In what some view as a harbinger of the difficult political task of relicensing the aging stock of 1970s era nuclear reactors nationwide, Vermont’s state Senate exercised its uniquely-held state relicensing authority to reject a plan to keep the Vermont Yankee plant open beyond 2012.
The vote came at a time of controversy for the plant itself, after recent concerns about tritium leaks have gone public and as activists, protestors and lawmakers expressed concerns over the plant’s safety. By contrast, the vote came just one week after President Obama announced the first $8 billion in an expected $50 billion of government-guaranteed loans for new nuclear reactors, a plan the White House said was essential to help meet America’s growing energy needs from sources that do not emit carbon dioxide.
The confluence of events has made the question of nuclear power’s future a hot political and media item throughout the northeast in recent weeks. The Boston Globe has been the battle ground for some partisans, as a nuclear advocacy group’s comments on the leaks were met with return fire in letters to the editor citing a history of deception and misleading comments as justifying continued concerns about nuclear safety.
The issue continues to divide the environmental movement, with some groups seeming to resign themselves to grudging acceptance of the president’s plan and the fact that nuclear power may be here to stay. The concession continues a trend that began with a considerable watering down of energy legislation in the House and the introduction of a proposed Senate bill that encourages expanded offshore drilling and investment in clean coal. Still, with $11 billion in 2009’s stimulus package directed to clean tech, some green groups and Democrats on the Hill were willing to make the compromise.
Others, however, continue to vehemently oppose the idea of expanding nulcear power (or even relicensing the existing stock) on several fronts: safety of plant operation, national security, proliferation risk, unsolved waste disposal issues, and now, the financial gamble of guaranteeing loans to an industry that has a history of cost overruns and project delays.
The financial battle will be one that President Obama will have to weigh in deciding how hard to push his loan proposal. After all, if he is in for $50 billion in new stock, does not that commit the White House to the battles over relicensure by the Nuclear Regulatory Council? It would be a difficult messaging move to propose $50 billion in taxpayer-funded loans and then not weigh in on free relicensure of existing nuclear capacity. Still, the political players on his staff, with a wary eye toward 2010’s mid-terms and the 2012 election will surely be loathe to get too involved in what are destined to be nasty, emotional, local political fights over relicensure.
Of course, all renewable power sources in play today (unless you include large-scale hydro, which most greens and the federal energy bills do not) require heavy subsidy to meet parity with conventional power. All proposals at the federal level (and all existing state RPS, feed-in tariffs, etc.) put the burden of subsidy on ratepayers with some kind of add-on to the utility bill.
The difference is that nuclear requires those subsidies up front, for the capital-intensive build out of new plants, as opposed to on the back end where subsidies equalize the cost of capturing sun, wind or water on projects that have already been developed by entrepreneurs, investors and utilities. Customers (also know as taxpayers) are going to pay the freight one way or the other. But, with capital loans, the risk of default is dramatically increased.
Still, even as opponents stake claim to a new line of attack on the finance side, safety concerns remain nuclear’s number one bugaboo. The tritium leaks at Vermont Yankee do not help, and with relicensures looming, more stories about more of those kinds of problems will inevitably emerge. It also does not help that while few Americans actually know the story of or understand the meaning of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, those phrases have become bywords for a very vivid kind of catastrophic nuclear fallout.
Nuclear advocates are trying to change that perception. It will be a hard-won fight. If they can continue to attract hard-bitten greens with credibility in the movement that makes their most persuasive line of argument on safety a possibility. The argument goes that while there may be a small risk of a catastrophic meltdown event, that rationale assumes failure of the plant, its staff and regulatory oversight. While such an event would surely have tragic results, it would be mostly-local.
By contrast, climate science is nearing consensus on the fact that the use of GHG-emitting fuels like coal is globally cataclysmic in its very essence, when used properly as designed and planned. So, why should America write off any future for nuclear given the relatively small risk of major local damage, when the country is currently committed to a track that ensures worldwide harm? Another Globe letter layed out the framework for this variation of the Bush-Cheney “one-percent doctrine.”
It is an interesting argument to make. It is a tough one to sell. After all, these plants have to sit somewhere, and it will be difficult to find a local community where parents are willing to subject thier own childre to that risk - however small - in the name of the greater good. But, just like in the Revolution, the first shots in a major battle have come from New England, this time from the Green Mountain State. And, again, the repercussions will resonate all the way to Washington. But, who will emerge as the heroes? Only history will tell.
No doubt the current 
