PRIVATE PARKING
	THE NUCLEAR OPTION
	EDITORIAL
	Wisconsin Favorites Jurustic Park

Private Parking
Industry Steps Up with Nuclear-storage Solution

Scattered across the United States at 72 power plant sites, radioactive, spent fuel left over from more than four decades of commercial nuclear-fueled electric generation sits in storage, waiting for a promised federal facility to open.

It’s been a long wait and it might not be even halfway over. A federal law signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a permanent repository and begin accepting spent fuel by February 1998. But the site at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain remains under development and entangled in political opposition, and last month the DOE announced it won’t open before 2020. That’s 22 years behind schedule, pushed back from last year’s estimate of 2015, pushed back from the prior year’s estimate of 2012, pushed back from the previous estimate of 2010.

That the passage of time seems to move the opening of Yucca Mountain not nearer but farther away might seem ironically fitting for an industry owing so much to Einsteinean theory. But the prospect of a permanent national repository receding into the future also implies that the source of about one-fifth of the nation’s electricity could do some receding of its own. A power plant that runs out of on-site storage space for spent fuel will have to stop producing it; in other words, shut down.

Running the Meter

By the early 1990s it was evident the federal government would miss its own deadline to provide a spent-fuel repository. Some large utilities with active nuclear programs saw that running their plants even for the term of their existing licenses might depend on temporarily parking spent fuel somewhere other than the generation sites where it was accumulating, while they waited for the government to get its act together.

Dairyland Power Cooperative was among those taking the lead. It hadn’t had an active nuclear operation since 1987 when it shut down its small plant at Genoa on the Mississippi River. But Dairyland did have 42 tons of spent fuel.

It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Wisconsin’s first commercial nuclear plant, the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor (LACBWR) was a demonstration project for the old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Capable of generating 50 megawatts of power, it began full-scale operations in 1971. When the AEC ended the project and sold the plant to Dairyland in 1973, it came with assurances that even if the cooperative decided to cease LACBWR operations, it would realize several million dollars on the sale of the fuel for reprocessing.

But four years later, citing concerns about illicit diversion of fuel for weapons use—something requiring uranium far more highly enriched than any used in a power plant—the federal government abandoned its reprocessing program. Now the fuel at Genoa and every other U.S. nuclear plant, once its potential to generate electricity was exhausted, would be useless but still highly radioactive, with no place to go.

By 1987 Dairyland concluded it was economically unfeasible to run the comparatively small unit. Since the shutdown it’s been maintained in a safe-storage condition but can’t be fully decommissioned until the fuel is removed. This presents a continuing problem for Dairyland and its distribution co-op owners, because maintaining safe storage and providing security for LACBWR’s spent fuel now costs about $6 million a year.

Facing similar problems and with the added twist that they hadn’t stopped creating spent fuel, by 1994 other utilities were looking for non-federal solutions. Various entities, Indian tribes, individual counties, and even private landowners brought proposals. Dairyland and seven active nuclear utilities formed a consortium called Private Fuel Storage (PFS) and started examining potential sites for a temporary repository.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

One obstacle to developing Yucca Mountain is that it’s a site chosen by the federal government, not by its neighbors. They are few and far between, but fast-growing Las Vegas lies about 90 miles away and the U.S. Senate minority leader hails from Nevada.

The PFS site has a few challenges along similar lines, but they’re mitigated by the fact that the neighbors came to PFS, not the other way around.

John Parkyn, CEO of Private Fuel Storage and Dairyland’s manager for nuclear and special projects, stresses the importance of willing partners furnishing the site. “In fact, we didn’t even look at any sites that weren’t voluntarily offered,” he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News, noting that more than 30 were considered.

In 1996, the tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians approached PFS and offered the use of some of its land in Utah, about 60 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

The Goshutes numbered fewer than 200 and the Utah reservation land had always belonged to the tribe. Tribal government visited nuclear facilities in the U.S. and abroad and decided it wanted the economic opportunities associated with a temporary storage facility. PFS agreed to lease 820 acres and provide other considerations for the Goshutes. Details are closely held by PFS and the tribe, but it’s said the Goshutes will benefit from improved health-care access, education and training, housing, employment, and more.

Federal regulatory review began in 1997, and after almost nine years of ups and downs including one recommended denial and a subsequent reconsideration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on February 21, 2006, granted a license to develop and operate the facility.

Not Over ‘til It’s Over

For years, Utah state officials litigated against any authorization of PFS by state or federal regulators. As they lost round after round in the courts, others grew more active.

Last November, attempting to peel away individual utility members of the consortium, Senator Orrin Hatch (R–UT) met with top executives of Xcel Energy, the partner with the largest ownership share. Hatch said he told Xcel President Paul Bonavia and CEO Dick Kelly he would “pull out every stop in the book to stop the PFS plan.” Since then, Hatch has claimed to have persuaded several PFS partners to end or suspend financial support.

By mid-April, Hatch’s Senate web site claimed six of the eight partners “have now publicly distanced themselves from the PFS plan and the organization faces no hope of new investment partners.”

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin questions the impact of Hatch’s maneuvers. Concerning Xcel’s role, she told us last fall that “there was never any guarantee that they would participate initially as a customer of the facility, and there are customers far beyond our member utilities.”

In mid-April Parkyn told us, “The big issue is to get people to commit to using it and none of that could happen until the license was granted.” Parkyn remains confident that with no similar alternative on the horizon for at least 14 years, utilities will commit.

“PFS has a solution that’s immediately available to resolve this situation safely and securely,” he says, adding that actual construction will take about 36 months. As to safety and security, Parkyn says, “There are those who tell us it isn’t safe to transport nuclear fuel across the country and put it all in one place in Utah. They may believe that, but I don’t see why they would also believe it’s safer where it is now.”

Indeed, Parkyn would argue it’s neither safer nor cheaper for consumers to leave things as is. A multi-million dollar settlement with a local tribe and $16 million annually for renewable energy development are among conditions imposed on Xcel by a Minnesota law permitting the storage needed to avoid the shutdown next year of two plants licensed to run until 2014. With officials contemplating a yearly $2 million fee to keep spent fuel at the old Vermont Yankee plant, Parkyn says, “That’s a tremendous tax on electricity.”

A Columbo Moment

Something in the federal government’s stance on PFS keeps pulling an observer back, a nagging inconsistency begging to be resolved. Votes by Hatch and Senate colleague Robert Bennett (R–UT) in 2002 to continue development of Yucca Mountain were reportedly secured with a Bush administration pledge to block PFS. But while the administration claims adamant opposition, the NRC votes to license PFS and the administration-supported 2005 energy bill promotes new nuclear generation technology. An April meeting between Hatch and DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman yields a press release denying the government might consider PFS as a Yucca Mountain alternative.

Might administration officials like PFS to go forward as long as they needn’t admit it? Parkyn’s answer is both perceptive and diplomatic. “If they got some encouragement, it would move them quite a bit,” he says. “Right now they’re only hearing from two Senators from Utah who are saying, ‘not here.’”

A telling moment will come when the federal Bureau of Land Management rules on a right-of-way permit for PFS to use public land for either a railroad spur or transfer station to move waste canisters from a main rail line to the facility. A period of public comment on the application ends early this month.

Parkyn suggests failure to deal with nuclear waste costs utilities needed flexibility in meeting demand for more large-capacity, 24–7, base-load generation. “The industry is building coal plants like mad, because you can’t do anything else,” he says.

He mentions John Rowe, former nuclear submarine officer and CEO of Chicago-based Exelon Corp., operating 20 nuclear units. National energy policy calls for more of them, several utilities are planning new ones, even some environmental groups say they’re an answer to greenhouse emissions. But Rowe recently said none will be built until the waste problem is solved.

“That ought to be a wake-up call,” Parkyn says.—Dave Hoopman

The Nuclear Option
Power Source Poised to Grow?

In the U.S, use of nuclear energy to generate electricity suffered a severe public relations setback as a result of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Public disfavor saw to it that 1978 was the year the last new operating license was granted for a nuclear generating project. The last new nuclear plant to come on line in the U.S. did so the same year that the Russian plant at Chernobyl suffered its deadly and highly publicized accident—1986.

But recently, spurred by steeply ascending costs for fossil fuels and improvements to nuclear reactor design and safety, rising numbers of industry, government, and consumer interests are dusting off the nuclear option.

“It is evident that the nuclear power industry enjoys strong support from recent Administration and bipartisan congressional actions,” said Peter Lyons, a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) the agency that oversees the commercial use of nuclear power. He noted that last year’s endorsements by President Bush and former President Carter for the future of nuclear power, including their visits to two nuclear plants, “helped to underpin the growing national confidence in the important role nuclear energy can play.”

Legislation, Incentives, Applications

Lyons also cited the passage of the 2005 Energy Policy Act—with its authorization of production tax credits and loan guarantees for nuclear projects—as a signal that government was ready to seriously encourage new nuclear development. In addition, Lyons pointed out the federal government’s Fiscal Year 2006 Appropriations Bill provided more support by increasing funding for the NRC to perform new reactor licensing activities.

“The NRC currently is expecting to receive applications in late 2007 and in 2008 for Combined Construction and Operating Licenses to build and operate up to 17 advanced power reactors at 11 sites,” Lyon reported to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a February 28 speech.

One of those applicants, taking the initial step toward licensing a 1,600-megawatt reactor, will be Constellation Energy, whose executive vice president, Michael Wallace, stated bluntly, “But for passage and enactment of the Energy Policy Act, we would not be making this announcement.”

Another member of the NRC, Jeffrey Merrifield, predicted in March that 10 years from now there will be more than a dozen nuclear reactors in varying stages of construction in the U.S. “Absent a major accident, 15 years from now there may be as many as 30 to 40 new reactor orders in progress,” he continued. “We can handle this issue. My confidence stems from the fact that our country successfully built and operated 122 nuclear power plants in the U.S., 103 of which are still safely operating and providing 20 percent of our nation’s energy.”

Eye on Emissions

The Progressive Policy Institute, associated with moderate Democrats in Congress, reported the financial incentives in the energy act could trim $200 to $300 million from the cost of new reactors and thereby allow nuclear plants to generate power more cheaply than gas- and coal-fired plants. Entitled “A New Clean Air Strategy,” the report zeroed in on the comparatively low emissions associated with nuclear generation as compared with burning fossil fuels.

Report author Jan Mazurek exhorted lawmakers to “acknowledge nuclear power’s potential not only to reduce undue reliance on natural gas, but also to help combat climate change and clean up the air.”

On the subject of cleaner emissions, Wall Street is also giving an edge to nuclear. A recent report by Merrill Lynch analysts says utilities with sizeable nuclear-power holdings are well positioned for gains through the end of this decade as a result of more stringent air-quality regulations that are expected to impact other forms of electricity generation.

“We view large nuclear facilities as beneficiaries of the rising cost profile of coal generation and potential future carbon reduction,” the report, entitled “Cleaning the Environment,” said. “For nuclear utilities, the benefits of these environmental costs are already having an impact.”

New Trend, Old Hurdle

Recent public pronouncements by prospective owner-operators have people taking notice, though announcing plans to submit applications is just the start of a multi-year engineering, safety, and environmental review process. Federal regulators have simplified the licensing procedures in the decades since the last successful licenses were granted, but it’s anticipated that the earliest a new licensee might start the construction phase on a brand-new nuclear plant would be four years from now. In the meantime, virtually all existing nuclear facilities have requested extensions of their 40-year operating licenses.

Of course, chances for advancing domestic nuclear projects hinge mightily on the ability of electricity producers to permanently store spent fuel (see discussion in our feature story above)

In Wisconsin, the chances for new nuclear development are more remote than in other areas of the country due to a 1983 state law that’s been commonly referred to as a “moratorium.” The law actually prescribes conditions under which construction of new nuclear plants might be authorized by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. One requires that a federally licensed facility exists to take waste from all operating nuclear plants; the other requirement is a finding of economic advantage for the people of Wisconsin from a new nuclear project.

Most regard the law’s language as a roadblock removable only by amendment, a move tried unsuccessfully in recent legislative sessions (see WECA cover feature, January 2004).

World View

Although public sentiment in the U.S. turned against nuclear power 27 years ago, international growth of nuclear-powered electricity projects have continued without interruption. During the past two decades, 350 plants have been built, almost doubling the previous total.

In most major countries, nuclear plants have become the lowest-cost means of adding to base-load electricity, according to a World Nuclear Association (WNA) report, which says increased competitiveness of nuclear comes from cost reductions associated with the evolution to standardized reactor designs, shorter construction periods, new financing techniques, more efficient generating technologies, higher rates of reactor utilization, and longer plant lifetimes.

There are now 440 commercial power reactors operating in 31 countries. Among these, 17 countries depend on nuclear power for at least a quarter of their electricity (see chart). In addition, the WNA reports that about a dozen other countries—ranging from sophisticated economies to developing nations—are actively considering embarking on programs for nuclear power generation.

Back on the home front, Dr, Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and former chair of the NRC, observes that not all the challenges of nuclear technology have been solved, including a “raised ante” for nuclear security that came as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

“But great strides have been made,” Jackson noted in a recent essay. “Nuclear power has become economically competitive while simultaneously operating more safely than ever before, and public confidence in nuclear technology—and appreciation of its many benefits—is on the rise.”—Perry Baird

EDITORIAL
by Perry Baird

Swords and Plowshares

Lamenting that nuclear weapons programs pursued by Iran and North Korea continue to affect public perception of nuclear energy, the National Academy of Engineering recently observed, “The spread of nuclear weapons…remains front and center in the news, even as engineers keep working to make peaceful uses of nuclear power safer. It may well be that harnessing the tremendous power of the atom will continue to be a story of both swords and plowshares.”

On the plowshare side, in February leaders of the nation’s 900 electric cooperatives went on record supporting federal legislative and regulatory moves to encourage a nuclear renaissance in the U.S.

“Nuclear power plants contribute greatly to the use of domestic fuels for our economic and national security, as well as to our nation’s fuel diversity, effectively reducing our reliance on certain scarce, expensive fossil fuels,” the resolution, presented at the annual meeting of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), read. “Additionally and importantly, nuclear power plants contribute greatly to reduction of certain airborne emissions, including greenhouse gas emissions.”

No Novel Nuclear Nudge

Endorsement of nuclear generation is hardly a novel stance for cooperative electric utilities; NRECA delegates consistently have backed such supportive resolutions—even in the years when public disfavor ran high in the wake of the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident.

For instance, at the 1980 NRECA annual meeting—the group’s first following the March 28, 1979, TMI incident—electric co-op delegates passed resolutions urging continued development of nuclear generation and removal of a moratorium on nuclear licensing that had been implemented immediately after TMI. “We believe the utility industry has demonstrated an excellent safety record in the operation of nuclear power plants and now the response of the industry to the Three Mile Island incident will guarantee even safer operation in the future,” one resolution stated.

The safety record at U.S. reactors since then shows the cooperators’ faith was well placed.

Benchmarks

In News Briefs this month, we note the passing of former Dairyland Power Cooperative General Manager Frank Linder, who had an instrumental role in the above-referenced industry response to safety concerns growing from the TMI mishap. As an engineer at Dairyland, Linder helped build and put into service Wisconsin’s first commercial nuclear plant at Genoa in 1971. On the strength of that experience, he was named to the first board of directors of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, organized within a few months of TMI to establish industry-wide “benchmarks for excellence” in the operation of nuclear power programs and to monitor and evaluate problems and corrective actions. The electric co-ops’ national association was one of four organizations to spearhead creation of the institute, which still provides valuable industry vigilance.

The U.S. government and the media certainly must continue their focus on the malevolent spread of nuclear weapons in the world. But we should take care to distinguish between that discussion and the peaceful, beneficial use of nuclear energy to power electric generation—a “plowshares” application nurtured and refined for decades by, among others, leaders of electric cooperatives.

Pondering the Ancients at Aztalan

Those who enjoy mystery stories should similarly relish a visit to Aztalan State Park, near Lake Mills. However, there’s one catch: Many of the mysteries posed by the early inhabitants of the site remain unsolved, and those who are caught in the web of the ancients may never discover the truth about their customs or their disappearance.

Sound intriguing? The reconstructed boundaries and mounds in their village at Aztalan State Park can offer clues to their lives in Wisconsin, from the 900s to about 1200 BC. (Historians differ on the exact dates, but they agree these early inhabitants were here a long time ago, and left without clues about the reason for their departure.)

Anthropologists say the Aztalan Indians may have migrated from Cahokia, a larger Middle-Mississippian settlement near the current site of East St. Louis, Illinois. If so, the approximately 500 Aztalan residents formed the northermost outpost of the Middle-Mississippian culture. It is thought that the Aztalan citizens were drawn to the location by the rolling oak prairie, the fertile farmland, the abundant wildlife, and a good canoe landing at the site. They fished, hunted, and farmed beside the Crawfish River.

The Aztalan Indians built their village inside a wooden stockade (now partly restored). Mystery #1: Did the stockade indicate warfare? And if so, with whom?

Within the stockade, the inhabitants built large, flat-topped mounds (two of which are also restored). Unlike those of the Mound Builders elsewhere in Wisconsin, the mounds in Aztalan were not burial mounds; instead, they were used for ceremonies. The village is thought to have been an important ceremonial and trade center.

Besides various ceremonial mounds, one mound, called the Princess Mound, was excavated and found to contain the body of a young woman who had been lavishly outfitted with seashell beads—nearly 2,000 of them, made into three broad belts. Mystery #2: Who was she? Princess or priestess? Mystery #3: Since her burial mound was outside the stockade, was she an outsider? And Mystery #4: Since hers was the only burial mound, what did the village do with all its other dead?

Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is this: Why did they leave, and where did they go? Some have theorized that they rejoined their relatives from Cahokia and migrated to Mexico together, eventually forming the Aztec civilization. Though most experts discount the theory, the time frame and Aztec folklore make it plausible.

Have the unsolved mysteries intrigued you? If so, ponder them while hiking, canoeing, fishing, or picnicking at Aztalan Park. (Be respectful of the ruins, as this was a religious site.) Then visit the adjacent Aztalan Museum, housed in two former churches and other 19th-century structures. The museum is operated by the Lake Mills–Aztalan Historical Society; it is situated just in front of the Princess Mound, and its exhibits encompass both Native American and pioneer artifacts.

Even if you don’t solve the mysteries of the Aztalan civilization, you’ll have plenty of fun exploring the hints that have been left behind.—Linda Hilton

Aztalan State Park is near Lake Mills, situated between Madison and Milwaukee. From either east or west, exit Interstate 94 at County Road Q. Follow Q southwest to Lake Mills, then south until Q crosses County Road B. Aztalan State Park and the Aztalan Museum are just southeast of this intersection. The park is open daily, 6 a.m.–9 p.m. (phone 920/648-8774 or visit www.dnr.state.wi.us. A state parks vehicle sticker is required for admission. The Aztalan Museum is open May 15 to late September, noon–4 p.m., Thursday–Sunday (phone 920/648-8774).