A $50 Billion Nuke Power Bomb is Dropping Toward Obama's Stimulus Package

This article first appeared at freepress.com.

The desperate, dangerous nuclear power industry has dropped a $50 billion stealth bomb meant to irradiate the Obama Stimulus Package.

It comes in the form of a mega-loan guarantee package that would build new reactors Wall Street wouldn't finance even when it had cash. It will take a healthy dose of citizen action to stop it, so start calling your Senators now.

The vaguely worded bailout-in-advance provision was snuck through the Senate Appropriations Committee in the deep night of January 27. It would provide $50 billion in loan guarantees for "eligible technologies" that would technically include renewable sources and electric transmission. But the handout is clearly directed at nukes and "clean coal."

The Stimulus Package is explicitly meant to create jobs within the next two years. But according to sources at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, no new reactors could be licensed for construction within that time. Nor could any new coal plants. And thus the funds in this rider are to "remain available until committed." That means their "stimulus" might not go into effect for many years.

But the nuclear industry does have the ability to spend large sums of money on "site preparation" and other busy work prior to being licensed. Though the guarantees could technically be used for truly green sources such as wind and solar, the provision's backers, including Senators Robert Bennett (R-UT) and Thomas Carper (D-DE), have made it clear that this money is meant to go for new reactor construction.

In late 2007, nuclear power's Congressional Godfather, then-Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), stuck a similar $50 billion loan guarantee package into that year's energy bill. A grassroots uprising, joined by virtually all national environmental organizations, helped defeat the package. Among other things, the fight inspired a music video from Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Keb Mo and Ben Harper.

In late 2008 the industry came back again with a blank check package that went down in flames along with the stock market.

Still unable to get private financing, the industry is back yet again. In the interim, the projected cost of building new reactors has soared to more than $10 billion each, and continues to climb steadily. Many of the previous generation of reactors came in hugely over budget. According to the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, one DOE study places the overall average overruns at 207%. But reactor projects such as Seabrook, in New Hampshire, New York's Shoreham, Pennsylvania's Beaver Valley, California's Diablo Canyon, and many others, far exceeded that.

The Congressional Budget Office now predicts that half the nuclear utilities using such a loan program will go into default. Some $18.5 billion in loan guarantees has already been approved, apparently for such use. But its legality is being hotly disputed, and the money has not been distributed by the Department of Energy.

Washington insiders believe this latest attempt at a pre-arranged bailout has again come from Domenici, who has stayed in Washington to lobby for his radioactive benefactors after apparently retiring from the Senate in January.

This guarantee package was not part of the Stimulus Package that passed the House. It's secretive, late night inclusion on the Senate side is reminiscent of how former Vice President Dick Cheney did business for the fossil/nuclear corporations that funded much of the Bush Administration. The reappearance of this kind of back door dealing has not been well received, especially in the House.

Numerous national groups, including the Nuclear Information & Resource Service are providing sign-ins for sending e-mails to the Senate. They also urge that you call your Senator at 202-224-3121.

Time is fast slipping by for the nuke power industry. As the popularity of renewables and efficiency escalates, the most obvious source of new jobs and prosperity has become truly green technologies. Atomic power has long since been priced out of the market. Only massive federal and ratepayer subsidies could bring it back, to the direct detriment of the revolution in renewables.

Defeating this latest money grab will help drive another nail in the coffin of the 20th century's most expensive failed technology. It is an essential step toward a truly green-powered future.

Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, is at www.harveywasserman.com. He edits the NukeFree, and is senior editor of freepress.

Comments

[Kassandra]

I just don't know where they think they are going to get all the uranium for these things. there just isn't that much left in the earth's crust to make these things viable for future energy needs. Plus they use alot of fossil fuels to even get started. 15 years to bring one online. 10,000 years to store the spent fuel.

It's a stupid technology and it was a stupid weapon.

[andresfusion]

Your comment does not make any sense!
Uranium is 40 times more common than silver and more common than many other commonly used metals in the earth's crust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Occurrence




According to the below with recycling and reprocessing we have thousands of years of Uranium already available.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Resources_and_reserves

Not mentioning the thorium run reactors.

[alvdh1]

There is a major difference between more common and economically viable deposits. If reprocessing was economical, it would be in widespread use here in America outside of the defense department which is not subject to cost like private industry. This is why Wall Street continues to avoid this industry for financing new plants. They are a financial nightmare to construct. Whoops!!!!!!!!!!!

[jay1975]

More nuclear now. If you want to stop CO2, you must use all alternatives.

[alvdh1]

Will you make the same proclamation after you read Poisoned Power by Dr. John W. Gofman? It is available online for free. Make sure read his curriculum vitae first so that you understand that there has never been a nuclear scientist with more complete credentials on the subject than Dr. Gofman.

[alvdh1]

You don't have to use all of the alternatives to stop CO2. We can close all of the nuclear power plants in the country with energy efficiency alone. It currently takes 3-4 cents per Kwh to replace the lost energy through energy efficiency. It cost 15 - 25 cents per Kwh, depending on the reactor design, to construct a nuclear power plant. It costs 2 - 3 cents per Kwh to operate it. This is, however, a phony number since the entire nuclear fuel cycle is subsidized by the federal government and it does not include decommissioning costs. .

We have 104 operational reactors in the U.S. Most of them were constructed in the 60's and early 70's. They were all issued 40 year operating licenses, but recently the NRC/DOE issued 20 year extentions. Now we have a potential ticking time bomb in the area of metal fatigue due to long term exposure to radiation. The new reactor designs are safer, albeit vastly more expensive, than the fleet of original reactors. A major accident, if it were to occur, would likely be isolated to the older reactors. The consequence would spill over to all reactors.

Then we have reactors overseas, particularly in Asia and Russia operating with less stringent safety that will cause U.S. reactors to be shut down in the event of a major accident via the NIMBY crowd madness that would ensue a major accident. No need to discuss terrorism for the obvious reasons.