Pam and I went to a meeting in Minneapolis on Oct. 28 held by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. The Commission's task is to figure out what to do with the high level radioactive waste from nuclear plants. The quickest and easiest first step, which the Commission is ignoring, is to stop making more waste. Pam and I submitted the following written comments to the Commission.
Dear CommissionMembers:
The Iowa Chapter ofthe Sierra Club hereby submits the following comments to the Commission’s DraftReport:
The Sierra Club is anon-profit environmental advocacy organization. Its Iowa Chapter hasapproximately 5,000 members. The Sierra Club advocates for the transition fromnon-renewable energy, including nuclear, to the use of clean and renewableenergy. We oppose nuclear power because of its many adverse impacts. We areespecially concerned about the environmental impacts of the mining of theuranium to produce the fuel and the long-term impact of the spent fuel.
BEGIN TRANSITIONING AWAY FROM NUCLEAR ENERGY
This Commission’smission is to examine the issue of disposal of nuclear waste and to recommend anew strategy for managing that waste. The quickest and easiest first step incontrolling nuclear waste is stop making more. It is clear from the fact thatthis Commission has been formed that nuclear waste is dangerous and poses manysevere problems that are difficult, and perhaps impossible, to solve. It makesno sense to compound those problems into the future by producing more waste. Touse a medical analogy, first stop the bleeding.
This Commissionshould recommend that no new nuclear plants be built and that all existingnuclear plants be shut down and decommissioned as soon as possible. Thissuggestion is not contrary to or beyond the scope of this Commission’s task.Your mission is to recommend policies to address the problem of nuclear waste.The first and most important policy should be to make sure we do not add to theproblem. This fits perfectly with your mission. And although your report, atone point, says your mission is not to make recommendations about theappropriate role of nuclear power in the future, the sixth element of thestrategy you recommend is support for continued U.S. innovation in nucleartechnology. It seems that your report is contradictory and if you can recommendcontinued use of nuclear power, you can also reconsider that recommendation andrecommend that nuclear power be discontinued.
Nor is our suggestionof discontinuing the use of nuclear power unrealistic. The United States can,and must, transition to clean and renewable energy.
BEGIN TRANSITIONING TO CLEAN AND RENEWABLE ENERGY
A 21stCentury energy policy must be defined by clean and renewable energy. Nuclearenergy is not clean and it is not renewable. If it were clean, this Commissionwould never have been formed to deal with the problem of radioactive nuclearwaste.
Numerous studieshave shown that we can generate all the energy we need from renewable sourceswith a comprehensive transmission and distribution grid if we will adoptpolicies supporting that vision. See, e.g., Archer and Jacobson, SupplyingBaseload Power and Reducing Transmission Requirements by Interconnecting WindFarms, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology (v. 46, Nov. 2007);Jacobson and Delucchi, Providing All Global Energy with Wind, Water, andSolar Power, Part I: Technologies, Energy Resources, Quantities and Areas ofInfrastructure, and Materials, Energy Policy (v. 39, p. 1154-1169);Jacobson and Delucchi, Providing All Global Energy with Wind, Water, andSolar Power, Part II: Reliability, System and Transmission Costs, and Policies,Energy Policy (v. 39, p. 1170-1190. See also, The Energy Report:100%Renewable Energy by 2050, prepared for the World Wildlife Fund by Ecofysand found at www.worldwildlife.org/climate/energy-report.html.
The electricutilities and energy companies assert that in order to provide baseload powerthey have to use coal, natural gas or nuclear energy. But baseload as viewed bythe utilities and power companies is an outdated concept. They are stuck withthe narrow view of electric power coming from power plants. But rather thanreferring to the term baseload we are really talking about energy and capacity.Energy is the total amount of electricity that is being supplied to consumers.Capacity is the highest level of electricity that can be supplied at any onetime to meet peak demand.
Renewable energy canmeet the energy and capacity demands of the country, combined with a program ofenergy efficiency and conservation and expansion of the transmission grid. Moststates, including Iowa, have energy efficiency programs subject to publicutility regulation. This Commission should recommend a national energyefficiency program. Likewise, many states have renewable electricity standardsrequiring that a certain amount of the energy consumed in the state be fromrenewable sources. This Commission should recommend a national renewableelectricity standard. There are other policies, including feed-in tariffs, taxcredits, loan programs, etc., that should be adopted to encourage the expansionof renewable energy. This Commission should recommend that such policies bestudied and adopted. We realize that the Commission does not have time to studyall of these policies, but you should at least recommend that policies toencourage renewable energy be studied and considered by the appropriateentities. This would lead us to a renewable energy future and away from theproduction of more radioactive nuclear waste.
The other importantpolicy needed to support renewable energy is expansion of the transmissiongrid. We have heard the comment that since adequate transmission is notavailable right now we need to continue to expand the use of nuclear energy.That comment is incorrect for two reasons. First, expanded transmission isoccurring right now. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has overthe past few years adopted policies to promote expansion of transmission lines.The most recent FERC action is Order 1000 adopted on July 21, 2011. And everyarea of the country has a regional transmission organization (RTO) that promotesand coordinates expanded transmission in each respective region. In theMidwest, for example, the Midwest RTO (MISO) had approved a number oftransmission expansion projects designed to accommodate increased renewableenergy production and they are ready for regulatory approval. Second, it takesat least 10 years for a new nuclear plant to be licensed and put on line. Newtransmission will begin to be constructed within the next year or two, longbefore we would gain any alleged benefit from additional nuclear power.Furthermore, a new nuclear plant, which would not be needed when renewableenergy becomes dominant, would be licensed for probably 40 years andundoubtedly relicensed for another 20 years. We would be stuck with 60 moreyears of radioactive waste that could be avoided with the right policiessupporting renewable energy.
All of thesemeasures are part of a 21st Century energy policy that must be thereplacement for coal, gas and nuclear power. The best part of renewable energyis that the wind will always blow and the sun will always shine and neithercreates radioactive waste that lasts for millions of years.
CONCLUSION
This Commission canperform a tremendous service to the policymakers and to the American people byhelping lead us to a sustainable 21st Century energy future byrecommending the policies we have suggested. Thank you for considering ourcomments.
Very truly yours,
/s/ Wallace L. Taylor
Wallace L. Taylor
Legal Chair
/s/ Pamela Mackey Taylor
Pamela MackeyTaylor
Energy Chair
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