nuclear-news

Texas anti-nuclear groups to take part in legal hearing

Anti-nuke groups win standing in Comanche Peak expansion case
Dallas News Aug 21, 2009  Elizabeth Souder
Several anti-nuclear groups and Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, have won a seat at the table when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides whether to grant Energy Future Holdings license to expand a North Texas nuclear power plant.

The decision means the NRC must hold a contested hearing after staff has finished reviewing the company’s application for a license to build and operate two new reactors.The review is expected to take until 2012, and the contested hearing could delay a final decision on expansion of the Comanche Peak plant in Glen Rose by a few months, according to NRC spokesman Scott Burnell…………………

……………The groups — Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, Public Citizen, True Cost of Nukes — and Burnam made 19 contentions, and the licensing board agreed that two of the complaints should be addressed.

The two contentions that the board agreed should be heard are:

That Luminant failed to consider what might happen to the new reactors if there were a severe accident at one of the existing reactors,

And, that the company failed to explore alternatives to nuclear power, including “combinations of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, with technological advances in storage methods and supplemental use of natural gas, to create baseload power,” according to the board’s decision.

TEXAS ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT Blog | The Dallas Morning News

August 22, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, politics, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs