Nuclear plant foes shift from environmentalists to consumer groups
Other than balancing the states budget during a recession, AmerenUEs plan to build a second reactor at the Callaway Nuclear Plant is considered by many as the biggest issue facing the current session of the Missouri General Assembly.
The plant expansion, estimated to cost from $6 to $9 billion, would be the single most expensive construction project in Missouris history.
Unlike the first nuclear reactor to be constructed in Missouri, opposition to the second nuclear reactor at the Callaway Nuclear Plant has come more from consumer groups than anti-nuclear activists and environmentalists.
Irl L. Scissors, a top lobbyist for the Missouri environmental and conservation alliance, has resigned as their lobbyist. Scissors revealed that he will support the new legislation allowing utilities to pay for nuclear, wind and solar plants during construction. Scissors said he also will lobby Missouri legislators to approve the bill. He said greater reliance on nuclear power and renewable energy can help replace current coal-fired power plants.
Even John Coffman, a lobbyist for the Consumers Council of Missouri, said his organization is not opposed to building a second reactor at the Callaway Nuclear Plant. His opposition is based, he said, only on the plan by AmerenUE to charge consumers for the plant while it is under construction.
Coffman said if the current law is repealed the utility would have no incentive to keep costs down.
At issue is legislation introduced a few days ago that would repeal a 1976 law approved by a ballot initiative that prevents utilities from charging customers for power plants until after they are constructed.
AmerenUE officials say they wont be able to build the plant if the law is not repealed and customers would be hit even harder with higher rate hikes if payments did not start until after construction was completed. Attracting financing with no immediate income stream in the current economy also would be questionable.
AmerenUE says the plant would provide 2,500 new jobs with an annual payroll of $400 million for about five years during construction. The second reactor also would create at least 400 well-paying permanent Callaway County jobs with an annual payroll of $30 million. Callaway County residents also are elated that the project would produce an estimated $115 million annually in property taxes during construction and another $90 million each year after the plant begins operating.
Fear of nuclear plants has decreased substantially since the Callaway plant was built more than 30 years ago.
Newly elected Rep. Jeanie Riddle, R-Mokane, who represents Callaway County in the legislature and lives near the plant, said during her campaign she did not encounter a single Callaway County resident who opposed expansion of the plant.
In the 1970s nuclear power opponents persuaded the federal government to erect formidable bureaucratic hurdles designed to stop expansion of the nuclear industry. They succeeded. For 28 years there were no applications to build a nuclear plant in the United States. Utilities opted to burn coal or natural gas rather than using nuclear power as an energy source.
But in recent years environmentalists wanting to prevent global warming began to press for better ways to produce electricity without increasing carbon emissions.
The recent coal ash spill after an earthen dam collapse in eastern Tennessee near a power plant poured 5.4 million cubic yards of wet coal ash into the Emory River and brought the issue into sharp focus.
Utilities have known all along that nuclear power is far cleaner for the air than burning coal or natural gas. Last year, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission received 12 applications for nuclear power plants, including the one from AmerenUE in Callaway County.
Other developed nations are far ahead of the United States in making use of nuclear power.
France has more than 60 nuclear power plants that generate more than 80 percent of its electrical power. France also is the worlds largest exporter of electrical power, sending 18 percent of its production to other nations.
The French have been recycling nuclear waste. They reclaim the plutonium and unused uranium and use it to make new fuel elements. This provides a cheaper source and greatly reduces the volume of radioactive waste. The amount of high-level waste was much smaller and easier to handle.
Like Americans, there was initial opposition in France to burying high-level waste. “Anywhere else, but not near me,” was a frequently heard complaint.
The lack of an approved national site to dispose of high-level nuclear waste also has been a major issue of opponents of a second nuclear reactor at the Callaway Nuclear Plant.
But the French politicians decided that instead of “burying and forgetting,” they would “store and watch” the high level waste. They argued that scientists in the future might be able to eliminate the toxicity.
Soon there were areas of France applying for the right to “store and watch” the high-level nuclear waste, figuring numerous high paying jobs would result of the continuing government action. They also believe the government will monitor the high-level waste and keep it safe.
