WisBusiness: Legislator looks to end Wisconsin’s nuke moratorium next year

By Brian E. Clark

For WisBusiness.com

Rep. Mark Honadel, R-South Milwaukee and head of the Assembly Committee on Energy and Utilities, says he plans to introduce legislation next spring that would repeal Wisconsin’s moratorium on development of new nuclear power plants.

No new nuclear plants have been built in Wisconsin in more than 35 years. Wisconsin law requires that a federal nuclear waste repository must be available and a new plant must be “economically advantageous to ratepayers” before it can be approved by the state Public Service Commission.

“As a legislator, I don’t believe any type of energy should be off the table,” said Honadel, speaking outside a two-day conference at the UW-Madison’s Fluno Center.

The gathering is focused on the future of nuclear power following the March accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan that resulted from an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

Honadel said he believes there is too much concern about the safety of nuclear power plants.

“If you look at the number of fatalities they have caused compared to auto accidents and other risks, it’s miniscule,” he said.

Eric Loewen, president of the American Nuclear Society, said the meltdowns of three nuclear generators at Fukushima has already caused delays in the building of three plants in the United States.

“License applications we thought were going to be approved this fall are being delayed until spring,” he said. “Four plants in Georgia and South Carolina were ready to start construction as soon as they got that approval.

“That’s the initial effect,” he said.

He argued that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not delay the permitting process for the plants while it tries to understand what happened in Fukushima.

“That could take a decade to figure out,” he said. “The top won’t come off (of the plants) for 10 years.”

In the meantime, he said, the U.S. plants should be built because they are safer than the Japanese facilities.

“The technology is improving a lot,” he said, acknowledging that nuclear power carries risks. “But we are working to overcome them. The public needs to understand that we are working to make nuclear energy safer.”

Tom Cochran, a scientist retired from the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he believes the Fukushima meltdowns will not slow down nuclear development in the United States.

“The system is rigged for the utilities,” he said.

“There are about 60 separate lessons that can be learned from Fukushima,” he said. “The NRC has captured some, but they are running away from a lot of them.”

He said he is disappointed that the agency is relicensing plants that use obsolete technology. And he said Fukushima would have only “minor” effect on licensing of future plants.