美国国家公共电台 NPR How The Dream Of America's 'Nuclear Renaissance' Fizzled

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Nuclear energy used to be seen as the wave of the future and the way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions¹. But last week, a utility in South Carolina decided² to stop working on a major nuclear project there. It's a sign of the times as Molly Samuel of WABE in Atlanta reports.

MOLLY SAMUEL, BYLINE³: Five years ago, you still heard this kind of talk from public officials - in this case, then Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

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STEVEN CHU: Resurgence⁴ of America's nuclear industry starts here in Georgia.

SAMUEL: He stopped by Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle near Georgia's border with South Carolina to tout⁵ the construction of two new reactors⁷ as a critical part of President Obama's energy strategy. They're the first next generation nuclear reactors to be built in the country in three decades. The partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979 had stopped the industry from expanding. By the early 2000s, that accident and the meltdown at Chernobyl were distant memories. Paul Murphy is with the law firm Gowling WLG. He specializes in the nuclear industry.

PAUL MURPHY: On top of that, people were projecting significant growth in power demand, energy demand.

SAMUEL: Nuclear construction is expensive and takes a long time. But once it's up and running, it's cheap, reliable electricity. And it doesn't generate the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. So nuclear power seemed like a good idea. Utilities around the country started applying to the federal government for permission to build new reactors.

MARILYN BROWN: I thought that it was going to be a very good thing for the Southern economy.

SAMUEL: That's Marilyn Brown, a public policy professor at Georgia Tech. In Georgia and South Carolina, power companies got to work building a new type of reactor⁶ that was supposed to be safer and cheaper. All good? Not quite. First, came the global financial crisis that flattened⁸ the demand for electricity.

BROWN: Then the boom in unconventional natural gas occurred.

SAMUEL: Brown's talking about fracking, which flooded the market with cheap natural gas. Renewable energy, especially wind power, also got more competitive.

BROWN: And that meant that it really, if you were to go back and reappraise the nuclear investment, they probably would not have been approved or might not have been approved.

SAMUEL: Both the Georgia and South Carolina projects racked up billions in cost overruns and delays. Then earlier this year, Westinghouse, the company building the nuclear units, went bankrupt. Westinghouse blamed the high construction costs at those two plants. It was too much for the South Carolina utilities, which scrapped⁹ the project this week. Stan Wise is the chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission which regulates Georgia Power.

STAN WISE: Now Vogtle's the last kid on the block.

SAMUEL: Georgia Power customers have been paying for the new reactors out of their monthly power bills since 2011. Wise says Georgia Power is in a better financial situation than the South Carolina utilities.

WISE: I'm still a proponent¹⁰ of nuclear. I'm going to keep my powder dry in the coming weeks and months as we decide whether or not to continue this project.

SAMUEL: Georgia Power says it will propose whether or not to finish Vogtle later this month. Marilyn Brown at Georgia Tech says she hopes that plant Vogtle's completed.

BROWN: If these plans can't be continued, then where would you build the next one? Is that the demise¹¹ of the industry?

SAMUEL: For now, she says, America's nuclear renaissance¹² appears to be stalled. For NPR News, I'm Molly Samuel in Atlanta.

1 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 resurgence   

n.再起，复活，再现

参考例句：

• A resurgence of his grief swept over Nim.悲痛又涌上了尼姆的心头。
• Police say drugs traffickers are behind the resurgence of violence.警方说毒贩是暴力活动重新抬头的罪魁祸首。

5 tout   

v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱

参考例句：

• They say it will let them tout progress in the war.他们称这将有助于鼓吹他们在战争中的成果。
• If your case studies just tout results,don't bother requiring registration to view them.如果你的案例研究只是吹捧结果，就别烦扰别人来注册访问了。

6 reactor   

n.反应器；反应堆

参考例句：

• The atomic reactor generates enormous amounts of thermal energy.原子反应堆发出大量的热能。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules.在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

7 reactors   

起反应的人( reactor的名词复数 )； 反应装置； 原子炉； 核反应堆

参考例句：

• The TMI nuclear facility has two reactors. 三哩岛核设施有两个反应堆。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• The earliest production reactors necessarily used normal uranium as fuel. 最早为生产用的反应堆，必须使用普通铀作为燃料。

8 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。

9 scrapped   

废弃(scrap的过去式与过去分词)； 打架

参考例句：

• This machine is so old that it will soon have to be scrapped. 这架机器太旧，快报废了。
• It had been thought that passport controls would be scrapped. 人们曾认为会放开护照管制。

10 proponent   

n.建议者；支持者；adj.建议的

参考例句：

• Stapp became a strong early proponent of automobile seat belts.斯塔普是力主在汽车上采用座椅安全带的早期倡导者。
• Halsey was identified as a leading proponent of the values of progressive education.哈尔西被认为是进步教育价值观的主要支持者。

11 demise   

n.死亡；v.让渡，遗赠，转让

参考例句：

• He praised the union's aims but predicted its early demise.他赞扬协会的目标，但预期这一协会很快会消亡。
• The war brought about the industry's sudden demise.战争道致这个行业就这么突然垮了。

12 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。