CHEYENNE — The lack of any major protests against construction of a nuclear energy plant in Kemmerer is surprising given Wyoming’s history.
Perhaps the questions will come later as the project develops.
It has the full blessing of Gov. Mark Gordon, who is actively promoting nuclear energy as part of his “all of the above energy strategy,” that includes wind and coal.
The project at issue is TerraPower’s natrium nuclear reactor, touted as the first commercial-scale advanced reactor in the country.
Gordon sees the long-term gains of this project - to be built on a retiring coal plant - as a way to help diversify the economy and provide jobs to the out-of-work coal miners.
This sounds like a great idea, but Wyoming people don’t trust nuclear projects.
One organization opposing the project is the Wyoming Outdoor Council, which has called for a moratorium on all nuclear type development until the state can adopt some overall policy, rather than deal with each development piecemeal.
Some of those projects have been withdrawn because the lack of pubic support and uncertainty over regulation.
I assumed the state decided against allowing nuclear waste in 1992, when then Gov. Mike Sullivan rejected further study of a Department of Energy proposed monitored nuclear storage site in Wyoming.
His reason, as expressed in a letter, was that he did not trust the federal government to adhere to its policies in the decades ahead.
Some of this fear of nuclear facilities dates from World War II, and use of the two nuclear bombs against Japan to end the war.
Although ordinary U.S. bombs during air raids on Japan did more damage, the atomic bombs were different; the radiation caused subsequent medical problems among those who survived. It was scary because you couldn’t see it, feel it or smell it, but it caused your skin to fall off and your blood cells to die.
Hollywood cashed in with a series of movies where the hero is exposed to radiation and subsequently grows hair like an ape or just goes bonkers.
These events contributed to a general fear of anything nuclear that I think may persist today.
One day in the late 1970s after I started reporting for the Casper Star-Tribune from the press room in the Capitol building, I received a phone call from a scientist with the newly-created Environmental Protection Agency stationed in Colorado.
He said Wyoming people needed to know about the problem with houses near Riverton that had been built over piles of radioactive uranium tailings.
The source was the Susquehanna-Western uranium mill near Riverton, that shut down in the 1960s.
This came at the same time people were upset over the reports of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver and the wide contamination caused by that operation.
As it turns out Gov. Sullivan was right not to trust that the federal government would abide by any agreement over the years.
According to many national news sources, the Environmental Protection Agency has been essentially gutted by the Trump administration.
Which is sad because that was one of the few programs that had bipartisan approval from Congress. The first director, appointed by President Nixon, was William Ruckelshaus.
His namesake, the University of Wyoming’s Ruckelshaus Institute, recently held a forum on nuclear energy issues, which was the first of its type, and may shed light on the way the state handles energy development, accord to Wyoming Outdoor Council web page.
That, indeed, may happen.
The number one interim study priority for the Legislature’s Minerals Business and Economic Development is nuclear energy.
The study includes review of the permitting framework for storing spent nuclear fuel from advanced nuclear reactors manufactured in Wyoming. The committee also will review security measures and needs for nuclear generation and storage facilities.
Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
