Archive for the ‘News’ Category

February 6, 2008
FuelFix

When the South Texas Project (the nuclear plant near Bay City) was being built in the 1970s and 1980s one of its most persistent opponents was San Antonio lawyer Lanny Sinkin.

As the voice for groups like Citizens Concerned About Nuclear Power Inc. and South Texas Cancellation Campaign he badgered regulators and the plant owners at every chance, getting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow arguments in its formal hearings on the competence of the owner, HL&P, and its contractors, Bechtel and Ebasco.

Tom "Smitty" Smith, the current head of the Texas office of Public Citizen, says Sinkin played a big part in getting reports on the poor quality of construction at the plant to see the light of day. That led to a number of improvements at the plant.

Sinkin’s would put it another way. They accused him of unleashing "a blizzard of paper" in a mischievous and groundless attempt to thwart the project.

"He is just in the wrong forum with the wrong material and the wrong information," said Maurice Axelrad of Washington, D.C. in a May 1985 Chronicle article.

Sinkin now lives in Hawaii but he was back in Texas this week to help activists fire up their campaign against the planned expansion at the plant. He attended the public hearings in Bay City on Tuesday, sitting in a corner of the room typing away on a laptop.

Sinkin said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s application process has changed significantly from the 1970s and 1980s. The process allowing the public to intervene in the process is much more difficult he said, with a shorter time window for groups to sign up as interested parties (Feb. 25) and greater specificity required in their complaints.

"There’s no way I could do today what we did back then," Sinkin said Tuesday.

He heads back to Hawaii soon but, likely to the chagrin of the plant operators, will be back later this year.

Our colleagues at the San Antonio Express-News (a fellow Hearst newspaper) also covered the event.

October 6, 2010

By Tracy Idell Hamilton
San Antonio Express-News

CPS Energy today will announce a solar partnership with SunEdison that will result in three 10-megawatt installations being built in the utility’s service area, the Express-News has learned.

The three separate ground-mounted solar photovoltaic arrays are to in use by 2012, and CPS has agreed to buy all the power they generate for the next 25 years, the utility confirmed. Locations have not been determined.

Sources say CPS will pay 15 cents per kilowatt hour for the energy — less than the utility’s other major solar agreement for 14 megawatts from the Blue Wing Solar Farm in southeast Bexar County. That project, owned by Duke Energy, is in the testing phase and should be fully operational by year’s end.

A CPS spokeswoman would not confirm the price, but CEO Doyle Beneby called the deal a good one for the utility.

"The market for solar energy continues to improve, and this agreement takes advantage of that," he said.

The average cost to customers for all the power CPS produces — from coal, natural gas, nuclear and renewables — is about 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

SunEdison is the country’s largest solar energy services provider, managing more than 108 megawatts of solar power plants in the U.S. and Europe.

It was founded in 2003 by Jigar Shah, who has spoken at forums in San Antonio several times. Shah subsequently sold the company.

As part of its latest solar deal, CPS has asked the company to collaborate on research and development, likely with the newly formed Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute. CPS has committed $50 million to Texas SERI over the next decade for research on issues facing the utility, such as carbon capture and energy storage.

An education center at one of the installations also is planned, along with a community outreach program.

The investment in local facilities and research "will provide a great energy and economic benefit to San Antonio," said Mayor Julián Castro, who sits on the utility’s board and has been a tireless proponent of bringing more clean energy investment to the city.

"It’s innovative, forward-thinking and helps put San Antonio further on the map in the new energy economy," Castro said.

The additional 30 megawatts essentially will replace the 27 megawatts CPS planned to buy from Tessera Solar, which recently was forced to delay its project for lack of funding. The solar thermal plant, which uses mirrors to concentrate the sun’s power, was to be built outside of Marfa.

When CPS signed a 20-year agreement to buy Tessera’s power in June 2009, it was the utility’s first purchase of solar energy, and the first step toward its goal of acquiring 100 megawatts of solar capacity.

That’s part of the utility’s effort to secure 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2020. CPS already has agreements in place for 850 megawatts of wind power, in West Texas and along the coast.

"We’re very excited about the presence of a major solar company and the size of the installation," said Lanny Sinkin, executive director of Solar San Antonio. "Their commitment to an energy center and additional research and development is very encouraging."

Beneby is bullish on CPS’ continued investment in solar energy, which also includes rebates for up to 50 percent of the cost of home solar systems.

"With 300 days of sunshine here each year," he said, "it just makes sense that San Antonio becomes a hub for solar energy in the U.S."

Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010

Tom ‘Smitty’ Smith, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR
Austin American-Statesman

As the Texas population booms, residents worry about where the water will come from to provide for all of our needs. What many don’t realize is that power plants together are the single largest user of water in America, and adding plants is the single greatest threat to our dwindling water supply.

Three proposed power plants — two in Matagorda County and one in Corpus Christi — threaten to drain as much as 26 billion gallons of water each year from the Colorado River. Doing so will threaten levels in Lake Travis and other Highland Lakes.

The LCRA board is considering a contract for water for one of these proposed units in the next several months and now is the time to call the board and ask them to plug the drain on Lake Travis by denying this contract.

A little background: In 1942, the LCRA constructed Mansfield Dam and created Lake Travis to serve as a reservoir supplying freshwater for communities along the Colorado. When it was created, Lake Travis and some of the other Highland Lakes were designated “variable level” lakes. This means that they can be partially or fully drained when communities or industries located downstream need water.

Residents and businesses on Lake Travis have long understood that relationship, and though they don’t always like it, they have mostly learned to live with it. In 2009, that relationship was put to the test when an extended drought required lake levels to drop by over 50 feet, bringing them to the third lowest they’ve ever been. Businesses on Lake Travis were hurt badly, and LCRA staff called for a moratorium on new water contracts.

Now the relationship between lake users and downstream industries is being tested again. Three proposed plants in southeast Texas — one petcoke, one coal and petcoke, and a pair of nuclear reactors — could suck up the dwindling water supply, leaving local businesses and homeowners with sour investments.

What makes the situation truly intolerable is not only what it could do to local businesses and homeowners, but that it may be entirely unnecessary.

Each year the Public Utility Commission performs a "State of the Market" assessment which discusses electricity supply and demand in the state. In the report for 2009, the agency clearly stated that there was no room in the electricity market for new coal, gas or nuclear power plants. Those plants are generally large-scale and the truth is that Texas produces more electricity than it needs.

What’s more, energy efficiency and renewable technologies do not require significant quantities of water. While coal, petcoke and nuclear plants all need to be cooled, wind turbines and solar panels do not. Those technologies keep getting cheaper, and they create far more jobs for every dollar invested than do power plants.

With renewable energy technologies declining in price, Texas producing more electricity than it needs and the state unemployment rate beginning to climb, doesn’t it make sense for us to avoid unneeded and water-intensive power plants and instead continue to develop clean energy technologies that could help us solve problems with air pollution, water scarcity and an uncertain economic future?

Of course it does. Businesses and individuals who rely on, live on and play on Lake Travis are coming together for a benefit event at the Iguana Grill on Sunday. Attendees will learn what we can do to protect lake levels which generate so much revenue for our local economy while helping to make Austin and Central Texas one of the best places to live.

Smith is the Texas director of Public Citizen. To learn about Sunday’s event, visit PowerPlantsSuck.org.

September 23, 2010

by Mark Engebretson
Lake Country Sun

More than 100 people attended the public meeting held by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Tuesday to hear a presentation on the draft environmental impact study regarding the proposed construction of two additional towers at Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.

With the concerns across the country and in Congress regarding nuclear energy and the potential hazards, that was not the focus of comments at the meeting by elected officials and the public. The concern was water, water that would be needed to cool the towers.

Mike Willingham, the NRC environmental project manager, said the two towers would require 103,000 acre feet of water annually. Of that, 61,600 acre feet would be lost due to evaporation with the balance returned to Lake Granbury, the source.

Ellen Smith, with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said the Brazos River Authority has reported that lake levels at both Lake Granbury and Possum Kingdom Lake would be modified.

"The EIS does indicate the average lake level at Possum Kingdom would be lower," she said.

The study notes that the lake levels at both Granbury and PK would be affected.

"Possum Kingdom Lake would be full about 34 percent of the time under current conditions and 26 percent of the time with CPNPP Units 3 and 4 operating," reads the study. "Operation of CPNPP Units 3 and 4 would reduce the average water levels by 0.6 feet in Lake Granbury and by 1.5 feet in Possum Kingdom Lake. The water level in Lake Granbury is estimated to fall 2 feet or more below full pool about 10 percent of the time under current conditions and about 25 percent of the time with CPNPP Units 3 and 4 operating. Possum Kingdom Lake water level is estimated to be 5 feet or more below full pool about 10 percent of the time under current conditions and about 25 percent of the time with CPNPP Units 3 and 4 operating."

While the Glen Rose meeting was the only public forum, NRC will still accept public comment by letter, e-mail or fax through Wednesday, Oct. 27.

On the Web, visit www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/form.html. The document title, a required entry, is Environmental Impact Statement for Combined Licenses (COLs) for Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant Units 3 and 4.

Mail letters to Chief, Rulemaking and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Service, Mailstop TWB-05-B01M, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001.
The fax number is 301-492-3446.

River authority appears likely to sell available supply to coal-fired plant, though rice farmers, environmental advocates joining in multipronged attack.

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010

By Asher Price
Austin American-Statesman

A proposed coal-fired power plant downriver of Austin is at the center of a tug-of-war over water in the Colorado River.

The $2.5 billion White Stallion Energy Center, which would be built just south of Bay City, would burn coal and petroleum coke to generate enough electricity to supply 650,000 homes.

But it would also require as much as 7 billion gallons a year of water, nearly the same amount under contract to the City of Leander, at a time when molecules of Colorado River water are increasingly valuable.

The plant proposal has galvanized opposition from rice farmers and environmental activists, who are sponsoring a benefit Sunday to "save Lake Travis" to win upriver support.

The plant, which is being developed by Houston-based Sky Energy LLC and would be within a few miles of the South Texas Project nuclear plant, got a boost in late September when the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved an air pollution permit over the protests of environmental groups and the agency’s own public interest counsel, as well as warnings from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the plant’s pollution might violate federal environmental rules.

But the developers still need to make a deal with the Lower Colorado River Authority to buy water out of the Colorado. Power plants need water to cool their machinery and for the steam that turns turbines.

"Given the proposed careful and efficient water use, the need for our project for Texas’ growth, and as a customer of LCRA within the basin," said Randy Bird , chief operating officer of White Stallion Energy Center LLC , "we would look forward to continuing to work with LCRA, as the water provider, as it responds to our needs."

The LCRA board has long held that it is obligated to sell water as long as it has water to sell and the use is a beneficial one. And with roughly 45 billion gallons of river water available, a deal appears likely.

But over the past couple of years, the river authority pulled out of a multibillion-dollar water-sharing agreement with San Antonio on the grounds that its reserves were shaky.

The drought that stretched through 2009 alarmed authorities and led the river authority to consider temporarily cutting off new contracts. And this summer, the LCRA raised its rates for water.

No date has been set for the LCRA to take up the contract, though it is unlikely to do so before its November meeting, board chairwoman Becky Klein said.

It will hear from the rice farmers and environmental groups, who have long had different, if not opposite, visions of how the river water should be used. Rice farmers have long used vast amounts of water for their crops, and environmental groups have generally wanted to reserve water for the benefit of fish and wildlife. Now they are turning together to oppose White Stallion, which spent as much as $90,000 on lobbyists last year.

The power plant’s backers also need a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because they plan to deepen the Colorado to bring in barges full of coal and coke, a similar carbon-heavy material.

Because the LCRA’s board members count rice farmers among the interests they represent, the water contract is where the plant is "most vulnerable," said Tom “Smitty” Smith, who runs the Texas office of Public Citizen. "It’s the place where we have the most political opportunity."

Major coalitions representing Highland Lakes residents and merchants have not taken a stance on the issue, despite exhortations from environmental groups.

"It seems like a legitimate project that serves a need," said Cole Rowland, president of the Highland Lakes Group, which puts out a newsletter on water issues to 2,500 subscribers. "Central Texas is running short on water, but it’s also running short on electricity."

Matagorda County itself appears divided on the plant. The plant "would be a very major boost" to the economy, said Owen Bludau, executive director of the Matagorda County Economic Development Corp., which aims to bring industry to the county.

The county has 12.1 percent unemployment, and the plant would draw 2,250 construction workers as the project gets off the ground and create 150 full-time, long-term jobs, Bludau said.

But County Judge Nate McDonald, dissatisfied that the plant’s backers have not provided legally binding assurances that the county will receive money or jobs and worried about stresses on the water supply, says the plant "doesn’t appear to be a very good business deal for Matagorda County."

McDonald said a majority of county commissioners are opposed to the plant.

Rice farmers, an influential group of his constituents who rely on water for their livelihood, are also suspicious of the plant’s water use.

The plant "will adversely affect future water supplies for irrigation in the lower basin," said Haskell Simon, a long-time advocate for the farmers based in Bay City.

asherprice(at)statesman.com; 445-3643