NEWS MEDIA ADVISORY FOR  FEBRUARY 23, 2011
CONTACT: Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists, 202-331-5439

NATIONAL SCIENCE GROUP TO RELEASE REPORT CATALOGUING DECADES OF TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES TO NUCLEAR POWER AS THE INDUSTRY DEMANDS BILLIONS MORE

REPORT FINDS THE VALUE OF SUBSIDIES OFTEN EXCEED MARKET PRICE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY PRODUCED

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will hold a telephone press conference to release a new report detailing the full range of subsidies that have benefitted the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States over the last 50 years. The report found that subsidies for the entire nuclear fuel cycle -- from uranium mining to long-term waste storage -- have often exceeded the average market price of the power produced. In other words, if the government had purchased power on the open market and given it away for free, it would have been less costly than subsidizing nuclear power plant construction and operation.

Pending and proposed subsidies for new nuclear reactors would shift even more costs and risks from the industry to taxpayers and ratepayers. The president’s new budget proposal would provide an additional $36 billion in taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees to underwrite the construction of new reactors. That would nearly triple the amount of loan guarantees already available to the industry.

WHO
Ellen Vancko, UCS Nuclear Energy & Climate Change Project manager, Washington, D.C.
Doug Koplow, founder, Earth Track, Inc., Cambridge, Mass. (report author)

WHEN
Wednesday, February 23, 2011, 1 p.m. EST

WHERE
The comfort of your own office. Call: 866-793-1307; Conference ID: UCS nuclear subsidies teleconference

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The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C. For more information, go to www.ucsusa.org.

From In These Times:

In their rush to approve a newly designed nuclear reactor slated for proposed power plants throughout the southeastern United States, federal regulators are ignoring safety issues raised by a pattern of containment failures in reactors. That’s the urgent message at the center of two recent reports examining the design of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is in the process of certifying.

Both reports were written by Arnold Gundersen, a former senior nuclear industry official and chief engineer of Fairewinds Associates, Inc., an independent research firm. The initial report was released in April 2010, and the follow-up report released in late December. They were commissioned by the AP1000 Oversight Group, a coalition of environmental organizations centered in the Southeast, where construction of 14 new nuclear power plants has been proposed. Because of the safety issues documented by Gundersen, the coalition is contesting certification of the AP1000.

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SENIOR REACTOR AND REACTOR OPERATOR lNlTlAL EXAMINATIONS - THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR STATION, UNIT 1

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From Reuters:

The United States' reliance on coal to generate almost half of its electricity, costs the economy about $345 billion a year in hidden expenses not borne by miners or utilities, including health problems in mining communities and pollution around power plants, a study found.

Those costs would effectively triple the price of electricity produced by coal-fired plants, which are prevalent in part due to the their low cost of operation, the study led by a Harvard University researcher found.

"This is not borne by the coal industry, this is borne by us, in our taxes," said Paul Epstein, a Harvard Medical School instructor and the associate director of its Center for Health and the Global Environment, the study's lead author.

"The public cost is far greater than the cost of the coal itself. The impacts of this industry go way beyond just lighting our lights."

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From the New York Times:

The attorneys general of New York, Connecticut and Vermont sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday, challenging a new commission policy stating that nuclear waste can be safely stored at a nuclear power plant for 60 years after a reactor goes out of service.

The three states argued that the policy, adopted in December, violated two federal laws requiring that a full environmental review be carried out at each nuclear site before permission for long-term storage could be granted.

“Our communities deserve a thorough review of the environmental, public health and safety risks such a move would present,” New York’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, said in a statement.

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From NC WARN:

Duke Energy is billing customers for billions of dollars worth of workhorse power plants that sit idle much of the time or which spew coal pollution while on standby – without generating electricity. Yet the utility is building another large coal unit and seeking licenses for new nuclear reactors, which would provide huge boosts to revenues and electricity rates.

Duke’s surplus capacity will last indefinitely, and it extends far beyond the small, older units the utility has said it will retire in coming years. Progress Energy also enjoys surplus generation with so-called baseload plants – its nuclear reactors and largest coal units. State regulators should proceed toward closing all under-used coal units, and should cancel licensing efforts for new nuclear reactors.

NC WARN has submitted these findings, based on our analysis of utility data, to the NC Utilities Commission and we’re calling for an evidentiary hearing.

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Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, Unit 1 - Request for Additional Information Regarding License amendment Request Proposing changes to the Number of Required Operable Main Steam Safety Valves

Download ML110350379 (PDF)

From International Business Times:

One of the ongoing problems with unclear non-proliferation efforts is what to do with nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. A group from Sandia National Laboratories recently completed a project in Kazakhstan, and took another step towards securing it.

A large cache of enriched nuclear fuel - some 13 metric tons -- was stored in a nuclear reactor in the port city of Aktau, on the Caspian seacoast. The reactor was a Soviet-era fast breeder reactor, designed to make nuclear fuel for both weapons and power plants. The reactor, which started operations in 1973, also provided 135 megawatts of electricity, 9 million gallons of water per day and steam for hot water and heating for Aktau. It was shut down by the Kazakh government in 1999.

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From the Wall Street Journal:

Buried in the details of President Barack Obama's budget release Monday will be more than $770 million that nuclear-power companies pay each year for a waste-storage site that's years behind schedule.

But this might be the last year the White House can count on that income.

Nuclear-power companies are pressing to suspend the hefty fees they pay into the national nuclear-waste fund. Created by Congress in 1982, this fund was designed to finance the government's storage of radioactive waste. And, until recently, it was to pay for a new waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

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From Green Mountain Daily:

Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and David Vitter, R-La., say applications for the Pilgrim nuclear station in Plymouth, Mass., and the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, whose owner, Entergy Corp., applied for 20-year license extensions for the two on the same day, Jan. 27, 2006, are taking too long.

...and...

Vitter, who represents Louisiana, Entergy's home state, has received $20,000 in campaign contributions from the company since the 2002 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington-based group that tracks money in politics.

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