Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 1, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free october 1981 7 nuclear policy is Al in reverse by Jim Landers Dallas morning news Washington the Reagan administration is trying to keep the Floun Dering nuclear Power Industry alive by promoting nuclear reactor sales to underdeveloped nations and seeking a solution for the disposal of radioactive the changes Mark a reversal from policies of the Carter which tried to fight the proliferation of nuclear weapons by tightening Regula Tion of the civilian nuclear Industry and halting work on two key nuclear waste technologies breeder reactors and fuel but the Reagan policies Are far Short of the Aid the Utility Industry and nuclear reactor manufacturers seek from the Energy department officials said that the changes Are in keeping with administration policies seeking Market solutions to Energy problems rather than Federal subsidies for Energy democrats in Congress repeatedly have accused the administration of an Energy double Standard by providing billions of dollars for nuclear Energy programs while slashing budgets for conservation and solar and synthetic president Reagan probably will announce the new nuclear Energy policy within a senior Energy depart ment officials a draft policy state ment has been circulating in washing ton for three and interviews with department officials add specifics to the goals the administration Hopes to we Are not going to let this Industry die on its said Hunter Doe director of policy we want to let it die because its the unpopular if it Dies at and this May revitalize he this country is going to need More nuclear Power than is now on order or in the said Shelby Doe assistant Secretary for nuclear Price too High while the Industry is Busy with retrofitting and end line once that is worked you will see the nuclear Industry infrastructure dry up and go i dont think the country can afford the emphasis on reactor sex which started emerging in july when Teagan announced a nonproliferation is seen As the Only Way to keep nuclear manufacturers in Energy Secretary James Edwards described the sales As a terrific tool of foreign policy and told con Gress that restrictions on the sales have rather than the spread of nuclear Chiles and other depart ment officials agreed with Industry assessments that show no More new nuclear reactors Are Likely to be or dered for plants in the United states for several about 100 nuclear plants have been ordered or Are under construction around the including five in the number has been decreasing each year since when the last reactor was because some plants Are being sixteen plants were cancelled last said the atomic Industrial an Industry lobbying one in Indiana was cancelled this and the Only two plants planned for Oklahoma the Black Fox nuclear station units 1 and 2 outside Tulsa Are being called economic White ele Coa fired plants would Cost a recent study we need to Stop plants from falling out of the Brewer the Utility investor has to have Confidence he can get a Plant on line in a reason Able time plants can take from 14 to 15 years to and that economic malaise the Utility Industry faces a problem bigger than Over regulation the Gen eral malaise of the Economy High inflation in economic slowdowns coupled with Energy Conser vation reducing electricity recalcitrant Public utilities commissions and excessive interest Brewer unless and until that is much of the rest of the nuclear pro Gram including breeders and reprocessing is he the Reagan nuclear program apparently will not involve Federal bail outs for two of the most intractable problems in the Industry cleaning up the disabled nuclear reactor at three mile Island and completing work on the South nuclear fuel reprocessing the federally funded Clinch River breeder reactor in Oak Tennes which is expected to Cost will continue to receive Federal Money under the Reagan which encourages breeder reactor develop Energy department officials have expressed opposition for months to any bailout for the three mile Island read which was crippled in March 1979 in the nations most serious nuclear Power estimates on the amount the cleanup will Cost Range from billion to billion the Energy department budget provides for Only million to fund research on the disabled reactor Reagan rejected Edwards request in March for Federal funds to Purchase the million Barnwell Plant from its civilian our policy on the acquisition of Barnwell is that it is Brewer the department is toying with creative financing techniques that would resurrect barn Well through the private sector but with the possibility of Federal an earlier draft of the administration statement that Cir disgust orders the Energy department to eliminate impediments to commercial interest in the technology and lift the ban on reprocessing that was imposed by the Carter Barnwell Plant owners consider such Steps insufficient to keep the project from being Barnwell is the Only significant re processing Plant in the without electric utilities have stored spent fuel rods at the site of their nuclear and Many utilities Reagan policies could result in new nuclear say storage space is becoming an acute former president Jimmy Carter stopped work on reprocessing and on the Clinch River breeder reactor in april 1977 because both types of work Are integral in the plutonium econ the key ingredient in nuclear is a byproduct of spent fuel reprocessing and is the major fuel element for the Clinch River Carters rationale for halting work on the projects was to prevent plutonium from being stolen for weapons manufacture from the two Points in the civilian fuel Cycle at which it is most he encouraged other a such As France and to halt work on reprocessing and breeder which provoked Sharp Diplo Matic Reagan repudiated the approach in july with his nonproliferation state we must reestablish this nation As a predictable and reliable partner for peaceful nuclear cooperation under adequate Reagan if we Are not such a other countries will tend to go their own ways and our influence will George a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of technology and a former non proliferation specialist with the Carter Era state described the Reagan position As realistic in accepting that the balance of concern should shift toward diplomacy and away from nuclear but he doubted that the commitment to resume work on breeder reactors and reprocessing would prove Success anything the Reagan administration wants to do to revitalize these efforts May be he any Effort to go ahead with the breeder and reprocessing just Doest make any economic sense at because the Price of uranium is so Low that reactor storage of spent fuel is cheaper than if inflation someone else is to blame by John Kenneth Galbraith special to the Washington Post Washington have not been going Well for the presidents economic program in these last and my purpose in this Brief essay is not to express Surprise or to assert any self serving claim to higher past wis certainly it is not to support Howard Baker and Robert Michel in their demand that Wall Street be punished by some new and expressly damaging regulation for its Lack of forthright suppl Side enthuse my purpose is to give a modicum of guidance to readers on the terminology by which poor official performance is neutralized and even beneficial Ted in High level Public this guidance will be much needed in the next understanding begins with an obvious asymmetry in All official economic when things have gone Well when there has been a fall in the producer Price a durable Rise in economic output or employment this is always to Wise and effective economic things Are going according to natural fac tors such As Good Rains on the great Plains can be mentioned As having something to do with food but the convention in such matters allows the the Secretary of the the Council of economic advisers and even the Secretary of com Merce to take credit for the achieve and since it is common ground for both democrats and liberals and left and right that the government is responsible for the management of the econ this is As it should nobody fault poor in Are never the responsibility of those in someone or something else is to this asymmetry is a wholly nonpartisan thing my personal research on the subject extends Well Back into demo cratic the etymology of the official Alibi begins reference to for any sustained increase in output in the Public As take the Converse of such Good performance is a decline in a but economic policy makers do not cause it is and so reported by com pliant that the Economy has moved into a men do the Good thing supernatural or merely inevitable free Enterprise influences do the bad there has recently been some Effort to give inflation the same we Are said to have an underlying or natural rate of inflation that is the cause of any bad news on a no one in Public position can be held this has had Only a limited More important Are the archaeological and Postglacial explanations of inflation for that of anything else that is going the archaeological escape traces whatever is currently inconvenient to the feebleness or feeble mindedness the past Richard when in blamed his Trou Bles with prices on the wartime inflation that got established under Lyndon Jimmy Carters economists attributed their failures to the economically retarded policies of Ford and As things have turned a bit sour in Washington in these last we have heard increasingly of the bad legacy of Jimmy it was worse than anyone had those who hear such an explanation can safely assume that failure is being leavened in a minor Way by the official is saying that we really screwed in accordance with established proce we Are shifting the blame Back on our one notes that this excuse is Only used by people who Are safely elected and in until then there is even ostentatious ability to Correct the mistakes of those Pride the Postglacial Alibi of to the next ice age it holds that everything will get better if Only More time is the Postglacial resort is especially important for the Mone taoists it is now widely observed in the United states and vividly in Britain that monetary constriction works on inflation Only As it creates a painful amount on Idle Plant Small business a housing slump and in our Case trouble for International Harvester and pan As Well As the Good old Chrysler so economic officials resort to the Promise that things will some Day get patience is the thing it should be even the Superior feature of this escape is that after six months the Promise can be More patience can be and no journalist will remember from a half year and again after another six in the As i have often officials will warn against expecting any Quick the drug of All the Postglacial Alibi is absolutely no one can really deny that if you wait Long there is a Chance that the ice will melt and All will be time Magazine has Al ready produced a talented Postglacial defence of reagans economics that runs to several should the presidents economic pro Gram succeed should suppl Side expansion Combine brilliantly and benignly with monetary restriction to defeat inflation then the present guide to economic explanation and associated lexicographical fraud will be officials and policy makers can take the and no one should be so churlish As to deny but if there Are internal contradictions in current policy contradictions that have less to do with ideology than with the difficulty in swimming up Stream with restrictive monetary policy and downstream with Arthur Laffer then this guide will be Ivalu As the explanations pour out in the press and from everyone can make the right mental classification natural supernatural the archaeological the Fine Postglacial Prospect re one with vulgar the writer is professor emeritus of economics at More focus on Page 8 wheat Board dragging its feet on Churchill everything in life is relative those at the port of Churchill Are Well aware of that when one considers predictions is sued As recently As three months ago about its the port has made a remarkable if its present situation is considered in rela Tion to its much work re Mains to be there has been a constant demand from the Prairies for a Federal Guaran tee of at least three per cent of Grain exports at the Northern which provides those provinces with direct Access to the sea and a Shorter route to european it seems to make but in order to bring the port up to a competitive there must be upgrading of the in Extension of the shipping season and Winter at despite the favourable Ocean freight rate differential on the Northern added costs of extra storage time and longer rail car turnaround at Churchill tend to wipe out that when presented with requests for additional help at a meeting of interested parties in the Federal government was maintain ing that it was time for the provinces to act by instead of shifting according to Hazen the minister responsible under the dome Arlene Billinkoff for the Canadian wheat the port would remain operational this but the wheat Board would Only commit metric tons of the picture brightened slightly in mid july when Churchill was assigned As the Export Point for metric tons of Barley for the soviet but it was still Little More than 50 per cent of the six year annual average and far below the capacity of metric which had been reached in cer Tain in june about 12 Grain freighter were expected during the but the general manager of the Don i said much More could be handled if the shipping season were extended and the port at with six berths and a storage capacity of five million the port oper ates on a on shift the regular shipping which is determined by the length of time Normal insurance rates ends october those involved say if the wheat Board and the Federal government were truly interested in the Fate of they might arrange for the insurance com Pany to extend the time for Normal co soviet for Are properly equipped for Northern routes and have worked at the port beyond the october certain positive Steps have occurred since with a Federal announce ment about a million upgrading scheme for the port and the rail at experiments Are under Way to Cope with the effect of permafrost on the with the use of heat pipes the Experiment is an attempt to Stabi Lize the Earth in order to withstand the weight of More efficient full loaded Hopper instead of the old a shined Box according to there Are positive results in certain areas and while final results will not be known until the there is a sign of Saskatchewan in tends to test Hopper cars along the route in there was additional optimism at the port last week with the expectation of moving almost metric tons of almost twice As much As last during a visit by provincial Cabi net a greek freighter was being loaded with metric tons of it was the ninth ship to Date with another six or seven All involved wish there were even mayor Howard Brown said that without its Churchill would be come a ghost Jack spokesman for the chamber of com Merce admitted that despite the work by certain people in the provincial More pressure was needed on Sterling Lyon while his government would be a constant ally to make the port bigger and he it was primarily a Federal respond the facilities should be up graded and the variety of items in creased to include Sulphur and he did not believe it was reason Able for any government to close a doonesbury Saltwater in the wheat Board should increase the Grain quota for Churchill said minister Don thus making it easier for the northerners and providing More space on the East West lines for Farmers in the Figurski saying that his port could move one million metric of Grain if his people worked at capacity on one shift with extended while if there were two shifts it would be even there was not enough freight to justify an Extension of that was the Basic the situation had improved since Early with 15 or 16 ships expected before the seasons but it was still less than half of the ports while there was a Strong desire to improve the it was apparent that All sectors would have to work in order to make proper use of one of the country Ocean with the crunch approaching on the East West there is a potential for Churchill to become a More important but it requires an improved transportation modernized facilities and More items to it could All said but youve got to get Caiung Ohuna in i ;