Part I: Stuck With Old Nuke Plants

  • Ray and Irene Zukley of Zion, Illinois were forced to sell this Lake Michigan beach cottage to make way for Zion Nuclear Station back in the late 60s. The Zukley's and other Zion residents hoped the plant would last for at least forty years, but after fits and starts, it closed fifteen years early. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

America has a new flirtation with
nuclear power. Utility companies are fanning
out across the nation to set up shop. And
they’ve given the government more applications
for new nuclear plants than they have for
decades. Many towns fell under the spell of
nuclear power in the past, but some power plants
stopped running decades earlier than planned,
and towns are stuck with what’s left behind.
Shawn Allee profiles one town’s tarnished
relationship with nuclear power:

Transcript

America has a new flirtation with
nuclear power. Utility companies are fanning
out across the nation to set up shop. And
they’ve given the government more applications
for new nuclear plants than they have for
decades. Many towns fell under the spell of
nuclear power in the past, but some power plants
stopped running decades earlier than planned,
and towns are stuck with what’s left behind.
Shawn Allee profiles one town’s tarnished
relationship with nuclear power:

Irene and Ray Zukley have been together so long, they finish each others sentences.

Especially when I ask how things were in Zion, Illinois back in the 60s.

Zuckley: “The factories were getting downgraded.”

Allee: “What were those?”

Zuckley: “It was the curtain factory, the cookie factory, chocolates and Zion fig
bars.”

But just then, the power company said it would spend hundreds of millions on a nuclear
power plant.

Irene Zukley says most people welcomed it.

“Ray and I never worried about it, you know we just wanted progress is what we
wanted. When you think of having taxes lowered for everybody in Zion, that made
you feel, what else would come in and do that?”

Irene and Ray Zukley were forced to sell their family’s beach cottage to make room for
Zion reactor number one.

Beachfront neighbors did the same.

But, like the Zukleys predicted, taxes and jobs rolled into Zion.

It was supposed to be a forty year windfall.

But it didn’t last.

When you visit the power plant, it’s nearly empty.

“What we’ve got here is what used to be a full-fledged control room.”

Ron Schuster runs what’s left of the Zion nuclear power plant.

Once, it had more than eight hundred employees.

Now, Schuster and about fifty workers help manage the regional power grid.

They also monitor radioactive spent fuel waste.

The generators have been offline since 1997.

“There were large pieces of equipment essential to making electricity that would
have needed total replacement going forward. We’re talking significant dollars so
the economic decision by the board of directors that Zion station would go into safe-
store mode.”

That means the power plant and Zion have been in limbo for ten years.

The radioactive fuel is still on site, but the plant provides no power, few jobs and a
fraction of the property taxes.

Delaine Rogers is Zion’s economic development director. She says the town didn’t plan
on this.

“You’re in a community that has welcomed you. We haven’t had an antagonistic
relationship. They’re not going to close. But they did. And it took 17 million dollars
of our local revenues. We were facing losing all our arts and music and sports in our
schools. How do you fund police the police department. How do you fix potholes? It
was a very scary time.”

Lately, the power company’s gone back and forth about when it will decommission, or
dismantle, the power plant.

It could be done ten years from now or it could take decades more.

But even when most of the buildings are gone, there’s still the radioactive spent fuel.

“They’re just going to leave it. They’re going to put a football-sized concrete pad
filled with 80-90 casks of stored fuel on site, above ground. Tell me how you get a
private developer to think residential or retail. I’m not buying the first condo.”

Dozens of towns are stuck in relationships with dormant nuclear power plants.

Delaine Rogers says the town of Zion is in the same position.

She won’t call it a bad relationship, but says it sure would be nice to know exactly where
it’s going, or when it will be over.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Part Ii: Stuck With Old Nuke Plants

  • Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings, one of which is depicted in this photo that dates from the time of Zion, Illinois' founding. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:

Transcript

The nuclear industry is eager to
build new nuclear power plants, but for
now they’re just far-off plans. The real
growth industry is in containers to hold
radioactive spent fuel. Dozens of closed
nuclear plants need somewhere to put spent
fuel waste, and these containers fit the
bill. Shawn Allee looks at why one town’s
bracing for their arrival:

Illinois’ Zion nuclear power plant hasn’t produced electricity for eleven years.

It’s so close to Lake Michigan you can smell the beach. But other than that, the empty
parking lots and office space make the place seem dead.

The plant manager says that’s not the case.

“I think a lot of people have a vision of us playing cards or swinging our golf clubs
on the beach. I would say we’ve been extremely busy the entire time.”

Ron Schuster says he and other workers remove hazards from the station, like diesel fuel
and electrical equipment.

But one hazard is still here: the spent nuclear fuel.

And when the power plant is dismantled, that radioactive waste will be put in new
containers.

They’re concrete casks.

Schuster: “A cask is approximately fifteen feet tall. It looks like a small silo and
there is no radiation exposure on the outside of these things.”

Allee: “So from this office window, can we see where the casks might go?”

Schuster: “We’ve got four spots on this site that have been at least looked at. When
it comes time to actually put the fuel in dry-cask storage it will be a huge structure,
about as big as a football field.”

Schuster’s confident this will be a simple and safe solution.

Not everyone in Zion so convinced.

“This cask issue, just sitting on the site was never appealing to me.”

Rick Delisle co-owns two commercial buildings close to the power plant.

In other towns with spent-fuel casks, nuclear power plants sometimes get turned into non-
nuclear power plants or into parks.

But Delisle and the city of Zion are hoping to do more – maybe build new commercial
buildings or even homes.

Delisle says having concrete containers full of radioactive waste left on-site could make
their work harder.

“So, I hope the casks are relocated somewhere else. Having them next to a
population of about 23,000 people is probably not a great place for it to be.”

Other communities are in the same position – they’ll be left with spent fuel casks even if
their dead nuclear plants get torn down.

There’s a simple reason.

“We don’t really have a final resting spot for these casks at the moment.”

Dave Lochbaum is with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.

“The federal government is way behind schedule providing a repository for high-
level waste.”

Lochbaum says the government has one storage place in mind.

It’s inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but that’s still just being studied.

Power companies can sometimes move spent fuel to other plants or facilities.

But Lochbaum says politically, that just won’t fly.

“There’s no revenue from electricity being generated, so it’s a hard sell to go to a
community and say we’d like to have you store spent fuel for decades into the
future. The easiest way out is to leave it where it is, because those communities have
already accepted that fate.”

Well, cities like Zion say they didn’t accept this exact fate.

They bought into nuclear power for jobs and property taxes – they didn’t count on
babysitting spent fuel waste.

But that’s likely to happen, because the government won’t take it. The power companies
won’t dare move it, and the towns can’t move themselves away.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Nuke Waste Storage at Power Plants

The federal government is being blocked by judges and state officials from building a
nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. While the legal fight goes on, nuclear power
generators store their radioactive waste at their plants. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The federal government is being blocked by judges and state officials from building a
nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. While the legal fight goes on, nuclear power
generators store their radioactive waste at their plants. Lester Graham reports:


The Department of Energy has been stumbling through legal hurdles and political
setbacks for 20 years now. It’s been trying to establish Yucca Mountain in Nevada
as the nation’s storage site for spent nuclear fuel and other highly-radioactive
material.


The Los Angeles Times reports the most recent challenge was a judge’s
ruling that makes it difficult for the Energy Department to drill test holes at the site. It
will likely cause a domino effect of delays.


Many environmentalists and others don’t want Yucca Mountain to ever receive the
nuclear waste. But, in the meantime thousands of tons of spent nuclear power rods
are being stored at the nuclear power plants… and many of those power plants are
located near rivers, lakes and towns. Some of the storage is in buildings, some of it
in casks, sitting outside.


For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Lack of Investment in Renewables to Hurt Businesses?

  • Mike LeBeau installs solar and wind energy systems. He has put in more generators this year than in the last 10 years combined, thanks to rebate programs offered by the state and local governments. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in
Argentina to work out the next steps in dealing with climate change.
Seven years ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions
and greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now, a report from the National Environmental Trust says that decision
is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in Argentina to
work out the next steps in dealing with climate change. Seven years
ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions and
greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now a report from the National Environmental Trust says that
decision is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Mike LeBeau installs wind generators and photovoltaic solar
collectors. His business, Conservation Technologies, is in Duluth,
Minnesota. In the U.S., there are not a lot of contractors doing this
kind of work.


“This is a two and a half kilowatt photovoltaic system.”


Two panels about the size of a dining room table stand on the top
floor of a downtown garage. The only other equipment is an inverter
– a metal box the size of a shoebox – that transforms the direct
current from the solar panels to the alternating current we use in our
homes.


“The electricity is produced here by the sun, fed into the wiring in the
building here, and any excess is distributed out onto the utility grid.”


The solar panels were made in Japan. And the inverter is from
Germany.


LeBeau has been installing systems like this for ten years. Demand
was slow until a year ago, when Minnesota started a rebate program.
LeBeau has put in more generators this year than in the last ten
years combined.


With another rebate offered by the local utility, LeBeau says the cost
of installing a typical system can be cut nearly in half.


And he says the increased activity has persuaded some of the
naysayers to help rather than hinder renewable energy projects.


“Now the electrical inspectors don’t have any choice – it’s being
supported by the utilities, and by the state of Minnesota, so it’s really
changed the atmosphere and the climate that we work in.”


But LeBeau says the state rebate program is a drop in the bucket
compared to what’s being done in other countries.


Christopher Reed agrees. He’s an engineer who advises individuals
and businesses on renewable energy projects. He says U.S. policy
has been piecemeal and erratic. For instance, there’s a federal tax
credit for renewable energy production. But it’s only in place for a
year or two at a time.


“When the incentive is out there, everybody ramps up as fast as they
can, and we slam projects in to meet the deadline before the credit
expires, and then everybody sits until the credit gets reintroduced
again. This has happened three times now.”


Reed says that discourages long-term investment.


Reed’s business is one of several American firms studied for the
report from the National Environmental Trust. The report says Japan
and most countries in Europe are providing major and consistent
incentives to encourage production of renewable energy. The report
says this approach is saving money, creating jobs, and putting
businesses in a position to export their new technologies and
expertise.


Reed says he’s frustrated to see European and Japanese companies
thrive, using American inventions such as photovoltaic, or PV,
technology, while American manufacturers fail.


“It’s almost embarrassing. The PV technology, that came out of Bell
Labs in the U.S. We should be the world leaders.”


But some observers say the worry is overblown. Darren McKinney is
a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers. He says
the U.S. has nothing to fear from German or Japanese businesses.
He says fossil fuels are doing a good job of stoking the American
economy.


“The fact of the matter is that wind and solar and biomass and
geothermal simply aren’t ready for prime time. If someone wants to
make an argument ‘well, they could be ready for prime time if they
received x-amount of tax cuts,’ I won’t necessarily argue against that
because I don’t know enough about the technologies. What I do
know is it would be cutting off our nose to spite our energy face if we
turn our backs on fossil fuels.”


Right now, oil and natural gas get the lion’s share of federal subsidies
in the U.S. Subsidies for renewable energy sources are very small in
comparison. As other countries shift to new technologies, American
companies could be left behind.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Attorney General Takes on Canadian Pollution

The Attorney General in New York has recently led the fight against any softening of laws on air pollution. He’s even taken on the administration in Washington. Now he’s setting his sights across the border where pollution from Canada is affecting his state. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

The Attorney General in New York has recently led the fight against any softening of laws on air
pollution. He’s even taken on the administration in Washington. Now he’s setting his sights
across the border where pollution from Canada is affecting his state. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


New York’s Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has taken on the White House and big air polluters in
the U.S. Now he’s filing a complaint with the Environmental Commission set up under NAFTA.
He wants the commission to look into whether coal fired generating plants in Ontario violate any
Canadian laws.


That move is not sitting well with authorities across the border. Canada’s environment minister,
David Anderson, says he welcomes the challenge, but says Spitzer should be cleaning up his own
backyard first.


“His plants in New York aren’t little innocent neighborhood Dairy Queens. These are major
emitters of pollution.”


Ontario’s environment minister, Chris Stockwell, admits that Ontario doesn’t have a perfect
record, but he, too, says Spitzer shouldn’t be doing any finger pointing.


“The Americans have states where 90% of their energy is coal. Now who’s embarrassed,
Americans or Canadians?”


Ontario has pledged to shut down its coal-fired generators by 2015.


But that isn’t soon enough for Spitzer. If he proves his case, the environmental commission could
impose penalties against the province.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

Underwater Power Lines Still in the Works?

An Ontario power company would like to see a high-powered transmission line built to Chicago. The plan includes stringing a high-voltage power line under Lake Superior. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:

Transcript

An Ontario power company would like to see a high-powered transmission
line built to Chicago. The plan would include stringing a high-voltage
power line under Lake Superior. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike
Simonson has more:


This plan is part of a project that would build high-capacity generating
plants in Ontario, selling excess power to the United States. Larry
Hebert is the general manager of Thunder Bay Hydro. He says this is at
least five years off. By that time, Hebert expects the demand for power
in the U.S. to increase.


“Certainly, the need for power doesn’t seem to be diminishing, despite the cries for conservation
and wise use of power. Certainly in this province of Ontario, we seem to be
using more and more every year.”


Hebert expects the most controversial part of the project will be laying
a 90-mile long cable under Lake Superior to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,
and run a high-voltage line down Wisconsin’s eastern side to Chicago.


Mary Pat Blankenheim with the Wisconsin-based American Transmission
Company says Thunder Bay Hydro’s proposal is intriguing.


“And especially given the fact that we are
looking for new ways of getting energy to the
areas where it’s needed.
But again the only way to get it there is by transmission.”


Hebert says they’re investigating permit applications with the Army Corp
of Engineers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

Are Nuke Plants Online for Y-2-K?

There are two dozen nuclear power plants operating in the Great Lakes
states. Congressional investigators say they aren’t sure all the
plants
are ready for the Y-2-K rollover at the end of December. But another
government agency insists you have nothing to fear. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has details: