by Tom Wilson
For over one third of a century, Northern Thunder, a multi-issue, grass-roots,
environmental and social justice organization based in Eau Claire, has stood
for safe and clean energy alternatives in Western Wisconsin. One of our first
major victories in the name of a clean environment was the defeat of the proposed
Tyrone nuclear power plant on the banks of the Chippewa River. Because of this
fight, instead of cooling towers we have a much-used bike trail, designated
wildlife corridor and popular canoe route. Tyrone--an ill-planned project--met
defeat due in part to massive popular citizen opposition. The utility, NSP (now
Xcel Energy) helped the opposition; they failed to demonstrate that this project
was necessary to meet the energy needs of Wisconsin’s ratepayers, and
they failed to demonstrate the safety of their technology. In particular, they
did not address the question of long-term storage for the nearly eternal hazardous
waste stream they would have produced.
Time has proven us out: least-cost planning and even moderate application of
efficiency technologies have stemmed demand. In the meantime, 30 years later,
Xcel still lacks any viable options for storing the radioactive waste building
up at Prairie Island, thus adding to the economic burden being placed on Xcel
shareholders and ratepayers alike.
About this same time as this early victory, the government of Wisconsin was
pursuing a thorough and thoughtful review of its overall energy policies and
one of Northern Thunder’s sister organizations, the Badger Safe Energy
Alliance, had the foresight to invite the esteemed Armory B. Lovins of the Rocky
mountain Institute to speak before the Wisconsin Public Service Commission [Least-Cost
Electricity Strategies for Wisconsin, Sept 24, 1984] which proved to be the
seminal document which governed our states energy regulatory strategy for the
next 15 years which demanded that the regulatory authorities consider two important
elements before approving any major utility project: One being the overall societal
impacts of that decision including the health and safety of Wisconsin’s
residents and our long-term environmental health and the other being that the
final regulatory decisions be based on what is the least-cost alternative of
all those being considered --from the perspective of the ratepayer and Wisconsin
economy as a whole.
The net result of this decision was an extended period of no new demands for
additional generation capacity, unprecedented return on investment for the utility
industry itself, unmatched reliability of the system, minimal degradation of
the environment from our choices and virtually level energy prices for consumers--even
without the necessity of adjusting for inflation. What’s wrong with this?
The obvious analysis would be nothing and “if it weren’t broke,
why fix it?
Unfortunately, the powers that be in Washington somehow seemed to mandate that
we throw out this entire successful system in the name of some theoretical benefits
that would accrue from deregulation and allowing “market forces”
rule irrespective of the environmental, economic or efficiency sacrifices that
might come in its way.
The policy that evolved from this highly politicized process was supposed to
be one of compromise where all parties came to a mutual agreement that the utilities
could go their own way and spend their capital however they see fit with an
contractual agreement that a certain percentage of all ratepayers dollars would
be allocated to those programs that assured us marketplace efficiency, protections
for those less fortunate than us and increased investment in sustainable technologies
and market transformation that were previously mandated by the least-cost approach
to meeting out energy needs.
As it turned out, the utilities got virtually everything they wanted; Xcel was
allowed to invest its resources outside the borders of its market territory
and is now suffering from devaluation of its economic viability. Upstart firms
with little stake in Wisconsin communities are lining up to see who can build
the most generation or transmission capacity irrespective of local needs, forcing
landowners to sacrifice their property rights for unneeded power lines.
Meanwhile, the people of Wisconsin--the ratepayers--who supposedly were also
at that negotiating table and for whom it was promised that their utility surcharge
would be spent on providing state-wide efficiency programs, reducing demand,
encouraging development of sustainable alternative energy resources--these ratepayers
were betrayed in the last biennial budget when both Republican and Democratic
legislators and the administration agreed to rob this special earmarked revenue
source which is continued to be funded by ratepayer surcharges --these monies
which were supposed to be building the infrastructure to provide scientifically
guided advice to homeowners, to encourage the installation of the best technologies
that Carrier Corporation or the other Wisconsin manufacturers provide, to delivering
proven efficiencies, healthy homes and reducing the hemorrhage of energy dollars
across our state borders to coal mines in the Dakotas, gas well in Indiana and
ecologically devastating low-head hydro in Cree territories of Manitoba; rather
than providing all these public benefits to the ratepayers and taxpayers of
Wisconsin, these dedicated funds are now diverted and paying for prison construction
and interest payments on bonds for unnecessary road building and other politically
favored projects.
And if all this were not enough, a local state legislator, Representative Michael
Huebsch, Republican assemblyman from Onalaska has put forth a proposal (SB 555)
which carries the trends of radical deregulation and oversight to the extreme.
We are beginning a process of inciting free-ranging nuclear development in our
state without two very basic safeguards. Present legislation makes two incredibly
reasonable requests. a) That the company proposing the project has some reasonable
plan for disposing of the tons of high level radioactive waste that it would
generate, and b) that the project is beneficial to the people of Wisconsin for
whom the plant is supposed to fulfill a need. Are these so onerous demands?
The economic issues, are a no brainer and the successes of our own history of
the least-cost planning process versus the economic devastation that has occurred
in California and so many other localities that have ignored this economic oversight
should be a red flag to all. Nationwide it is being regularly demonstrated that
nuclear energy is neither cheap, reliable nor safe. Long-term solutions to the
problems of waste storage and transport have not been found and existing nuclear
power plants manifest increasing dangers from age, faulty design and human error.
More important, however, are the issues of the waste stream. Nuclear power as
we know it creates vast amounts of some of the most toxic material known to
man. Materials that effect our life form down to the quick of our genetic beings
and materials that remain toxic for tens and hundreds of thousands of years
--longer than any forms of human civilization on the planet. Something must
be done with these materials. Back in the late 30’s and 40’s Orange
Fiestaware, readily available at your local Flea Market or antique store) was
manufactured with waste uranium oxides from the incipient nuclear industry.
This and many other consumer products and residue carry significant amounts
of low-level ionizing radiation which impacts us in ways our best science had
failed to understand. Our national military is using depleted uranium shell
casings much to the long-term detriment of those living and working in Bosnia
and the middle east where these weapons have bend deployed. The vast majority
of this millions of tons of high level wastes are just piling up outside aging
and soon-to-be decommissioned nuclear power plants and weapons facilities, inviting
terrorist attacks at all corners.
Many hold out hope that the 20-year attempt to design a facility at Yucca Mountain
will solve this problem. Continued reports in the national press indicates that
the engineering problems of this site may prove insurmountable. Even if this
facility were to be approved tomorrow, however, it would still not meet our
future nuclear waste storage needs. By the time this facility becomes functional,
we will already have generated more high level nuclear waste material than it
can hold.
What many reading these words may not remember is that in the 1980s, the Federal
Department of Energy identified Wisconsin’s Wolf River Batholith in Northern
Wisconsin as a favored potential site for the nation’s perpetual radioactive
waste storage repository. As the first choice, the Yucca Mountain, NV site continues
to fail strict engineering criteria and as the nation’s cumulative nuclear
waste stockpiles exceed Yucca Mountain’s ultimate storage capacity, the
Department of Energy will soon again consider the potential of northeastern
Wisconsin. (The deal was the first site was west of the Mississippi and the
inevitable 2nd repository is to be on the East side). The Wolf River Batholith
was not rejected for technical grounds, but rather because of the outpouring
of concerted efforts by environmentalists, native American Tribes, hunters and
fishers, resort owners, and just plain folks both near the proposed repository
and along the multiple routes to that location. It was that unified political
opposition both from the people and the government that made the Feds look elsewhere.
Now as we hear the saber rattling from those special interests who would benefit
from a revised nuclear industry, all we need is for Wisconsin to go on record
as promoting nuclear power, and you can bet your life on the inevitable return
to Wisconsin of the NRC looking for their next National high level radioactive
waste repository. Even those of us living far from the actual proposed nuclear
waste site, almost all of us live near one of the multiple transportation routes
from all across the country toward this region that they can expect daily canister
loads of high level nuclear waste rolling through their neighborhoods?
In mid December of last year, 1,500-to 2,000 individuals, Native and non-native
American gathered in Green Bay to celebrate the victory in a 27 year struggle
to keep a sulfide mine from going in at the headwaters of the Wolf River. These
are largely the same folks who came out in the 80’s when the DOE first
proposed the nuclear waste repository in the same region. If you think a little
cyanide and sulfuric acid gets these folks upset, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
The organizations are in place, and we are watching--and ready to act. Nuclear
power and its eternal waste stream have no place in Wisconsin. Let’s reject
the line of thinking that would take us back to the nuclear path and return
to sane and sober planning to meet our long-range energy needs.