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     desertnews.com
     Opinion

                                                Thursday, May 31, 2001

     Utah should say no to N-power

     By Winston C. Weeks

           Predictably, the Utah Republican establishment has given its
     blessing to the Cheney-Bush energy plan, trumpeting potential
     benefits to Utah's economy. But in one key area -- reviving
     nuclear power -- this plan is a prescription for disaster for the
     state and the nation that Utah's leaders should resist vigorously.
           The president proposes a massive additional subsidy
     initiative to build new nuclear power plants to address the worst
     "energy crisis" since the 1970s. Touting nukes as clean and green,
     new and improved, stopping just short of "too cheap to meter",
     Bush promotes construction of enough new reactors to create enough
     nuclear waste to guarantee that Utah and Nevada will be dumped on
     for decades.
           The nuclear industry and the president know that their
     expansion plans are doomed without a dump site for spent fuel
     rods. The industry wants to build 50 new nuclear power plants in
     the next 20 years, which means a 50 percent increase in nuclear
     waste that will need to be stored and buried. So it's no surprise
     Bush and his "nuk -- u -- lur" buddies want the waste problem
     "resolved" soon. However, even if both the Yucca Mountain, Nev.,
     burial grounds and the Private Fuel Storage "temporary" storage
     pad in Utah open for business, the existing waste coupled with
     newly generated waste will exceed their combined capacity.
           It's widely publicized that Utah's governor says nuclear
     power plant waste will be stored in Utah over his dead body, that
     our boys in Congress back him up on that and that 84 percent of
     Utahns agree. It hasn't been reported that Bush used the Xcel
     Energy headquarters as a backdrop for his St. Paul energy policy
     press conference. Xcel, formerly Northern States Power, is the
     driving force behind Private Fuel Storage (PFS), the limited
     liability corporation that wants to park its spent fuel rods on
     Skull Valley Goshute land until the government rams it down
     Nevada's throat. It's largely ignored that Leavitt is lukewarm in
     opposing Yucca Mountain and that our Republicans in Congress
     wholeheartedly endorse it.
           It should be understood that Utah will be affected
     negatively even if the high level nuke waste goes directly to
     Nevada without stopping here. The transportation of spent fuel
     rods poses unacceptable risks, and the creation of more nuclear
     power means more low level nuclear waste will be landfilled here.
     Beyond the waste problem, there is an extensive menu of reasons
     nuclear power is bad policy.
           The nuclear energy cycle is anything but clean and green.
     Four Corners uranium miners, millers and transporters suffering
     from cancer and fighting for compensation can attest to that.
     Contrary to the president's claims that nuclear power is free of
     greenhouse gas emissions, mining and fabricating nuclear fuel is
     highly energy intensive, using four to five times more polluting
     fuels per kilowatt produced than wind power and other renewable.
     Radioactive emissions are routine; they do not require an
     accident.
           Nuclear power is not economically competitive. Studies have
     estimated that each kilowatt of nuclear power costs $3,000 to
     $4,000 to produce. New natural gas-fired plants cost $400 to $600
     per kilowatt, wind turbines $1,000 per kilowatt. Public Citizen
     reported in 1998 that 42 of the 108 then operating nuclear power
     reactors are more expensive to operate and maintain than the cost
     of replacement power in their own regions. No utility company has
     ordered a new reactor for more than two decades because they can't
     compete in a deregulated energy environment, and 89 percent of 400
     utility executives surveyed in 1996 said they would not consider
     doing so. Most of these execs recall the WHOOPS financial meltdown
     in Washington state and are well aware of the $28 billion bailout
     (disguised as deregulation) of California nuclear utilities'
     "stranded costs."
           The Cheney-Bush energy package calls for renewal of the
     Price-Anderson Act, which limits the liability of the nuclear
     industry in the event of an accident. Taxpayers would pick up the
     tab above $7 billion (a serious accident could result in more than
     $300 billion in damages). Without that public subsidy shielding
     their liability, not even the most pro-nuclear utility would dream
     of building or operating a new reactor. Limited liability should
     sound familiar to our PFS-watchers in Congress.
           Lastly, in spite of industry claims to the contrary, the
     risks of a catastrophic reactor accident are still quite real. The
     U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission testified in 1986 that there
     was a 45 percent chance of a meltdown at a U.S. reactor by 2006.
     In 1994, former NRC Chairman Ivan Selin stated that economic
     pressures give utilities "incentive to cut corners" with safety,
     increasing the potential for accidents.
           Utah's leadership may find reasons to back some portions of
     the administration's energy plan, but if they support the nuclear
     initiatives they may some day have to look in the mirror and ask
     "over whose dead bodies?"

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     Winston C. Weeks represents the Citizens Education Project, a
     Utah-based nonprofit group concerned with environmental and social
     justice issues. The author was research director for Downwinders
     for many years.