Abraham pushes more nuclear power plants

Suzanne Struglinski and Benjamin Grove

Friday, Jan. 14, 2005 | 10:43 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Outgoing Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham today said his four-year tenure brought progress to the government's plan to put nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, but Nevada's continued legal challenges could lead to additional delays.

"Obviously because of the litigation it does put doubt into the timetable," Abraham said after a farewell policy speech at the National Press Club in Washington. "It's an issue that continues to be a challenge."

But in his speech, Abraham said department officials were "well on our way toward fulfilling the government's obligation to the commercial nuclear power industry, and more importantly to the ratepayers that have been paying into it."

In his speech, Abraham also urged critics and supporters of nuclear power to set aside their long-standing disagreements and to work together to forge compromises that pave the way for a new generation of nuclear power plants in the United States.

A nuclear power plant has not been built in this country for more than two decades, in part due to costs, regulatory issues and public opposition.

The issue of how best to dispose of nuclear waste has also been considered an obstacle to new plant construction. The nuclear industry for years has been goading the federal government to make good on its legal obligation to construct a national waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Abraham, who will step down as soon as the Senate confirms his replacement, would not speculate on what lies ahead for the repository. Yucca faces several hurdles, including budget shortfalls and an unresolved radiation health safety standard, set by the Environmental Protection Agency at 10,000 years but thrown out by a federal court last year.

The department missed its most recent self-imposed project deadline in December when it did not submit an application for a license to construct Yucca. Licensing could take three to four years and construction has not begun, but department officials are clinging to an ambitious goal of opening the repository as early as 2010.

Abraham's audience today was primarily members of the Generation IV International Forum, government and nuclear industry representatives from the United States and other countries that have nuclear power.

Abraham will be remembered by Yucca watchers as the energy secretary who, in 2002, finally deemed Yucca safe after 20 years of site study. President Bush approved the site on Abraham's recommendation.

Abraham said he was pleased that "after years of debate with no firm action, the United States moved ahead with a clear plan to deal with high-level nuclear waste."

"I believe we are on the right path -- a path that is based on sound science and a path that I believe will successfully meet the regulatory tests ahead."

Abraham was a Yucca advocate in his six years as a Republican senator from Michigan and has been a champion of nuclear power during his time at the department. He announced his resignation in November.

Bush nominated Samuel Bodman, now deputy treasury secretary, as his successor. Bodman's Senate confirmation hearing is next week.

Asked if approving Yucca was on his list of top five accomplishments, Abraham laughed and told a group of reporters: "I will write the book and then you guys can pay to see that."

He said he has no specific plans yet for his post-cabinet career, saying he will spend a few months with his family and evaluate options.

"I've been in politics for 22 years. I don't think I could totally separate myself from it," he said. "I have not made a decision at all."

During his speech, Abraham said he intended "to continue to play a role in some way in this policy debate" over new nuclear plants.

In the audience for Abraham's speech was former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve, who said the construction of new nuclear plants was likely soon. The NRC is responsible for licensing and regulating plants and Yucca.

"It's getting more and more real," said Meserve, who is now president of the Carnegie Institution.

Meserve said the NRC's new licensing procedures, which include an early site permit program, allow for a more efficient process for plants to obtain agency approval. He said the complex regulatory process and the costs of developing a next-generation nuclear power plant -- in the hundreds of millions of dollars -- have been the major hurdles to construction of new U.S. plants.

But the nuclear industry, emboldened by Bush administration support that may include government subsidies, has proposed ambitious new goals for new plants, including a "Vision 2020" plan calling for up to 50 new plants by that year.

Three energy companies, Exelon, Entergy and Dominion, have filed for early site permits for new plants that could be constructed next to existing plants.

Meserve said the issue of nuclear waste and the long-delayed Yucca Mountain repository were not obstacles to constructing more plants.

"Regardless of what happens with Yucca Mountain, you can store the material safely," Meserve said. "It's a solveable problem."

One nuclear power critic today said it was "tragic" if Abraham was trying to make his advocacy for nuclear power part of his legacy. Public Citizen analyst Michele Boyd said Abraham's two biggest arguments for new plants -- the economic and environmental advantages of nuclear power -- were the biggest arguments against new plants.

The industry has no safe solution to the waste problem, she said. And the industry is asking for significant government subsidies at taxpayer expense to jump-start its new plant proposals, she said.

"There is no reason to pursue nuclear energy except for corporate interest," Boyd said.

Boyd called industry talk of being close to constructing new plants "propaganda." Among other obstacles, public anxiety rooted in the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl still haunted the public, she said.

"People don't want nuclear power plants in their backyards," she said.

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