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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Sarah Gardner
Marketplace

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Plans for new nuclear power plants in the U.S. lose appeal as Congress doesn’t act on carbon emissions rules and natural gas becomes plentiful and cheap.

Kai Ryssdal: Three years ago, Marketplace’s Sarah Gardner did a story about American nuclear power, about how that industry was gearing up for a big comeback. There were new tax credits, building permits and regulatory changes in the air. Suffice it to say, a lot has changed.

Sarah Gardner: It’s always instructive and humbling to go back to stories I’ve reported and see how things turned out. It’s like playing "Where Are They Now?" but with news events, not celebrities.

So I dug up that 2007 "nuclear renaissance" piece from the Marketplace archives. It opens with a sound bite from David Crane, the CEO of NRG Energy. His company had just filed the first petition to build a nuclear power plant in the U.S. in nearly 30 years.

David Crane: It’s important for all of us to recognize that that was then, and this is now. The nuclear industry today is not the nuclear industry of the 1970s.

When I interviewed Crane in 2007, he was jazzed about safety advances in nuclear technology and new federal loan guarantees. Other utility execs were too. By 2008, they’d drawn up plans to build at least two dozen new reactors here. Fast forward to 2011…

Crane: All I would say is that the process has taken a very long time.

Crane still hasn’t gotten a desperately needed loan guarantee. And his company’s already shelled out half a billion on this nuclear venture, and they haven’t broken ground yet.

Paul Patterson: I think the reality caught up with the hype, so to speak.

Energy analyst Paul Patterson says it’s not just NRG’s nuclear power dreams that are on hold. In fact, most of a few dozen proposed reactors are in limbo. Congress never did pass a cap on greenhouse gases emitted by coal burning power plants, which would have made fossil fuels more expensive and nuclear power more competitive. And federal subsidies never reached the levels nuclear lobbyists hoped for. But the biggest, baddest enemy of that "nuclear revival"? Cheap natural gas.

Again, CEO David Crane.

David Crane: It was absolutely not predicted by anybody, expert or soothsayer.

A glut of natural gas has driven down prices and now makes nuclear look wildly expensive. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, but emits half the greenhouse gases of coal. Energy companies have discovered and tapped into huge reserves of shale gas in the U.S.

Bernard Weinstein is associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute in Dallas.

Bernard Weinstein: We’ve got at least a 200-year supply of natural gas in the United States. So if you’re a utility executive and you’re scratching your head, maybe I don’t want to commit to a nuclear plant right now.

Peter Bradford, a former nuclear regulator, says nuclear power’s always been a hard sell. Its history of cost overruns and plant cancellations means Wall Street won’t touch it. And the feds are cautious too. Last fall, Constellation Energy walked away from a promising nuclear project in Maryland.

Bradford said the Department of Energy demanded what Constellation called a "shockingly high" fee for a government loan guarantee.

Peter Bradford: And the nuclear industry’s position now is "We can’t go forward in the face of a fee like that. We need something that’s more like a gift."

And right now, any gifts from the feds are unlikely. So, what happens another three years from now? Well, if the experts are right this time, the industry will be lucky to have a few nuclear reactors under construction. Of course, as this story’s taught me, things can change.

I’m Sarah Gardner for Marketplace.

January 7, 2011

Editorial – Dallas Morning News

All Texans should be concerned about the questionable process through which Waste Control Specialists, controlled by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, won approval last week for its West Texas site to store low-level radioactive waste from around the country. Far too much about this process stinks of the influence that one very rich person wields as a million-dollar campaign contributor to Gov. Rick Perry, whose appointees granted the approval.

The need to deal with the nation’s growing stockpile of radioactive waste is a significant issue. The waste must go somewhere, but decisions about the venue must include a transparent process in which financial interests don’t appear to hold ultimate sway. Waste Control is in business to make profits, and its bid to expand interstate disposal at its 1,300-acre Andrews County site will help maximize those profits.

"It’s a state-of-the-art Cadillac of a landfill," Waste Control CEO Bill Lindquist says. "It’s very expensive, and the waste generated in Texas and Vermont is not enough to offset those costs."

Company President Rodney Baltzer says private and public generators of radioactive waste would pay higher prices if other states couldn’t help offset the bill. But when Waste Control got into this business, it knew that Texas and Vermont were the sole members of the Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact authorized to send radioactive waste to Texas. The public impression when the compact became effective in 1993 was that it was a two- or three-state deal.

Last week’s decision allows 34 other states to access the site.

Yes, the requisite public hearings occurred, but Texans’ welfare doesn’t appear to have been the chief factor in the decision to make part of West Texas a multi-state, radioactive dumping ground.

Significant public health issues cannot be ignored. This newspaper questions the wisdom of concentrating so much radioactive waste in a single location, particularly one abutting the important Ogallala Aquifer, a crucial source of water to eight states. Since 2004, the Waste Control site has received six notices for minor violations. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality gives Waste Control a high compliance rating.

Still, the risk factor now rises significantly. Trucks loaded with this waste will be crisscrossing state highways. Over the next 35 years, an estimated 5 million cubic feet of radioactive junk will have been dumped in Texas. That’s the space of 56 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the contents of which can remain toxic for centuries.

Baltzer says the facility is designed to last "thousands of years." He says winning approval was more difficult because of the political ties between Simmons and Perry. Commissioners went overboard to demonstrate their independence. But he acknowledges there’s a public perception problem.

We agree, and it should have been addressed more effectively before the commission’s decision came down.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

By ANA CAMPOY
Wall Street Journal

A Texas commission Tuesday set in motion the importation of low-level radioactive-waste from 36 other states, a move long sought by the nuclear-energy industry and long opposed by environmentalists.

The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, which manages the state’s radioactive-waste dump, voted 5-2 to approve rules governing the process for accepting the out-of-state material.

The decision drew a quick response from the plan’s opponents, some of whom opposed the idea because the site is near the Ogallala aquifer that provides drinking water to several states.

"We’re going to consult with our lawyers and probably sue them," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group. Mr. Smith, who said the commission violated rules in the public-comment process, was present at the panel’s meeting in Andrews County, in remote west Texas, where the storage site is located.

The plan enjoyed he backing of the nuclear industry, which is now limited to three other such storage sites in the U.S. "It’s a positive step forward," Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, said of the commission’s vote.

Controversy had surrounded the proposal in part because the dump, set to open by year’s end, was conceived and built to take waste from only two states—Texas and Vermont.

Even with the commission’s decision, the fight over the plan was likely to endure through court appeals.

The site will permanently store low-level radioactive waste—contaminated materials and equipment from nuclear plants, research laboratories and hospitals. The material includes everything from parts from dismantled nuclear-energy plants to booties worn by scientists working in labs where radioactive materials are present. More highly contaminated waste, such as spent fuel from power plants, wouldn’t be stored at the site.

The waste will be stored at the 1,338-acre site in concrete-reinforced underground units.

States are responsible for handling low-level radioactive waste produced within their own borders, but space for it is limited. And the three disposal sites for it in the U.S. don’t take all kinds of materials within the low-level category or can only take waste from certain states. That leaves 36 states without a permanent storage place.

The commission’s decision wasn’t a surprise.

"This is a major milestone," said Ralph Andersen, an official at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, before the vote. "It’s going to provide much needed space."

But some environmental groups said the plan would provide an incentive to the nuclear-energy industry to expand without coming up with better places to store its refuse.

"It’s defying logic to make more waste that we don’t have a good place to put," said Diane D’Arrigo, an expert with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a nonprofit group based in Takoma Park, Md. that advocates against new nuclear plants.

In Texas, activists also said that the state would be stuck with liabilities if the site leaks.

The controversy was tinged with Texas politics. Opponents say a conflict of interest exists between the commission, most of whose members were appointed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and the site’s owner, Waste Control Specialists LLC, whose main investor, Harold Simmons, is a donor to Mr. Perry.

Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry, said his appointments are "based on an individual’s qualifications and willingness to serve" and that he expects their decisions to be in the best interest of Texas.

Waste Control spokesman Chuck McDonald said that Texas regulators already deemed the site safe, and thus granted a license for the project. The state will receive a cut of disposal fees as well as a $136 million fund to help pay for any future liabilities, he added.

Before the commission’s vote, Mr. McDonald said it had nothing to do with Mr. Simmons’s donations, which are made to Republicans all over the country. Rather, he said, it was about ensuring that economics for the project were solid.

"If the compact site is not economically viable there’s no place for that waste to go," he said.

Before voting on the rules Tuesday, the commission had addressed one concern Tuesday afternoon—from Vermont’s Democratic Gov.-Elect Peter Shumlin. Mr. Shumlin, who is scheduled to assume office on Thursday, had opposed importing radioactive trash from other states for fear that it would fill up the dump. On Tuesday, the commissioners agreed to reserve 20% of the space for his state.

Write to Ana Campoy at ana.campoy(at)dowjones.com

Monday, 12/27/10 5:50pm and Tuesday, 12/28/10

John Dillon
VPR News

Listen to podcast at VPR News (2:30)

(Host) Officials with the outgoing Douglas administration will vote in favor next week of expanding a nuclear waste dump that Vermont shares with Texas.

That’s even though Governor-elect Peter Shumlin asked that the vote be delayed so his staff could have time to evaluate the plan.

VPR’s John Dillon has more:

(Dillon) Vermont and Texas now share exclusive rights to a low level radioactive waste site to be built in west Texas.

But the eight-member commission that oversees the project will vote next week on a proposal to open up the site to 36 other states.

It’s a controversial plan. Texas environmentalists are fighting the expansion. And Governor-elect Peter Shumlin says he’s worried that Vermont could get squeezed out if other states are allowed in. So he’s asked for a brief time out.

(Shumlin) "I would urge our two commissioners to not get on the plane to Texas to give my administration the time to really evaluate the deal and make sure it’s as good as it can be."

(Dillon) Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien is Governor Jim Douglas’s point person on utility issues. O’Brien says the Vermont members of the commission will fly to Texas for the vote next week.

(O’Brien) "I think this is what we believe is in the best interest of the state. I think there will be ample opportunity for the new administration to have an imprint on this. I sure hope that they look at this very closely before they unwind anything we’ve done."

(Dillon) The Vermont members of the commission were named by the Douglas administration, and they were the swing votes in favor of the expansion proposal. As governor, Shumlin could replace them with new members, who could block the dump expansion.

O’Brien says he and his staff have worked on the radioactive waste issue for years.

(O’Brien) "I think that for some people that maybe this is a new issue, but this is an effort that’s been going on for, gosh, the better part of all the eight years that I’ve been commissioner."

(Dillon) But Shumlin is not the only one calling for a second look at the expansion. Bob Gregory is a commissioner from Austin, Texas. He opposes the expansion plans and says the process should be slowed down.

Gregory says Vermont risks losing access to the dump if the facility is allowed to accept waste from three dozen other states.

(Gregory) "I think the license facility or the license capacity can be consumed before Vermont gets to the point that it needs it for the disposal of the waste from Vermont Yankee’s plant."

(Dillon) But David O’Brien – who will leave his post in early January – says Vermont’s interests are protected.

For VPR News, I’m John Dillon in Montpelier.

December 30, 2010

by Forrest Wilder
Texas Observer

Opponents of Harold Simmons’ West Texas radioactive waste empire got a last-minute reprieve today. Austin Judge Jon Wisser ordered a temporary halt to rules that could make Texas the radioactive waste dump for the nation.

The obscure Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission – a body consisting of six Perry appointees and two members from Vermont – had planned to vote on import rules on January 4th. Those rules would create a process for importing radioactive waste from at least 36 states that currently don’t have a place to bury their waste.

But Wisser agreed with Public Citizen and the Texas Civil Rights Project that the compact commission would violate Texas law by meeting in early January. That’s because the commission goofed on providing the public with a chance to comment on the rules. The email address for submitting comments was defective, causing some emails to bounce back to the sender. Also, Wisser found, the barely-staffed commission hadn’t given itself enough time to respond to the 4,000-plus comments it did receive. (The comment period closed on December 26th, the day after Christmas.)

Dump opponents have accused the commission chairman, Michael Ford, of rushing the rules. Here’s how: Texas’ partner in the compact is the state of Vermont. Under the 16-year-old compact, Texas agrees to take Vermont’s nuclear waste. Any other state or entity outside the Teaxs-Vermont Compact must petition the commission to send its waste to Texas. However, Vermont has an incoming governor, Peter Shumlin, who is not too crazy about the idea of opening the West Texas dump to other states. Shumlin will likely appoint members to the Texas-Vermont Compact who are much less favorable to allowing other states to dump at the West Texas site.

Here’s the New York Times on the issue:

The commission has scheduled a vote for Jan. 4, two days before Mr. Shumlin is scheduled to take office in Montpelier. Mr. Shumlin opposes the policy; he has expressed worry that if waste from other states is allowed in, there might not be enough space left for Vermont, especially since he is calling for the shutdown of Vermont’s only nuclear reactor, Vermont Yankee. Tearing it down will generate substantial nuclear waste that will require burial somewhere.

The temporary restraining order is good for 14 days.