Grant Merritt in the STrib:

Counterpoint: Case still powerful against nuclear energy

It would be unsafe and costly for Minnesota to reverse the moratorium. 

By Grant J. Merritt April 13, 2022

In response to “Times change. Minnesota nuclear moratorium must end” (Opinion Exchange, April 11), there are five reasons to retain Minnesota’s moratorium on building any more fission nuclear power plants.

The first is that ever since the Atomic Energy Commission began promoting them back in the post-World War II days, and over the ensuing 75 years, no acceptable storage locations have been found for the radioactive wastes.

The second reason is that these plants are prone to accidents, such as we had at the Monticello NSP nuclear plant on Nov. 19, 1971, when 50,000 gallons of radioactive water flowed into the Mississippi River. This caused the commissioner of the Minnesota Health Department to close the water intakes in the metro due to the threat to human health. That catapulted the accident into national news. Serious accidents occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant followed by the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear plants.

The third reason to oppose any more of these plants here or elsewhere in the U.S. is the threat of terrorism, now being experienced at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

The fourth reason is that licensing nukes is difficult due to opposition by many people, even though the U.S. government has preempted state regulation of potential exposure to water discharges. Thanks to action by former Gov. Wendell Anderson when he was a U.S. senator, air emissions are not preempted, so the state can hold hearings on air emission permits, which would no doubt be hotly opposed.

The final reason for continuing the moratorium is that building nuclear power plants is so excessively costly that the nuclear plant that was well underway to being built on the Savannah River in South Carolina was abandoned by voters.

For these reasons the Minnesota Legislature should not reverse the nuclear moratorium.

Grant J. Merritt, of New Hope, is a retired attorney. He was executive director of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, 1971-75.