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More Lobbying Expected in 2010 in Even Tougher Environment After Yucca Mountain and Soaring Cost Estimates; Outside of Bans, Industry Falters on CWIP in Missouri and Key Fights in Other States. WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --The so-called "nuclear renaissance" is finding few friends among state lawmakers in the United States. The nuclear power industry has been shut out across the board in 2009 in its efforts in all six states -- ranging across the nation from Kentucky to Minnesota to Hawaii -- where it sought to overturn what are either explicit or effectively bans on construction of new reactors, according to the nonprofit Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). Efforts to overturn bans also have failed to advance in Illinois and West Virginia and Wisconsin. Beyond failing to reverse a single state-level ban on new reactors, the industry also suffered a wide range of major defeats, including an effort to repeal a ban on "Construction Work in Progress" (CWIP) payments that would have been imposed on Missouri ratepayers to finance a new nuclear power plant, which was then promptly mothballed. Industry efforts to get nuclear declared "renewable" by the states of Indiana and Arizona also failed to achieve results. Also going nowhere is a California bill to lift the state's pioneering law banning new reactors until a high-level waste dump is in place. That follows a 2008 California statewide referendum drive with the same focus that failed for lack of sufficient signatures to get it on the ballot.

As the nuclear industry prepares to ramp up construction nationwide, Indiana legislators considered Tuesday whether to allow utilities to recoup some project costs from customers years before a reactor is in operation. House and Senate members heard testimony about an incentive known as "construction work in progress," whereby utilities can charge ratepayers for interest costs on the overall project from the beginning. When a plant is up and running, the utility can start recovering the actual construction costs though the existing regulatory structure.

--Combination of Efficiency and Renewables Much More Economical Than New Nuclear Reactors With Skyrocketing Construction Costs; 'Low Balling' of Cost Estimates Imperils 'Nuclear Renaissance,' Just as Runaway Costs Sank the 'Great Bandwagon Market' of 1970s WASHINGTON, June 18, 2009 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The likely cost of electricity for a new generation of nuclear reactors would be 12-20 cents per kilowatt hour (KWh), considerably more expensive than the average cost of increased use of energy efficiency and renewable energies at 6 cents per kilowatt hour, according to a major new study by economist Dr. Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. The report finds that it would cost $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more over the life of 100 new nuclear reactors than it would to generate the same electricity from a combination of more energy efficiency and renewables.

Coalition Urges Scrutiny of French Company's Corporate Practices and Transparency BALTIMORE - The Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition applauds the Maryland Public Service Commission's (PSC) decision today to assert its jurisdiction over the nuclear sales transaction between Electricite de France (EdF) and Constellation Energy. The coalition delivered 650 petition signatures to the PSC on Friday urging the commission to examine the effects of the deal on Constellation subsidiary Baltimore Gas and Electric (BG&E) and Maryland ratepayers and consider the corporate track record of EdF before approving the deal. "The commission needs to make sure this sale will not negatively impact consumers in the long term or short term," said Johanna Neumann, state director for Maryland PIRG. "A laissez-faire approach by the last Public Service Commission allowed Constellation Energy to rake Maryland consumers over the coals time and again. We urge this commission to be an effective watchdog for the public by aggressively investigating this transaction."

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., has a "Low-cost Clean Energy Plan" being marketed to people with substandard reading skills. His press release claims his plan to build 100 nuclear power plants will "lower utility bills," though it "should not add to the federal budget since ratepayers will pay for building the plants." In other words, the people in Missouri, Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere who get their electricity from coal-fired power plants should see their utility bills skyrocket. Here's a reality check on Alexander's flimflam. The Republican plan proposes to double the level of U.S. nuclear energy generation in 20 years. How much would that cost? We currently have about 100,000 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity, and the cost of building a nuclear plant is about $7.5 million per megawatt, according to Moody's. So the cost would be about $750 billion. On a per megawatt basis, a nuclear plant costs five times as much to build and 10 times as much to operate as a natural gas plant. The $750 billion cost excludes the cost of shutting down the CO2 emitting coal-fired plants.

It's not just AIG and Wall Street jeopardizing your financial future. Taxpayers and ratepayers have long been victimized by the nuclear industry, their lobbyists, and some elected officials who take their contributions. Nuclear power couldn't exist without massive taxpayer giveaways. The nuclear industry is reaping enormous profits at your expense. Nuclear power's costs to taxpayers are astronomical. Wall Street rejects the nuclear gamble, so costs for new nuclear power plants and their deadly wastes will continue to come from the wallets of ordinary Americans. Nuclear industry lobbyists and oblivious supporters are perpetrating an unconscionable scam on taxpayers.

(Host) Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin says he'll push another bill next year that would force Vermont Yankee's owners to put aside money to close the plant. The Legislature has passed a similar bill twice now and both times Governor Jim Douglas has vetoed it. Shumlin says he thinks the situation has changed because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified Yankee as one of the plants that doesn't have enough money to pay for decommissioning. (Shumlin) "Even the NRC now says we've got a problem. We think it's reasonable to expect that we can convince the governor that this is a prudent thing to do to protect Vermont ratepayers." (Host) Shumlin argues that it will cost one billion dollars to shut down and clean up the Yankee site in Vernon. But the financial meltdown has reduced the amount the plant has in its decommissioning fund and it's short between $600 and $700 million right now.

If plans to build a new fleet of nuclear power plants make it past the drawing board, the cost to taxpayers and electricity consumers could be massive, according to a new study released by the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. In a 78-page report, economist Mark Cooper concluded that investing the money in efficiency and renewable power would be more economical than building new nuclear power plants. "The likely cost of electricity for a new generation of nuclear reactors would be 12 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour, considerably more expensive than the average cost of increased use of energy efficiency and renewable energies at 6 cents per kilowatt hour," stated a summary of the report. Cooper's report found that during the life of 100 new nuclear reactors the cost to ratepayers and American taxpayers could be between $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more than the same power generated by a combination of energy efficiency and renewable power.

Two additional nuclear reactors being considered by San Antonio's public utility will cost up to $13 billion, according to new cost estimates. CPS Energy officials want to build the $10 billion to $13 billion reactors at the South Texas Project outside Bay City, saying its the most cost effective way to get additional power. CPS Energy owns 40 percent of the project. New Jersey-based NRG Energy owns the remaining portion, and the utilities would split the cost. San Antonio ratepayers would be hit with a 5 percent rate increase every other year for the next decade to pay for the expansion, officials said Monday. But that rate projection assumes CPS can sell excess power to other utilities, something critics are wary of.

New WISPIRG report shows that dollar for dollar, a clean energy portfolio can produce more energy than nuclear power (Madison, WI) - With the state considering solutions to reduce our global warming pollution, a new WISPIRG report finds that renewable energy sources can produce far more electricity than nuclear plants for less money. Unfortunately, the nuclear industry has proposed thirty new reactors across the country at an estimated cost of $300 billion. "Taxpayers should not be subsidizing nuclear power when there are faster, cleaner, cheaper alternatives to meet our energy needs," said WISPIRG Advocate Kara Rumsey. Here in Wisconsin the nuclear industry is pushing to overturn a long-standing law that prevents new nuclear plants from being built unless the proposed plant is economically advantageous to ratepayers and there is safe and adequate disposal for radioactive waste.

Friends of the Earth said it filed an appeal May 22 with the South Carolina Supreme Court over state regulators' approvals for two new Westinghouse AP1000s at the Summer reactor site. The group is challenging the legality of the South Carolina Public Service Commission's decision in February to permit South Carolina Electric & Gas to build the two new units and to begin recovering some of the costs from ratepayers during construction. The PSC in March denied FOE's appeal of its decision. In a statement, FOE said the filing is the first legal challenge to South Carolina's Baseload Review Act and a decision made under it. The Baseload Review Act, passed in 2007, provides for early cost recovery for nuclear power plant projects.

Progress Energy said Friday it has pushed back by 20 months its schedule for bringing on-line two planned new nuclear reactors in Florida, after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said its review of the plant site will take longer than expected. Progress also said it will spread out over five years certain early-stage costs for the new reactors that it could legally bill to ratepayers entirely in 2010, an apparent bid to tamp down customer anger over rate increases linked to the project that took effect earlier this year.

AmerenUE's plan to build a second nuclear power plant in Callaway County may be in jeopardy. But if so, it won't have been CWIP that killed it. CWIP, of course, stands for construction work in progress. It refers to a state law that prohibits utilities from passing along costs of building new power plants until they start generating electricity. AmerenUE spent much of the last year, including the first four months of the Missouri Legislature's session, arguing that building a second nuclear plant in Callaway County - estimated to cost $9 billion - would be too expensive without up-front financing from ratepayers.

Wisconsin law sets two conditions that must be met before new nuclear power plants can be built in the state. One is that there must be "a federally licensed facility" for high-level nuclear waste. In addition, the proposed nuclear plant "must be economically advantageous to ratepayers." It's a law that the nuclear power industry doesn't like. Given the near-death of the planned waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, and the estimated $6 to $12 billion cost (pdf) of building one nuclear reactor -- not to mention the lack of interest from private investors and the tanking economy -- Wisconsin's law effectively bans new nuclear plants in the state, for the foreseeable future.

When TVA canceled plans to finish its Bellefonte Nuclear Plant here in 2006, contractors began ripping out steel tubes and pipes from heat exchangers, steam generators and main condensers to sell for scrap metal. Advertisement The salvage effort proved to be short-lived. Critics also say it was shortsighted and could leave ratepayers short-changed.

"Heavily subsidized by taxpayers and ratepayers, nuclear power is susceptible to delay, cost overruns and significant environmental risks. Investing billions into more nuclear power threatens to derail funding that would be better spent on energy efficiency and safer, cleaner renewable energy. Moody's advises investors that nuclear projects frequently lead to financial crunch and credit rating drops. The two South Texas Project reactors proposed for the existing Bay City site were supposed to lead the so-called "nuclear renaissance," but there has been strong citizen and legal opposition and the cost has already skyrocketed. Estimates now exceed $18 billion, three times original projections. No shovel has yet been turned and no license granted."

"President Obama has big plans for the future of commercial nuclear energy but the industry still has to deal with the waste it's generated over the past 50 years. The administration has pulled the plug on the Yucca Mountain repository so, today, half a century of radioactive waste remains at power plants. That's costing taxpayers and ratepayers billions of dollars a year. Living on Earth's Bruce Gellerman investigates the flow of federal funds and nuclear waste in the second story in our series. YOUNG: You might call it a money meltdown. For decades the federal government promised to permanently bury that high-level nuclear waste in the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. And utility consumers paid the government billions of dollars to do that. But the Obama administration wants to pull the plug on Yucca Mountain - while at the same time promising 54 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees to build new reactors. That means nuclear utility companies have to continue to store the spent fuel rods on site - often in pools of water and increasingly in special dry casks."

"Would a truly "clean energy" source produce "one of the nation's most hazardous substances"? Of course not. So why include provisions on nuclear reactors in the state's Clean Energy Jobs Act, recently introduced in the state Legislature? Nuclear reactors generate high-level radioactive waste, which is "one of the nation's most hazardous substances," according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. In a November 2009 report, the respected nonpartisan agency found there were no good options for dealing with the radioactive waste. As the federal government continues its decades-long struggle to find a solution to this public safety, environmental and political problem, the costs to taxpayers and ratepayers will skyrocket. In the meantime, radioactive waste is piling up at 80 sites in 35 states, including three sites in Wisconsin."

"A federal court judge Wednesday ordered a stop to all activity in the $32 billion nuclear lawsuit while he decides if the case belongs under federal jurisdiction. Judge Xavier Rodriguez of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas is expected to rule today on whether a citizens group that is trying to intervene has standing to get the case moved to federal court. Until then, the opponents in the suit - CPS Energy and NRG Energy - have had to halt depositions they were conducting for a trial that was set to start Monday in state court. The citizens group, the Ratepayer Protection Coalition, argues CPS has violated the coalition's constitutional rights, which would make this a federal case."

"State utility regulators chastised the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant on Thursday for providing inaccurate information about the extent of underground piping at the reactor, saying they may seek financial penalties against the plant's owner. The Department of Public Service, which had supported Vermont Yankee's bid for a 20-year extension on a license set to expire in 2012, is putting that support on hold until it can get satisfactory answers, department deputy commissioner Stephen Wark said in an interview Thursday evening. "For us, this is a very disturbing development," Wark said. "It requires us to re-evaluate our case that we brought before the (Public Service) Board." The department represents ratepayers in utility cases before the quasi-judicial board. Also Thursday, the department's commissioner, David O'Brien, wrote to Entergy Nuclear, the parent company of the reactor's owner, to ask for a new sworn affidavit about the extent of underground piping at the plant. O'Brien also wrote that the department was likely to ask the board to financially penalize Vermont Yankee for its earlier misstatements. "