Author Archive

August 9, 2010

By Jack Z. Smith
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has made a preliminary finding that "there are no environmental impacts that would preclude" issuing combined construction and operating licenses for a proposed expansion of the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant 45 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

The federal agency’s decision is contained in a draft environmental impact statement that was filed late Friday with the Environmental Protection Agency, commission spokesman Scott Burnell told the Star-Telegram Monday.

Dallas-based Luminant, the electric power generator proposing to build two new 1,700-megawatt reactors at Comanche Peak, is "pleased with the NRC’s preliminary recommendation" in support of "more safe, dependable nuclear power in Texas," said company spokeswoman Ashley Monts.

Karen Hadden, executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, an opponent of the plant expansion, said Monday: "We remain very concerned that there are environmental impacts that are not being adequately addressed."

Water usage an issue

Hadden said the group is particularly concerned about water withdrawals from Lake Granbury that would be required for the two new reactors. The group previously estimated that withdrawals could reach 91.5 million gallons per day during maximum operations. Luminant has said that there should be sufficient water supplies and that substantial volumes will be recycled.

Hadden’s group has urged that instead of building the new reactors, additional renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power should be developed, in conjunction with compressed-air energy storage and natural gas-fired generation.

Public meetings

NRC staff members will seek public comment on the agency’s preliminary finding in meetings to be held from 1 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 10 p.m. on Sept. 21 in the Glen Rose Expo Center at 202 Bo Gibbs Blvd. in Glen Rose. Staffers from the NRC and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will discuss the draft environmental impact statement at the meetings.

NRC staffers will be available for informal discussions with the public during "open house" sessions from noon to 1 p.m. and 6 to 7 p.m. at the center, immediately preceding the three-hour meetings that begin at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Continued opposition

Hadden said the SEED coalition, together with a group of plant opponents known as True Cost of Nukes, will "continue to oppose these new reactors."

"We will be at the Sept. 21 meetings and encourage the citizens to join us," she said.

The two new reactors, dubbed Units 3 and 4, would more than double generating capacity at the current two-unit Comanche Peak plant four miles north of Glen Rose.

Cost estimate

Luminant CEO David Campbell estimated in July that the plant expansion would cost $15 billion to $20 billion. Luminant hopes to win approval of combined construction and operating licenses by late 2012 or early 2013, he said. The new units could go online in the 2018-2020 timeframe, perhaps a year apart, he said.

The expansion would create approximately 5,000 jobs at the Comanche Peak site during five years of construction, and more than 500 permanent jobs there, economist Ray Perryman has estimated

The expanded plant’s indirect economic effect would create 2,847 permanent jobs in the Somervell County area in the general vicinity of Comanche Peak, and 6,264 permanent jobs throughout Texas, Perryman has estimated.

The two new reactors would provide enough power to serve an estimated 1.7 million homes.

Future hearing

A three-member panel of the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing Board agreed in late June to hold a future hearing regarding arguments by plant opponents that a combination of renewable energy, natural gas and energy storage could provide a feasible alternative to expansion of Comanche Peak. No hearing date has been set, said Burnell, the NRC spokesman.

Jack Z. Smith, 817-390-7724

July 31, 2010

By Lynn Doan
SNL Financial LC

Consumers benefited in 2009 from some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. region has seen in recent years, but the market suffered, according to an annual report issued by ERCOT’s independent market monitor.

According to the report, "2009 State of the Market Report for the ERCOT Wholesale Electricity Markets," wholesale electricity prices averaged $34.03 per MWh in 2009, or 56% lower than the $77.19 average price in 2008. Market monitor Potomac Economics noted in the report, sent to stakeholders July 30, that average annual prices fell to the lowest levels experienced in the ERCOT wholesale market since 2002.

All-in electricity prices, accounting for the costs of operating reserves, regulation and uplift, ranked lower than those in markets in California, New England, New York and the mid-Atlantic region.

While the lower prices provided short-term relief to consumers, Potomac Economics said, they did not reflect market conditions when operating reserves were scarce. When reserves fall short, prices are supposed to rise sharply to reflect that.

And according to the report, they did not rise sharply enough to support the development of new natural gas, combined-cycle and combustion turbine generation. A sharp drop in the number of shortage intervals last year further exacerbated the situation, Potomac Economics said.

"Although these shortage conditions occur in only a handful of hours each year," the report said, "efficient shortage pricing is critical to the long-term success of the ERCOT energy-only market."

Estimated revenues for nuclear and coal-fired generation in 2009 were also not enough to support new market entry, though that was primarily caused by a fall in natural gas prices and a related drop in wholesale energy prices.

Potomac Economics concluded in its report that the ERCOT wholesale market performed competitively in 2009, and performance measures showed "a trend of increasing competitiveness" over the 2005 through 2009 period, it said. But the 2009 report also echoes Potomac Economics’ previous concerns that current market rules and procedures are resulting in "systemic inefficiencies" that the nodal market system, now scheduled to go live Dec. 1, will largely resolve.

Among other things, the report said, the nodal market design will improve ERCOT’s ability to manage congestion, provide incentives to market participants to more efficiently commit and dispatch generation, and reliably integrate rapidly growing amounts of wind- and solar-generated power.

The report estimates that the net revenue required to pay for the annual fixed costs of a new gas turbine unit ranges from $70 to $95 per kW-year. The estimated net revenue in 2009 for a new gas turbine was about $55, $47 and $32 per kW-year in the South, Houston and North Zones, respectively.

For a new combined cycle unit, the estimated net revenue necessary is about $105 to $135 per kW-year, the report said, while the actual estimated net revenue in 2009 was about $76, $67 and $52 per kW-year in the South, Houston and North Zones, respectively.

"These values indicate that the estimated net revenue in 2009 was well below the levels required to support new entry for a new gas turbine or a combined cycle unit in the ERCOT region," Potomac Economics said in its report.

Estimated net revenue for a new coal unit similarly fell far below net revenue requirements in 2009, to $93, $84 and $70 per kW-year in the same three zones. And the estimated net revenue for a new nuclear unit was about $194, $187 and $172 per kW-year in the zones, well under the required net revenue of about $280 to $390 per kW-year.

The report also revealed that interzonal price disparities grew significantly in 2008 and 2009 compared with previous years, primarily because of additional wind generation in the West Zone and "inefficiencies that are inherent to the zonal market design," the report said. Wind generation also attributed to an increased use of coal-fired power as the marginal, or price-setting, fuel in the region.

The amount of load participating in the responsive reserve market fell in late 2008 and into 2009, the report said, compared with participation in previous years, likely due to a combination of Hurricane Ike and the economic downturn’s impact on industrial operations. But in all, participation has held fairly constant at 1,150 MW since 2006, and Potomac Economics said this high level of support "sets ERCOT apart from other operating electricity markets."

According to the report, ERCOT’s average balancing energy prices fell by 56% in 2009, and the average natural gas price fell by 56%.

July 26, 2010

Harvey Wasserman
Huffington Post

Stewart Brand has become a poster boy for a "nuclear renaissance" that has just suffered a quiet but stunning defeat. Despite $645 million spent in lobbying over the past decade, the reactor industry has thus far this year failed to gouge out major new taxpayer funding for new commercial reactors.

In an exceedingly complex series of twists and turns, no legislation now pending in Congress contains firm commitments to the tens of billions of dollars reactor builders have been demanding. They could still come by the end of the session. But the radioactive cake walk many expected the industry to take through the budget process has thus far failed to happen.

The full story is excruciatingly complicated. But the core reasons are simple: atomic power can’t compete it and makes global warming worse.

In support of this failed 20th Century technology, the industry has enlisted a 20th Century retro-hero, Stewart Brand. Back in the 1960s Brand published the Whole Earth Catalog. Four decades later, that cachet has brought him media access for his advocacy of corporate technologies like genetically modified foods and geo-engineering… and, of course, nuclear energy.

In response to a cover interview in Marin County’s Pacific Sun, I wrote the following to explain why Stewart is wrong wrong wrong:

Stewart Brand now seems to equate "science" with a tragic and dangerous corporate agenda. The technologies for which he argues — nuclear power, "clean" coal, genetically modified crops, etc. — can be very profitable for big corporations, but carry huge risks for the rest of us. In too many instances, tangible damage has already been done, and more damage is possible.

If there is a warning light for what Stewart advocates, it is the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which much of the oil industry said (like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl) was "impossible." Then it happened. The $75 million liability limit protecting BP should be ample warning that any technology with a legal liability limit (like nuclear power) cannot be tolerated.

Thankfully, there is good news: We have true green alternatives to these failed 20th-century ideas. They’re cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable and more job-producing than the old ways Stewart advocates.

Stewart and I have never met. But we have debated on the radio and online. Thank you, Pacific Sun, for bringing us to print.

Stewart’s advocacy does fit a pattern. He appears to have become a paladin for large-scale corporate technologies that may be highly profitable to CEOs and shareholders,but are beyond the control of the average citizen and work to our detriment. Because he makes so many simple but costly errors, let’s try a laundry list:

1. Like other reactor advocates, Stewart cavalierly dismisses the nuclear waste problem by advocating, among other things, that the stuff simply be dumped down a deep hole. This is a terribly dangerous idea and will not happen. Suffice it to say that after a half-century of promises (the first commercial reactor opened in Pennsylvania in 1957) the solution now being offered by government and industry is… a committee!!! Meanwhile, more than 60,000 tons of uniquely lethal spent fuel rods sit at some 65 sites in 31 states with nowhere to go. Like the reactors themselves, they are vulnerable to cooling failure, terrorist attack, water shortages, overheating of lakes, rivers and oceans, flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes, and much more. This is no legacy to leave our children.
2. Equally disturbing is the industry’s inability to get meaningful private liability insurance. The current federally imposed limit is $11 billion, which would disappear in a meltdown even faster than BP’s $75 million in the Gulf. According to the latest compendium of studies, issued this spring by the New York Annals of Science, Chernobyl has killed some 985,000 people, and is by no means finished. It has done at least a half-trillion dollars in damage. The uninsured death toll and financial costs of a similar-scaled accident in the U.S. are incalculable, but would clearly kill millions and bankrupt our nation for the foreseeable future.

Stewart points out that there are also risks with wind and solar power. But clearly none that begin to compare with nukes, coal or deep-water drilling. If reactor owners were forced to find reasonable liability insurance, all would shut. A similar demand for renewables and efficiency would leave them unaffected.

3. Renewable/efficiency technologies today are cheaper, faster to deploy and more job-creating than nukes. It takes a minimum of five years to license and build a new reactor. The one being done by AREVA in Finland is hugely over budget and behind schedule. There is no reason to expect anything better here. Among other things, the long lead time ties up for too many years the critical social capital that could otherwise go to technology that can quickly let the planet heal.

,p>

4. Like others who doubt the possibility of a green-powered Earth, Stewart posits the straw man of reliance on a deployment of solar panels that would blanket the desert and do ecological harm. In fact, the National Renewable Energy Lab estimates 100 percent of the nation’s electricity could come from an area 90 miles on a side, or a relatively modest box of 8,100 square miles. But as we all know, that’s not how it will be done. Solar panels belong on rooftops, where there is ample area throughout the nation, and an end to transmission costs. Likewise, wind farms do not "cover" endless acres of prairie, their tower bases take up tiny spots that remain surrounded by productive farmland. In this case, currently available wind turbines spinning between the Mississippi and the Rockies could generate 300 percent of the nation’s electricity. There’s sufficient potential in North Dakota, Kansas and Texas alone to do 100 percent. Cost and installation times put nukes to shame. The liability is nil, as is the bird kill, which primarily affects obsolete, badly sited fast-spinning machines in places like Altamont Pass. Those must come down, and there will certainly be other surprises along the way. No technology is perfect, and we need to be careful even with those that are green-based.

   Much of this will be discussed at the upcoming American Renewable Energy Day gathering in Aspen, August 19-22.

   But as we have seen, further threats on the scale of Chernobyl and the Deepwater Horizon cannot be sustained.

5. As for GMO crops, Darwin was right. Plants evolve to avoid herbicides just as bugs work their way around pesticides (which Stewart correctly decries). Now we see that "super-weeds" are outsmarting the carefully engineered herbicides meant to justify the whole GMO scheme, bringing a disastrous reversion to horrific, lethal old sprays. Chemical farming may be good for corporate profits, but it can kill global sustainability. In the long run, only organics can sustain us.
6. Stewart mentions that he is paid only for speeches. But a single such fee can outstrip an entire year’s pay for a grassroots organizer or volunteer. What’s remarkable is that the nuclear power industry spent some $645 million lobbying for its "renaissance" over the past decade — more than $64 million/year. It has bought an army of corporate lobbyists and legislators. Yet only a handful of folks with rear guard environmental credentials has stepped forward to fight for the old fossil/nuclear/GMO technologies.

Stewart is certainly welcome to his own opinions. But not to his own facts. Pushing for a nuclear "renaissance" concedes that it’s a Dark Age technology, defined by unsustainable costs, inefficiencies, danger, eco-destruction, radiation releases, lack of insurance, uncertain decommissioning costs, vulnerability to terrorism and much more.

That the industry must desperately seek taxpayer help and cannot find insurance for even this "newer, safer" generation, is the ultimate testimony to its failure. By contrast, renewables and efficiency are booming, and are a practical solution to our energy needs, which the corporate clunkers of the previous century simply cannot provide.

It’s been a long time since the Whole Earth Catalog was published. Its hallowed founder should wake up to the booming holistic green technologies that are poised to save the Earth. They are ready to roll over the obsolete corporate boondoggles that are killing Her. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the disasters in the coal mines and the Gulf remind us we need to make that green-powered transition as fast as we possibly can.

Harvey Wasserman -Author, SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Dallas Morning News Editorial

Cracked asphalt provides a stark reminder of the nonexistent margin for error at a controversial radioactive waste dump in West Texas.

When state inspectors visited the site in Andrews County, they found cracks up to an inch wide in asphalt near canisters of radioactive material. While cracked asphalt is fairly inconsequential – and pretty much par for the course – when it comes to our city streets, it can be a dangerous proposition at a radioactive waste dump.

A spokesman for Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists, which operates the low-level radioactive waste site, dismissed the cracks as superficial and said they have been repaired. But as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has noted, that asphalt pad is an important safeguard against ground contamination.

The TCEQ is rightly seeking more information about the condition and history of the 10-acre asphalt pad. And that’s not the only cause for concern at the site. The TCEQ also plans to issue a notice of violation for storing a concrete canister filled with the hottest low-level radioactive material longer than allowed.

The Andrews County site has received six violation notices during the last six years, as significant questions about its proximity to an aquifer have swirled. The latest problems emerged amid a disconcerting push to significantly expand operations in Andrews County, potentially allowing 36 states to ship low-level waste to Texas.

Fortunately, members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission have tapped the brakes and are revamping the plan, which had appeared to be on the fast track for approval. It’s not clear, though, how soon the compact commission might act.

The cracked asphalt and the questionable canister point to crucial safety questions that must be answered before any expansion gets consideration. The rules that could open up the current Texas-Vermont disposal agreement and permit dozens of states to dump waste in Andrews County don’t merely need to be tweaked; they should be tabled until officials are sure that every precaution has been taken to protect Texas and its residents.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

The argument for extreme caution in Andrews County should not be mistaken for a not-in-my-back-yard reflex or a broader opposition to nuclear energy. It’s simply recognition of the high stakes associated with radioactive waste disposal.

Last month, 15 Texas legislators wrote to the compact commission, urging members not to adopt the rules allowing expansion at the site right now. They underscored significant liability issues, concerns about health and safety, as well as the potential fiscal impact a leak could have.

As the lawmakers note, key questions about preparedness, precautions and due diligence have not yet been answered. At least for now, Texas is not sufficiently equipped to become much of the nation’s radioactive dumping ground.

June 29, 2010

By ANNA M. TINSLEY
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A plan to potentially let 36 states ship radioactive waste to West Texas — loads that likely would pass through North Texas on major highways and railroads — is being revamped by state officials.

This month, members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission took down proposed rules that could have allowed dozens of states to send low-level waste to a site in Andrews County. Environmentalists and state lawmakers were among those expressing concerns about leakage, contamination and the safety of communities along shipping routes.

"The rules were withdrawn," said Margaret Henderson, interim executive director of the commission. "There had been a number of public comments. [Commissioners] will be going through them and considering" what to include in a new version of proposed rules, she said.

As commissioners consider new rules, the disposal site — run by Waste Control Specialists and owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, a major Republican donor — faces a violation notice for storing a concrete canister filled with low-level radioactive material for longer than allowed.

The commission is working to determine how the company should deal with the violation. It is also setting new rules on what materials are accepted at the West Texas site and whether other states can apply to send their low-level radioactive waste there.

No date has been set for the commission’s next meeting, and no timetable set for when the reworked rules will be released to the public, Henderson said.

Waste disposal

The Andrews County site is on top of layers of red bed clay in a sparsely populated area north of Odessa. It has had a hazardous-waste disposal permit since 1997.

State environmental officials have already agreed to let the site accept low-level waste from Texas — including from two nuclear plants, Comanche Peak near Glen Rose and the South Texas project in Matagorda County — as well as from Vermont and federal sources.

Now the question is how many other states can apply to send their waste there. The commission has twice delayed voting on a proposal that could open the site to at least 36 other states.

After new rules are written, they must be republished in the Texas Register for at least 30 days, and the public must have at least 30 days to comment before a vote occurs.

State Rep. Lon Burnam, who has expressed concerns about contamination in the North Texas communities the waste would pass through, is skeptical about what happens next.

"I think it’s natural for the activists who had a lot of concerns to feel like we have had a temporary reprieve, but that’s a too-narrow focus," said Burnam, D-Fort Worth. "They got bombarded with critical commentary that they are supposed to process and take into consideration.

"It’s clearly our responsibility to manage our waste and our sister’s waste from Vermont. It is not our responsibility to become the nation’s nuclear waste dump."

Burnam said he thinks politics will delay the new rules for several months.

"I don’t think anyone is going to know what the new rules include until after the [November] election," he said.

Shipments would include items such as beakers, soil, gloves, test tubes and hospital equipment that have come in contact with radioactive material. They would be shipped on trucks or trains, many passing through the Metroplex on a regular basis.

Violation notice

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality officials have said the site will receive a violation notice for storing the canister of radioactive material for more than a year, as allowed under a license granted to Waste Control Specialists.

State inspectors recently found cracks on an asphalt pad near where the canisters sit. Waste Control Specialists officials say the cracks were repaired last month and were "superficial." But inspectors want the company to turn over information about the status of the pad’s condition and how it was built.

Meanwhile, preparation continues at the site to break ground on the disposal facility. Officials have said it will take nearly a year to prepare the collection area.

Its size will depend on licensing requirements, financing and what rule the commission passes, company spokesman Rickey Dailey said. Company officials have said they didn’t mind the commission’s delay.

This report includes material from The Associated Press.

ANNA M. TINSLEY, 817-390-7610