Industry Urges Lawmakers to Lift Ban on Nuclear Reactors

February 24, 2009

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
As state and federal lawmakers consider plans to reduce emissions
linked to global warming, representatives of the nuclear powerindustry are urging Wisconsin to lift its ban on construction of
nuclear reactors.
The industry has made changes to ensure plant safety in the 30
years since the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania and has
taken further steps in light of a safety problem at an Ohio reactor in
recent years, industry advocates said during a visit with Journal
Sentinel reporters and editors Monday.
Members of the Nuclear Energy Institute are on a speaking tour
around the country that continues today in Madison.
Advocates say nuclear power needs to be considered, given what's
afoot in Congress and in the state capital.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday he wants a
global warming bill considered by the Senate by this summer.
In Wisconsin, legislation is expected to be introduced that would
relax the state's ban on construction of reactors as part of a broader
plan to reduce greenhouse gases.
Darren Gale, a vice president of Babcock & Wilcox, a provider of
energy products and services, noted Wisconsin gets 70% of its powerfrom coal, a key source of greenhouse gases.
"It's all going to boil down to the age of the fossil plants and
what the administration in Madison decides to allow going forward,"
Gale said.
"If we have some limitations on carbon emissions, they're really going
to have to lay this all out and see what are our options."
Wisconsin's two nuclear plants, Kewaunee and Point Beach, supply
20% of the state's electricity.
At a conference in Madison on Monday, Tia Nelson, co-chair of the
state's global warming task force, said the changes to the nuclear
moratorium would be permitted only if the state made a series of other
energy commitments such as boosting energy efficiency and an agreement
to have renewable energy sources supply 25% of the state's electricity
by 2025.
A dozen proposals for new reactors are pending before the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, most of them for plants that would be in the
southern United States.
One of the biggest obstacles to building nuclear plants is cost.
Though nuclear power plants produce power at a lower rate than other
types of power generation, they are much more expensive to build.
The current estimate for a new nuclear reactor is $6 billion to
$10 billion for a 1,000 megawatt power plant, said John Williams,
senior engineer with Southern Nuclear in Alabama. That is about three
to five times as expensive as the coal-fired power plant We Energies
is building in Oak Creek.
The Citizens' Utility Board is opposed to building nuclear
reactors because of the cost and because of the industry's waste
problem: the containers of spent nuclear fuel are stored at the
state's two power plants along Lake Michigan, said Charlie Higley,
executive director.
"The nuclear industry's dream will just not happen again," Higley
said. "It's just too expensive."
Wisconsin's utilities have no plans to build more nuclear plants,
and in recent years, have sold their stake in the two plants. But
utility executives have said nuclear power should be considered in the
future, and We Energies has an option to join with the new Point Beach
owner, FPL Group Inc., in construction of a future power plant
adjacent to Point Beach in Manitowoc County.
Williams said utilities have been able to store spent nuclear
fuel safely at reactor sites and hope in the future to be able to use
that fuel again through a system known as reprocessing. Reprocessing
fuel is already used at reactors in France and other countries, he
said.