Archive for the ‘Nukes’ Category

Oct. 28, 2010

By Bob Cox
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Opponents of a plan to expand the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant told a panel of administrative judges Thursday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should take more time to address their objections to a study on environmental issues surrounding the proposed expansion of the facility.

The three-judge panel headed by Ann Marshall Young heard arguments from attorneys for groups opposing Dallas-based Luminant’s plan to add two new reactors at the Comanche Peak plant near Glen Rose, southwest of Fort Worth.

NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding said the panel will review the legal and technical merits of the objection raised to the draft environmental impact report prepared by the agency’s staff.

The preliminary ruling contained in the draft report found that there were no environmental issues that would preclude the NRC from issuing a license to Luminant to build and eventually operate the two new reactors.

Uselding said it could be two months or more before the judges rule on the validity of the objections raised by opponents of the project and whether to hold a full hearing on the issues.

Opponents of the Comanche Peak project argued that the NRC staff failed to address issues such as alternatives to building additional power plants and whether nuclear power is economically feasible.

Karen Hadden, executive director of the Austin-based Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, said it wasn’t clear that the objections would get a thorough hearing from the NRC.

"They seem more interested in creating hoops to jump over than getting real information" in the environmental impact report, Hadden said. "This kind of research upfront is what they’re supposed to do to protect the public."

Bob Cox, 817-390-7723

October 21, 2010

Media Release

Oral Argument Oct. 28th In Granbury, Texas

Download this press release in pdf format for printing

Contacts: Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition, 512-797-8481
David Power, Public Citizen, Energy Expert 830-660-7557
Robert V. Eye, Attorney, 785-234-4040

Granbury, Texas Opponents of two proposed Comanche nuclear reactors will present their case at an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) panel on Oct. 28th. The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. in the Hood County Justice Center, 1200 West Pearl St. in Granbury.

Attorney Bob Eye will represent SEED Coalition, Public Citizen and the Ft. Worth based True Cost of Nukes organization. Among the concerns that will be raised in the Combined License (COL) proceeding is the failure of Luminant to analyze cleaner, cheaper and safer energy alternatives in their license application, a glaring omission considering that Luminant and Shell are exploring compressed air energy storage. "Today Texas has excess energy capacity and leads the nation in wind generation. Solar costs are plummeting. Energy storage and cheap gas can be used to back up renewable solar and wind power. The proposed reactors are a hazard to our health, safety and our pocketbooks," said energy expert David Power, who submitted a report regarding DEIS contentions.

Six new contentions based on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) were filed in September. They include concerns that the DEIS analysis of the need for power is flawed, that the carbon emissions analysis is distorted, that global warming impacts are understated, that reactor cooling ability could be impacted by higher water temperatures, and that wind and solar were not adequately considered as alternatives to nuclear power.

"Radioactive waste, safety and security issues, economics and the vast consumption of water are all reasons to avoid more nuclear reactors," said Karen Hadden, Executive Director of SEED Coalition. "The water level at Lake Granbury would drop which is of great concern to many local citizens."

"Nuclear power is the most expensive way to generate electricity. The proposed Comanche Peak reactors could reach $22 billion or more, roughly equal to the budget shortfall for the entire state of Texas. This is before cost overruns from delays and construction problems and the added costs of radioactive waste disposal and decommissioning. Nuclear reactors don’t make sense financially," said Karen Hadden, Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition.

"Constellation Energy just withdrew their license application for a Maryland nuclear reactor due to high costs. Ruminant’s parent company, Energy Future Holdings, has been struggling financially, and shouldn’t even consider taking on extensive additional debt, which is sure to result in skyrocketing electric bills and could result in the collapse of the company," said Hadden.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) 2009 State of the Market report says "Estimated net revenues for nuclear and coal resources were also insufficient to support new entry in 2009."

The Associated Press recently reported, "Even companies that are finalists for federal loan guarantees, NRG Energy and Constellation Energy, announced recently that they have nearly stopped spending on their projects… Analysts say low natural gas prices are making the project uneconomic. NRG chief executive David Crane said he will not pursue the company’s two-reactor project in South Texas if gas prices stay low, even if his project is offered a loan guarantee."

The ASLB is the independent body within the NRC that presides over proceedings involving the licensing of civilian nuclear facilities, such as nuclear power plants.
The Oct. 28th oral hearing is open for public observation, but participation will be limited to the parties admitted to the proceeding – NRC staff, the public interest groups, and Luminant, the applicant.

Constellation, officials working to keep CC3 project going

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010

By Meghan Russell,
Staff writer
Southern Maryland Newspapers Online

The nuclear ball is now in EDF’s court.

A letter from Constellation Energy to its UniStar Nuclear Energy partner went public on Friday as the company announced its proposal to sell its 50 percent investment of its nuclear venture in the hopes that Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant’s third reactor can move forward.

In the letter to Constellation’s partner, Electricite de France (EDF) SA, company vice Chairman Michael J. Wallace proposed transferring its 50 percent interest in UniStar, including the land where the third reactor is set to be built, for just $1. The company requested reimbursement of $117 million in generic development costs for the U.S. Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR), just a fraction of the two companies’ joint investment of $817 million in the Calvert Cliffs 3 venture.

In addition, Constellation pledged its full support and cooperation in seeing through the transfer’s terms and assisting EDF however it can in bringing the reactor to Calvert.

"Having invested considerable time and resources into our partnership, we agree with you that there is significant market value in UniStar," Wallace’s letter states. "Our proposal provides a solution by which our companies can quickly resolve UniStar’s ownership structure, so that EDF can preserve and maximize UniStar’s value and advance the prospects of CC3 with confidence."

In the terms listed at the letter’s end, Wallace said that Constellation will continue to provide administrative services for a period of up to one year after the deal’s closing, when new terms will be discussed.

Furthermore, the option to sell $2 billion of fossil fuel energy to EDF — an issue that has raised concerns over their partnership’s future — is a separate issue altogether, Wallace continued, and Constellation will address it as such: "That commercial dispute should not be used to hold the prospect of CC3 hostage."

But even if EDF agreed to take the project under its wing, many skeptics, like the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, doubt the conditions are right for a "nuclear renaissance" and believe Calvert Cliffs 3 was doomed from the start.

"Calvert Cliffs’ demise was a result of several factors, the most important of which were: soaring construction cost estimates; increased and aggressive competition from other generation sources; falling electrical demand coupled with increased energy efficiency programs; serious reactor design deficiencies; and overreliance on government handouts," NIRS Executive Director Michael Marriotte said in a press release Thursday. "The Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Energy are responsible for none of these factors. In fact, their loan offer for Calvert Cliffs 3 was overly generous considering the overwhelming array of market forces and roadblocks facing this project."

Marriotte said the "simple reality" is that a nuclear renaissance in the U.S. will be impossible if new reactors remain too expensive to build and natural gas remains "dirt cheap" while renewable energy costs continue to decline and consumer demand remains on a downward spiral. The same forces acting against Calvert Cliffs will most likely cause the remaining nuclear reactor loan guarantees to fall through for the South Texas Project and Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station reactor project in South Carolina as well.

Peter Bradford, a commissioner with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the former chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission, added, "The four pillars of the nuclear revival — underestimated costs, ignored risks, political ballyhoo and prodigious but inadequate subsidies — now make clear that we are dealing not with a renaissance but with a bubble. The main remaining question is just how much taxpayer money will go into keeping it inflated."

Constellation addressed the unfavorable conditions in its letter to EDF but also acknowledged a herd of Calvert Cliffs 3 supporters, hoping they might continue to fight for the project.

"We have had the firm support of the Maryland Congressional delegation, the Governor, our allies in labor and the public officials and the people of Calvert County," Wallace wrote. "House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md., 5th), in particular, has been a stalwart supporter of the project and has done and will continue to do all he can to improve conditions for the renaissance of new nuclear. And for this we are very grateful."

Hoyer said he is also optimistic about the third reactor. He, along with Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), sent a letter to Mayo A. Shattuck III, president and CEO of Constellation, and Henri Proglio, chairman and CEO of EDF, on Friday.

The letter urged the two companies to engage in active negations immediately regarding Calvert Cliffs 3.

"The [third reactor] is extremely important to the State of Maryland, and especially the Fifth District, for its promise to create jobs and invest in the next generation of nuclear energy," Hoyer said in a press release.

Cardin, who also sees merit in the new nuclear future, said, "The quality jobs and economic opportunities for communities in Maryland are undeniable, but the benefits that next-generation nuclear facilities like this will bring to our nation are even greater. Nuclear energy is an essential component of a new, clean-energy economy and an energy-independent United States. Projects like [Calvert Cliffs 3] will strengthen our national security, economic security and our environment."

Former Republican governor and gubernatorial candidate Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. has touted the project during campaign stops in Southern Maryland and has used its deterioration as further fuel in his run against O’Malley.

Ehrlich met last Thursday with several local business owners, mostly from the Lusby and Solomons area, who had been anticipating the arrival of 4,000 new workers and made plans to either expand or hire new employees. Now, along with Unit 3, those plans are on hold.

"Just last week, Martin O’Malley had the ear of the President of the United States – an extraordinary opportunity to make a personal appeal in support of this project," Ehrlich said in a statement released last Friday. "Instead, he put his reelection campaign ahead of the interests of everyday Marylanders who would benefit from the thousands of new jobs associated with this project."

Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell (R-Calvert, St. Mary’s), congressional candidate Charles Lollar and Calvert County Commissioner Jerry Clark (R) joined Ehrlich at the roundtable discussion in Solomons.

"We’re in desperate need of new revenues," O’Donnell said Monday night following a candidate forum in Leonardtown. "The business community is afraid they’ll need to pick up the slack through their taxes."

O’Donnell placed the blame of the project’s downfall on O’Malley, saying the governor’s attempts to extract rate relief from Constellation while the Maryland Public Service Commission reviewed the company’s merger with EDF delayed the project eight months. "We shouldn’t be here," O’Donnell said. "My assessment is this patient is on life support, but there’s a faint pulse."

mrussell(at)somdnews.com

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 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.

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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