We power transit with solar, wind, wave, tidal, etc. Ann Garrison wrote:
Last Friday I got a message from the Nuclear Information Research Service heaping praise on Nancy Pelosi for kicking the nuke power loan guarantees out of the Clean Energy Bill, which is still full of cellulose ethanol garbage to starve even more of the world.
And, now the nuke power loan guarantees are right back, this time in this Omnibus Appropriations Bill, and I highly suspect that Nancy's responsible. So, here's NIRS's latest urgent plea.
Relevance to Transpo? How do we power mass transit? With nuclear power?
URGENT!
Congress may vote on appropriations/nuclear loan guarantees Tuesday night!
ACT NOW! Stop $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees!
Friends,
We are hearing today that there is behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the House and Senate appropriations committees to approve a giant loan guarantee package in the omnibus appropriations bill, and that this bill could reach the House floor as early as Tuesday night. The Senate would then vote on the bill as early as Wednesday. According to some reports, the appropriators are considering as much as $45 Billion in loan guarantees for energy projects, with $25 Billion of that being allocated for new nuclear reactors.
This is the worst type of legislation. Not only would it pay for the Iraq war in exchange for a few billion dollars in domestic projects, but it is being done almost covertly, in a mammoth spending bill that virtually no Congressmember would actually have the chance to read before voting. We need to let Congress know this type of spending bill, with these types of priorities, is simply unacceptable.
Your actions kept the nuclear loan guarantees out of the House energy bill. Now we all need to act again, louder and stronger than ever.
*We have moved up the deadline for signing on to the letter below (which has more than 65 organizational signers so far). If your organization has not yet signed, please do so by 11 am Eastern time tomorrow, Tuesday, December 11. We intend to put out a press release on it tomorrow afternoon.
To sign, please send your name, organization, city and state to nirsnet@nirs.org.
*And everyone: please call both of your Senators and your House representative on Tuesday—Republican, Democrat, Independent. Every member needs to hear the message: NO TAXPAYER LOAN GUARANTEES FOR NEW NUCLEAR REACTORS. Period.
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Thank you for all you do!
Michael Mariotte Executive Director Nuclear Information and Resource Service nirsnet@nirs.org; 301-270-6477
Text of the Sign-on Letter
December 11, 2007
Dear Congressmember:
We urge you to keep costly loan guarantees for nuclear power out of the Energy and Water and omnibus appropriations bills.
The Administration proposed $9 billion for all energy loan guarantees and the House approved $7 billion for all energy loan guarantees in FY 2008. Yet, the media has reported that the Energy and Water Appropriations conferees are considering $25 billion in loan guarantees exclusively to the nuclear industry.
There has been little to no Congressional debate on this large sum of money. There has also been no discussion or hearings on the implications for other energy projects, if the $25 billion nuclear loan guarantee package is passed. $25 billion is more than the entire annual budget for the Department of Energy. Doesn’t Congress have the obligation to debate the ramifications of risking $25 billion?
Moreover, there is no hurry for a nuclear loan guarantee package: no nuclear utilities will be in a position in 2008 to use any federal funds for new reactor construction. Only four utilities so far have submitted applications for new reactors and the NRC licensing process is expected to take a minimum of 30 months for complete applications referencing certified standardized reactor designs. But none of the applications has been certified as complete by the NRC (Constellation Energy so far is missing half its application; NRG Energy’s application has deficiencies the NRC projects will take a year to correct), and none of the applications references a certified standardized reactor design (while the NRC Energy application references a standardized design, NRG is seeking 16 changes from the design as certified; TVA is seeking major changes from its standardized design; while Constellation and Dominion Resources are both seeking licensing of reactor designs that have not yet gone through the certification process). It will be at least 2011, and probably later, before any utility can begin reactor construction.
The cost of new atomic reactors, and thus the usefulness of loan guarantees, is an issue that Congress has not yet fully explored. Cost estimates by nuclear utilities for new reactors have essentially doubled over the past two years, and are far above the $1,500-$2,000/ kilowatt price the Nuclear Energy Institute said in 2005 was necessary to make nuclear power economically competitive. In October 2007, Moody’s Investor Service estimated that new reactors will cost far more than the nuclear utilities have estimated. Indeed, Moody’s estimates that new U.S. reactors will cost from $5,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt. If Moody’s is correct, a 1,600 MW reactor such as that proposed by Constellation for the Calvert Cliffs, Maryland site would cost from $8 to nearly $10 billion. Risking taxpayer funds on a project with such dubious cost-effectiveness would be unwise— especially years before the funds could actually be used. A full Congressional examination of nuclear construction costs should be undertaken before large amounts of taxpayer funds are risked.
The Energy Department's Office of Inspector General warned in September that even $9 billion in loan guarantees proposed by the Department for FY 2008 "will result in significant risk to the American taxpayer." What would $25 billion mean to the American taxpayer, especially given the skyrocketing cost estimates for new nuclear reactors?
Not only is the nuclear industry not ready to use loan guarantees, it is far from clear that the Department of Energy is yet capable of managing such an enormous program. By way of comparison, the U.S. Export-Import Bank—staffed with recognized experts in banking and lending--reported guaranteeing 736 loans valued at $8.2 billion in FY 2006. The Department of Energy does not have a similar expertise.
We urge you to accept this summer’s decision of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, which determined that no loan guarantee funding should go for nuclear power projects in FY 2008.
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---Ann Garrison
anniegarrison@mac.com (415) 285-7259 (415) 786-6839 "El-Baradei has as much intention of stopping proliferation as George Bush has of stopping the drug trade." --Craig Reishus, Nuclear Free Future Awards, http://www.nuclear- free.com/english/frames7.htm
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