A FLOATING NUCLEAR PLANT

Last month, the AEC received its first application for a nuclear plant offshore. The applicant is the New Jersey Public Service Electric and Gas Co., which intends to moor two floating nuclear plants just under 3 miles off the coast, 11 miles northeast of Atlantic City. The plants will be equiped with Westinghouse pressurized water reactors and will produce 1,150 MW each. They will be built by Offshore Power Systems in Jacksonville, Fl., at a cost of $375 each. On completion, they will be towed 850 miles to the operating site, enclosed in a massive D-shaped reef of breakwaters designed to withstand 300 mph hurricanes and 50 ft waves. The area inside the breakwaters is about 25 acres, of which the floating plants will take up about 8 acres.

This time the environmentalists were satisfied, right?

Wrong. Deprived of their arguments against landbased nuclear plants, their screams only grew shriller. The Audubon Society, which now watches nuclear plants instead of birds, brought suit to bar OPS from even assembling the plant. "An accident is much worse if it happens offshore," charged the UCS, known as the Union of Concerned Scientists to some, and as the Union of Confused Saboteurs to others.

Radiation could easily enter the biosphere on a large scale, added L.I. Moss, president of the Sierra Club. But what galled the environments most was that they would have less to gripe about now. "They expect less opposition out there." fumed a spokesman of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

An MIT professor worried about ships colliding with the plant. What he may not know is that the breakwaters in the 40 ft deep water will be made of concrete 300 feet wide at the base and 30 feed wide at the top. The only ship to sail through them would be the Flying Dutchman.

But, of course, the environmentalists have not yet considered all the possibilities. What for example, if a hiccuping leper balancing a basketful of hand grenades on his head should just happen to stumble into the plant...