Testimony of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service Before the Connecticut General Assembly – Energy and Technology Committee
Public Hearing on Proposed S.B. No. 106
An Act Concerning Zero-Carbon Electric Generating Facilities and Achieving Connecticut’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Mandated Levels
Thank you for providing the public with an opportunity to be heard on proposed Senate Bill No. 106, and for accepting the testimony of Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS) on it. NIRS is a national, nonprofit environmental organization, with 500 members in Connecticut. We are headquartered in Takoma Park, Maryland, and were founded in 1978 to provide the public and state and local communities with independent, non-partisan, scientifically and technically accurate information on nuclear power, radioactive waste, and sustainable energy, and it is in that spirit we offer our testimony today.
As NIRS’s Executive Director and the preparer of these comments, I have over eighteen years experience monitoring the energy and utility sectors, with a particular focus on the U.S. nuclear industry, merchant nuclear power generation, and utility restructuring. I have monitored the Millstone nuclear power station in Connecticut throughout that time, including Dominion’s purchase of the plant from Northeast Utilities in 2000. Most recently, over the last three years, I have also monitored a variety of state-level and national proposals to provide subsidies to merchant nuclear power generators.
While the precise measures by which SB 106 would address Connecticut’s generation portfolio and emissions of greenhouse gas emissions are as yet unclear, the Honorable Senator Formica and others have been quoted in numerous media reports stating that the intent is specifically to provide Millstone’s owner, Dominion, with the ability to enter into power generators.
While the precise measures by which SB 106 would address Connecticut’s generation portfolio and emissions of greenhouse gas emissions are as yet unclear, the Honorable Senator Formica and others have been quoted in numerous media reports stating that the intent is specifically to provide Millstone’s owner, Dominion, with the ability to enter into power purchase contracts with Connecticut utilities, namely Eversource and United Illuminating.