[NukeNet] California agency workshop reveals strategic flaws: Extensive technical resources are a must see

[Roger Herried]

CEC Nuclear Workshops reveals strategic flaws in Nuclear Power Industry 
plans

June 28th 2007

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has just completed a two day 
workshop on the potential future of nuclear power in Californa.  The CEC 
Nuclear Power workshop was part of the Integrated Energy Policy Report 
Committee (IEPR) ongoing energy review for the state. During the 
workshop the state's major utilities stated that they are now interested 
in developing nuclear power.

The hearings are in addition to the CEC's report: Nuclear Power in 
California: Status Report 2007 
<http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-100-2007-005/CEC-100-2007-005-D.PDF> 

The workshops which were webcast by the CEC included extensive power 
point Presentations 
<http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007_energypolicy/documents/2007-06-25+28_workshop/presentations/>.

For anyone wanting to review an extensive array of arguments both for 
and against nuclear power in California and the U.S. here's one of the 
most authoritative resources you will find!

One of the most enlightening presentations was made by Joe Turnage of 
Constellation Energy, the parent of Unistar Nuclear. Constellation 
Energy is currently talking with the Fresno Chamber of Commerce and a 
Fresno a business group with plans to construct a nuclear power facility 
in California. Constellation is a $15 billion business operation that 
has recently partnered with the French company Areva as well as Bechtel. 
The partnership with Areva was initiated after passage of the republican 
led 2005 Energy Act.  That act gave the U.S. industry the financial 
resources and incentive to launch a nationwide campaign to finance and 
build a new generation of nuclear reactors. 

In Mr. Turnage's presentation before the CEC, he laid out the six 
primary issues that were needed for the nuclear industry to proceed:

1. New Rulemakings that would streamline the costs and time it takes to 
license new reactors;

2. Federal and State financing beyond the blanket loan guarantees that 
the 2005 Energy gave utilities;

3. Continued promotion of nuclear power with the public. Current numbers 
show opinion is nearly split nationwide; Claims were made that nuclear 
support was strongest in communities where reactors currently reside and 
make up huge tax benefits;

4. New labor training and education programs would need to be put in 
place in creating the qualified work force to design and construct the 
new reactors;

5. Infrastructure problems include a lack of the necessary manufacturing 
base in the U.S. to produce some of the critical parts that would be 
required in the new "standardized" reactor designs;

6. Fuel Cycle solutions, primarily the Yucca Mt. repository in Nevada, 
but certainly not limited to Yucca alone.

It was acknowledged that the recent CFR 
<http://www.upi.com/Energy/Analysis/2007/04/23/analysis_report_nuke_reality_dont_mesh/>report 
in April as well as a study published in the Congressional Quarterly 
<http://public.cq.com/docs/gs/greensheets110-000002532359.html> in mid 
June indicated that the new push for nuclear has serious problems.

This new "nuclear pushers" will eventually have to admit that nuclear 
isn't "The Solution" for global warming being trumpeted by the industry. 
It is very clear that the public must become far better informed than it 
currently is so that it understands that much of the global warming 
problem isn't an electricity problem, but is also related to industrial 
and transportation issues that also have sweeping implications for the 
way the U.S. and the rest of the world is conducting itself.

If the Bush led nuclear push is successful, it would be just barely keep 
the industry from becoming even less of the current energy mix than it 
currently is. 

The serious concerns over a new nuclear cold war, which is directly 
linked to such political actions against Iran and other perceived 
enemies like Russia has made the world highly distrustful of U.S. 
foreign policy and particular the Bush Administration. Proliferation 
issues in the proposed new generation of reactors have already made the 
Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership a less than 
positive option, with congress cutting funding Bush wanted by nearly 80% 
for next year. The Bush administration has been sending DOE secretary 
Bodman around the world to promote the GNEP, offering financial 
incentives as well as technology partnerships with all of the major 
nuclear construction firms in the world.

In a dramatic claim, industry proponents made the claim that dry cask 
storage options being implemented at reactors sites in California have 
become the de facto solution for high level waste, and thus open the 
current 1976 moratorium on more construction of reactors.  The Fresno 
group, after failing to garner support in April to get a bill passed by 
the state to overturn the 1976 moratorium is clearly looking at both 
legal and possibly a statewide initiative drive to reverse the current 
block.  Pacific Gas & Electric Co. made a similar attempt in 1983 before 
the U.S. Supreme Court but failed. There are clear concerns that  the 
now conservative court may be willing to rehear the issue.

The attempts to build new reactors in California is clearly unpopular at 
this time and will remain so across the state due to the seismic issues 
that led to the 25 year long battle over construction, licensing and 
financing of the Diablo Canyon facility near San Luis Obispo. Recent 
attempts to relicense the reactor has run into a new campaign by 
opponents, including a Supreme Court victory earlier this year, forcing 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to include concerns over terrorist 
attacks, which has been purposely ignored by the NRC. California's 
operating reactors are currently situated along the coast to take 
advantage of the Pacific Ocean, for the billion gallons a day required 
to cool each reactor. The state's major nuclear utilities have been hit 
with severe legal claims over lies and contamination to pelagic life 
near the reactors in the past.

In 2003, there was an intense heat wave and drought in France that led 
to the death of over 14,800 people.  During the crisis the French 
government was forced to shutdown or reduce power to 17 of the country's 
nuclear power facilities, dramatically increasing the crisis, in terms 
of keeping the public properly supplied with electricity and the 
necessary cooling that could have come from fans or air conditioning.

The city of Fresno's attempt to place a reactor along the state's 
*Peripheral Canal, claiming that it could find and utilize one million 
gallons of wastewater to cool the reactors does not take into account 
the impacts of future drought conditions. Situating a billion gallon a 
day water vampire along the most important north-south water supply 
could be a recipe for disaster as water supplies continue to become a 
growing development issue.

Industry spokes people had to acknowledge that the billions of dollars 
the republican congress handed out in 2005 in tax breaks, loan 
guarantees, insurance caps, and direct subsidies was not enough. They 
were also forced into what, for most veterans of the nuclear debate,  is 
the classic upward trend of costs. The construction costs of a Finnish 
EPR reactor which is the preferred Areva reactor design has jumped 
nearly 25% since 2005. With the costs of steel and concrete going up, 
the costs of such large base load facilities could very well become 
overwhelming once one of the these huge projects starts as was seen when 
California embarked on building a new bridge in San Francisco or with 
Bechtel's underground construction project in Boston.

Several states who have already committed to constructing new reactors 
have already passed legislation known as Construction Work in Progress, 
which guarantees that ratepayers cover a substantial portion of the 
construction costs of the new facility, whatever those costs may be. The 
utility industry has already been given a streamlined legal process by 
the 1992 Energy Policy Act. This is clearly not enough, as they are 
demanding even further concessions from the government over restricting 
any kind of public concerns. 

With most of the corporate media behind the current push, there will be 
no "Big Picture" of what these new economic realities that face 
ratepayers nationwide. No debate, long winded discussion taking more 
than a few minutes of prime time debate.  Even the stars of the 
corporate media that have been setup as the "antinuclear" side, NRDC 
have come out with concerns about the unfairness of how federal monies 
are being skewed towards the nuclear option, not to mention the above 
mentioned proliferation issue with Bush's GNEP push.

In conclusion, there will be new attempts to extract even larger 
economic resources from both federal and state lawmakers to make nuclear 
power palatable to the giant banking and construction companies that are 
now seeing the potential to make billions in profits from the nuclear 
agenda.  The CEC workshop laid out the battles that will come.  It will 
be up to activists and the environmental community to educate the public 
and the coming federal and state lawmakers about what is coming and why 
we shouldn't let an industry who wants to take another crack at the 
publics' pocketbook should be allowed to create an even bigger disaster 
than they did last time. Let us not forget that Forbes Magazine called 
the nuclear industry the largest financial disaster in U.S. history in 
February 1984.

Lastly, it is critical that the public be told of the utility industry's 
own plans to dramatically increase the amount of energy efficiency that 
can come from new technology and education.  In January many utility 
executives initiated a plan to promote energy efficiency. 
<http://www.energycentral.com/centers/energybiz/ebi_detail.cfm?id=299> 
Let's hear more about this!

Below is the list of participants in the workshop.

*Panel 1: "Current Status of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage and Disposal 
Programs and Implications for California"

Moderator: Robert B. Weisenmiller (MRW)
Ward Sproat (U.S. DOE), Allison Macfarlane (George Mason University and 
MIT), Bob Loux (State of
Nevada), Alan Hanson (AREVA), and Bob Halstead (State of Nevada)

Panel 2: "Current Status of Federal Reprocessing Program and 
Implications for California"
Moderator: Steve McClary (MRW)
Invited Speakers: Tim Frazier (U.S. Department of Energy), Richard 
Garwin (IBM Fellow Emeritus), Per Peterson (University of California), 
Frank von Hippel (Princeton University), and Charles Ferguson (Council 
on Foreign Relations)

Panel 3: "Operational Issues for California's Operating Nuclear Power 
Plants"
Moderator: Steve McClary (MRW)
Invited Speakers: Kevin Crowley (The National Academies), To Be 
Determined (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), Steve Olea (Arizona 
Corporation Commission), Jack Keenan (Pacific Gas & Electric), Gary 
Schooyan (Southern California Edison), David Lochbaum (Union of 
Concerned Scientists), and Rochelle Becker (Alliance for Nuclear 
Responsibility)

Panel 4: "Environmental, Safety, and economic Implications of Nuclear Power"
Moderator: Robert B. Weisenmiller (MRW)
Invited Speakers: Richard Cheston (U.S. General Accountability Office), 
Vasilis Fthenakis (Brookhaven National Lab), Mary Quillian (Nuclear 
Energy Institute), Jim Harding (Harding Consulting), Joe
Turnage (Constellation Energy), and Thomas Cochran (Natural Resources 
Defense Council)

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