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Jun. 3, 2013

PERRY BEEMAN AND WILLIAM PETROSKI
DesMoines Register

MidAmerican Energy says design plan isn’t approved; environmentalists celebrate

MidAmerican Energy has scrapped plans for Iowa’s second nuclear plant and will refund $8.8 million ratepayers paid for a now-finished feasibility study, utility officials said Monday.

The utility has decided against building any major power plant. That’s because there is no approved design for the modular nuclear plant it envisioned, and there are too many questions about limits on carbon emissions from a natural gas plant, the company said.

"We opted for what was in the best interest of our customers," MidAmerican vice president for regulatory affairs Dean Crist told The Des Moines Register.

The decision ends, for now, a three-year controversy over the future of nuclear energy in Iowa and how to pay for a possible nuclear plant. Iowa has one nuclear power plant, the Duane Arnold plant near Palo.

Crist said a feasibility study started in 2010 found that two 700-acre sites near Thurman in southwest Iowa and Wilton in southeast Iowa would work for a modular nuclear plant, which was expected to cost around $1 billion and to be built in phases.

The MidAmerican study, finished several months early, also noted that the type of modular nuclear plant envisioned could be cost-effective, would be safer than earlier plants and would be a $135 million annual boon to the Iowa economy for 40 to 60 years.

In addition, the 11-year construction would bring another $1.2 billion in spending, a peak of $75 million in payroll, and 1,880 jobs.

But MidAmerican said those modular plants have not been designed and approved yet. And carbon regulations continue to make fossil-fuel plants a tougher proposition, Crist said.

Muscatine County Supervisor Scott Sauer said he had opposed any power plant at the Wilton-area site, preferring that the utility build on the sites of decommissioned coal plants instead.

James Larew, an Iowa City lawyer, had been critical of MidAmerican’s financial proposal for the plant because ratepayers, rather than investors, would have borne the risk. He credited AARP and other organizations for killing the legislation.

MidAmerican became part of a national wave of nuclear plant proposals in the United States, which last year approved its first new reactors since 1978. More than 100 proposals turned up as utilities looked for ways to sidestep almost certain limits on carbon emissions linked to climate change and largely from coal and natural gas.

Plans softened after earthquakes and tsunamis caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011. Now, with natural gas cheaper and plentiful, there is more talk about gas plants, and less about nuclear.

Mike Crecelius, Fremont County emergency management director, said he wasn’t surprised by MidAmerican’s move. One of the sites was in the county, and there has been widespread, unfounded concerns about groundwater contamination, he said.

The Japan disaster didn’t help MidAmerican’s plan, said Crecelius, but he noted that the Iowa plant would have used modular designs that would use far more modern technology.

Iowa environmental groups that had objected to MidAmerican’s attempt to charge ratepayers in advance for the nuclear plant praised the move to scrap the project.

"Yay!" exclaimed Neila Seaman, director of the Iowa Chapter of Sierra Club. "We are glad to hear that they are planning to expand their wind power. We think that is a better option than nuclear power," Seaman said.

"Nuclear power is dangerous and then there is the waste issue," Seaman added. "It is expensive and we just think there are better options."

Others saw it as a victory for clean energy.

"I think our perspective is that the right mix of clean energy, whether wind energy, or conservation, or both, can meet Iowa’s demand for energy," said Nathaniel Baer, who follows energy issues for the nonprofit Iowa Environmental Council. "This is welcome news."

The lack of an approved design for the new plants is another major reason few reactors are expected to be built in the next decade.

MidAmerican will ask the Iowa Utilities Board to approve a refund and cancel on July 1 the special charge ratepayers paid for the study. The utility collected $14.2 million over several years, and it will return the $8.8 million it didn’t spend on the site and market analysis, tests, and the like.

The money would be refunded over a year, beginning in August.

MidAmerican plans to let its land options expire, and will sell a couple of Muscatine County properties it bought for soil tests.

Crist said it probably will be toward the end of this decade before the utility takes another hard look at a major power plant project.

In the meantime, Mid­American will focus on its plan to build up to 656 wind turbines in a $1.9 billion project across Iowa, which also will trim power bills by saving fuel costs.

Ratepayers will see a slight dip in bills because of the nuclear-study refund, Crist noted.

MidAmerican President William Fehrman has a background in nuclear energy. Over several years, he suggested the nuclear facility was the best choice for a major plant needed for Iowa’s economic growth, as well as to replace power from coal plants that would be mothballed as federal regulations limiting carbon emissions ramp up.

But a controversial bill MidAmerican backed in the Iowa Legislature led to a political brouhaha. On Monday, Crist said that fight didn’t doom the plant, noting that Mid­American could have petitioned the utilities board to allow the financing.

The legislation would have allowed MidAmerican to charge customers for planning and construction of the plant before it was built, and even if it wasn’t, to a point.

In February 2012, an Iowa Poll found that 77 percent of Iowans polled opposed the arrangement allowing the utility to charge customers up front for the planning and construction. Eighteen percent favored the approach.

Timeline of nuclear proposal 2010: Iowa Legislature passes a bill allowing MidAmerican to recover up to $15 million to pay for the feasibility study on the nuclear plant. Gov. Chet Culver signs the bill. MidAmerican eyes $1 billion plant project. 2011: MidAmerican donates $70,000 to a political committee with ties to Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal and $20,000 to Gov. Terry Branstad’s committee. MidAmerican’s committees also donated $250 or more to dozens of state legislators from both parties seeking re-election last year. MARCH 2011: Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan draws huge debate over future of nuclear power. FEBRUARY 2012: In an Iowa Poll, 77 percent of Iowans opposed MidAmerican’s proposal to charge customers in advance for the planning and construction of the nuclear plant. SEPTEMBER 2012: MidAmerican meets with landowners and residents in Fremont and Muscatine counties in invitation-only sessions. OCTOBER 2012: MidAmerican gets approval for rate increase to offset a drop in its rate of return and to cover spending on environmental compliance and coal transportation. JUNE 2013: MidAmerican announces it won’t proceed with developing any power plant, nuclear or gas.

June 7, 2013

by Citizen Carol
Texas VOX

Earlier today, Southern California Edison (SCE) announced that they will retire Units 2 and 3 of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), essentially closing the troubled nuclear power plant which is located between San Diego and Los Angeles.

SONGS, which has been in operation for 45 years, may be a harbinger for the future of our aging nuclear fleet, many of which are near the end their original license period and are applying for extensions.

• Unit 1 began commercial operation on January 1, 1968 and ceased operation on November 30, 1992. Since then it has been dismantled and is used as a storage site for spent fuel for Units 2 and 3,
• Units 2 and 3 were both licensed in 1982 and by license amendments in March, 2000 are currently licensed until 2022. However, unit 3 has been shut down since the detection of a leak in one of the steam generator tubes on January 31 and Unit 2 is off line, for routine inspections which found that design flaws appeared to be the cause of excessive wear in tubing that carries radioactive water at San Onofre.

SCE cited continuing questions about when or if the remaining SONGS units might return to service as the cause for their decision, concluding that the uncertainty was not good for customers or investors.

In a statement Friday, California Public Utility Commission’s President Michael R. Peevey called the decision “understandable,” and that the closure of the nuclear power generating station “will require even greater emphasis on energy efficiency and demand response programs.” Utility companies will also need to add transmission upgrade and find new generation resources.

Concerns in Texas

In Texas, both nuclear plants (Comanche Peak outside of Fort Worth, and South Texas Nuclear Generating Station (STP), between Houston and Corpus Christi on the Texas Gulf Coast) are nearing the end of their life expectancies as reflected in their original licenses which are due to expire in 2027 and 2028, and have filed for a license extension. STNP’s unit two has experienced nine months of outage during 2 prolonged shutdowns in 2 years. The second outage was triggered by a fire that occurred only days before the public hearing on the license extension application.

Environmentalists expressed concerns about the plant’s ability to operate safely beyond the original life expectancy of the plant.

"Relicensing should be halted while a serious, in-depth examination occurs," said Karen Hadden, executive director of the Austin-based SEED coalition, which advocates for sustainable energy, and member of the Austin Electric Utility Commission (Austin Energy owns 16% of STP Units 1 and 2). “I think it’s becoming increasingly unreliable, and it’s costing us money to fix it.” She noted that it was difficult to get information about the plant’s problems and she expressed concern that these aging plants will experience problems more often and of greater threat to the safety of the plant and the surrounding communities.

MAY 1, 2013

BY DAVID BARER
StateImpact Texas

Update, May 1, 2013: The Senate has passed SB 791. The bill could allow states around the U.S. to import more of the "hotter" radioactive waste into a West Texas disposal facility and limit contested case hearings. Several amendments to the bill were passed, including ones that would make generators of radioactive waste responsible for the cost of transportation accident cleanup, allow for random audits of shipments of radioactive waste into the site and affect the Compact Commission Executive Director’s ability to modify disposal licenses. The bill now moves to the House Environmental Regulation Committee.

Original story, March 26, 2013: A controversial new bill could encourage states from around the country to send waste with higher levels of radiation to Texas. The legislation prompted some heated debate at a Senate Natural Resources Committee meeting today at the Capitol.

The bill, SB 791, by Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, would allow "hotter" radioactive waste into West Texas’ only radioactive waste disposal site, which started running last year after many years of controversy and debate, which continued in part today.

The disposal site is owned by Waste Control Specialists, a company owned by Dallas billionaire and top Republican donor Harold Simmons.

Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, a member of the committee, is concerned that the overarching goals and purpose of the Waste Control Facility are diverging from their original purpose. Initially, the site was meant to be a safe receptacle for all of Texas’, and other compact members’, dangerous radioactive waste, he said.

Now, "we are going to encourage more importation of higher radioactive waste," Duncan said.

The majority of storage space at the 1,300 acre site is designated for members of the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, which only includes Texas and Vermont. The crater-like disposal site is the only one in the nation built to store all three classes of low level waste — A, B and C. Class A waste is the least radioactive and most voluminous, Class C is the most radioactive but has lower volumes.

Texas already imports waste from states around the country that are not part of the compact. Fees for out-of-compact waste are higher than waste from firms within the compact. B and C Class waste brought into the site would have to be compacted by a factor of three, according to the bill.

Companies in Texas will be encouraged to export their Class A waste, with its lower levels of radiation, to cheaper sites outside Texas, such as the disposal site in Clive, Utah.

The bill would also limit the amount of people entitled to a contested case hearing – a way regular citizens can air their grievances to the state about the disposal site – to only people living nearby the far West Texas facility.

State Sen. Duncan was troubled with those portions of the bill. At the meeting, he said that while Seliger had done a fine job authoring legislation related to the waste facility in the past, "this seems to be expanding on that in a direction that I don’t think we ever intended to go when we started on this journey," Duncan said.

The bill would entitle only those living in Andrews County or an adjacent Texas county to a contested case hearing. New Mexicans would be restricted from the hearings, even though thousands of New Mexicans live within 20 miles of the facility. They would have to use federal courts as recourse, Seliger said.

That was the rub for Duncan, who said Texas shouldn’t encourage the involvement of the federal government in disposal site issues.

"They are still Americans, whether they be on the West side, the North side or the East side of the plant. They ought to be allowed the opportunity to be heard on that, shouldn’t they?"

Rod Baltzer, President of Waste Control Specialists, testified in favor of the bill and said it would benefit Andrews County and Texas.

The site has so far generated $7.5 million for the state’s general revenue fund, and about $1.5 million for Andrews County. Another $3.2 million is projected to go into Andrews County’s coffers in the next 12 months. The site also provides about 170 non-oil-and-gas jobs for Andrews County, Baltzer said.

All Andrews County revenues for the 2012-13 budget amount to about $24.7 million, according to an Austin American-Statesman report.

The new legislation wouldn’t hurt Waste Control’s bottom line, either.

"Is there an economic motivation? Absolutely, there is," State Sen. Seliger said. "There’s more money in B and C waste. There’s also no other place for it to go."

The committee did not vote on the bill today, leaving it pending in committee.

David Barer is a reporting intern with StateImpact Texas.

For Immediate Release: May 17, 2013
Contacts: Karen Hadden 512-797-8481 Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition
Cyrus Reed 512-740-4086 Lone Star Sierra Club
Tom "Smitty" Smith 512-797-8468 Public Citizen’s Texas Office

Download this press release in pdf format for printing.

Austin, TX A bill that would increase the concentration of radioactive waste to be dumped in Texas is set to be heard on the House floor on Monday, May 20th. Waste Control Specialists (WCS) would benefit even more from the hotter radioactive materials going to their radioactive waste dump in West Texas, and would get to bring in the waste sooner, raising the annual cap on imported waste from other states from 120,000 to 275,000 curies. SEED Coalition, Public Citizen, and the Lone Star Sierra Club oppose the bill, which is set to be heard on Monday, May 20th on the House floor. SB 791 is authored by Sen. Seliger and Representative Drew Darby.

"This bill fails to protect the public. It fails to ensure that radioactive waste will not be buried when water is present. It lets trucks continue carrying radioactive waste down any highway in our state, without designated routes. We expect WCS to come back to the legislature numerous times demanding to dump ever more radioactive waste on Texas" said Karen Hadden, of SEED Coalition. "The bill fails to require safety audits by the State Auditor. Instead, TCEQ would do occasional audits, which equates to the fox guarding the henhouse. And it lets TCEQ authorize bringing in additional kinds of radioactive waste, such as depleted uranium, without any public hearing, which should be required for such a major license change."

"Every session for the last 10 years, WCS has exerted its high-dollar political influence to press for their own corporate gain, at the risk of public safety. This time they want to require the wastes to be compacted to a third of the original size, increasing the concentration of its radioactivity and increasing risks in order to increase profits. Next session they’ll be back, saying they have all this extra room at the dump site, and clamoring to put in more radioactive waste, " said Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen. "The only person who benefits is billionaire Harold Simmons, WCS’ owner, whose private gain comes at the expense of public risk. Simmons is known for political attack ads. He’s Perry’s second largest donor and the second largest donor nationally to the "attack ads" plaguing our elections."

Donations by Simmons and WCS to state legislators in 2012 are documented online at: http://info.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/pdf/SimmonsContribsSince2000.pdf and http://info.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/pdf/DarbySimmons.pdf

"In order to protect our water and public safety, the bill should require that the site be dry before waste is buried, but it doesn’t,’ said Karen Hadden, of SEED Coalition. "Radioactive waste shouldn’t be buried when standing water is present at the site, but that’s exactly what a recently approved license amendment now lets WCS do. Over 40% of the monitoring wells have shown the presence of water, but radioactive waste is being buried anyway. Scientists at TCEQ rang the alarm about groundwater contamination risks in 2007 when they recommended denial of WCS’ license."

"All of the TCEQ scientists working on the license determined the geology of the site to be inadequate because of the possibility of radioactive contamination of our aquifers and groundwater. The groundwater lies only 14 feet below the bottom of the radioactive waste dump trenches. However there was clear political pressure throughout the entire process indicating that WCS would receive the license regardless of how inadequate the site was," said Glenn Lewis in a previous statement. He was one of three TCEQ employees that resigned in protest of licensing the site.

"I’m going to try to work with the House sponsor to strip out the most egregious aspects of the bill that literally put radioactive waste a few feet away from contaminating our water supplies. I’m sure no one wants to put our aquifers at risk or spend billions on clean-up," said Representative Lon Burnam, District 90.

The bill would require radioactive waste to be volume reduced by three times, a provision that benefits Studsvik, a radioactive waste processor in Tennessee. The public has seen no studies that show that burying this more concentrated radioactive waste would be safe at the Texas site, and there are questions about whether the material would become too hot to transport safely. Radioactive waste going to the WCS is mainly from nuclear reactors from around the country, and while fuel rods are excluded, very hot materials such as control rod blades are already being shipped to the site. Exposure to radioactivity can lead to cancers, birth defects and even death.

The bill requires the collection of $25 million in funds for perpetual care, but this is not nearly enough. "All six of the so-called ‘low-level’ nuclear dumps in this country have leaked or are leaking, often costing the states in which they are located millions of dollars," said Diane D’Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "One of the now closed nuclear waste dumps with supposedly ‘impermeable clay’ threatens the water supply downstream and is projected to cost in the range of $5 billion to ‘clean up.’ In fact, if it does get ‘cleaned up’ the waste could end up getting buried again in West Texas at the WCS site."

"TCEQ rushed into a risky deal when they approved a faulty application to dispose of some of the most dangerous radioactive waste known," said Cyrus Reed, Conservation Director of Lone Star Sierra Club. "And they did it without giving members of the public who are at risk a chance to prove that the application is faulty. The Lone Star Sierra Club immediately appealed TCEQ’s decision to deny us a contested case hearing to the State District Court and we won, but the state and WCS immediately appealed the decision to the State Court of Appeals, and we’re still waiting for that hearing to happen."

95% of the radioactive waste being shipped to this site is from nuclear power plants. So-called ‘Low-level’ radioactive waste is defined as everything radioactive in a nuclear power plant except the high-level reactor fuel core. Pipes that carry radioactive water, filters and sludge from the water in the reactor and even the entire reactor itself when it is dismantled – thousands of tons of contaminated concrete and steel can all be dumped in a "low-level" facility. None of the radioactive elements present in high-level waste is prohibited from being included in low-level waste.

May 4, 2013

Barry Halvorson
Bay City Tribune

A federal law dating back to the Cold War is being used as the basis for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to oppose the licensing for units 3 and 4 of the South Texas Project.

In a news release issued by the SEED Coalition, a group that has intervened in the licensing process, along with the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy and Public Citizen, the NRC told an independent panel of judges assigned to hear the case that the applicant for the project, Nuclear Innovation of North America (NINA) "is subject to foreign ownership control or domination requirements and does not meet the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act."

"This NRC notice is great for us as opponents of two proposed reactors at the South Texas Project," said Karen Hadden, executive director of SEED. "We hope that we’ll soon see clean, safe energy developed in Texas instead of dangerous nuclear power. We must prevent Fukushima style disasters from happening here."

NINA Chief Executive Officer Mark McBurnett said his company does meet the standards and such questions being raised are simply part of the licensing process.

"We’ve had a dialogue going with the NRC for a couple of years on this," McBurnett said. "We pressed the NRC position to get this ultimately resolved. And NINA is committed to seeing this project through and fully expects to resolve this issue."

In looking at the project, Buddy Eller, STP General Manager for communications and external affairs, said the Matagorda County plant was actually designed with the proposed expansion included in the original plans for the site.

"It was designed for four units," Eller said. "We have the water, the transmission lines and the land to support the two additional units."

SEED, the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, gives an Austin address on its website. The site describes SEED as being a group that "works for clean air and clean energy in Texas" and an "advocate for energy efficiency, renewable solar, wind and geothermal power. We fight dirty coal power plants and dangerous nuclear plants."

At the local level, Matagorda County Judge Nate McDonald said he is unaware of any opposition to the licensing and construction of units 3 and 4.

"The support in Matagorda County is complete and unadulterated," the judge said. "Everyone I come in contact with only is concerned with the questions of ‘if’ and ‘when’ with the follow up being better sooner rather than later, I’ve never had anyone in my presence speak against it."

McDonald added units 3 and 4 will be an important part of the area’s future in terms of both investment dollars and employment.

"It would be another economic development cornerstone for the county," he said. "It is a project that would benefit several generations of Matagorda County citizens. A plant like this is going to be operating 40 to 60 years or more and that means billions of dollars of investment and tens of millions of dollars in terms of salaries and jobs. It is a huge, huge project for us and a very favorable one."

While an independent company, McBurnett said NINA is 90 percent own by NRG, a North American based company. The interveners (opponents) of the license application are claiming that it is actually owned by the Japanese Company Toshiba North America Engineering (TANE) based on funding. He explained that Toshiba does have a 10 percent stake in the STP expansion and is loaning NINA the funds to pay for the licensing process.

"Our position is that we are not a foreign owned company," McBurnett said. "Our ownership is domestic. This is a point on which we do not agree with the NRC position. And that is why you have this hearing process.

During the licensing process, McBurnett said, someone can intervene and then the NRC has to appoint an independent panel of judges to hear and rule on the case.

"There are three participants," he said. "The intervener, the applicant, which in this case is NINA, and the NRC staff. Each presents its arguments before the judges, who then make a ruling. After that, there is a period to appeal that ruling. But it is an independent review process."

McBurnett added all sides are anticipating the hearing will be heard sometime in a September to October time frame.

The interveners are basing their arguments on TANE’s funding the licensing process. TANE is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba America, Inc, a Japanese corporation. Opponents contend that this makes them ineligible for licensing.

"Federal law is clear that foreign controlled corporations are not eligible to apply for a license to build and operate nuclear power plants. The evidence is that Toshiba is in control of the project and this precludes obtaining an NRC license for South Texas Project 3 and 4," said Brett Jarmer, an attorney representing the interveners. Attorney Robert Tye added, "Foreign investment in U.S nuclear projects is not per se prohibited; but Toshiba is paying all the bills for the STP 3 and 4 project. This makes it difficult to accept that Toshiba doesn’t control the project."

"Foreign ownership, control or domination policy is spelled out in the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954," said Tom Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas Office. "In Section 103d it says that no license may be issued to an alien or any corporation or other entity if the Commission knows or has reason to believe it is owned, controlled, or dominated by an alien, a foreign corporation, or a foreign government."

While not opposed to the process that is taking place, McBurnett did say the law being used was passed in a different political climate.

"When it was passed, we were in the middle of the Cold War," he said. "The provisions concerning not allowing foreign control was based on opposing the Soviet Union and preventing them from gaining access to either our nuclear materials, such as enriched Uranium, or our technology at the time.

"Today, you are looking at an extremely integrated industry where we are actually sharing information so that we can continue to improve both quality and safety."

The interveners’ release said the factors that will be considered in the hearing include the extent of foreign ownership, whether the foreign entity operates the reactors, whether there are interlocking directors and officers, whether there is access to restricted data and details of ownership of the foreign parent company.