Climate debate puts nuclear plants back on the table

Fifteen years ago, the owner of the Prairie Island nuclear plant in Red Wing was in the fight of its life to continue producing electricity there. The company's request to expand its radioactive waste storage dominated the Legislature for months.

Today Xcel Energy is well on its way toward receiving a 20-year extension of Prairie Island's license, and some legislators want to open the state to more nuclear power.

After years of exile, nuclear plants are back on drawing boards around the country as carbon-free alternatives to power plants fueled by coal or natural gas.

No nuclear plants have been proposed in Minnesota, but a move to undo the state law that effectively bans them may get a hearing next month.

"It defies logic, reason and science that Minnesota has a law on the books prohibiting new nuclear plants," said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, author of a bill to repeal it.

However, others say that nuclear power is far too costly and risky compared with solar, wind and other renewable fuels still in the early stages of large-scale development.

Times have changed

What's changed in Minnesota and the nation since the 1994 Prairie Island debate, said Rick Lancaster of Great River Energy, is the concern about climate change and the need to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

As a vice president of the electric cooperative, Lancaster said nuclear needs to be back on the table as an option, in addition to more energy conservation and wind power. Demand for electricity will increase, he said, and nuclear offers reliable power without producing greenhouse gases.

Great River has no plans to build a nuclear plant, said Lancaster, but has been discussing it. "We have asked Xcel if they decide to build another nuclear plant to consider us as a possible partner," he said. "They said they'd be glad to keep us apprised."

Terry Pickens, Xcel's director of nuclear regulatory policy, said that the utility is focused on extending the licenses and expanding the amount of power produced at its Prairie Island and Monticello nuclear plants.

"We don't have any plans for a new nuclear plant in any of the states that we operate in," Pickens said.

Xcel supports but is not "actively pushing" proposals to remove the ban on new nuclear plants in Minnesota, he said.

'We're restarting the industry'

The nuclear option is much more active elsewhere; 17 companies have filed applications with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build 26 new plants.

"We're basically restarting the industry," said Tom Kauffman, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association. He expects that four new nuclear plants will be up and running by 2018 and that more will follow.

"Right now nuclear power is the number one source of low-carbon, pollution-free baseload power," Kauffman said. "It's really the only option to replace coal."

Renewable power such as solar and wind are intermittent, Kauffman said, whereas nuclear plants can operate for hundreds of days between refueling outages.

Not so clean, say opponents

Some Minnesotans say that's a deceptively rosy picture. Nuclear has huge drawbacks, they say.

"It's completely dishonest to call it clean," said Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul. "It has less carbon emissions, but it has highly toxic dangerous waste."

Anderson said that most of the concerns about nuclear power debated 15 years ago at the Capitol still have not been solved. No permanent federal disposal plan is in place for the waste, which is highly radioactive for thousands of years, she said. The plants cost billions of dollars and demand huge taxpayer subsidies. "I don't think people should be fooled," Anderson said.

The Prairie Island tribe that borders Xcel's plant also opposes lifting the state's moratorium on new plants. Storing radioactive wastes 600 yards from the community has been an unfair burden, according to a tribal council position paper.

"It is simply irresponsible to allow the construction of new nuclear power plants anywhere in the United States until the government solves the nuclear waste problem," leaders said.

Environmental groups have opposed new nuclear power plants, and a dozen other states besides Minnesota, including Wisconsin, have restrictions on nuclear power development until the waste issue is resolved or nuclear plants are economically feasible.

Bill Grant, executive director of the Izaak Walton League's Midwest office, said it should come as no surprise that nuclear advocates have seized on climate change as a lifeline for their industry. He disputes the notion that renewables cannot fill much of the need for future power.

"Moving toward nuclear power as a solution to climate change could be a real distraction," he said. "There are clearly better alternatives that we've only begun to invest in."

Rep. Bill Hilty, DFL-Finlayson, said that the Legislative Energy Commission, which he co-chairs, will hold a hearing in late March on proposals to remove the moratorium on new nuclear plants in Minnesota. The risks and benefits of nuclear power make it a complex issue, said Hilty, who said he remains open-minded.

"We need to air this out at least to the point that people get some hard facts, instead of doom and gloom or silver-bullet thinking about the issue," he said.

Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388