Decision Coming on Cape Wind

  • Bill Eddy of East Falmouth, Massachusetts, built his own schooner, and would one day soon like to sail through the proposed wind farm known as Cape Wind. (Photo by Curt Nickisch)

A decade-long fight over a proposed wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts could be over soon. It’s called Cape Wind. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he will make a decision by the end of April. What would be the nation’s first offshore wind farm is bigger than a simple “not in my backyard” issue. It has divided communities and even neighbors. Curt Nickisch met two people, who’ve come down on opposite sides – both for environmental reasons.

Transcript

A decade-long fight over a proposed wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts could be over soon. It’s called Cape Wind. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he will make a decision by the end of April.

What would be the nation’s first offshore wind farm is bigger than a simple “not in my backyard” issue. It has divided communities and even neighbors. Curt Nickisch met two people, who’ve come down on opposite sides – both for environmental reasons.

At 63-years-old, Bill Eddy has old-man-and-the-sea white hair. He’s been sailing all his life, including the waters where the 130 wind turbines would go up more than five miles offshore. He knows the wind’s power. And he’s willing to give up part of the horizon he loves for clean energy.

“I have a firm, firm belief. We may have to for one generation be willing to sacrifice a very small portion of a coastal sea off the coast of Massachusetts. To launch this new future.”

Cape Wind would generate three-quarters of the electricity used by Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Bill says it’s time for residents here to share in the sacrifice for the energy that drives modern life.

“Consider for just a moment the sacrifice that’s already being made by the thousands of our fellow American citizens who live where their mountains are being removed for coal. Or what about the thousands of American men and women who are serving overseas to protect the places where the oil is that we import? To be honest with you, the 130 turbines of the wind farm, I’d prefer any one of them to one more marker in Arlington National Cemetery.”

“It’s not going to make any difference, this one wind farm.”

Martha Powers is just as passionate about Cape Wind, but she’s against it. She lives by the water, too.

“So this was a summer cottage, my Dad bought it in 1958.”

As a kid, Martha spent summers here. Now she’s a librarian with graying hair. She keeps binoculars by the back porch for birdwatching.

“This project would tear a big hole in that whole web of life there that could never be repaired. It would tear a hole that big under the ocean, all of the animals that live in the ocean beneath that water, and that fly above that water, it would be horrific. I can almost see it, like a bomb, to me, it feels.”

Mainly, Martha’s worried about the birds that will be killed by the spinning blades of the wind turbines. Her Christmas card this year was a photo of a chickadee perched on her finger.

“When you feel those little feet on your hand, trusting. It’s an amazing experience. So to kill them is just such a horrible thought. That’s the hardest thing for me to accept about this project.”

A few miles away, Cape Wind supporter Bill Eddy says it would be hard for him to accept the project not going forward.

“I know, I just know that, in a year or so, I’ll be able to go out to the wind farm. The wind in my sails and the winds in the blades of the turbine, that something very old and something very new is bringing about a most wondrous evolution.”

Whether that evolution starts off of Cape Cod will be up to someone in Washington. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the nation will move ahead with wind farms off the East Coast. But since people like Bill Eddy and Martha Powers can’t agree, Salazar will decide whether Nantucket Sound is the right place to start.

For The Environment Report, I’m Curt Nickisch.

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Billions Down the Yucca Hole

  • Without the Yucca mountain site, companies like Exelon have to pay extra to safely store spent fuel in pools or in concrete casks. (Photo courtesy of Lester Graham)

The federal government had one place in mind to store the country’s most hazardous nuclear waste.

It was at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

President Barack Obama recently killed that project, even though the country had spent more than nine billion dollars on it.

Shawn Allee found that figure is just the beginning:

Transcript

The federal government had one place in mind to store the country’s most hazardous nuclear waste.

It was at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

President Barack Obama recently killed that project, even though the country had spent more than nine billion dollars on it.

Shawn Allee found that figure is just the beginning.

The Yucca Mountain project claimed more money than just the nine billion that’s on the books.

It also tied up cash from electric rate payers, power companies and taxpayers.

Let’s start with the first group – rate payers.

CHA-CHING

Yucca Mountain was supposed to store the radioactive spent fuel left behind in nuclear reactors.

The U-S government charges power companies a fee to cover costs.

Power companies pass it on.

“Everybody in the state of Georgia that uses electricity and pays an electric bill is paying into this Yucca Mountain trust fund.”

This is Bobby Baker.

He’s serves on Georgia’s public service commission.

Baker says now that President Obama took Yucca Mountain off the table, the federal government should return the money.

Georgia’s share of fees and interest is more than one point two billion dollars.

“We were supposed to be shipping our spent nuclear fuel out to yucca mountain back in 1998 they were supposed to be receiving shipments at that time. The only thing that’s been done is the fact that Georgia ratepayers are continuing to pay into that trust fund and getting nothing from that trust fund other than a big hole in Nevada.”

So far, the federal government’s collected a total of 31 billion dollars in fees and interest for the nuclear waste fund.

The next group who paid extra for Yucca – power companies.

CHA-CHING

By law, the federal government’s supposed to take away radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants.

But without Yucca, it stays put.

John Rowe is CEO of Exelon, the country’s biggest nuclear power company.

Last hear he complained to the National Press Club.

“My mother used to say, somebody lies to you once that’s his fault … lies to you twice and you believe it, that’s your fault. I don’t know what she would have thought about somebody lying to you for fifty years.”

Rowe is especially mad because his company and others like it have to pay extra to safely store spent fuel in pools or in concrete casks.

They sue the federal government to recover costs.

The US Government Accountability Office figures the government will lose these lawsuits and owe power companies twelve point three billion dollars within a decade.

The last group that paid extra for Yucca – taxpayers.

CHA-CHING

Yucca Mountain was supposed to handle nuclear spent fuel from civilian power reactors, but it was also supposed to handle decades-worth of the military’s radioactive waste.

That includes waste from former weapons sites, like Hanford in Washington state.

Washington’s Senator Patty Murray brought it up in a recent hearing.

Here, she’s looking straight at Energy Secretary Steven Chu:

“Congress, independent studies, previous administrations pointed to, voted for and funded yucca Mountain as the best option as the nuclear repository.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal government chipped in at least three point four billion dollars to cover military costs at Yucca Mountain.

But the tab’s bigger than that.

Murray says without Yucca, Hanford has to store its waste on-site. it’s not cheap.

“Billions of dollars have been spent at Hanford and sites across the country in an effort to treat and package nuclear waste that will be sent there.”

The Obama administration’s getting complaints from states and industry and taxpayer groups.

The Administration hasn’t responded publicly, but Energy Secretary Steven Chu mentioned the financial fallout from Yucca Mountain during a U-S Senate hearing.

He said the administration’s convinced Yucca Mountain just won’t work …

So, no matter how much money people have paid so far, it makes no sense to send good money after bad.

He didn’t mention paying any money back.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Burying Radioactive Waste (Part 1)

  • Waiting for new waste solutions, power plants across the country are still stacking spent fuel in concrete casks like this one at the Yucca Mountain site. (Photo courtesy of the US DOE)

Hazardous radioactive waste is building up at nuclear power plants across the country. For decades, the U-S government’s only plan was to stick that waste out of sight and out of mind … far below Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Recently, President Barack Obama scrapped that plan. Shawn Allee looks at where the President wants to go now:

Transcript

Hazardous radioactive waste is building up at nuclear power plants across the country.

For decades, the U-S government’s only plan was to stick that waste out of sight and out of mind … far below Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Recently, President Barack Obama scrapped that plan.

Shawn Allee looks at where the President wants to go now.

The old nuclear waste plan was simple: take spent fuel leftover from nuclear reactors and bury it under Yucca Mountain.

That would have moved the problem away from nuclear power plants and people who live nearby.

The Obama Administration cut the program but only said, the program “has not proven effective.”

Energy Secretary Steven Chu tried explaining that to the U-S Senate.

“I don’t believe one can say, scientists are willing to say Yucca Mountain is the ideal site, given what we know today and given what we believe can be developed in the next 50 years.”

So … Obama’s administration is switching gears, and government scientists have to adjust.

“I worked at Yucca Mountain for ten years.”

Mark Peters is a deputy director at Argonne National Laboratory west of Chicago.

“I ran the testing program, so I got intimate involvement in Yucca Mountain. The license application has pieces of me all through it.”

Peters says he’s disappointed Yucca Mountain was killed.

But he says that’s a personal opinion – he’s on board with the new policy.

In fact … he’s helping it along.

Obama created a blue-ribbon commissison.

Commissioners will come up with new solutions for nuclear waste within two years.

Peters will tell them about new technology.

“There are advanced reactor concepts that could in fact do more effective burning of the fuel, so the spent fuel’s not so toxic when the fuel comes out.”

Peters says these “fast breeder reactors” might not just produce less nuclear waste.

They might use the old stuff that was supposed to head to Yucca.

“You extract the usable content, make a new fuel and burn it in a reactor, so you actually get to the point where you’re recycling the uranium and plutonium and other elements people’ve heard about.”

But Obama’s blue – ribbon nuclear waste commission could find problems with fast-breeder technology.

In the 1970s, we ran a commercial prototype, but it didn’t work very long.

Peters says new versions might be decades away.

There’s another problem, too.

“One important point is that there’s still waste from that process. So we have to go back to ultimately, some kind of geologic repository for part of the system.”

In other words … we’d have less waste, but we’d still have to bury it … somewhere.

History suggests there’s gonna be a squabble over any location.

After all, Yucca Mountain wasn’t the government’s first stab at an underground nuclear waste site.

“It had an embarassing failure in Lyons, Kansas between 1970 and 1972.”

That’s Sam Walker, a historian at the U-S Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

He’s talking about the old Atomic Energy Commission, or AEC.

The AEC pushed hard to bury nuclear waste in a salt mine, even though scientists in Kansas had doubts.

“And then it turned out that the salt mine they had planned to place the waste in was not technically suitable either. So, what the AEC did was to lose its battle on both political and technical grounds.”

Walker says for 15 years, the government scouted for another location to dump hazardous nuclear waste.

“There was lots of vocal public opposition to even investigating sites.”

Eventually, the debate got too hot.

Congress settled on Yucca Mountain, Nevada, even though scientists debated whether it’d work.

Congress kept Yucca Mountain going because it promised to keep nuclear waste out of everyone’s back yards … except for Nevada’s.

Now with Yucca Mountain out of the picture, it could take years for Obama’s administration to settle on a way to handle nuclear waste.

In the mean time, power plants across the country are stacking spent fuel in pools of water or in concrete casks.

For decades the federal government said this local storage is both safe and temporary.

It still says it’s safe, but now, no one’s sure what temporary really means.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Giving the Electric Grid Some Smarts

  • The enhanced communication of the Smart Grid could help utility companies predict an overload on the power system. (Photo courtesy of Gastev CC-2.0)

Remember that huge blackout in the summer of 2003? Forty-five million people in the Midwest and Northeast US – as well as 10 million in Canada lost power. Julie Grant reports that the federal government and utilities are spending billions of dollars on what’s called a “Smart Grid” – in part, so we don’t have more large scale blackouts.

Transcript

Remember that huge blackout in the summer of 2003? Forty-five million people in the Midwest and Northeast US – as well as 10 million in Canada lost power. Julie Grant reports that the federal government and utilities are spending billions of dollars on what’s called a “Smart Grid” – in part, so we don’t have more large scale blackouts.

Right now, electric power in the U.S. is generated by a relatively small number of very big power plants. That power is transmitted all over the place.

But this set up is increasingly running into problems. The demand for power is skyrocketing: from big American houses and TVs, air conditioners and computers. The grid is struggling to keep up. And it’s not always succeeding.

There have been more – and more massive – blackouts in recent years than in previous decades.

Universities, private laboratories, and utility companies are all looking at different aspects of making the electric grid smarter.

Chris Eck is spokesman for First Energy, which provides power in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He says there are so many ideas on how to improve the nation’s electrical system.

“Part of the challenge is defining the smart grid. I think there are different opinions out there about what it will and won’t include.”

The Department of Energy says the smart grid will change the electric industry’s entire business model. Instead of being a centralized, producer-controlled network – it will transform to become decentralized and consumer-interactive.

Ken Laparo works on these kinds of issues at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. He says a smart grid will get consumers more involved in planning their energy use.

“Right now, you have no idea what a killowatt hour is costing you in Cleveland on March 10 at 8:30 in the evening.”

Laparo says most of us just look at those little bars on our electric bills that show how much energy we used that month. But he says it doesn’t really mean much to us.

But companies are developing all kinds of products: smart plugs, smart thermostats, smart appliances, that tell you how much energy is being used – so customers can decide the best ways to reduce energy use – and to reduce their bills.

Utility companies might start charging more at peak energy times of day – and they will communicate those shifting prices to “smart” consumer devices in real time.

Laparo says these small slices of energy savings might not seem like a lot:

“But it’s the cummulative effect of what everybody is doing, no matter how small it is. When you add it up over millions of customers over days and weeks and months and years that the overall opportunity is huge.”

But there’s still a lot to be done. A decentralized system is going to need better communication. If every programmed refrigerator is constantly trying to optimize its energy usage based on the power’s moment-to-moment price — the electricity system will also have to be an information system. Each smart appliance and home meter, will have to be able to communicate with the energy companies.

If it works, this type of communication could help utility companies predict an overload on the power system – like the one that started the black out in 2003. Utilities today just predict when usage will be high. But a smart grid, they will actually know how high it is in real time.

Utilities will also have a better ability to fix problems in the system before they get out of control.
This is what some researchers call the Holy Grail of the Smart Grid. In the short term, they see consumers learning more about saving energy, and communicating that to the power companies. But in the long term, they want to be able to sense and manage the grid, to avoid those debilitating blackouts.

The 2003 blackout started because there was a high demand for power in one Ohio town. When that one generating plant went off line – it tried to get power from another plant, and overloaded the next plant, setting off a cascade of outages. More than 100 power plants shutdown that day.

First Energy spokesman Chris Eck says a smart grid could help prevent blackouts.

“As it is now, you might know you have circuits out and you have to send crews out to physically for a problem with these lines. With a smart grid, with enough sensors and feedback communication, you might be able to pinpoint before they get to the site. And they can isolate the problem and fix it quicker.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Governors Push for Renewable Energy

  • According to the governors' report more uniform standards would increase demand for wind, whose manufacturing base in the Midwest is growing. (Photo courtesy of US DOE)

Governors across the nation want more electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and bio-mass. Lester Graham reports… they’re calling on Congress to make it happen.

Transcript

Governors across the nation want more electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and bio-mass. Lester Graham reports… they’re calling on Congress to make it happen.

The Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition is 29 governors –Republicans and Democrats who want Congress to establish a renewable energy standard. They’d like to see 10-percent of all electricity come from renewables by 2012. By 2025, they want 25-percent. And they want a new interstate electric transmission system built to get wind power from isolated areas to the cities that need the power.

Iowa Governor Chet Culver chairs the coalition.

“If Congress fails to pass a strong national goal on renewable energy and transmission upgrades, the continued uncertainty will cause the nation to potentially surrender wind manufacturing to other countries.”

And Governor Culver says with that wind manufacturing would go the potential jobs the U.S. needs.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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From Health Care to Climate

  • Congressional leaders are beginning to start thinking about a climate bill again.

Health care legislation has finally started
moving forward in Congress. Shawn Allee reports
the US Senate can now devote some attention to
its unfinished work on climate change:

Transcript

Health care legislation has finally started moving forward in Congress.

Shawn Allee reports the US Senate can now devote some attention to its unfinished work on climate change:

The climate-change bill got a cold reception last year, but Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman say they’re making headway lately.

Margaret Kriz Hobson tracks climate legislation for the National Journal.
She says the Senate got stuck negotiating a complex carbon trading scheme.
That would have required most industries to trade carbon pollution credits.

Kriz Hobson says the three senators are now focusing mostly on power companies.

“A lot more people are letting them in the door because the proposal that they’re bringing forward would include some benefits for nuclear power, oil drilling in the United States and for more modern technologies for capture and sequestration.”

That last technology would basically bury carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.

That could save money and jobs in states that burn or mine coal.

For the Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Wind Energy Estimates Jump

  • The new estimates of wind power potential take into consideration taller and more efficient turbines. (Photo courtesy of the NREL

A study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows that the United States has a lot of wind, and that wind could generate a lot of energy. Samara Freemark has the story:

Transcript

A study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows that the United States has a lot of wind – and that wind could generate a lot of energy. Samara Freemark has the story:

Researchers at the Lab estimated the total amount of wind power that could be generated in the United States at more than 10 times the total electricity we use today.

The figure comes to 37 million gigawatts of electricity per year.

That’s much higher than an estimate researchers put out in 1993.

Dennis Elliot is with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He says that’s largely due to turbine improvements.

“The turbines are much bigger. We’re looking at heights of 80 meters,
compared to the old technology had heights of about 50 meters above ground. The
higher you go up, the more energy is available in the wind. The wind speeds get
greater.”

Elliot says the biggest challenge now is building the infrastructure to tap that energy, and move it around the country.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Renewing Aging Nuclear Reactors (Part 1)

  • Watts Bar Unit 1 was the last nuclear power reactor to receive a new operating license in the U.S. in 1996. Reactors are licensed to operate for 40 years. After that, the utility has to apply for a 20 year renewal. (Photo courtesy of USNRC)

President Barack Obama has been stumping for nuclear power lately.
He announced loan guarantees to kick-start construction of the first new reactor in 30 years. Those guarantees might lead to just a handful of new reactors in the next decade. Shawn Allee reports the real action in the nuclear industry is in old reactors we already have:

Transcript

President Barack Obama has been stumping for nuclear power lately.

He announced loan guarantees to kick-start construction of the first new reactor in 30 years.
Those guarantees might lead to just a handful of new reactors in the next decade.

Shawn Allee reports the real action in the nuclear industry is in old reactors we already have:

To run a reactor, you have to have the federal government’s permissison, but that permission lasts 40 years.
If a company wants more time, it’s got to renew that license – for twenty years at a pop.
Companies are flooding the government with renewal applications.

To understand why, I talk with Don Kreis. He teaches environmental law at the Vermont Law School.

“Think about an automobile that you owned for a really long time, but it’s still working fine.”

OK. You’ve got two choices …. you can bet your car repair costs will be low … or you fork over a hefty wad of cash for a new car.

“Which of those two things are you going to do? Well, you’re goiing to run your old machine … and run it for as long as something can possibly run. Nuclear power plants run exactly the same way. ”

This is an understatement; it’s MUCH cheaper to run an existing nuclear reactor than to build a new one.
In Kreis’ home state of Vermont, a company bought an old reactor in 2002.
It paid 180 million dollars.
To build the same-sized plant new would cost 2.4 billion dollars today.

That’s the industry’s motivation for license renewal, but only the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give the final O-K.

In the past decade, the NRC’s approved renewal at 59 reactors … more than half the nuclear fleet.

This is too fast for critics.

“We haven’t been happy with the process and I think there are issues with license renewal and the NRC needs to address those.”

That’s Edwin Lyman.
He’s a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group.

Lyman worries the NRC downplays risk from old reactors.

Take the case of the Crystal River reactor in Florida.

Last year, workers tried to replace old steam turbines.

“To do that you have to cut a hole in the containment building, when they did that, they found there was a huge gap that had developed in the containment building that you couldn’t see or detect from the outside and they only saw it when they cut through it. and so, the question is, was this an age-related issue that people didn’t know about.”

The containment building keeps the public safe from radiation during accidents.
The power company caught the problem after it submitted an application for renewal.
Lyman also worries about corroding pipes and reactor vessels.

“So, there are uncertainties and these will probably only grow as the fleet of power plants gets older.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says critics like Lyman shouldn’t worry about aging reactors.
Samson Lee oversees renewal applications at the NRC.
He says old reactors meet the same safety standards new ones do, plus, companies have to show they’ll manage aging parts.

“So if they continue to meet the requirement to ensure the plants are safe, and if they continue to meet that, then you know, we can issue a renewal license.”

But as for the charge the renewal process is too quick or easy?

Lee says the NRC can say “no.”

“NRC has returned one application for license renewal.”

“What was that for?”

“That was because of poor quality of application. It was how they put together the application.”

“Did that reflect on the plant or the application process?”

“It’s the application process. This is how they chose to prepare the application.”

So, for now … the biggest problem the NRC has seen during license renewal has been in the paperwork.

Right now, the federal government’s handing out renewal licenses, allowing nuclear power plants to run up to 60 years.

But there’s more to come.

The government’s prepared to evaluate renewals to let plants run up to 80 years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Tomorrow Shawn Allee will have
a report on one state that has said “no”
to re-licensing a nuclear power plant.

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Plug Pulled on Nuke Plant

  • Vermont Yankee Corp. is one of the oldest nuclear power plants in the country. (Photo courtesy of Vermont Yankee Corp.)

One of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants is setting its operating life shorter than expected. Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

One of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants might have its operating life cut shorter than expected.

Shawn Allee reports:

The federal government has been leaning toward letting the Vermont Yankee reactor renew its license in 2012 for another 20 years.

But Vermont’s state legislature says has voted to shut it down – no matter what the federal government says.

One reason is the plant’s been leaking radioactive water.

State senator Peter Shumlin says plant owners said that couldn’t happen.

SHUMLIN: What’s worse? A company that won’t tell you the truth or a company that’s operating their aging nuclear power plant next to the Connecticut River and doesn’t know they have pipes with radioactive water running through them that are leaking and they don’t know because they didn’t know the pipes existed … neither is very comforting.

The federal government says the leaks have not been a health threat.

The closure of Vermont Yankee would be a setback for the nuclear power industry.

It’s trying to extend the operating life of reactors across the country, since its far cheaper to run old reactors than to build new ones.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Nuclear Loans Guaranteed

  • If all goes according to plan, the nuclear reactors will go up in six to seven years and cost around 14 billion dollars. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

The Obama Administration
announced that it will back
the cost of constructing two
new nuclear reactors. Mark
Brush reports, if they’re
constructed, they’ll be the
first reactors built in the
country in nearly three decades:

Transcript

The Obama Administration
announced that it will back
the cost of constructing two
new nuclear reactors. Mark
Brush reports, if they’re
constructed, they’ll be the
first reactors built in the
country in nearly three decades:

The Southern Company plans to build the reactors in Georgia. They say, if all goes well, they’ll go up in six to seven years and cost around 14 billion dollars.


Investors have seen nuclear energy as a risky bet. But now that the President says the government will guarantee the loans, Wall Street might be enticed back to nuclear energy.

And then there’s the question of safety. President Obama’s Energy Secretary is Steven Chu. He says these new generation reactors are safe.

“We expect that the newer generation reactors will be ideally completely passively safe. Which means that, uh, you don’t actually need to control the reactor. If you lose control of it, it will not melt down.”

Some environmentalists say nuclear energy is not worth the costs – and there’s still no permanent place to store nuclear waste that’s radioactive for thousands of years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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