Dec 29 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Karen Dillon The Kansas City Star, Mo.

We'll soon see how much Missourians want a new nuclear power plant.

A Missouri utility wants to build a second nuclear plant in Callaway County -- if ratepayers will pony up before the plant opens.

But that is against the law in Missouri, where utilities are prohibited from charging ratepayers for plants that have not been built.

So a showdown is looming in the General Assembly on whether to change the law to allow a 1,600-megawatt nuclear plant to be built by AmerenUE.

Groups for and against building the plant have quickly formed.

"We don't need a nuclear power plant at this point," said Melissa Hope of the Sierra Club. "We will get more bang for our buck with energy efficiency and wind and renewable (energy)."

Others say a nuclear plant offers a move away from fossil fuels and would bolster the economy by providing hundreds of short-term construction jobs and permanent plant jobs.

"I think it is safe to say we are going to do whatever we can to help make the plant a reality," said Bubs Hohulin, spokesman for Sen. Carl Vogel, a Republican whose district includes Callaway County.

No new nuclear plants have been built in the United States since the 1970s because of concerns about radiation spills and nuclear fuel waste. But the public now seems more amenable to building them.

The U.S. Department of Energy has received at least 30 license applications for nuclear plants, including AmerenUE's request, which was filed in July.

The problem facing AmerenUE: It can't afford to build the plant with the credit market so tight. And construction costs for nuclear plants have gone up. The industry has estimated it would take from $6 billion to $11 billion to build the plant, which wouldn't go online until about 2018 to 2020.

In the past, privately owned utilities have paid for new nuclear or coal-fired power plants by building them and billing ratepayers later.

But AmerenUE wants ratepayers to pick up the tab while the plant is being built -- not afterward. And utility officials have asked state legislators to repeal the law that prohibits them from charging customers for building a plant before the work is done.

That has put consumer groups on alert, and the fight over billing ratepayers already has intensified.

AmerenUE set up a political action committee before the fall election season and contributed $325,000 to numerous election campaigns, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission.

(Four years ago, donations were only about a third as much.)

The utility also has been lobbying state legislators to change the law.

Mike Cleary, AmerenUE spokesman, cautioned that AmerenUE has not yet made a commitment to build the plant.

"I can't really get into how we would finance the plant, but of course the ability to finance it would be a key issue," Cleary said.

The utility's intentions to make ratepayers pay for the plant before it is built became clear last summer in a double-digit rate-increase case before the Missouri Public Service Commission. The increase includes AmerenUE's expenses of $51 million to file its nuclear plant license permit with the federal government.

Environmental and consumer groups intervened in the case, and the PSC staff also has advised the commission to deny the request to include the $51 million in the rate increase.

The commission will decide early next year whether to raise rates with or without the $51 million, said PSC spokesman Kevin Kelly.

By then it's widely thought the General Assembly will be wrangling with the issue. A bill already is in the works.

"Should ratepayers pay as you go or wait 10 years to begin paying?" said Sen. Charlie Shields, a St. Joseph Republican who will likely be the senate's president pro tem when the session convenes in January.

"One of the things we all want is for Missouri to have energy independence and low-cost electrical energy because it affects our ability to attract businesses to the state. At the same time, you have to be responsible for ratepayers."

The arguments:

--The law. Voters passed it overwhelmingly in 1976.

Supporters of the law say changing it would transfer the risk of a project from the investors to customers, who would be paying for plants that might never be completed or produce power. They also say utilities may build more capacity than they need if they can charge ratepayers before the plant is online.

"There are a number of problems, the least of which is it shifts a lot of the risk onto the utility's customer -- for example, the plant is not built properly, there are cost overruns, it comes in late," said Lewis Mills, head of the Missouri Office of Public Counsel. "Things like that normally would be on the back of investors."

But AmerenUE's officials have said that without ratepayer assistance the risk would be too great and it's unlikely the stockholders and board of directors would approve the project. They also point out that their rates are about 40 percent below the national average.

Besides, Cleary said, he thinks customers would save money in the long run by paying as they go. He said it was similar to a credit card.

"If you don't make payments for five years on your credit card, you are paying interest on top of interest," he said. "If you could pay for some of that along the way, the ultimate amount you would be paying would be less."

--The need. AmerenUE officials project that they will need another nuclear or coal plant by about 2018 to ensure the energy supply is reliable.

But environmentalists question whether energy use will increase, as the utility industry projects.

They point to a recent Wall Street Journal article saying that there is a drop in demand and that some utilities wonder if that decrease will result in a seismic change in the way utilities do business.

--The environment. Ameren- UE says the plant is a green energy source -- it's clean and it has no greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

But nuclear plant opponents say disposing of nuclear waste remains a huge challenge. The radioactive waste at the Callaway 1 nuclear plant is being stored there. Yucca Mountain in Nevada was selected by the federal government as a permanent storage facility, but state officials there are continuing to fight that.

For the time being, environmentalists say energy conservation is the way to wean Americans off coal plants. In addition, renewable energy such as solar and wind power needs to increase exponentially.

"We don't need to use nearly as many power plants that we currently have installed, let alone build new ones," said Mark Haim, chairman for Missourians for Safe Energy, a project under Peaceworks. "We need to move as quickly as possible to put renewable energy in place."

But Cleary said renewable energy only provides intermittent service.

"I think everybody is in favor of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources," Cleary said, adding that the utility plans to add 100 megawatts of wind power in 2010.

"Efficiency is a way of preserving and stretching out the energy supplies, but efficiency doesn't put out a single kilowatt," he said.

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