Pennsylvania's Nuclear History and Future
Davic Falchek of the Scranton Times-Tribune web wrote an in-depth look at the past, present and future of nuclear power in Pennsylvania. Here is the link to the article that was published on July 31, 2005.
As of 4:57 am on 31 July, the article is simply titled “More News”, but that might change since it is an unusual title for a focused article with this kind of detail. Usually such a title is reserved for a collection of new snippets. One of the beauties of on line publications is that changes can be made without having to make a new run through physical presses.
Falchek’s article is a good read, but reaches a rather difficult to justify conclusion that there is little possibility that new nuclear power plants will be built in that pioneering nuclear state. Pennsylvania is still well positioned to participate in the nuclear renewal, especially since it is close to major electrical power markets and has a well established transmission infrastructure.
I have one other minor quibble with the article. While I recognize that all articles have space limits, and that no article about even a limited topic can cover all related items, I did find it hard to believe that an article with as much information about nuclear power’s presence in Pennsylvannia could fail to mention Westinghouse.
No matter who ends up winning the bidding war for Westinghouse, one of the world’s leading nuclear power vendors, there is every likelihood that it will remain headquartered in Pittsburgh and will provide thousands of jobs in the coming nuclear boom. I am sure that the author simply assumed that his readers would realize that it was Westinghouse that operated the naval lab mentioned in the article – Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory – and Westinghouse that worked with Admiral Rickover’s Naval Reactors division to build the Shippingport reactor.
