Uppity Wisconsin

The Inside Baseball Report, which may be more than you want to know about this subject:

Rumors are rampant in the Capitol about a new version of the Clean Energy Jobs Act now being prepared for rollout sometime in the next week.

It's being done in private, as usual, so it's impossible to say exactly what will be in the substitute version or omnibus amendment being drafted.

But if you're part of the Carbon Free Nuclear Free coalition that's been fighting against relaxing the laws on new nuclear reactors, this is guaranteed not to be good news.

Pro-nuclear forces do not have a majority in the legislature. On its own merits, the nuclear section of the bill would never pass.

But it is tied to some positive renewable energy policies that many nuclear opponents want to see passed. They seem willing to swallow hard and support the bill, even though they oppose expanding nuclear power.

The bill is in much the same status that the health care bill is in Congress. There are no Republican votes for it, so Democrats must round up enough votes to pass it themselves. With narrow majorities in each house, it only takes two defecting Democrats to derail the bill -- or to get a concession.

Great news for people concerned that the proposed Clean Energy Jobs Act will open the door to more nuclear reactors in Wisconsin: State Rep. Mike Huebsch, an Onalaska Republican who's been trying for years to repeal the state's so-called nuclear moratorium law, says the bill is "anti-nuclear" and "a wish-list penned by Madison’s environmental fringe," one that "obliges the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, CUB, Clean Wisconsin and others..."

That certainly comes as a surprising revelation to WNPJ and other members of a Carbon Free Nuclear Free coalition who have strong objections to the bill, which eliminates the requirement for a federal nuclear waste repository before new reactors can be built.

When is a "tweak" in a legislative bill a deal breaker?

Maybe, just maybe, when the change is to an already controversial section on nuclear power that's part of the proposed Clean Energy Jobs Bill for Wisconsin.

Many activists think the language agreed upon by the Governor's Task Force on Global Warming, which is the basis for the bill, already goes too far in relaxing state laws on nuclear reactors.

Now, at the request of utilities which want to be able to build new reactors, changes are being considered to make it even easier.

The utilities say it's just a little "tweak" in the language, and that the original draft may be unconstitutional. But some of the environmentalists and consumer advocates who have been supporting the bill are signaling that the changes could be a deal-breaker.

Environmentalists on the Task Force reluctantly agreed to swallow a compromise that removes the requirement that a federal nuclear waste repository be operating before a new reactor can be built in the state.

What they got in return, supposedly, was protection against so-called "merchant plants" -- reactors built by non-Wisconsin companies to send power elsewhere in the country.

Darn!

Just when the nuclear industry is doing such a great job of selling its "renaissance" as the way to fight climate change, along comes another irritating little problem.

As my mother used to say, there's always something to take the joy out of life.

This time it's a tritium leak at a Vermont plant -- something that's already happened in Wisconsin at Point Beach and Kewaunee, as noted in the map above. The AP reports:

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen discovered in potentially dangerous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, has now tainted at least 27 of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors — raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants...

Tritium, found in nature in tiny amounts and a product of nuclear fusion, has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts.

Is it anything to be concerned about?

It may be impolitic to say this while we are encouraging people to attend public hearings on the Clean Energy Jobs Bill, but the first public hearing on the bill, held Wednesday by a special State Senate committee, was a nightmare if you were a member of the public trying to have a voice.

Most of the activists from the Carbon Free Nuclear Free campaign, opposed to the nuclear section of the bill,waited more than eight hours to testify for four minutes in a nearly-empty room with almost all of the committee members gone. Environmental groups, who supported the bill, didn't fare much better.

If you had the misfortune to be a woman, or a person of color, you were at the absolute bottom of the barrel. With a single exception, a parade of white men in suits testified for the first eight hours. The one exception was a woman representing an electric utility.

The hearing on the comprehensive 174-page bill drew a full house in one of the State Capitol's biggest hearing rooms. Many of the CFNF representatives -- which included most of the women in attendance -- got there early and registered before the hearing started at 10 a.m., when the room was less than half full.

If the banks, who have shown themselves willing to fund almost anything, won't fund the nuclear industry, why should we?

Let's start by accentuating the positive, this quote from a Capital Times story on the pros and cons of nuclear power:

Tia Nelson, co-chair of Gov. Jim Doyle’s Task Force on Global Warming, says that while the costs of nuclear power grow and the price tag for renewable sources shrinks, it is not fiscally smart for the state to invest in nuclear energy.

“We know that nuclear power is more expensive and more dangerous than any other alternative before us today,” says Nelson, daughter of Gaylord Nelson, the late U.S. senator who founded Earth Day.

As the state's Clean Energy Jobs Act starts working its way through the legislature, coverage of the nuclear power issue -- one of the more contentious piece of the huge bill -- is increasing. That's a positive;; public education and debate is good. But there's a big helping of misinformation and spin being served up as part of the menu.

Wisconsin citizens will have their first chance on Wednesday, Jan. 27, to tell state legislators that making it easier to build more nuclear reactors should not be part of a proposed Clean Energy Jobs bill.

A special State Senate committee considering the bill, (SB 450)  will hold a public hearing at 10 a.m. in Room 412 East of the State Capitol.  

It is critical that people turn out in numbers to register and testify against changing the current law, which protects citizens and the environment by requiring that a federal nuclear waste repository be operating to handle high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power reactors before any new ones can be built. 

Wisconsin urgently needs to reduce its carbon footprint while providing safe, secure, dependable and affordable energy. One proposed solution is to build new nuclear reactors to boil water to produce electricity. But can Wisconsin afford new nuclear reactors? Energy expert Peter Bradford says no, and will explain why in talks in LaCrosse on Nov. 3 and Milwaukee on Nov. 5.

Related story: Milwaukee Dems vote Carbon Free,Nuclear Free.

With over 40 years of experience in the fields of energy and utility regulation, Bradford is particularly well suited to answer this question. He served on the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is the former chair of the New York and Maine utility commissions.

Bradford will address the unfavorable economics of new nuclear reactors and debunk the myths that prop up the ‘nuclear renaissance’ idea. He will show that nuclear power is more expensive than alternative ways of combating climate change and how new nuclear reactors can only be built with taxpayer subsidies. Bradford will illustrate how investing in nuclear reactors will cost Wisconsin jobs, not create them as claimed by the nuclear industry.

Al Gedicks, director of the Wisconsin Resources Protection Council and a longtime activist on mining, nuclear and environmental issues, will be on Wisconsin Public Radio Wednesday from 7 to 8 a.m. to debate whether Wisconsin's so-called nuclear power "moratorium" should be repealed. A supporter of the repeal bill will also appear with him on the statewide Joy Cardin show.

State legislators who want more nuclear reactors in Wisconsin are ready to try again, with a bill to repeal what is commonly, and incorrectly, called the state's nuclear moratorium law.

The usual suspects, State Reps. Mike Huebsch and Phil Montgomery and State Sen. Joe Leibham, are circulating a draft of their proposal and looking for co-sponsors before introducing it. Current law does not prohibit new nuclear reactors. It simply sets two requirements before a new nuclear plant can be licensed:

(1) That a federally-licensed facility be available to dispose of the high-level radioactive waste generated by the reactors, and (2) that the Public Service Commission make a finding that nuclear power makes economic sense for consumers.

That has amounted to a de facto moratorium on news plants because there is no safe, permanent way to dispose of the radioactive waste, which is so deadly it must be kept out of the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. The nuclear industry has been producing the waste for more than 50 years, but has not solved the problem. Instead, it wants to change the rules.

Profuse apologies to John Lennon. But that refrain was in my brain after reading Tom Still's plea that Wisconsin consider nuclear power. "What do we have to lose?" he asks. (More on that later)

Still, president of something called the Wisconsin Technology Council, thinks it's a crying shame that Wisconsin has a moratorium law on the books that won't allow the state to even consider nuclear power as an option.

It will come as a surprise to many -- but not, I suspect, to Tom Still -- to learn that there is no nuclear "moratorium" in effect that bans more nuclear power plants in the state.

What is on the books is a perfectly reasonable law that says if you want to build a new reactor here, there are two requirements that must be met first:

(1) There must be a federal site to dispose of the dangerous, high level radioactive waste the reactors produce, and

(2) The Public Service Commission must find that nuclear power makes economic sense.

That's no ban or moratorium. It merely sets some reasonable requirements. But since the law was passed in 1984 the nuclear industry has not been able to meet those tests. So now it wants to relax the law.

It has been more than 50 years since the US began generating nuclear power -- and nuclear waste.

To the list of safety, environmental, and economic concerns about nuclear power, add another: Utilities do not have enough money set aside to decommission existing nuclear reactors when they are shut down, the Associated Press reports.

The nuclear reactors themselves become huge mountains of radioactive waste when they are shut down, and need to be disposed of.  But no storage site exists to accept the waste, so the reactor on the Mississippi at Genoa, WI, which stopped operating in 1987, is still there, awaiting decommissioning.

Point Beach has only about half of the estimated $684-million it will need for decommissioning, and the Kewaunee reactor is somewhat close to having enough money set aside if estimates of $359-million are correct, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.

Help stop a current effort to open the door to more nuclear reactors in Wisconsin. Learn more and sign an online petition here.

An online petition campaign to maintain Wisconsin's existing regulations on licensing of new nuclear reactors has been launched by the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, (WNPJ)  in cooperation with One Wisconsin Now (OWN).   The message:

Dear Friend,

We urgently need your help to maintain reasonable restrictions on nuclear power in Wisconsin.

Learn more and sign our petition here, or read on.

Wisconsin has wisely had a state law in place since 1984 that prohibits the construction of new nuclear reactors unless two conditions are met:

1. There is a federally-licensed facility to dispose of high-level radioactive waste from the reactors, and

2. The Public Service Commission makes a finding that nuclear power makes economic sense.

I drew my conclusion that nuclear energy should be used as part of an environmental and energy strategy from looking over a lot of documents written by scientists who have engaged the question of nuclear energy.  The following is a good summary example of the perspective I believe to be common among knowledgeable scientists:

http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/rpt_SustainableEnergyFuture_Aug2008.pdf

This, document, issued at about the time of the 2008 political conventions, is titled  “A Sustainable Energy Future:  The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy”

This document was signed by all the heads of the National Labs, including Steven Chu, who went on to become Secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration.  Here is a quote: