The Nuclear Cleanup At San Onofre Isn’t Moving Fast Enough, Congressmen Say, laist.com, BY SHARON MCNARY APRIL 17, 2019 About 8 million people live within 50 miles of San Onofre, the now-defunct, beach-adjacent nuclear plant located between Oceanside and San Clemente. Inside the plant is 1,600 tons of radioactive waste. Much of the spent nuclear fuel is currently sitting in cooling pools waiting to be moved to a safer location — specifically, one that’s less vulnerable to earthquake faults and rising sea levels.On Tuesday, Rep. Mike Levin and Orange County Rep. Harley Rouda spoke to reporters at Southern California Edison’s decommissioned facility about a proposal to speed up the removal of that waste.
There are two moves needed. One is to get it out of the cooling ponds at San Onofre and into the dry concrete bunkers. That will enable the defunct plant to be dismantled.
But the members of Congress want to accelerate another move of the spent fuel out of state to “interim” storage and eventually to permanent storage
Nuclear waste cleanup at the San Onofre nuclear power plant has been on hold since last summer after a mishap involving a 50-ton container of radioactive material.
Rep. Mike Levin says Congress should set new priorities for which power plants get top priority to ship the fuel elsewhere. The oceanfront San Onofre plant within his Oceanside Congressional district would be right at the top of the list, according to his proposed new criteria.
“We probably shouldn’t have had a nuclear power plant here in the first place,” Levin said. “But now that we do, and we’re stuck with 1,600 tons of spent radioactive nuclear fuel, we better do everything we can do to prioritize.”
He wants plants that are closed, and located near near large population centers and at risk from earthquake faults and rising sea levels to get priority permits to transport the waste out of state.
Levin said he would introduce a bill when he returns to Congress that would change the criteria. He said he disagreed with current policies that call for the oldest fuel to be shipped to remote storage first, citing the higher risk to dense nearby populations.
Rouda and Levin were among 15 members who called on Congress earlier this month to spend $25 million hurrying the development of interim storage spots. Two locations, in West Texas and New Mexico, are in the process of getting permits to store nuclear waste on an interim basis while the federal government seeks a permanent home for it.
WHAT WENT WRONG AT SAN ONOFRE LAST AUGUST?
Spent nuclear fuel is being held in cooling ponds and being transferred in giant canisters to new concrete bunkers about 100 feet from the ocean. A 28-foot high seawall is meant to keep seawater out of the bunkers. Edison contractors had already transferred 29 of 73 containers of nuclear waste to the new location.
But on August 3, a 20-foot tall canister containing more than 50 tons of radioactive waste was left suspended on a metal flange 18 feet above a storage bunker floor during its transfer. Safety slings to keep the canister from falling were disabled, so the danger was that the canister could have fallen and perhaps ruptured. SCE’s contractor doing the work did not properly disclose the incident that day.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that from Jan. 30 to Aug. 3, 2018, workers loading the canisters into the bunkers “frequently” knocked the canister against components of the vault, potentially gouging the steel container.
Again, the contractors didn’t immediately tell Edison that was happening, depriving the company and other workers of a chance to correct the loading procedure.
The NRC cited “apparent weaknesses in management oversight” of how the waste canisters were stored, and fined Edison $116,000 for the violation. The company did not sufficiently oversee its contractor doing the work of moving the canisters, the NRC said.
The company is waiting for the green light from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume the work of transferring the waste.
Tomgram: Smithberger and Hartung, The Pentagon’s Revolving Door Spins Faster
Tom Dispatch by William Hartung and Mandy Smithberger , January 29, 2019.Give Donald Trump credit. As a businessman, he’s brought into office some skills that previous presidents lacked. Take, for example, his willingness to plough staggering sums of money into five casinos destined to go bankrupt (and then jump ship, money in hand, leaving others holding the financial bag). Now, he seems to be applying the same principles to the Pentagon. He’s already insisted on establishing a sixth branch of the armed services, a Space Force, which will cost a pretty penny — as much as $13 billion just to set up its new bureaucracy. And lest that seem too financially ambitious, just the other day he unveiled a 2019 Missile Defense Review aimed at creating a modern version of President Ronald Reagan’s extremely expensive (and failed) Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as “Star Wars.” Its purpose, as he put it, will be to “ensure that we can detect and destroy any [nuclear] missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime.” The cost: possibly up to a trillion dollars without such a system being in any meaningful way capable of taking out Russian or Chinese missiles launched at the U.S. As a plan, however, it could hit the Trumpian trifecta: putting high-tech weaponry in space, heating up a new global nuclear arms race, and busting a Pentagon budget that’s already in the stratosphere……….
As Mandy Smithberger from the Project On Government Oversight and TomDispatch regularWilliam Hartung suggest today, the very Pentagon that President Trump is so eager to launch into space is now filled, from its acting secretary of defense on down, with former officials of, or consultants to, America’s largest arms makers, a crew clearly prepared to give out lucrative contracts for space failure to such firms. Sooner or later, in true Trumpian fashion, they, too, will undoubtedly jump ship — or rather step back through that Washington revolving door and exit the premises, money in hand, before the military version of the Titanic hits an iceberg.
The way personnel spin through Washington’s infamous revolving door between the Pentagon and the arms industry is nothing new. That door, however, is moving ever faster with the appointment of Patrick Shanahan, who spent 30 years at Boeing, the Pentagon’s second largest contractor, as the Trump administration’s acting secretary of defense………
Shanahan is unique. No secretary of defense in recent memory has had such a long career in the arms industry and so little experience in government or the military. For most of that career, in fact, his main focus was winning defense contracts for Boeing, not crafting effective defense policies. While the Pentagon should be focused on protecting the country, the arms industry operates in the pursuit of profit, even when that means selling weapons systems to countries working against American national security interests. …….
Shanahan’s new role raises questions about whether what is in the best interest of Boeing — bigger defense budgets and giant contracts for unaffordable and ineffective weaponry or aircraft — is what’s in the best interest of the public……..
He has similarly been the Pentagon’s staunchest advocate when it comes to the development of a new Space Force, something that likely thrills President Trump. He’s advocated, for example, giving the Space Development Agency, the body that will be charged with developing military space assets, authority “on steroids” to shove ever more contracts out the door. As a producer of military satellites, Boeing is a major potential beneficiary of just such a development. ……..
The Revolving Door Spins Both Ways
Shanahan and Faulkner are far from the only former defense executives or lobbyists to populate the Trump administration. Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson is a former lobbyist for Lockheed Martin. Ellen Lord, who heads procurement at the Pentagon, worked at Textron, a producer of bombs and military helicopters. Secretary of the Army Mark Esper — rumored as a possible replacement for Shanahan as secretary of defense — was once a top lobbyist at Raytheon. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood was a senior vice president at Lockheed Martin. And the latest addition to the club is Charles Kupperman, who has been tapped as deputy national security advisor. His career includes stints at both Boeing and Lockheed Martin. (His claim to fame: asserting that the United States could win a nuclear war.)
All of the above, including Patrick Shanahan, spun through that famed revolving door into government posts, but so many former DoD officials and top-level military officers have long spun in the opposite direction ……….
Le Monde 15th April 2019For several weeks, EDF’s management and the executive have been
preparing a plan to separate nuclear activities from the rest of the group.
A high-risk issue for the government.
Le Monde 15th April 2019 The CGT secretary of the EDF works council, François Dos Santos, protested against the government’s desire to divide the group into two separate
subsidiaries.
Times 16th April 2019 A row erupted in France yesterday after it emerged that EDF’s board will discuss plans to renationalise the group’s nuclear activities and split them from the rest of its business. Unions reacted with anger to what they depicted as the first step towards the dismantling of the energy group that is building Britain’s new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
The board is due to review the restructuring plan next month before presenting it to senior managers and union representatives in June, according to a source. The scheme involves the creation of a parent company to run the group’s 58 reactors in France, as well as new ones that it may build.
This part of the group could be renationalised, rolling back the partial privatisation of EDF in 2004, which left the state with an 83.7 per cent stake. Most of the rest of the group’s activities then would be placed in a subsidiary that would continue to seek private investors under the plan, which has been codenamed Project Hercules, according to the newspaper Le Parisien.
People close to President Macron, who has the final say, claim that he broadly supports the idea, but may backtrack if the price of compensating shareholders proves to be beyond the means of France’s hard-pressed state budget. A fierce union reaction also could prompt him to retreat,
commentators said.
Although a source insisted that the restructuring would have no direct impact on Hinkley Point, it is likely to create short-term uncertainty for EDF Energy, the group’s British division.
EDF is struggling to meet the cost of renovating its ageing French nuclear fleet, which is estimated at between €55 billion and €75 billion. In addition, the group, which has a debt of €33 billion, is facing several other difficulties, not least that it is committed to funding two thirds of the estimated £22.3 billion cost of the new-generation European pressurised reactors being built at Hinkley Point.
A similar reactor at Flamanville in northern France was meant to cost €3 billion and come on stream in 2012. The reactor is still not operating and the budget has reached €10.9 billion. Last week, it emerged that experts had advised that EDF should repair faulty weldings at Flamanville, which would add hundreds of millions of euros to the bill and lead to a further delay.
AARP foreshadows opposition to Ohio nuclear subsidies, Energy News Network BY John Funk 17 Apr 19
The group hasn’t taken a formal position on a bill introduced Friday, but recently told lawmakers it would oppose “any legislation” to prop up nuclear plants
AARP Ohio informed top Republican lawmakers before they introduced a bill subsidizing old nuclear and certain coal power plants that the organization would aggressively fight to defeat such legislation.
In a letter sent to House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, a day before he unveiled House Bill 6 last week, AARP state director Barbara Sykes wrote that AARP would strongly oppose “any legislation” imposing a customer surcharge to subsidize the nuclear plants.
“AARP Ohio, on behalf of its 1.5 million members and families, strongly opposes any surcharge or tax on utility customers in our state that would serve to subsidize the for-profit nuclear power industry,” she wrote………
GOP leaders have said the legislation would raise about $300 million per year from customers. While they maintain customer bills would initially be lower, clean energy advocates say the proposal will cost ratepayers more in the long run by defunding energy efficiency and clean energy measures.
An initial hearing on the legislation was held Tuesday before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Another round of hearings begin Wednesday before the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Generation.
Tuesday’s hearing began a day after lawyers for FirstEnergy Solutions asked a federal bankruptcy court in Akron for permission for an additional 90 days to file a plan of reorganization. The company sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Mar. 31. The court rejected the company’s first plan because it included reference to a deal absolving parent company FirstEnergy from any future liabilities for environmental problems caused by its power plants.https://energynews.us/2019/04/16/midwest/aarp-foreshadows-opposition-to-ohio-nuclear-subsidies/
In a Time of Cheap Fossil Fuels, Nuclear Power Companies Are Seeking — and Getting — Big Subsidies
Illinois and New York have approved hundreds of millions of dollars in clean-energy incentives for nuclear power companies. New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland could be next. Pro Publica by Talia Buford, April 17, 19“……….It would be a “safety net” for the company’s nuclear operations in New Jersey, Izzo said. ([Ralph Izzo, chairman, president and CEO of energy company PSEG] It would not, he emphasized, be “a bailout.”
On Thursday, regulators in New Jersey are scheduled to decide whether PSEG has shown that it needs the subsidies, which would be paid for through a surcharge on all customer bills in the state. If the Board of Public Utilities approves the requests, New Jersey would join two other states, Illinois and New York, in giving nuclear power plants hundreds of millions of dollars in order to stay competitive in the wholesale energy market.
The campaign for the subsidies took to the pages of the state’s largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, this week. A full-page ad on Monday signed by the employees of the Salem and Hope Creek plants, and another on Tuesday, signed by eight former New Jersey governors, praised the subsidy plan and warned of the consequences of not acting.
………..In recent years, the nuclear power industry has ramped up efforts to cultivate influence with legislators and alliances with environmentalists.
The industry’s gains thus far haven’t been easy, or cheap.
In New Jersey, PSEG spent nearly $4 million over the course of 2017 and 2018 lobbying the Legislature on the nuclear subsidies. By comparison, groups lobbying on marijuana legalization, the other big issue of the last two legislative sessions, spent $1.7 million, according to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission………
In each state, the push for subsidies has come after warnings that the plants would have to close. But critics of the programs say that in many instances, the plants are profitable, and the companies are using scare tactics to bully legislators into subsidizing shareholder profits.
“They rattled their saber many times,” said Abe Scarr, state director of Illinois Public Interest Research Group, a consumer organization that opposed the subsidies. “Regardless of whether it was a bluff or not, certainly their threats were a ploy to build pressure on Illinois decision makers.”
Threatening to close plants in the name of shareholder profits is a tactic Stefanie Brand, director of the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel, a state-appointed advocate for utility customers, said she hadn’t seen before.
China goes all-in on home grown tech in push for nuclear dominance, David Stanway, SHANGHAI (Reuters)17 Apr 19 – China plans to gamble on the bulk deployment of its untested “Hualong One” nuclear reactor, squeezing out foreign designs, as it resumes a long-delayed nuclear program aimed at meeting its clean energy goals, government and industry officials said.
China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, was once seen as a “shop window” for big nuclear developers to show off new technologies, with Beijing embarking on a program to build plants based on designs from France, the United States, Russia and Canada.
But after years of construction delays, overseas models such as Westinghouse’s AP1000 and France’s “Evolutionary Pressurised Reactor” (EPR) are now set to lose out in favor of new localized technologies, industry experts and officials said.
……….Though China has yet to complete its first Hualong One, officials are confident it will not encounter the delays suffered by rivals, and say it can compete on safety and cost.
Beijing has already decided to use the Hualong One for its first newly commissioned nuclear project in three years, set to begin construction later this year at Zhangzhou, a site originally earmarked for the AP1000. [nL3N2152KM]
……… EDF, France’s state-run utility, which helped build the EPR project at Taishan in Guangdong province, declined to comment. Westinghouse, now owned by Brookfield after entering bankruptcy restructuring, also did not respond to a request for comment.
Bill prohibits, sets guidelines for nuclear waste disposal
April 17, 2019 BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota’s Legislature has passed a bill that prohibits nuclear waste dumping in the state. The bill passed by the House Wednesday and the Senate a day earlier also sets the regulatory framework for disposal and storage of the radioactive waste if the state is forced to accept it by the federal government…… (subscribers only) https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Bill-prohibits-sets-guidelines-for-nuclear-waste-13775275.php
Lowman S. Henry: Exelon and the death of competitive energy markets, The Phoenix, By Lowman S. Henry Columnist, Apr 17, 2019,
Exelon, the hugely profitable energy company, wants a bailout. Taxpayers can pay all $500 million at once, or take advantage of a convenient monthly payment plan in the form of higher electric bills. Either way Exelon wants you to pay for their under-performing nuclear power plants.
After raking in billions in “stranded costs” as Pennsylvania transitioned into a competitive energy market, Exelon now finds several of its nuclear power plants unable to compete economically with cheaper and abundant natural gas in the generation of electricity. Having thus benefited from free markets, the energy giant wants a return to government subsidies after having failed to adjust to changing market conditions.
Exelon has deployed an army of lobbyists in Harrisburg to spin the yarn that closing two of their nuclear plants would somehow endanger the region’s electricity supply. Were that true, of course, the plants would be making money and a bailout would not be necessary.
One of the plants is the damaged Three Mile Island facility south of the state capital. Forty years ago disaster was narrowly averted when there was an uncontrolled meltdown in one of its reactors. The plant has been operating at partial capacity ever since, contributing to its economic inefficiency.
Aside from being unprofitable and home to a damaged reactor, TMI as it is commonly known poses a security risk. Harrisburg International Airport lies literally in the shadow of the TMI cooling towers. In an age of heightened concern over terrorist attacks such proximity to an airport renders the facility vulnerable. Thus its closing might be a blessing in disguise.
Exelon has been pressuring state lawmakers for a $500 million infusion (bail-out) of taxpayer dollars to allow it to keep TMI and the Beaver Valley nuclear plant in western Pennsylvania open. The company is apparently unwilling to dip into its own profits to do this, and with a cash-strapped state budget legislators appear unwilling or unable to dish out the requested corporate welfare…….
Nuclear Weapons in the Reiwa Era https://allthingsnuclear.org/gkulacki/nuclear-weapons-in-the-reiwa-era, GREGORY KULACKI, CHINA PROJECT MANAGER AND SENIOR ANALYST | APRIL 11, 2019 Japan will soon have a new emperor and a new dynastic name to mark the traditional Japanese calender: Reiwa (令和). Interminable commentary on the significance of the name is just beginning, but in the end it will be defined not by words but by deeds. One of the most important acts the Japanese people may be compelled to take as the new era begins is to decide whether to allow their government to introduce US nuclear weapons into Japan. They may have to choose between continuing to honor the LEGACY OF HIROSHIMA and the warnings of the HIBAKUSHA or abandoning Japan’s longstanding role as a leading voice for peace and nuclear disarmament.
Prime Minister Abe and the foreign policy elite of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are pushing the United States to increase the role of US nuclear weapons in Asia. They told US officials they want to alter Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles to permit the introduction of US nuclear weapons into Japan. They also want to revise Article 9 of Japan’s post-war constitution, in which the Japanese people “forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a mean of settling international disputes.” The Abe government’s desire to re-write the constitution and re-arm Japan is well known and hotly debated. But its efforts to bring US nuclear weapons into Japan are a closely guarded secret, known only to a small group of officials in Japan’s foreign policy establishment.
UCS obtained a document that contains a detailed description of the Japanese foreign ministry’s requirements for US nuclear weapons. Multiple conversations with the Japanese official who presented this document to his US counterparts not only confirmed its content, they also revealed this small group of hawkish officials wants to train Japanese military personnel to deliver US nuclear weapons. They would even like the United States to grant Japanese leaders the authority to decide when to use them. Japanese officials refer to this arrangement as “nuclear sharing.”
This information is not being kept from the Japanese people for security reasons. The responsible officials believe it is important for China to know Japan has the authority to make such a decision and the capability to carry it out. Preparations to make “nuclear sharing” a reality are being kept secret because these officials are afraid the Japanese public would oppose it. Their covert nuclear weapons wish list blatantly violates both the letter and the spirit of Japan’s constitution and the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.
Public opinion polls indicate many Japanese people would like to make the use or threat to use nuclear weapons illegal, which is the purpose of the recently adopted UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). A large majority of their elected representatives, even within Abe’s ruling LDP, want to uphold Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbid “nuclear sharing.” Many Japanese people take pride in the belief that their country plays a leading role in advancing nuclear disarmament.
The gap between the public’s aspirations and the private machinations of its current leaders is difficult to reconcile.
Prime Minister Abe, like US President Trump, governs his country with a mix of nationalism and authoritarianism. His political opponents seem incapable of mounting a serious challenge to his leadership or his policies. But the absence of effective opposition is not an indication of popular support. Abe’s approval rating is not that much better than Trump’s. And like the current US president, he holds on to power with a dedicated minority of loyalists, disingenuous manipulation of the mass media and the resignation of a dispirited majority who see no compelling alternative.
Abe appears to have injected his nationalist agenda into the selection of the name for the new era. Press reports highlight that Reiwa (令和) is the first Japanese dynastic name not taken from the Chinese classics. The collection of Japanese poetry that inspired Abe’s selection was popular among the military officers of Imperial Japan who led their nation into World War II. Critics panned Reiwa as a cold expression of Abe’s authoritarian tendencies, but it seemed to be well-received and gave an immediate lift to the popularity of a man on track to become the longest serving prime minister in Japanese history.
Abe told the press Reiwa suggests a period when “culture is born and nurtured as the people’s hearts are beautifully drawn together.” His cabinet secretary told the world that Reiwa should be translated into English as “beautiful harmony.” So it may be that the initial appeal of the new name is more in line with the widespread public support for Japan’s pacifist constitution and the spirit of international cooperation than with Abe’s atavistic appeals to the chauvinist ambitions that led to Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
Only time will tell. Japanese attitudes towards nuclear weapons may be the most important window into the ultimate meaning of Reiwa. Making sure the Japanese people know what their government is saying and doing about nuclear weapons may be the best way to ensure that window is clear.
Also: today we’re releasing a short documentary that we filmed in Hiroshima last year. It covers some of the issues around the Japanese Foreign Ministry and US nuclear weapons, as well as firsthand accounts of the bombing.
Japan pitches safety of food from Fukushima and Tohoku in wake of WTO ruling for South Korea, Japan Times ,12 Apr19, KYODO Japan will seek to reassure other countries about the safety of food produced in areas affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, officials said Friday, after the World Trade Organization supported South Korea’s import ban on some Japanese seafood.Fishermen in Tohoku, the region hit hardest by the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that triggered the triple core meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, expressed disappointment with the WTO’s decision, saying their catches clear strict safety checks before shipment……….
Japan has been promoting its agricultural and seafood exports, which have been growing in recent years and reached ¥906.8 billion ($8.1 billion) in 2018, putting the government’s target of ¥1 trillion for this year in sight.
By holding baseball and soccer games in the disaster-hit region, Japan hopes to present the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020 as a symbol of reconstruction.
“I will promote the high quality of food products (in the disaster-hit areas),” Olympics minister Shunichi Suzuki said at a news conference held just a day after he was reappointed to his role.
The WTO’s appellate body for dispute settlement on Thursday ruled in favor of South Korea’s import ban on fishery products from Fukushima and seven other prefectures, reversing an earlier decision.
Thursday’s ruling is final as the appellate body is the highest authority in the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism.
Due to fears of radioactive contamination, South Korea expanded its initial ban to include all fishery products from Fukushima and the seven other prefectures in 2013.
Revised Ohio nuclear ‘bailout’ bill raises more questions, ENERGY NEWS, 13 APR 19, John Funk,,An updated version of the bill would still exclude wind and solar from clean air credits, while allowing payments to unspecified “reduced emissions resources.”
COLUMBUS — Republican lawmakers in the Ohio House introduced legislation Friday that would provide subsidies for two Ohio nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, while at the same time defunding decade-old renewable energy and efficiency programs.
The bill also includes language to allow funds collected from ratepayers to “reduce the emissions from other generating technologies that can be readily dispatched to satisfy demand in real time,” without specifying what technologies that could include.
The Ohio Clean Air Program created by the proposed legislation would provide an annual subsidy for any power plant producing zero carbon dioxide emissions at the rate of $9.25 for every megawatt-hour produced. While the word “nuclear” does not actually appear anywhere in the bill, this designation would include nuclear plants and potentially some wind and solar installations.
But solar farms would have to be able to generate at least 50 megawatts (MW) in order to participate, and only wind farms between 5 MW and 50 MW could qualify.
A spokeswoman for the office of House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) acknowledged that there are currently no solar farms that large in operation in Ohio, but that three have been approved and another six very large solar projects are pending……….
Bill leaves many questions unanswered
The legislation proposes to create two categories of power plants — a “clean energy resource” and a “reduced emissions resource.” The first category would be defined as not producing any carbon dioxide, the latter describing power plants that have made, or will make, “significant contributions” to “minimizing emissions.”
The legislation does not specify what those terms mean, and leaves the details to the Ohio Air Quality Development Board, which must develop and administer the program. The bill would expand the OARDC, whose members are currently appointed by the governor, to include four state legislators…….
The company, FirstEnergy Solutions, which has just been dealt a setback in a federal bankruptcy court ruling rejecting its agreement holding parent FirstEnergy Corp. harmless for future environmental problems, has told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it would close all three of its nuclear plants by the fall of 2021. Davis-Besse is the first plant it would close, by May 31, 2020. …….
‘Nothing more than another bailout tax’
Clean energy advocates immediately condemned the legislation.
“The bill announced today is nothing more than another bailout tax for failing nuclear plants paid for on the back of hardworking Ohioans,” said Trish Demeter, vice president of Energy Policy at the Ohio Environmental Council.
“The proposed bill would dismantle one of the only state policies that reliably deliver electric bill savings to customers, decrease air pollution and create new jobs in Ohio,” she added in a prepared release.
Daniel Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy coordinator at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said “Ohio urgently needs to update its energy policies to match the national trend towards cleaner, cheaper and more reliable renewable energy and programs that reduce the amount of energy wasted in our homes and businesses.”
Sawmiller also predicted that the legislation would eventually cost ratepayers more.
“Eliminating the energy efficiency standard will result in higher electric bills as consumers would be forced to pay for energy that is unnecessarily wasted. This increases the output of Ohio’s generation stations, thereby increasing air emissions if we aren’t creating a path for significant renewable energy growth.
“It’s also important to keep in mind, the energy efficiency industry accounts for around 70 percent of Ohio’s clean energy jobs.”
The draft “clean air” bill would keep bankrupt utility’s nuclear plants open—but drain money from renewables and efficiency programs.
JEFF ST. JOHNAPRIL 08, 2019 Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature has drafted “clean air fund” legislation that would slash renewable energy and efficiency subsidies while adding about $300 million a year to electricity bills in the state, in the name of keeping its nuclear fleet from closing. The move diverges sharply from other state-level policies in the U.S. to prop up financially struggling nuclear power plants for their carbon-free electricity.
Last week, Energy News Network released draft legislation (PDF) being circulated by majority leaders in Ohio’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives, primarily aimed at rescuing two nuclear power plants — the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo and the Perry plant near Cleveland, which bankrupt utility FirstEnergy Solutions has threatened to close by 2021.
The draft bill would add a maximum surcharge of $2.50 per month to every residential customer’s bill, a $20 per month surcharge to every commercial customer’s bill and a $250 monthly charge to every industrial customer’s bill, to raise roughly $300 million a year.
Of that, about $180 million would go to subsidize FirstEnergy’s two nuclear plants, according to analysis reported by Energy News Network. The remaining $120 million would be available to resources that are deemed by the newly created board of political appointees to meet the fund’s criteria.
But the newly created board would operate with more secrecy than a regular public utilities commission proceeding. And while the draft bill doesn’t use the word “nuclear,” its criteria for which emissions-reducing technologies are allowed to claim a piece of the new pot of money would appear to exclude most of the carbon-neutral energy resources now available, besides nuclear power.
Tailor-made for nuclear
First, the draft bill would require any qualifying resource to “exclusively” obtain compensation from the wholesale energy markets run by mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM and overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — a feature met by FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants, but not by energy efficiency, rooftop solar, or other non-wholesaleforms of carbon-free energy.
Second, the bill would exclude any facility that receives “state tax exemptions, deferrals, exclusions, allowances, payments, [or] credits, including production tax credits and investment tax credits” — the same federal tax credits provided to wind and solar, respectively. And third, it would bar any municipal utility or rural electric cooperatives.
The release of the draft legislation prompted a legislative aide of one of the bill’s sponsors, Republican state Rep. Jamie Callender, to tell Cleveland.com that much of the text was out of date, with a new version “still in a state of flux.” The aide declined to say what would differentiate the newer version of the bill from the draft version obtained last week.
The bailout bill comes at a difficult time for FirstEnergy, which has announced plans to close nuclear and coal-fired power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania if it does not receive additional state or federal support. Last week, Bankruptcy Judge Alan Koschik, who is overseeing the utility’s case in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Ohio, rejected FirstEnergy’s proposal to get out of bankruptcy more quickly in part by indemnifying parent company FirstEnergy Corp. from paying any future costs for environmental cleanup at its power plant sites.
“Opt-in” to support renewables
Ohio’s plan stands in stark contrast to the nuclear incentive programs that have been rolled out in states including Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Illinois. While these states have largely built their nuclear support programs on the foundation of existing state clean energy and carbon reduction policies, Ohio’s plan would actually undermine existing payment structures for the state’s relatively mild clean energy and efficiency goals.
The draft bill would do this by declaring that Ohio’s existing monthly charges for renewable energy, energy efficiency and peak demand reduction are now “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” charges on residential and commercial customers’ utility bills.
Today, these charges appear on every home and business electric bill, with only large industrial customers having the opportunity to opt out of them. But the draft legislation would flip this arrangement on its head, doing away with the monthly charges unless the utility customer sends “written notice of intent to opt in” to pay the extra fees.
The vast body of utility experience shows that switching programs from opt-out to opt-in leads to a drastic reduction in participation rates, since few people will choose to pay more every month, even if they support the services the surcharges pay for. These numbers are likely to be winnowed even further if opting in requires written and mailed-in applications, rather than simpler on-bill, over-the-phone or online options.
FirstEnergy Solutions bankruptcy rumbles on
FirstEnergy Solutions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2018, after failing to convince the U.S. Department of Energy to issue an emergency declaration that would have forced grid operators and utilities to pay out-of-market prices to its coal and nuclear power plants. While FirstEnergy and the Trump administration have argued the plants are critical to keep the regional power grid stable, multiple studies from PJM indicate the closures won’t affect grid reliability.
Many coal and nuclear power plants are struggling to remain competitive. Such plants have been closing at a record rate amid a flood of cheap electricity from natural gas and renewables, as well as continued gains in end-user efficiency.
Pennsylvania lawmakers are also considering a bill that would increase utility bills by about $1.77 per household per month to raise about $500 million per year, largely to support two nuclear power plants that owners FirstEnegy and Exelon have said they will be forced to close in the coming years without state support.
That bill has drawn fire from consumers and environmental groups for potentially allowing still-profitable nuclear power plants to receive incentives, while not addressing the state’s relatively low ranking in terms of the share of its electricity coming from wind, solar and other carbon-free resources.
Saudi Arabia has nearly completed construction of its first nuclear reactor, sparking fears about the country’s quest for nuclear power.
New satellite images, first published by Bloomberg, show construction on the building site has made significant process over the past three months.
The three images below [on original] show the rapid developments on the site between April 2017 and today.
The images show the construction of a 10-metre high steel vessel, which would contain nuclear fuel, and construction work on the surrounding concrete building.
The facility is located in the southwest corner of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh.
………Robert Kelley, a nuclear expert and veteran of the US Department of Energy, said the reactor could be completed in “nine months to a year”.
He said the construction appears to be small in size and intended for research and training purposes.
Mr Kelley also said that, before the kingdom can insert nuclear fuel into the reactor, it would have to abide by international agreements.
He said it had been surprising to him “how non-transparent” the kingdom had been in the process of building the reactor and “how they seem very cavalier about modifying their arrangements with the IAEA”.
Mr Kelley was referring to agreements the kingdom has signed. The kingdom agreed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty three decades ago. In 2005, it signed an agreement with the IAEA known as the “small quantities protocol” that allowed countries with negligible nuclear programs to be exempt from regular inspections or nuclear monitoring.
However, once nuclear fuel was brought into the country to operate this small reactor, inspections by the IAEA would be required, Mr Kelley added.
…….. He said the Saudi reactor was being built by the Argentinian government-owned company INVAP. Before Argentina brings nuclear fuel to Saudi Arabia for the reactor, the IAEA agreement in place that exempts Saudi Arabia from inspections would need to be rescinded, Mr Kelley said.
“I think it’s a 100 per cent certainty that Argentina is not going to supply uranium fuel to a country that doesn’t have a safeguards agreement in force,” he added.
………. the kingdom has previously pushed back against agreeing to US standards that would block two paths to potentially making fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Last Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was adamant that it was unacceptable for Saudi Arabia to become a nuclear power.
“We will not permit that to happen. We will not permit that to happen anywhere in the world,” he told CBS. “The President understands the threat of proliferation. We will never write a $150 million check to the Saudis and hand them over the capacity to threaten Israel and the United States with nuclear weapons, never.”
The publication of the satellite images follows a struggle between the Trump administration and Congress over the sale of nuclear technology to Riyadh.
Last month, The Daily Beast revealed the US Department of Energy had approved six authorisations for US companies that were looking to conduct nuclear-related work in the Middle Eastern kingdom.
NRC recommends issuing early site permit for Clinch River Nuclear Site, OAK RIDGE TODAY, APRIL 8, 2019BY JOHN HUOTARIThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a final environmental impact statement, and the staff has recommended, based upon the environmental review, issuing an early site permit for the Clinch River Nuclear Site in west Oak Ridge, where two or more small modular nuclear reactors could be built.The final environmental impact statement, or EIS, was issued by the NRC on April 3. A notice of the EIS and the staff’s recommendation were published in the Federal Register on Monday, April 8.
The 935-acre Clinch River Nuclear Site is located in Roane County along the Clinch River……….
An early site permit is the NRC’s approval of a site for one or more nuclear power facilities. It does not authorize the actual construction and operation of a new nuclear power plant. That requires a construction permit and an operating license, or a combined license. ………
The Clinch River Nuclear Site could be used to demonstrate small modular reactors with a maximum total electrical output of 800 megawatts………
Now that the final EIS has been published, there will be a mandatory hearing with the NRC after a final safety evaluation report is issued. The NRC expects that report to be published in June. The five-member commission will make a decision after the hearing about whether to issue the early site permit.
A contested hearing could be held by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel if a member of the public or an organization successfully files a petition that raises safety or environmental concerns about granting the site a permit, the NRC said.
The NRC said an authorization for the construction or operation of new nuclear units at the Clinch River site is not being sought at this time.
The potential timing of any reactors being built at the site is not clear. Among other things, TVA doesn’t control the reactor certification process.
“There are currently no certified small modular reactor designs available, but TVA will continue working to ensure we are ready to fully evaluate them when they are available,” Hopson said.
Financial considerations would have to be evaluated, and the TVA board of directors would have the final decision “based on what they believe will be in the best interest of the people of the Tennessee Valley,” Hopson said.
Since a design hasn’t been certified for a small modular reactor, TVA used what is known as a “plant parameter envelope” as a surrogate for a nuclear power plant and its facilities when applying for the early site permit. The “plant parameter envelope” estimated the potential environmental impacts of building and operating two or more small modular reactors at the site. TVA used information from four small modular reactor vendors to develop the “plant parameter envelope.”
How Fast Will Nuke Power Collapse? Atomic experts Jim Green, Paul Gunter and Kevin Kamps explain how a dying reactor industry is clamping on to bought state legislatures for gargantuan handouts
