Iowans ask governor to veto nuclear study bill

Iowa HF2399 Nuclear Feasibility Bill lets utilities recover study costs from ratepayers for nuclear power, spurring debate over MidAmerican Energy, Iowa Utilities Board rules, clean energy, energy efficiency, and utility rate hikes.

The Iowa Sierra Club reports that 330 Iowans have asked Gov. Chet Culver to veto a bill that would allow utilities to charge customers for a feasibility study on future nuclear plants in the state.

In response to the House and the Senate passing House File 2399, a bill that will allow utilities to help finance a study by charging their customers to pay for nuclear power feasibility, more than 330 Iowans wrote to Governor Chet Culver calling on him to veto the bill.

MidAmerican Energy wants to charge its customers $15 million to examine the achievability of constructing a new nuclear power plant in Iowa. HF2399 provides changes in funding requirements in the law that governs the Iowa Utilities Board’s rules for determining electricity rates, setting the stage for MidAmerican Energy – and other utilities – to pay for costs associated with studying and planning a new facility, including one that could transition away from coal before construction begins.

The law states, “It is the intent of the general assembly to require certain rate-regulated public utilities to undertake analyses of and preparations for the possible construction of nuclear generating facilities in this state that would be beneficial in a carbon-constrained environment.” Iowans are making it clear that building nuclear power facilities is not an acceptable way to address climate change, even as some utilities call a climate bill unfair to Iowa in related debates.

Nuclear power does nothing to help us transition to a clean energy future, especially when regulators ponder charging customers for plants long before they produce electricity. Iowa needs to look forward to new, clean, alternative energy sources, energy efficiency and conservation strategies that will reduce our carbon footprint, NOT resort to expensive and dangerous technology like nuclear power.

“I understand moving toward energy independence, but this is reckless,” wrote Jo Ann McNiel of Cedar Rapids. This kind of investment needs to go into truly sustainable energy that doesn’t produce toxic waste.”

Nuclear energy increasingly has been cast as a silver bullet to the realities of global warming and the pressing need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. As memories of the accident at Three Mile Island fade and out-of-control cost overruns from the 1980s become more distant, nuclear energy has undergone a political makeover by its supporters, and in Missouri senators consider advance charges that let utilities recover costs before plants are online. In reality though, despite the temptation to label nuclear reactors as a viable solution to global warming and meeting our electricity demands, nuclear power is a bad choice. It is significantly more expensive than cleaner options, produces waste that contributes to an unresolved problem of long-term exposure, opens the door for proliferation, and perhaps most importantly, will not solve global warming.

“MidAmerican Energy’s rates are already exorbitant, straining the reduced budgets of so many Iowans in this downturned economy. The last thing we need is another utility rate hike,” said Dr. Robert Churchill of Council Bluffs.

Environment Iowa Research & Policy Center recently reported that “…energy from a new nuclear reactor would be two to six times more expensive than saving electricity through efficiency – including utility and consumer investment. Across the country, the average utility cost of saved energy is 2.5 cents per kWh, three to four times cheaper than building any kind of new power plant.”

The Environment Iowa Research & Policy Center report also stated that “… in the early 2000s, nuclear industry executives estimated that construction costs for building a new nuclear reactor could approach $1,500 per kW of power generating capacity, plus finance costs. Recent estimates for the average cost of electricity from a new nuclear plant over its entire lifetime are burdened by a nuclear price tag and four times higher than this initial projection that promoters of a “nuclear renaissance” put forward in the early part of the decade.”

Bills addressing alternative energy sources for personal use failed to pass their respective committees earlier in the session, even as the nuclear power debate returns to the legislature. House File 2331 and Senate File 2228 would have allowed individuals and companies to receive payments from utilities for excess energy generated from private, renewable sources. House Study Bill 602 and Senate Study Bill 3114 would have assisted Iowans in investing in alternative sources for their homes and paying for the equipment over time through their property taxes.

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