonard Coleman>Nuclear power plants have priced themselves out of existence <v Leonard Coleman>so that any experience that we've had with regard to design and competitive bidding, it's <v Leonard Coleman>not gonna be relevant to the future. <v Leonard Coleman>There will not be any more nuclear power plants built in the United States that I <v Leonard Coleman>can see. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>The industry has finished? <v Leonard Coleman>The industry is a dinosaur. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>For the record, Public Service Electric and Gas does not contribute to the US Committee <v Larry Stuelpnagel>for Energy Awareness. General Public Utilities no longer gives to the group, but it did <v Larry Stuelpnagel>give the committee 15,000 dollars in seed money in 1982. <v Larry Stuelpnagel>But for now, nuclear energy appears to be dying on the vine, and it will take a

<v Larry Stuelpnagel>significant turn of events to keep it from eventually wilting into extinction, Nora. <v News Reporter 2>Thanks, Larry.