The loss of local control

While it will take a decade or more for a nuclear reactor to be fully licensed and constructed in Green River, Emery County’s role in the process could end in the next few weeks. 

That's because once Emery County decides to sell and rezone land in Green River for nuclear reactors, the process moves from the County’s control into the hands of the federal government.

Because Emery County Commissioners have already agreed to a final lease agreement with SITLA and to the contracts with Transition Power and Bluerock, the County Commission's role is essentially over.  The process is now in the hands of the County Planning Commission and could move to the Green River Planning Commission if Green River City decides to annex the industrial park.

The Green River City Council is meeting on Tuesday, September 9th, at 7:00pm to discuss the proposal.  The Emery County Planning Commission will be meeting in Green River at 48 Farrer Street on Wednesday, September 10th, at 7:00pm to discuss the rezoning of the industrial park.

Because the only approvals Transition Power needs from Emery County are for the sale and rezoning of the parcel of land, the bottom line is decisions about the nuclear project will soon be left to government regulators at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  The NRC will hold public meetings in Green River, but the NRC has never denied an operating license for a nuclear reactor on any grounds. 

How many reactors are built, where the nuclear waste is stored, and who the power is sold to will be out of the County’s control, as will how much water is withdrawn from the Green River for use in the reactors.

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Job (un)certainty

Emery County has stated its primary objective in acquiring land from SITLA is to increase employment and economic development in the County. These are vitally important goals.

But in putting most of its economic development eggs in the nuclear basket, the County is placing itself in a vulnerable position. 2,240 of the 2,500 acres the County is acquiring from SITLA for the Green River Industrial Park are now slated for uranium milling or nuclear reactors.

The promise of thousands of nuclear jobs coming to Green River is certainly enticing, but County leaders and residents should give Transition Power's proposal thorough scrutiny.  If a developer came to Green River and promised to build the finest beachfront resort the world has ever seen, he would no doubt be laughed out of town, even if he said his project would bring in billions of dollars of investment.  A reality check is needed in this instance as well.

With history as a guide, any investment in a nuclear reactor has less than a 50/50 chance of paying off.

Why?  For starters, there have been more reactor orders cancelled (121) than completed (104) in the United States. Just half of these cancelled reactors account for over $50 billion in lost investment.¹

While public opposition and lawsuits are most commonly cited for reactor cancelations and delay, this is in fact inaccurate.  A Congressional report from 1978 found that a total of 229 plant-month delays (nearly 20 years) stemmed from poor productivity, shortages, and breakdowns while only 32 plant-months of delays came from regulatory changes and citizen challenges. Of the 68 nuclear plants to announce delays by 1977, only 14 attributed those delays to licensing and litigation problems.²

These delays put such serious economic strain on nuclear utilities that by 1977 (two years before Three Mile Island) there were fewer new plant orders than there were in the early 1960s. Since 1978, no nuclear plants have been ordered in the U.S.

Nuclear electricity is at least as risky an investment today as it was in the 1970s.  If bringing jobs to Emery County is the goal, there are certainly much safer bets.

Besides this, nuclear power plants are in danger of becoming economically obsolete even before they are built. Wind energy is already more economical than nuclear energy, and the U.S. Department of Energy expects solar energy costs to be equal to or less than nuclear costs by 2015.³ Thus, solar energy could be supplying cheaper, more scalable, and more rapidly deployable energy in the decade before the first new nuclear reactor even comes online.

If Transition Power decides the economics don’t work, Emery County could be left with land sitting vacant for years (the “Early Site Permit” that Transition Power plans to apply for from the NRC allows the company to bank the land for up to 40 years). Or, SITLA could buy back the land from Transition Power at cost if it is not developed, which would leave Emery County with a lost development opportunity and back where it started.

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If they build it, who will pay?

Nuclear power is exorbitantly expensive.  Current estimates put construction costs at around $12 billion per reactor and estimates continue to rise⁴ (for comparison, the state of Utah's budget in 2008 was $5.8 billion).

Before entering the nuclear power business, Rep. Tilton worked for a company that sold Viagra, Cialis, Propecia and Levitra online.⁵  What assurances does Emery County have that Transition Power can raise the billions of dollars needed to bring a nuclear reactor to Green River?  If Rep. Tilton can't come up with the needed capital, who will be asked to pay?

For starters, it could be Emery County.  According to its proposal, Emery County “does plan to use tax dollars for this development.” As nearby private property values increase, those incremental tax funds will be used for needed improvements. A new Water Conservancy District may also be created with taxing power to improve water delivery.⁶ With Transition Power’s project more likely to fail than succeed, these investments could be stranded.

But even if it succeeds, everyone will be paying tax dollars for new nuclear power plants because nuclear energy is the most heavily subsidized energy sector in U.S. history.

In the last 30 years, more government subsidies have gone to nuclear power than to fossil fuels, renewable energy, and energy efficiency combined. And this year, the nuclear industry asked Congress for $50 billion in federal loan guaranties backed by taxpayers.⁷

Private investors are reluctant to invest in nuclear reactors because of the incredible expense and because the industry’s track record of failed projects, delays, and cost overruns means return on investment may never come.

So the industry demands taxpayers and ratepayers pick up the tab. But after 50 years, shouldn’t the nuclear industry be required to get out of our pockets and survive on its own? 

For those planning to get electricity from a nuclear reactor, things get even worse. Florida Power and Light and Progress Energy, two utilities planning to build nuclear reactors in Florida, estimate electricity rates from the proposed plants will be in the range of 14-18 cents/kilowatt-hour. In comparison, Utahns pay an average of 5.2 cents/kwh.

Electricity from a nuclear reactor will be two to three times what we pay in Utah.

Last year, Rep. Tilton, CEO of Transition Power, sat on a legislative committee that considered letting utility companies recover the enormous construction costs of nuclear reactors from ratepayers, even before a reactor comes online and even if it never comes online. While the legislation did not pass, it is something any Utahn planning to get electricity from a nuclear reactor should watch out for.

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Waste in Green River, power to California

Because Emery County (and most of Utah) gets its power from Rocky Mountain Power, a reactor built here will likely sell its power out of state. This is because Rocky Mountain Power is reluctant to buy power it doesn’t generate (it can’t make a profit) and it is unlikely to build and operate a reactor of its own.

As evidence, consider that earlier this year, MidAmerican Energy, the parent company of Rocky Mountain Power, abandoned plans to build a nuclear plant in Idaho because, in their words, “it does not make economic sense.”

The end result of Transition Power’s plans will be high-level nuclear waste created and stored in Utah so California can turn on its lights.

No country in the world has found a disposal solution for the spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors—which are a million times more radioactive then when first loaded, lethal within seconds when unshielded, and have to be isolated for hundreds of thousands of years. Our own country’s attempt at Yucca Mountain is decades behind schedule and billions of dollars away from completion.

Therefore, the high-level nuclear waste that Utah fought for a decade to keep out of Skull Valley will remain here for 50 to 100 years or longer. Emery County will have to live with the risks and liabilities of storing this waste for generations, while other states enjoy the benefits.

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Water

Nuclear reactors require enormous amounts of water, more than coal, oil, and natural gas plants, and much more than solar or wind.⁸ Utah is the second driest state in the nation, and there is much concern about the Colorado River Compact’s adequacy going into the future.

Rep. Tilton’s plant would be the first on the Colorado River System, and the first commercial reactors in the Intermountain West. So far, Transition Power has acquired leases to over 53,000 acre-feet of water a year from San Juan and Kane Counties:

¤Kane County:
-Water Right 89-74 — 13,670 acre feet
-Water Right 89-1285 — 15,750 acre feet
-Water Right 89-1513 — 180 acre feet
¤San Juan County:
-Water Right 09-462 — 24,000 acre feet
¤Total: 53,600 acre feet/yr (~60 million gallons a day)

In order for Transition Power to be able to use these water rights, the State Water Engineer needs to approve a change in the point of diversion to Green River. If approved, 60 million gallons of water a day may be taken out above the town of Green River that was not being withdrawn before.

Whether or not the Green can even sustain a nuclear reactor is another question. Last year, significant droughts in the Southeast, an area not known for its desert climate, forced reactors to power and shut down.⁹

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Boom and bust (again)...

You don’t have to look far to see the dramatic and often devastating effect the boom and bust cycles of the nuclear industry have left in Utah.

Our state is home to thousands of abandoned uranium mines that have cost taxpayers millions to clean up, and that sickened or killed many during their operation during the 1950s and 60s. It is now expected to cost over $1 billion dollars to clean up just one uranium mill site—the Atlas Mill in Moab—and it’s cost millions more to clean up the other uranium mill sites we had in Utah. These are costs borne by taxpayers, not the companies that created these messes.

In the town of Monticello, where a uranium mill operated until the 1960s, cancers have been found in 500 current or former residents in a town of 2,000.

And while the recent run up in uranium prices fueled a speculation that has resulted in tens of thousands of new uranium mining claims in Utah, prices have since plummeted from a high of $120 per pound last July to near $50 today.

Nuclear reactor construction is necessarily its own type of boom and bust cycle as thousands of construction jobs are needed to build the plants, which are of course terminated when the job is done.

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An alternative vision

With its location near major rail and transportation lines, Green River is ideally suited to become a major hub for the manufacturing and distribution of components for renewable energy generation.

The generation of electricity from wind, solar, and geothermal sources is taking off across the west. In 2006 alone, the equivalent of two nuclear reactors worth of wind came online in the U.S. (this while a new reactor hasn’t been ordered since 1978).

The Utah State Geologic Survey estimates that wind power could supply 25% of Utah’s energy demand in 10 years at competitive prices (often cheaper than coal) and with rapid deployment.

There is also enormous solar power potential in Utah, and costs are expected to be competitive or below nuclear costs within a decade.

Geothermal power in Utah could potentially supply power for up to 2.5 million people. Expansion of geothermal plants is currently happening in Iron and Beaver Counties.

To meet the growing demand, companies are opening manufacturing plants all over the west. In Colorado, for example, a major global wind company called Vestas has plans to open two wind turbine manufacturing plants with total employment of 1,350.¹⁰ In New Mexico, Schott AG is opening a solar manufacturing plant that is expected to employ as many as 1,500.¹¹

Emery County could play host to companies like these as well. And because the renewable energy industry is economically competitive to nuclear power, and is not subject to the same boom and bust cycles (its fuel—wind, sunlight, heat underground—is free), it would create more job security, provide economic stability and help relieve our energy crisis faster than nuclear power ever could.

Emery County has the potential to spur the development of truly clean, safe, and economical energy that could help power Utah for generations to come.

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Join the discussion

Have questions or concerns?  Sign up to receive alerts from HEAL Utah and stay informed.

• Attend the upcoming Green River City Council Meeting on Tuesday, September 9th at 7:00pm.  Ask questions and give input on the proposal to build nuclear reactors and a uranium mill in Emery County.
• Attend the Emery County Planning Commission Meeting on Wednesday, September 10th, at 7:00pm at 48 E Farrer St, Green River.
• Contact your county commissioners with questions.
  Commissioners: Drew Sitterud (drew@co.emery.ut.us), Gary Kofford (gary@co.emery.ut.us), Jeff Horrocks (jeff@co.emery.ut.us)
  Commission Phone: 435-381-2119
• File a protest before the State Water Engineer when Transition Power requests to change the point of diversion for its water rights from Kane and San Juan Counties to Green River
  To be notified when this occurs, call 801-538-7240 or sign up here
• Call the Utah Trust Lands Administration and ask them to not allow more uranium mills or a nuclear reactor to be built on School Trust Land
  SITLA: 801-538-5100

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Footnotes

1. Komanoff Energy Associates, Fiscal Fission: The Economic Failure of Nuclear Power, 1992.
2.  “Nuclear Power Costs: 23rd Report by the Committee on Government Operations,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C. 1978.
3.  Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Science for Democratic Action, Vol. 15, No. 2, January 2008.
4.  "U.S. gives nuclear power a second look," National Public Radio, March 28, 2008.
5. "Meet the would be nuclear power king," Salt Lake Tribune, November 4, 2007.
6.  Emery County Economic Development Department, “Response to Request for Proposal, Green River Industrial Project,” December 2007.
7.  Public Citizen, “Nuclear’s Fatal Flaws,”: http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/articles.cfm?ID=13449
8.  Nuclear reactors require 26% more water per kwh than coal, 44% more than oil, and 148% more than natural gas plants, and use 600 times more water than wind and 30 times more than solar. American Wind Energy Association: http://www.awea.org/faq/water.html
9.  "Drought could force nuclear reactors in southeast to shutdown," Associated Press, January 24, 2008.
10. "Wind turbine maker Vestas adding 1,350 Colo. jobs," Denver Post, Aug 15, 2008.
11. "New Mexico attracts solar manufacturing plant," Washington Post, March 4, 2008.