Legislator Touts Nuke Bill, But Industry Remains Noncommittal

California Assemblymember Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine) has introduced legislation that would repeal California's ban on building nuclear power plants, claiming it is the only power source available that can bring reliability to the grid and help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

"I intend to bring this bill back every year that I'm in the Legislature until it passes because the people of the state of California will eventually get sick and tired of having quadruple electrical rates and blackouts," DeVore told California Energy Markets in an interview on Monday.

AB 719 would repeal the California law that prohibits building nuclear power plants in the state until the federal government has a satisfactory way to store radioactive waste. Introduced late last month, DeVore's bill has not yet been referred to a committee for action.

As it awaits legislative review, the newly minted bill has not garnered any public support from energy industry stakeholders. The Independent Energy Producers Assoc., for instance, has not yet taken a position on the bill, said Jan Smutny-Jones, the trade group's executive director.

The California Manufacturers and Technology Assoc. has the bill on its "watch list," reported spokesman Gino DiCarlo, but it has not had time to decide whether to support it. But in general, CMTA supports nuclear power, he said.

The California Large Energy Consumers Assoc. also is taking a noncommittal stance for now. "We don't have a position on the bill," said spokeswoman Barbara Barkovich. Like the CMTA, CLECA generally supports nuclear power as part of the state's energy mix, she said.

The debate over the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada still rages, with opponents declaring the project dead. The Bush administration thinks differently, and has pledged $500 million to keep the project alive. That dovetails with a new Yucca bill that U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman intends to get introduced in Congress.

While the federal government works on a waste site, California groups such as Santa Barbara's Community Environmental Council and the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace have been fighting against the construction or operation of nuclear power plants in the state. In recent years, Mothers for Peace has waged a multi-year war against Pacific Gas & Electric's effort to build an on-site dry-cask waste storage facility at its Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

Waste storage is an issue worthy of concern, but that should not keep the permitting process from taking place, DeVore said. It will take 10 years to build a plant and generate the first spent fuel rods, he said. "With all the attention the federal government is placing on creating alternatives for fuels that are not dependent on the unstable Middle East and don't make [carbon dioxide], given that nuclear is the only one that fills both of those requirements, it seems to me that we are very soon to have an approved long-term storage facility."

Given that the state has a new GHG bill, AB 32, that will be in effect before a waste site is opened, "then it seems to me that we are begging to have brownouts, rolling blackouts, dramatically higher rates for both consumers and manufacturers . . . and I'm not willing to sit around to wait for the grid to power down because we've passed AB 32," DeVore explained. The governor signed the bill, which aims to cut GHG emissions 25 percent by 2020, in September.

Adding to DeVore's sense of urgency is an emerging movement by other states to embrace nuclear power. "If we wait, we're going to be behind the queue with other states that will have approved new facilitates, like South Carolina is doing. And given that there is only so much bandwidth in the international community of companies that make nuclear reactors, if we wait and get behind the queue, we could be robbing ourselves of several years' worth of start," he said. "I don't see how we have the luxury of waiting."

While the bill waits for a decision from the Legislature, a Fresno investment group and a consortium of energy and construction companies say the time is ripe to build a new nuclear plant in California. Fresno Nuclear Energy Group, which includes Fresno Public Utilities Chair John Hutson, signed a letter of intent with developer UniStar Nuclear to build a $4 billion, 1,600 MW nuclear power plant in the city.

Currently, California has four nuclear power units at two sites producing over 4,400 MW, or about 16 percent of the state's energy needs. PG&E's 2,200 MW Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is located in San Luis Obispo. The 2,254 MW San Onofre Generating Station, owned jointly by Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and several municipal utilities, is south of Los Angeles [Steven Greenlee].



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