More than 185 organizations sent a letter today urging Congress not to provide loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors in the omnibus appropriations bill now being crafted on Capitol Hill.
The organizations included environmental, religious, peace and democracy groups, along with sustainable energy businesses and associations, family farms, and more. Organizations in 38 states and Washington, DC, were represented, including many of the nations leading environmental and safe energy groups: Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Environment America, Public Citizen, NukeFree.org, Clean Water Action, Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends of the Earth and more. The signatures were collected by Nuclear Information and Resource Service over the past three days.
The letter is in response to reports that House and Senate appropriators are considering including some $25 Billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for new reactor construction. The letter pointed out that this would be more money than the entire annual budget for the Department of Energy.
The letter also noted that no utility will be in a position to use any federal funds for new reactor construction for several years. Only four utilities have so far applied for licenses for new reactors, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions licensing process is expected to take a minimum of 30 months. However, none of the four have submitted an application as the NRCs licensing process envisions: referencing a pre-approved fully standardized reactor design. Instead, two utilities (NRG Energy and TVA) are seeking major changes from standardized designs, while two utilities (Constellation Energy and Dominion Resources) are using designs that have not yet been approved by the NRC. Thus, it will be several years before any reactor can begin construction.
The groups point out that $25 billion doesnt buy as much nuclear power as it used to, and that Congress has not fully explored the likely costs of new reactors. In October 2007, Moodys Investor Service estimated that new reactors will cost $5,000 to $6,000 per kilowattfar above existing utility estimates. Said the letter, If Moodys is correct, a 1,600 MW reactor such as that proposed by Constellation for the Calvert Cliffs, Maryland site would cost from $8 to nearly $10 billion. Risking taxpayer funds on a project with such dubious cost-effectiveness would be unwiseespecially years before the funds could actually be used.
The letter urged the full Congress to accept this summers decision of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, which determined that no loan guarantee funding should go for nuclear power projects in FY 2008.
A copy of the letter is available at http://www.nirs.org/nukerelapse/neconomics/appropsign_onletter.pdf