The Boston Globe --Dec. 13
As the nuclear power industry stages a nationwide comeback, New England is emerging as a major battleground in the industry's campaign to be recognized as a "green" energy source.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative may include clean-air credits for
low-polluting power plants, and nuclear lobbyists have been pushing to be
included.
Many environmentalists oppose the idea, saying it would give a seal of
approval for an industry that presents serious threats to the environment,
including radioactive waste.
"There is tremendous interest in what's happening here because [the
regional plan] would stand as a model for other parts of the country," said
Daniel Sosland, executive director of Environment Northeast, an advocacy group
that opposes giving nuclear power any clean air credits.
For years, states and the federal government have relied on market-based
systems for reducing the pollutants that cause smog and acid rain. The systems
place limits on power plants' total emissions, then allow dirtier plants to
exceed the limits only if they buy "pollution credits" from cleaner
plants. The idea is to encourage companies to build less-polluting plants.
Now, as regulators begin to develop similar systems for carbon dioxide, the
main culprit in global warming, the nuclear industry wants to be rewarded for
not producing any.
Nuclear plants now provide about 20 percent of US electrical power and
generate no acid rain or greenhouse gases -- unlike coal or gas plants, which
can spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other gases into the air each
year.
"Overall, the environmental impact of nuclear is relatively small,"
said Mary M. Quillian, senior manager for environmental policy and programs for
the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group. Quillian said that as
regulators evaluate which energy sources are "clean" and which aren't,
the industry only wants the same consideration as other nonemitting pollution
sources.
Critics counter that nuclear plants may produce no greenhouse gases, but they
can cause huge environmental disasters if they fail. The Chernobyl leak in 1986
sent a radioactive plume over Europe, and thousands of deaths have been blamed
on the accident.
Today, others worry that nuclear plants are a terrorist target. In part
because of these worries, nuclear energy was specifically prohibited from being
considered a green power source under the Kyoto Protocol, a pact among
industrialized nations that limits carbon dioxide emissions. (The United States
has refused to sign the pact.)
Environmentalists also say that the nuclear industry does produce greenhouse
gases -- not at the plant but during mining and uranium enrichment processes
required to get usable fuel. "You have to look at the entire life cycle of
the electricity -- mining, building the plant," said Frank Gorke, energy
advocate for MassPIRG, an environmental group.
Despite those concerns, New Hampshire regulators decided to give the Seabrook
plant credit for not spewing nitrogen oxides last year when the company amended
its program for controlling smog pollutants.
The Seabrook plant has asked the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for
permission to produce more power; if that boost is approved, it may be able to
sell as many as 200 one-ton emission credits for about $3,000 each.
Seabrook is one of five nuclear plants in New England -- two in Connecticut
and one each in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. There are 103
reactors in the country at 64 sites.
Nuclear advocates say that if carbon dioxide emissions are to be slowed,
nuclear energy needs to be part of the equation. To bring that point home to the
public, the Nuclear Energy Institute has been running TV and print ads for
several years touting nuclear as the "clean air energy," featuring
children blowing bubbles and running through fields. (In 2000, the Federal Trade
Commission ruled that a different set of ads made deceptively broad claims about
the environmental benefits of nuclear power, and ordered them pulled off the
air.)
Behind the scenes, the industry has been aggressively pushing to win clean
air credits under new air pollution rules.
In New Hampshire, Seabrook owners lobbied hard to be included as part of the
long-running nitrogen oxides trading program. And now, as the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative gets underway, Quillian, the Nuclear Energy Institute
official, appears at virtually every meeting, patiently and eloquently making
the case for nuclear energy as "clean," those in the meetings say.
The regional deal would include New England, New York, Delaware, and New
Jersey. State regulators are hoping to have a design of the program by April and
start it as early as 2007 or 2008.
Regulators from many of the nine states say it is too early to discuss which
energy sources will be given credit for being clean.
"Some are interested in exploring giving credits to those who create
nuclear power, but the discussion is premature," said Joe O'Keefe, a
spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, who
spoke on behalf of state air regulators involved in the initiative.
Meanwhile, in Connecticut, the owner of that state's two Millstone reactors
is waiting to see whether state regulators will grant a request for clean air
credits like New Hampshire allowed. But the industry's lobbying hasn't always
been successful: Massachusetts rejected a similar attempt last spring.
Seth Kaplan, senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, a regional
advocacy group, said that granting pollution credits to nuclear plants would
undermine the purpose of the program.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, he said, is designed to urge fossil
fuel plants to reduce their pollution -- not allow an already profitable
industry to make more money simply because they don't happen to produce any.
"The nuclear industry's problem is they have a technology that has other
issues that society at best has given a yellow light to, if not a red one,"
Kaplan said.
Nuclear already has a financial advantage under the regional program because
it will never have to buy the clean-air credits that fossil fuel plants will,
Kaplan said.
He and some regulators are pushing for clean-air credits to be reserved for
cleaner technologies that need some sort of financial incentive to build, such
as wind.
Some government groups involved in the initiative have privately indicated
they will walk away from the process if nuclear is given any financial credit.
But nuclear advocates are standing firm.
"We have all this generation and it produces zero emissions," said
Brent Dorsey, director of corporate environmental programs for Entergy, which
owns Vermont Yankee and the Pilgrim plant. "We are the unsung hero for
clean air."
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