Obama's Nuclear Plans Draw Sharp Criticism

US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu on Friday announced the formation of a Blue Ribbon Commission to provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation’s used nuclear fuel and waste.

The announcement drew critical responses from within the environmental community. The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) said nuclear power opponents sent more than 3,000 letters to President Obama in less than 48 hours, demanding an end to proposed federal loan guarantees for new nuclear power reactors and challenging his State of the Union statement that nuclear power is safe and clean.

Pointing to radioactive tritium leaks at more than 20 nuclear reactors sites discovered in the past few
years, many of the letters asserted forcefully that nuclear power has proven neither safe nor clean.
Letter writers also took strong issue with reported accounts that President Obama is considering tripling
the amount of money available for taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for new reactor construction.

“President Obama needs to remember what Candidate Obama promised: no more taxpayer subsidies
for nuclear power,” said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource
Service (NIRS). “Renewables and energy efficiency provide both greater carbon emissions reductions
and more jobs per dollar spent than nuclear. Unlike nuclear power, they are relatively quick to install,
and are actually safe and clean.” 

NIRS also objected to the makeup of the Blue Ribbon commission, which does not include a "known critic of the nuclear industry," the group said.

The Commission is being co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. It also includes former Senator Pete Domenici, whom NIRS called a "radical nuclear ideologue", and John Rowe, head of Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear utility and former president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

In light of the Administration’s decision not to proceed with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, President Obama has directed Secretary Chu to establish the Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The Commission will provide advice and make recommendations on issues including alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.

“Promoting new nuclear waste production from new reactors, as the Obama administration is
doing with its loan guarantee program, while seeking to address the existing radioactive waste
problem is like a announcing a study of obesity at an ice cream social. We must isolate this waste
from our environment for as long as it is hazardous, which is tens of millions of years; making
more will only make that challenge harder” said Diane D’Arrigo, Director of the Radioactive
Waste Project at NIRS.

The Commission is made up of 15 members who have a range of expertise
and experience in nuclear issues, including scientists, industry
representatives, and respected former elected officials. The full list is available here.

"Finding an acceptable long-term solution to our used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste storage needs is vital to the economic, environmental and security interests of the United States," said co-chari Congressman Hamilton. "This will be a thorough, comprehensive review based on the best available science. I’m looking forward to working with the many distinguished experts on this panel to achieve a consensus on the best path forward."

“As the United States responds to climate change and moves forward with a long overdue expansion of nuclear energy, we also need to work together to find a responsible, long-term strategy to deal with the leftover fuel and nuclear waste," said co-chair General Scowcroft. "I’m pleased to be part of that effort along with Congressman Hamilton and such an impressive group of scientific and industry experts."

The Commission will produce an interim report within 18 months and a final report within 24 months.

Unacceptable Risk

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Obama administration plans to triple federal loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors, from $18.5 billion to $54 billion.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) said such a move
would shift unacceptable risks from the nuclear industry to taxpayers.

Both the Congressional Budget Office (2003) and the Government Accountability Office (2008) have estimated that the risk of default for new nuclear reactors could be as high as 50 percent based on the industry’s history of cost overruns and plant cancellations. In 2007, six of Wall Street’s largest investment banks told the Department of Energy that they were unwilling to accept any financial risk for nuclear power loans: "We believe these risks, combined with the higher capital costs and longer construction schedules of nuclear plants as compared to other generation facilities, will make lenders unwilling at present to extend long-term credit." Pointing to past experience, the banks stated that "lenders and investors in the fixed income markets will be acutely concerned about a number of political, regulatory and litigation-related risks that are unique to nuclear power…." Last June, Moody’s Investment Service called investing in new nuclear power a "bet the farm" risk.

"At a time when our country is struggling economically, it is a mistake to force U.S. taxpayers to assume financial risks that the private sector will not by guaranteeing tens of billions of dollars in risky loans to an industry with a track record of cancellations and defaults," said Ellen Vancko, nuclear energy and climate change project manager at UCS. "While it may be appropriate to provide loan guarantees to support a small number of first-mover reactors, any decision to triple federal loan guarantees could divert critical financial resources from more cost-effective clean energy projects that would come on line much more quickly and put Americans back to work right now."

A March 2009 UCS report, "Nuclear Loan Guarantees: Another Taxpayer Bailout Ahead?," recounts the nuclear industry’s disastrous financial history and documents the hundreds of billions of dollars taxpayers and ratepayers already have spent to keep the industry afloat.

That report is available at the link below.