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"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. Govern-ment Accountability Office. In a November 2009 report, the respected nonpartisan agency found there were no good options for dealing with the radioactive waste. And, as the federal government continues its decades-long struggle to find a solution to this grave public safety, environmental and political problem, the costs to taxpayers and ratepayers will skyrocket."

"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 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 report, the respected nonpartisan agency found there were no good options for dealing with the radioactive waste. And as the federal government continues its decades-long struggle to find a solution to this grave 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. Many sites have active nuclear reactors, where the mounting waste problem has forced plant operators to rearrange "the racks holding spent fuel in (cooling) pools … to allow for more dense storage," according to the GAO report. "Even with this re-racking, spent nuclear fuel pools are reaching their capacities.""

"The air blowing overhead in the brightly lit courtroom made it hard to hear at times. Overhead projectors illuminated PowerPoint presentations on both sides of the room up front. There were microphones and laptops, too, some plugged into outlets along the walls. And yet, with all the electricity thrumming through, nothing burned up CPS ratepayer dollars faster than the dozen-plus lawyers squabbling over the tattered relationship between CPS Energy and NRG Energy Inc., its co-owner in the floundering attempt to build two new nuclear plants at the South Texas Project. Relationships being what they are, the most consistent comparison made since the dispute broke into the open late last year has been divorce. It seemed too easy at first, but then on Monday, Jelynne LeBlanc-Burley, the new interim general manager at CPS, wondered why my colleague, Anton Caputo, and I sat on the NRG side of the courtroom."

"Nuclear power is not a viable answer to climate change. Houstonians and Texans have cheaper, smarter and safer ways to meet our energy needs. Nuclear power is heavily subsidized by taxpayers and ratepayers, is prone to delay and cost overruns, and incurs radioactive risks, including the apparent impossibility of safely storing radioactive waste. Nuclear reactors consume vast quantities of precious water. Investing billions of dollars in more nuclear power would divert funding that would be better spent on energy efficiency and safer, cleaner renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal."

"Wisconsin's Clean Energy Jobs Act could be a job killer -- but not from energy efficiency or renewable energy, as some are claiming, against all evidence. The nuclear portion of the bill is far more likely to raise electric rates by opening the door to building expensive new nuclear reactors and allowing for prepayment schemes to fund them. I was born and raised in Wisconsin but have spent the past decade in Savannah, Ga., working with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. I've seen firsthand how the push for risky new nuclear reactors has impacted Southeastern states. It's not an experience that Wisconsinites would want to replicate. In recent years Georgia, Florida and South Carolina have all passed legislation to encourage building new nuclear reactors. What's happened next -- particularly in Florida and South Carolina -- is that ratepayers already dealing with tough economic times have seen their electricity bills increase."

"The hypocrisy is astonishing! Some in Congress used fiscal responsibility as an excuse to oppose health care reform, yet they support an outrageous attempted money grab in risky taxpayer loans (tens of billions to a trillion) to the wealthy nuclear industry, when the Congressional Budget Office estimates more than 50 percent risk of default. Taxpayers should be outraged. The nuclear industry has already externalized most of its costs, risks, and liabilities onto taxpayers, ratepayers, and future generations, both financially and radiologically. Nuclear power is a dangerous distraction from real solutions to climate change and our energy needs, yet the nuclear industry, that already got the lion's share of energy subsidies for the past 50 years, is shamelessly attempting to rob the clean energy fund from the Climate Bill and Energy Bill. In reality, new nuclear plants are not the answer to global warming or the energy crisis."

"What began on the House floor as an Office of Energy Security technical bill quickly morphed into a two-hour debate over an amendment to lift the ban on building new nuclear power plants. Rep. Bill Hilty (DFL-Finlayson), who sponsors HF3009/ SF2971,* successfully offered the amendment to lift the moratorium. However, conditions attached would delay when a developer could recoup construction costs from ratepayers of the electricity produced at the facility. It would allow the Public Utilities Commission to refuse cost recovery for the construction of a nuclear generating plant until the plant is operating at 85 percent capacity. Cost overruns would be prohibited from being recovered. The amendment was passed 73-59. The bill passed 86-43 as amended. It now returns to the Senate, where Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon (DFL-Duluth) is the sponsor. The Senate passed it 63-4 March 29."

"On March 4, the Austin American-Statesman published an op-ed article by Sheldon Landsberger, professor of nuclear engineering at UT. Headlined "Funds for nuclear waste storage should be used for just that," the column argues that the government is fleecing electric-utility ratepayers, who contribute mandatory per-kilowatt-hour fees toward the development of the proposed national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Landsberger charges that a portion of the fees earmarked for the federal Nuclear Waste Fund are diverted to the general U.S. Treasury. "This is stealing money from taxpayers who were required to support the waste management project," Landsberger writes. Strong words. But they're not Landsberger's. Nor are the other 633 words that appeared in the Statesman that morning under Landsberger's byline. "It was something which was written for me," Landsberger told me later on the phone. "I agreed with it, I went over it, read it a couple of times, took all of 15, 20 minutes." "

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: California has two operating nuclear power plants, San Onofre in Orange County, and PG&E's Diablo Canyon Plant in San Luis Obispo County, on the Central Coast.   Both are on the coastline and both are built near earthquake faults.  State Senator Alex Padilla has called for a special hearing at the State capitol on April 14 to examine the risks the two aging plants might pose.  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story. PG&E's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant on the California Coast KPFA/Ann Garrison: For the past five years the San Luis Obispo-based Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility has been urging California legislators and oversight agencies to require peer reviewed seismic studies to measure the risk of earthquake damage to Pacific Gas and Electric's (PG&E's) nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon and Southern California Edison's plant at San Onofre. The California Energy Commission has requested that the California Public Utilities Commission require PG&E do the latest, advanced 3-D studies on both old and new earthquake faults beneath Diablo Canyon before granting any ratepayer funding for its license renewal applications, but PG&E has opposed and fought the requirement to do the studies, and the CPUC has failed to act. Rochelle Becker, Executive Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, says that Japan's worsening nuclear catastrophe could have been California's, and that Californians should be able to insist that the studies be done now.

"Georgia Power wants to raise rates by $1.02 billion over 26 months starting in January, eventually pushing up a typical family's power bill by nearly $18 per month. The phased increase would start with a $615 million hike in January, adding $10.88 to a typical monthly residential bill, or about 10 percent. Five smaller increases would follow, the last in February 2013. The company laid out its request Thursday in a filing to the state Public Service Commission, which will hold hearings in coming months before a vote Dec. 21. The increases would be on top of special charges already approved by the PSC to help Georgia Power pay for two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. Those charges will add about $1.30 to bills next year, with that amount growing to about $9 a month in 2017."

"The Public Service Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to require Florida Power & Light Co. to refund $13.9 million, including interest, to customers for costs related to a 2008 outage that left as many as 3 million Floridians without electricity. That will offset fuel costs for customers next year by about 14 cents a month for those who use about 1,000 kilowatt hours. About 950,000 Florida homes and businesses, including 596,000 FPL customers, lost power Feb. 26, 2008. The outage lasted several hours and was blamed on an FPL engineer, whose actions accidentally triggered the blackout. The incident tripped off two nuclear units at the Turkey Point plant near Miami, as they are designed to do for safety reasons."

Part 1 presented a new study that puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at from 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour - triple current U.S. electricity rates! Nuclear plants with such incredibly expensive electricity and "out of control" capital costs, as Time put it, obviously create large risks for utilities, their investors, and, ultimately taxpayers. Congress extended huge loan guarantees to new nukes in 2005, and the American people will be stuck with another huge bill if those plants join the growing rank of troubled assets (see "Nuclear energy revival may cost $315 billion, with taxpayers' risking over $100B"). The risk to utilities who start down the new nuke path is also great. A June 2008 report by Moody's Investor Services Global Credit Research, "New Nuclear Generating Capacity: Potential Credit Implications for U.S. Investor Owned Utilities" (PR here), warned that "nuclear plant construction poses risks to credit metrics, ratings," concluding:

Burden for paying for Georgia Power's nuclear plants would rest largely on residents A Senate bill that would allow Georgia Power to charge customers a special nuclear power fee largely exempts some of the state's biggest businesses. That could leave residents and smaller businesses shouldering most of the $1.6 billion interest cost of a planned nuclear expansion for Georgia Power. It also likely defangs the bill's most potent opposition at the Legislature. The lobby for the state's biggest industry had vowed to fight Georgia Power's bid to charge customers early for financing for two planned nuclear reactors near Augusta. Representatives of the state's big industry testified to the state Public Service Commission two days ago that the early collection plan would cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars long-term.

U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., said Friday that Vermont consumers shouldn't have to pay for Entergy Nuclear's cooling tower mistakes, and called on the Vermont Public Service Board to review the situation. Last week, Entergy Nuclear was forced to shut down both cooling towers at Vermont Yankee because of a leak in one tower and cracked support beams in the other.

The company submitted a proposal Wednesday to the Florida Public Service Commission to increase base power rates by $1 billion in 2010 and $1.25 billion in 2011. Florida Power & Light proposes increasing electric rates by at least $1 billion a year starting next year. The company submitted a proposal Wednesday to the Florida Public Service Commission to increase base power rates by $1 billion in 2010 and $1.25 billion in 2011. FPL, the state's largest utility with 4.5 million customers, said the increase would allow it to earn a "fair" profit, while making its infrastructure stronger, more efficient and less likely to emit greenhouse-gas emissions.

Georgia lawmakers weigh similar bill this week As Georgia lawmakers push forward with a nuclear financing bill this week, their counterparts in Florida are scrambling to undo a similar measure approved three years ago. In the past two weeks, Florida Republicans, including the state Senate president pro tem, drafted two bills aimed at a 2006 law requiring power customers to pay early for new nuclear reactors. The bills are a reaction to public outrage, after those nuclear fees had an unexpectedly expensive and politically disastrous debut this winter. One power company's customers saw already spiking bills go up an extra 11 percent due to the nuclear fee.

The sideshow at the Public Service Commission is overtaking the historic consideration of a rate increase for Florida Power & Light. Today, PSC chairman Matthew Carter took the unusual step of offering a press release proclaiming his independence from utility lobbyists. It seems unusual for a commissioner who is considering a rate increase from a utility to specifically note his votes against that utility in the past. Here is Carter's statement, (and see below for FPL comment): Assertions have been made that the Florida Public Service Commission is too "cozy" with regulated utilities, FPL in particular. To the extent that these criticisms are directed toward me, I take great offense because they are false. An examination of the record, not some special interest's characterizations, demonstrates my independence and freedom from external bias. In nearly every high-profile issue that FPL has brought before this Commission, I have voted to deny or severely limit the company's request.

South Carolina Electric & Gas, or SCE&G, is seeking a 1.1% increase to its electric rates under a state law that allows annual rate adjustments during construction of power reactors. SCE&G and state-owned utility Santee Cooper are planning to build two Westinghouse AP1000s at the Summer site. The state's Base Load Review Act, passed in 2007, allows for annual adjustments to rates during reactor construction as a way to recover project financing costs.

Area residents will have a chance to speak out on Progress Energy Florida electric rates and a controversial electricity charge at public forums to be held this summer. Nine hearings are planned, according to the state's Office of Public Counsel, which represents consumers before the Florida Public Service Commission. The main focus will concern Progress Energy base rates that would go into effect in 2010, a Progress Energy spokesman, Tim Leljedal, said today.

Duke Energy's bid to compete against other power companies for the largest and most lucrative electricity customers has been blocked by the N.C. Utilities Commission. Duke, the state's biggest electric utility, had planned to sign a 10-year contract to sell electricity to the city of Orangeburg, S.C., which lies outside of Duke's regulated service area. The South Carolina city has been buying power from S.C. Electric & Gas since 1919 and is that utility's biggest single customer.