Friends of the Earth’s Nuclear Appeal First in Nation at State Supreme Court Level

Columbia, SC—In a case that could have far-reaching implications for efforts to build new nuclear reactors in the U.S., the South Carolina Supreme Court has set a hearing date on a challenge against a new reactor project planned in the state.

The March 4 hearing at the state Supreme Court in Columbia will consider the appeal by the environmental organization Friends of the Earth of a decision by the South Carolina Public Service Commission allowing South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) to proceed with a costly two-reactor nuclear project and to begin collecting rates to pay for it.

SCE&G’s reactor project is widely considered to be on the Department of Energy’s short list of four projects being considered for a federally subsidized “loan guarantee.” Friends of the Earth and a host of other public interest groups believe that loan guarantees constitute unwarranted giveaways to an industry which should be forced to compete in the free market and not depend on taxpayer bailouts.

“The nuclear project as proposed by SCE&G is flawed on many levels and as the state Public Service Commission allowed it to go forward, we were obligated to watch out for the public interest and appeal to the Supreme Court,” said Tom Clements, Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator with Friends of the Earth in Columbia. “The South Carolina law that forces the state’s citizens to pay up front for nuclear reactors, even if construction is abandoned, is unjust in the extreme and must be overturned by the court. We believe that the court will balance the public interest with the interests of the company and the energy future of the state and direct SCE&G to conduct a more thorough costs analysis and review alternatives to the project, beginning with an aggressive conservation and efficiency program.”

Friends of the Earth claims in its appeal that the state’s Public Service Commission erred in its February 2009 decision allowing the project to go forward by not adequately requiring SCE&G to present energy alternatives and by not fully considering the cost of the project. The appeal also challenges aspects of a South Carolina law, the Baseload Review Act, that forces rate payers to pay for the nuclear project far in advance of its operation and also in the event the project is cancelled mid-stream. Friends of the Earth claims that this “construction work in progress” law is unconstitutional as it forces rate payers to pay for something they may never receive.

Friends of the Earth has claimed that the Public Service Commission gave SCE&G a “blank check” for the project’s costs as SCE&G did not provide the Public Service Commission with a cost of electricity coming for the reactors nor guarantee a final cost for the project. SCE&G claimed in the hearing on the reactor project that the two reactors will cost $11.5 billion, but the company had previously filed a $9.8 billion cost with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Georgia Power, which also aims to build two AP1000 reactors, has said those reactors are likely to reach a cost of $14 billion. On February 2, Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Greg Jaczko stated in an Arizona Republic article that “the best estimate for a new reactor’s price tag is about $10 billion.”

The two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors that SCE&G intends to build have yet to be certified or receive a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and are now undergoing redesign of the “shield building” that covers the reactor containment. Due to this serious matter, no established review schedule exists for the design, meaning more delays in the licensing decision or a rejection of the design by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In addition to SCE&G, the state’s Office of Regulatory Staff, which Friends of the Earth alleges has abrogated its responsibility to look out for the interest of rate payers, is also a target of the appeal.

A second challenge has also been mounted against the Public Service Commission decision, by the S.C. Energy Users Committee, an association of large electricity users in the state. No hearing date for that appeal has been set and the court declined to combine the two appeals.

Tom Clements will be available for comment before and after the hearing and Bob Guild, Friends of the Earth’s attorney and a well-known environmental lawyer in South Carolina, will be available after the hearing has concluded.

Global Warming
Nuclear power makes global warming worse. It is not a clean solution to the climate crisis, but instead diverts scarce resources from the green techologies that really work: renewables, conservation, and efficiency technologies that can really can solve the climate crisis while also generating wealth, jobs and economic stability.

Atomic Economics
The nuclear power industry has gone to Congress demanding loan guarantees for one basic reason: atomic reactors are not economically sound. Nobody will finance new ones without the taxpayer being forced to take the ultimate risk. Nuclear power is not a new technology. What Forbes Magazine has called “the largest managerial disaster in business history” is a proven economic failure.

Terror and Error
The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, made it clear that every atomic reactor is a pre-deployed potential weapon of radioactive mass destruction. The first jet that flew into the World Trade Center passed one minute earlier over the Indian Point reactor complex, 45 miles to the north. There are three reactors there—two active and one inactive—plus thousands of tons of high level radioactive fuel.

Thankfully, humankind has never experienced the horrifying event of a jet plane flying into the containment dome of an active atomic reactor. The industry likes to claim that there would be no penetration. But that’s wishful thinking. It has no hard data—and let’s hope it never does.

The Uranium & Weapons Connection
Despite the nuclear energy industry’s well-funded efforts to convince the public otherwise, uranium fuel for atomic power plants is in limited supply. Like coal, oil and gas, it will soon run out, leaving scores of giant reactors useless and abandoned.

Waste Storage and Transport
Fifty years ago, the nuclear power industry promised there would be a solution to the problem of high level radioactive waste. Today, we are no closer to managing these uniquely lethal materials than we were in 1957, when the first reactor opened.

Facts You Should Know About RENEWABLE Energy:

A Green Revolution
Renewable energy and increased efficiency comprise the true solution to global warming. Wind, solar, bio-fuels and other forms of renewables form a proven, immensely profitable multi-billion-dollar industry, with rapid growth on the horizon. In concert with increased efficiency, currently available green power technology can power our entire planet, while solving the global warming problem and guaranteeing our future prosperity. Indeed, what was in 1979 viewed by many as “marginal” and “impractical,” renewables are now America’s leading source of cheap, new energy supply.

Wind Power
Commercial-scale wind farms, now a $15 billion/year industry, have jumped forward as the world’s cheapest and fastest-growing new energy producer.

Solar
Photovoltaic (PV) cells, which convert sunlight directly to electricity, can make buildings energy self-sufficient. New breakthroughs are allowing solar features to be integrated into roofing shingles, windows and even paint. Big desert-based power towers and trough-mirror arrays are proving increasingly profitable.

Biofuels
Soy diesel and corn-based ethanol can profitably supplant fossil fuels. Advances using easily grown perennials like switchgrass, hemp, kudzu, algae and a wide range of trees and weeds will make biofuels even cheaper and cleaner.

The Great Biofuels Debate
Skyrocketing demand for energy has carried over to bio-fuels, most importantly corn-based ethanol and soy diesel. Serious environmental objections have been raised against both of them, including the increased pressure on food prices. But is this a function of bad agricultural practices? And what sense does it make to use annual food crops for bio-fuels, when inedible perennials such as switchgrass, hemp and algae could be far cheaper and more ecologically sound? This huge debate will help define the human future.

Geothermal
Geothermal technology uses superheated steam from the Earth’s core to create energy in more than 20 countries worldwide. The steady 55-degree heat of the Earth’s crust also works the building of homes and offices, including large urban skyscrapers. This nature-based technology provides valuable supplemental heat in winter and base-line cooling in summer.

Power from the Waters
The ceaseless power of the oceans’ waves, tides and currents is being harvested with extremely simple new technology whose profitability is advancing quickly.

Closing the Loop on Waste
Conservation and efficiency can save ten times as much energy per dollar invested as nuclear power can produce. When we tighten up our system and cut down on waste, we open the door to a green-powered Earth.

All Americans better get informed soon, for a resurgent atomic power lobby wants the taxpayers to pick up the tab for re-launching this insanely dangerous industry.

Unless we get Congress to stop this highly toxic, dirty, and complex way to boil water to generate steam for electricity, we’ll be paying through the nose forever for this industry’s research, loan guarantees, and the estimated trillion dollars (inflation-adjusted) cost of just one meltdown, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, plus vast immediate and long-range casualties.

The Russian roulette-playing nuclear industry claims that:

1.) A class 9 meltdown will never happen.

2.) That none of the thousands of rail cars, trucks and barges with radioactive wastes will ever have a catastrophic accident.

3.) That terrorists will forgo striking a nuclear plant or hijacking deadly materials, and go for far less consequential disasters.

The worst nuclear reactor accident occurred in 1986 at Chernobyl in what is now Ukraine. Although of a different design than most U.S. reactors, the resultant breach of containment released a radioactive cloud that spread around the globe but concentrated most intensively in Belarus, Ukraine and European Russia and secondarily over 40% of Europe. For different reasons, both governmental and commercial interests were intent on downplaying both the immediate radioactively-caused deaths and diseases and the longer term devastations from this silent, invisible form of violence. They also were not eager to fund follow up monitoring and research.

Now comes the English translation of the most comprehensive, scientific report to date titled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment whose senior author is biologist Alexey V. Yablokov, a member of the prestigious Russian Academy of Sciences.

Purchasable from the New York Academy of Sciences (visit nyas.org/annals), this densely referenced analysis covers the acute radiation inflicted on both the first-responders (called “liquidators”) and on residents nearby, who suffer chronic radioactive sicknesses. “Today,” asserts the report, “more than 6 million people live on land with dangerous levels of contamination—land that will continue to be contaminated for decades to centuries.”

Back to the U.S., where, deplorably, President Obama has called for more funding—$54 billion in taxpayer loan guarantees on top of a previous $18 billion passed under Bush.

You see, Wall Street financiers will not loan companies money to build new nuclear plants which cost $12 billion and up, unless Uncle Sam guarantees one hundred percent of the loan. Strange, if these nuclear power plants are so efficient, so safe, why can’t they be built with unguaranteed private risk capital? The answer to this question came from testimony by Amory B. Lovins, chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, in March 2008 before the [House of Representatives of the U.S.] Select Committee on Energy Independence (rmi.org).

His thesis: “expanding nuclear power would reduce and retard climate protection and energy security…but can’t survive free-market capitalism.”

Making his case with brilliant concision, Lovins, a consultant to business and the Defense Department, demonstrated with numbers and other data that nuclear power “is being dramatically out-competed in the global marketplace by no and low-carbon power resources that deliver far more climate solution per dollar, far faster.”

Lovins doesn’t even include the accident or sabotage risks. He testified that “because it’s [nuclear power] uneconomic and unnecessary, we needn’t inquire into its other attributes.” Renewable energy (solar, wind power), cogeneration and energy efficiencies (megawatts) are now far superior to maintain.

I challenge anybody in the nuclear industry or academia to debate Lovins at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., with a neutral moderator, or before a Congressional Committee.

However, the swarm of nuclear power lobbyists is gaining headway in Congress, spreading their money everywhere and falsely exploiting the concern with global warming fed by fossil fuels.

The powerful nuclear power critics in Congress want the House energy bill to focus on climate change. To diminish the opposition, they entered into a bargain that gave nuclear reactors status with loan guarantees and other subsidies in the same legislation which has passed the House and, as is usual, languishing in the Senate.

Long-time, staunch opponents of atomic power who are leaders in countering climate change, such as Cong. Ed Markey (D-MA), have quieted themselves for the time being, while the Republicans (loving the taxpayer subsidies) and some Democrats are hollering for the nukes.

All this undermines the valiant efforts of the Union of Concerned Scientists, NIRS, Friends of the Earth, and other established citizen groups who favor a far safer, more efficient, faster and more secure energy future for our country and the world.

Just recently, a well-designed and documented pamphlet from Beyond Nuclear summarize the case against nuclear power as “Expensive, Dangerous and Dirty.”

The clear, precise detail and documentation makes for expeditious education of your friends, neighbors and co-workers.

You can download it free and reprint it for wider distribution from http://www.BeyondNuclear.org. It is very well worth the 10 to 15 minutes it takes to absorb the truth about this troubled technology—replete with delays and large cost-overruns–that has been on government welfare since the 1950s. RALPH NADER

that said, it is a political football for those “downstream”. I am surprised that Verga would get in it.

The local/Canadian uranium corp. are telling people that modern mining is so different now that it is safe!

But Canada and Austrilia has lots of leaks in the mining tail ponds and floods washed the poisons into the watersheds, so not it is still a problem.

The local/Canadian uranium corp. tells the local if they are not allowed to dig uranium, the federal govt will seize our land and take it, well th federal govt has know since 1950 it was located at Coles Hills, so I really do not believe it is going to happen.

The local/Canadian uranium corp. says Virginia needs to be energy indepentent, well according to Federal Dept. of Energy, they control uranium and nobody else, DOE will take VA ore and store it when needed, so that will not make VA energy independent:
http://www.energy.gov/news/6069.htm