By: Hollie Hojek
hhojek@kcautv.com
A natural disaster like the one that took place in Fukushima a year ago, wouldn't be very likely to take place in Iowa. Still the idea of building a nuclear power plant has some people concerned.but MidAmerican energy says they wouldn't build one if it was not safe. For more than a year now, MidAmerican Energy has been looking in to building a nuclear power plant in Iowa, but it was a year ago when a devastating natural disaster caused a series of equipment failures and nuclear meltdowns at a power plant in Fukushima, Japan. The damage caused radioactive materials to leak, releasing radiation throughout a wide area. But the president of MidAmerican Energy says the state-of-the-art technology that is being used in reactors today is "exponentially" better than what was being used in the past.
"It's almost like looking at your telephone, from the rotary dial phone to the smart phones you have today. It's that sort of steep change in technology, that's being applied to the safety of nuclear power," said Bill Fehrman, president of MidAmerican Energy.
A technology upgrade is not he only reason MidAmerican is interested in nuclear power.
"The way the regulations are coming down from the federal government our ability to continue to use coal and use it cost effectively probably wont be there in the future," Fehrman.
MidAmerican says keeping nuclear power as an option is the "smart thing to do," not only for its customers but Iowa in general.
"Fundamentally and globally, its job creation and its retaining jobs... and to do that we have to be competitive," said Fehrman.
The nuclear legislation regarding a power plant in Iowa is currently sitting in the Senate. The legislation will not allow MidAmerican to build a power plant. It's to help create the financial framework to potentially build a nuclear plant.
