AN ATTACK FROM OTHER QUARTERS

The New Republic of 12/28/87 brings an article Safe nuclear power, in which L.M. Lidsky, an MIT professor of nuclear engineering, claims that nuclear power "has failed in the US market place" (another free marketeer with brass knuckles), which is the fault of the Light Water Reactors (LWRs); the environmental benefits of nuclear power could, however, be salvaged by small, inherently safe reactors, if a coalition of the nuclear industry, the utilities and the DoE were not "impeding their development" and "stifling" them.

It is also void of the most rudimentary logic. Let us assume that he were right about LWRs (which he is not), that the anti-nuclear campaign were not politically motivated but waged purely for safety (as he implies), and that the nuclear industry plus utilities had the guts and ability to stifle anything (that'll be the day): why on earth should they impede something that cannot possibly threaten them instead of stifling the reactors that can and do compete with LWRs, including those that are not subject to loss of coolant?

"Inherently safe reactors" have been around for a long time [AtE Apr, May 81] in Canada, Sweden and the USSR (where they are used for district heating in housing blocks). They do not usually produce more than 20 MW and are a very wonderful invention; the reason why they are not used in the US is that people have been made hysterical by the propaganda to which Lidsky, too, has partly fallen victim. However, their small output makes them unsuitable for central power generation. If he can increase their power tenfold, why should the nuclear industry or the utilities object? The reactors would then, no doubt, be useful for small towns, peak loads, and stand-by applications. But how would it replace the nuclear power now supplying Boston and Chicago? By a reactor under every shopping center? Every utility chairman would kiss his feet.

A clue of why a professor of nuclear engineering would write an article based on such elementary fallacies lies perhaps in his phrase "It was hard enough for [nuclear engineers] to see the industry to which they had devoted their careers crumbling, but. . . "