Joseph Devich – 1/21/09

This page was last updated on January 22, 2009.

Another nuclear plant isn’t needed; Joseph Devich; Beaver County Times; January 21, 2009.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“In reference to Friday’s letter to the editor ‘U.S. needs to have a nuclear future:’

“This was the same thought Republican presidential candidate John McCain had. It also was part of the reason McCain lost.”

[RWC] The rest of the letter is of similar intellectual quality.

“Who would want to bring more nuclear waste into this country when we really don’t know what to do with it now?”

[RWC] Who’s proposing “to bring more nuclear waste into this country?”

“And why would anyone want another nuclear power plant here when what power this plant makes does not even benefit Beaver County? The Shippingport plant sends its power to New Jersey. Very little is sold to our area.”

[RWC] Like gasoline, electricity is fungible. Once it enters the grid, you can’t really say electricity from a specific power plant goes to a specific area. Besides, who cares? Would Mr. Devich oppose manufacturing businesses that didn’t happen to sell a lot of their products locally?

“We have had more people move away from the area because of the nuclear plant than adding another plant would ever bring in.”

[RWC] Is Mr. Devich actually claiming “people move away from the area because of the” Beaver Valley Power Station and its predecessor (Shippingport Atomic Power Station)? The last I checked, it was the Bruce Mansfield coal-fired plant across the street from the BVPS that was raining black goo on local residents.

“With all the alternative power sources we could have, nuclear is not the one we need. We have rivers for hydro; we have coal and wind. Let’s work on hydrogen fuel cells and solar.”

[RWC] Regarding “[w]e have rivers for hydro,” I believe Mr. Devich needs some geography and science classes. The Ohio is a shallow river, with a maximum depth of about 30 ft. until after Cincinnati. The Ohio has a maximum depth of about 170 ft. around Louisville, but it gradually drops to about 20 ft. once it gets near the Mississippi. In any case, the combination of depth and flow isn’t enough to get serious power.

As for wind and solar, where are we going to get the area to place all the turbines and/or panels needed to generate the equivalent of a coal and/or nuclear power plant? And what do we do when the wind isn’t blowing and the Sun isn’t shining at night?

As for “hydrogen fuel cells,” Mr. Devich realizes it takes energy (coal, nuclear, etc.) to generate the hydrogen, right?

“We don’t need more monster towers in our backyards. It’s not what our children and grandchildren need.”

[RWC] Let me get this straight. Mr. Devich has a problem with the two BVPS cooling towers, but not the three cooling towers of the same size at the Bruce Mansfield coal-fired plant across the street? And what about the Bruce Mansfield smokestacks? And what about all the land that would be consumed by Mr. Devich’s wind turbines and solar panels?

I want to be clear. I’m not dumping on the Bruce Mansfield plant. We need a mix of energy sources. My point of comparing BVPS with Bruce Mansfield is to show Mr. Devich’s “logic” leaves a lot to be desired.

“If we really want more jobs in Beaver County and America, we should buy American-made products. Look at what we buy in stores. Fish from China. Bandages made in China. American flags made in China.

“That is why we have lost jobs. The next bridge we build needs to be American-made with American steel, not Chinese or European.”

[RWC] Sorry, Mr. Devich. Increasingly, products made in the U.S. come from the South, not from places like Beaver County. I wonder if Mr. Devich knows what drives businesses from this area to other areas in the U.S. and overseas.