Discussions

Video 1

Nuclear Energy Gets a Second Look

LESTER HOLT, anchor:

Tomorrow the president-elect introduces his energy and environmental teams, and alternative energy will be part of the Obama agenda. OUR PLANET tonight, NBC's chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson has an unusual behind-the-scenes look at just what gets left behind when the energy choice is nuclear.

ANNE THOMPSON reporting:

This is a rare look at an assembly line of what some see as America's energy future, the components of nuclear power. Tiny uranium pellets fill 12-foot-long rods. Bundled together they become assemblies. Inside reactors, the assemblies act as engines, creating nuclear energy for up to six years. Once finished, they are highly radioactive waste that could be dangerous for thousands of years, and that's the problem. How do you dispose of nuclear waste? With 26 applications for new plants pending, it will be an important issue for President Obama. Nevada's Yucca Mountain supposed to be the answer. Identified in 1987 as the site to store the dangerous waste, today there are questions about its porous rock and stability.

Mr. EDWIN LYMAN (Union of Concerned Scientists): We have to balance the risks associated with the Yucca Mountain site, and we can't throw away our technical criteria just to expedite disposal of that waste.

THOMPSON: So the current storage is temporary. At the River Bend plant near Baton Rouge, and all nuclear sites, the spent fuel rods are carefully placed in a steel and concrete pool for several years. At some locations, they are moved again. Until there is a central storage facility, this is where the nuclear waste sits, in these dry storage casks, on site at this plant in Louisiana, and others across the country. There is a different way, says Areva's CEO Thomas Christopher. His company makes everything from fuel rods to reactors.

Mr. THOMAS CHRISTOPHER (Areva North America CEO): We need to recycle, re-process the fuel and re-use it in the reactors in the United States.

THOMPSON: France and Japan do it, but it is still banned in the US.

Mr. LYMAN: It does not effectively recycle spent nuclear fuel. It produces separated nuclear weapons materials, like plutonium, in a form where it could be easily stolen by terrorists.

THOMPSON: Despite the risks, nuclear energy is getting a second look because of its zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. CURT HERBERT Jr. (Executive Vice President, Energy Corporation): If you want to do something about our carbon footprint, the way you're going to have to get there is nuclear energy.

THOMPSON: Only if the industry can prove it can permanently dispose of the waste in a way that doesn't create an even bigger problem. Anne Thompson, NBC News, St. Francisville, Louisiana.

Video 2

Rare Look Inside a Nuclear Power Plant

MATT LAUER, anchor:

We're back at 7:42. As the nuclear crisis in Japan unfolds, many have raised concerns about the safety of the 104 nuclear plants here in the US. NBC's Tom Costello is at the Waterford 3 nuclear power plant in Killona, Louisiona--Louisiana, excuse me, with a rare look inside. Tom, good morning to you.

TOM COSTELLO, reporting:

Hi, Matt, good morning. That's the nuclear core behind me in that containment building. To demystify nuclear power, to underscore how safe it is in the view of the industry, we were given extraordinary access here to the control room, to the cement casing around the nuclear core and to the massive pools that hold that radioactive spent fuel rod. Entergy's Waterford 3 nuclear plant single-handedly cranks out 10% of Louisiana's power. Getting inside requires passing through layers of security, then through massive watertight doors meant to keep the worst of the Mississippi out. Hurricane and floodwaters 30 feet above sea level. Once inside, our first stop was the control room that monitors everything that happens inside the reactor, the cooling pumps and the pool holding spent radioactive fuel. We're the first TV crew ever allowed in the control room here. The concern has always been they don't want to do anything to distract the operators behind the glass. And they're under stricture instructions to pay no attention to us.

KIMBERLY COOK (Operations Manager): What they are doing is the most important thing that we do on site right now, which is very closely monitoring the reactor.

COSTELLO: In the US there are two types of nuclear reactors: boiling water reactors, the type used in Fukushima, Japan; and pressurized water reactors like this one. In pressurized water reactors, water is pumped to the reactor core where it's heated. It then flows then to a steam generator where it turns the turbines and creates electricity. Pressurized water reactor steam is not radioactive, while boiling water reactor steam is. Behind these walls, encased in two inches of steel and three feet of concrete sits the nuclear core. Then, up a long, narrow flight of stairs, we were given unprecedented access to the massive pool that holds every spent nuclear fuel rod ever used at this plant, 345,000 of them. And this is it. Twenty-five years of spent fuel rods are resting right now in 360,000 gallons of water. The heat from those rods keeps the water at about 90 degrees, but up here, 23 feet of water between me and the rods, the risk of radiation exposure is near zero. Keeping them submerged to water is critical.

JOE KOWALEWSKI (Vice President of Operations): If we lost that cooling to that water, it would take about three days for that spent fuelpool to heat up to boiling and it would take about 18 days before that would boil down to the point where we would be exposing the fuel.

COSTELLO: That's the situation in Japan, where the backup systems were destroyed by the tsunami. But this plant insists it has multiple backup systems to keep the power and water flowing. During Hurricane Katrina it ran for five days on diesel generators stored in reinforced concrete bunkers, giving time for the electric grid to come back up.

KOWALEWSKI: If it's done right, there is very little risk. But we have to make sure that it's done right.

COSTELLO: Now, the walls of this plant are built to withstand much more than Hurricane Katrina. And during Katrina, there was zero flooding here. We would also point out to you that they are going to be moving those radioactive fuel rods that're in that containment pool, they're going to move them to cement casks on property where they will stay for potentially thousands of years. Matt, despite our trip through the entire plant, despite standing right over that containment pool with the rods right below me, we had zero on our dosimeters, showing zero radiation exposure by the time we walked out. Back to you.

LAUER: Tom, is was a fascinating look. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.