Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: I'm joined by Matthew Wald with The New York Times. Welcome to "Springboard."
Matthew Wald: Hi.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: You're out there covering nuclear power every day. What are you finding people are most concerned about: safety, cost, renewability issues?
Matthew Wald: It depends on who you ask. The power industry is more interested in nuclear now than they were a few years ago because all of a sudden the wholesale price of power is up, the price of natural gas, competing fuel is up. So the old reactors suddenly look a lot more valuable. And a bunch of them are on the market because of deregulation. People have learned how to run them a little better so they run more hours of the year so they look promising again.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: Here in this country we have about 20% of our power from nuclear. How does that compare to other nations around the world?
Matthew Wald: We produce more nuclear power than anybody else, but the French get a much larger share of their power. I believe the Japanese get a much larger share, also. Per capita we have the most power, but when you spread it over the population -- per capita we get about 20%, but we have more reactors than anybody else does. Now, when you hear 20%, it sounds a little misleading because out here in the west we only have a couple of reactors. A lot of reactors are concentrated on the East coast.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: Why is that?
Matthew Wald: Because they were built mostly where oil had been imported or where the alternatives weren't so good. The West historically has had a lot of hydroelectric power, making it harder for a reactor to compete.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: In terms of the other alternative sources of power, fossil fuels as well as hydro, solar, wind, where do you think nuclear fits into that equation?
Matthew Wald: At the moment nuclear fits in where it is. I think we're a way away from building any more plants. If we got to building more plants, most likely someone would try to put one on a site where there are already reactors. California's not a good bet because there's more political opposition. But there are places in the South where, if the economics were right, the neighbors would probably accept it.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: So even though California is obviously energy strapped right now, you think the political will is not there?
Matthew Wald: There's a law in California that you can't build a nuclear plant until there's a solution to the waste problem, and we're many years from that.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: Is it a technological issue or a political issue?
Matthew Wald: Depends on who you ask. It also depends on how confident you are in the ability of engineers, geologists to predict what's going to happen a thousand years from now.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: And as we start looking at these different questions of cost, nuclear was supposed to be the first it was too cheap to meter. Why is it considered a more expensive source these days?
Matthew Wald: The first round of plants that were built cost a lot more to complete than people thought they would. People talk about a second round that would be cheaper, but so far that's just talk. There is no free lunch. You can learn to do things better. The nuclear industry undoubtedly would do better than it did in the '70s and '80s when most of today's reactors were built, but it's a little soon to take your whole IRA and put it into nuclear power.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: Did they run into cost overruns because they had --
Matthew Wald: They built small plants and then built huge plants without setting out to build the small ones first. They thought we would build it simultaneously, but later they figured out if you don't start construction with a complete design you have to end up tearing parts out and rebuild them. They also had changing regulatory requirements on the way and the nuclear regulatory commission says it's fixed that problem. Right now you could choose among three designs that are already approved which is a big improvement over the way we did things in the '70s and '60s.
Rebecca Roberts, Springboard: Matthew Wald, thank you so much for being on "Springboard."
Matthew Wald: Thank you.
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