Despite Yucca uncertainty, industry plans new plants

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005 | 9:33 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Uncertainty on the Yucca Mountain federal nuclear waste repository will not stop the nuclear industry from planning to build new plants, industry experts said at a conference Wednesday.

As Congress starts a fifth year of debate on an energy bill, the industry, with support from the White House, will tout its emission-free process of producing electricity while questions still linger on what to do with highly radioactive used fuel.

Nuclear power now generates 20 percent of the country's electricity, but as energy demands continue to grow, the industry feels the time has come for its share of power production to grow with it. A new nuclear power plant has not been ordered since 1978.

Former Nuclear Regulatory Chairman Richard Meserve said he sees no reason plans for new nuclear power plants should be put on hold until the repository opens. He said the industry knows how to manage the used fuel that exists already and can safely store it until a solution is found.

"We should not make Yucca Mountain or any licensed repository a precondition for the idea of new construction," Meserve said. "This is a solvable problem. It is not an impossible problem."

In 1987 the Energy Department promised the nuclear industry it would take its used fuel to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Numerous problems have thrown the schedule off, and by the department's latest estimate, waste may not move there until 2012, 14 years after its initial deadline.

Nevada's congressional delegation and state officials strongly oppose the repository and will continue to fight it through lawsuits and objections as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviews it license. The state declares the project near death, particularly after it won a federal court case that threw out a key radiation standard last year. The Energy Department says it will move forward, planning to submit a license application by the end of the year.

Yucca critics are not necessarily against nuclear power, but do not believe the department's plan to store waste in the mountain is the right idea. Nuclear critics point to safety risks and security problems at nuclear power plants and would rather not see new ones open.

But Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, told the conference that the time has come for new nuclear plants and the waste issue needs to be resolved.

"We think its an issue that's got to move forward," Craig told the Sun after his speech at the conference Wednesday.

Craig said he has never been frightened by geologic disposal, and pointed out that President Bush "didn't lose Nevada" in last year's election. Bush campaigned that he would allow the court's to rule on the matter while Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., vowed to outright kill the project.

"It's not a sea change, but it's a soft signal," Craig said.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, announced his intention Wednesday to introduce a bill to allow Congress to apply ratepayer money directly to the repository without hurting other federal programs. The bill made it through the committee last year, but did not move beyond that.

Craig told the conference he expects Congress will get an energy bill done this year that will include a "valuable nuclear component." The industry would like to see financial incentives, an extension of the federal insurance program and other benefits included in the bill to help make building new plants easier.

"We will build a new plant when the conditions are right," said Marilyn Kray, Exelon Nuclear's vice president of project development. Kray who also serves as president of NuStart Energy Development, a collection of eight companies exploring ways to build a new nuclear power plant.

Kray said new plant plants include payments into the Nuclear Waste Fund that is set aside to pay for the repository. The delays in opening Yucca leave some uncertainties for onsite storage, eventual closure and other costs in a potential budget, but nothing that would stop them from looking into where the industry wants to go in the future.