CARROLL: A high cost for virtue

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 30, 2007 at 12:05 a.m.

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You may have better things to do - let's hope so anyway - than read Megawatt Daily, "the power market's leading source of daily news and price information." But your faithful correspondent, who fearlessly undertakes these tedious chores on the reader's behalf, found some startling figures there the other day - ones that take some of the shine off of Xcel's recent announcement that it will build a 480-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant to replace two coal-fired plants it will shut down.

Xcel naturally soft-pedals any potential blow to customer bills. And Jim Greenwood, director of the state's Office of Consumer Counsel, said all the right things about making sure "our constituents aren't overburdened with excessive costs."

But such sentiments are mostly window dressing. Xcel cares about what investors and regulators think - and is sensitive to the agendas of the politicians and environmentalists who increasingly shape public debate over energy. Consumer interests will be an afterthought.

So what about that new gas plant? According to Megawatt Daily, "a report by The Brattle Group for the Edison Foundation, released last month, found that between 2005 and 2006, the average cost of new natural gas-fired combined-cycle units jumped 56.5 percent to an average $895/kW. That followed a 24.6 percent rise . . . between 2000 and 2005. . . .

"The problem with existing and new gas units is supply. 'We see significant capacity constraints going forward . . .' said Brian Daly, managing director, energy and infrastructure, at Trust Company of the West, a Los Angeles-based indirect subsidiary of Societe Generale."

Shortly after Xcel's announcement two weeks ago, I was talking to a local energy expert - a man with decades in the industry. He calculates that the cost of power from a newly constructed combined-cycle gas turbine will be more than twice as much per megawatt hour as the cost of power from the two coal plants, one in Denver and one east of Grand Junction, that Xcel will retire. He reached that conclusion based upon data in Xcel's public filings.

As policy, this nation's drift toward greater reliance on natural gas to produce electricity - given supply uncertainties - is a close imitation of insanity. But of course Xcel's decision was widely applauded by observers quoted in both the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post. It reduces carbon dioxide emissions, and that is now the only consideration that seems to carry traction in public conversation.

Nuclear waste concerns

Speaking of energy, after I wrote about Gov. Bill Ritter's Climate Action Plan a few weeks ago, the governor called to explain the document's cautious approach toward nuclear power. I'd said the plan "seems to dismiss current technology as inadequate while implying that it's unsafe," and deplored the fact that the proposal treated nuclear power as "merely another speculative, unproven technology."

Ritter said the problem is where to store the spent fuel rods. "It is the storage question that is on the minds of people," he said. " . . . when we reference technology and safety [in the climate plan], part of that is this question of the storage of rods."

Currently, U.S. nuclear plants store spent fuel on site, often in huge pools of water. After a few years the fuel can be stored in heavy casks. Permanent storage in Nevada, unfortunately, has so far been thwarted by political opposition.

Let's say you're one of those who believes that current technology does not yet allow for safe permanent storage. The governor's energy advisers presumably hold that view - hence the tenor of their climate report. It seems to me that even given such doubts, you are still obliged to take nuclear power seriously if you want to transform energy production to reduce greenhouse gases.

After all, the governor's Climate Action Plan - like any rational plan to reduce greenhouse emissions by 80 percent by 2050 - admits that its long-term goal relies upon the hope of technological breakthroughs. If it's reasonable to bank on breakthroughs in solar, biomass and other renewables, why isn't it reasonable to expect a solution will be found for permanent storage of nuclear fuel?

Nuclear power supplies a greenhouse-gas-free 20 percent of U.S. electricity - and yet many global warming warriors still can't bring themselves to utter a single word of hope regarding its future.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

• November 30, 2007

  10:13 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  CL writes:

  Carroll wrote:
  "Permanent storage [of spent nuclear fuel rods] in Nevada, unfortunately, has so far been thwarted by political opposition."

  Thats a bunch of malarky. Yucca Mountain is still planned as a nuclear storage site. It hasn't been "twarted" - residents raised their concerns about issues such as potential ground water contamination and work has and is being done to adress those concerns (I personally know one of the geologists doing the ground water studies).

  "Let's say you're one of those who believes that current technology does not yet allow for safe permanent storage."

  While there are those who question the the ability to safely store the spent fuel (mainly by the local residents - wouldn't you?). A greater concern to many (which Carroll neglects to mention) isn't the safety of storing of the spent fuel, but the safety of transporting the spent fuel from all over the country to Nevada. Think of how spent fuel will be shipped 2,000 miles from a reactor in New York to Nevada, for example, and maybe the magnitude of the issue will sink in.

• November 30, 2007

  4:06 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  rellimpank writes:

  --as one who lives in the "shadow" of Yucca Mountain, I can assure you that most of the so-called opposition is the usual anti-nuke garbage without scientific basis. (For example: "One cask spilled makes Clark County uninhabitable for 300,000 years") <

  For some reason we haven't been blessed lately with Martin Sheen getting himself arrested--must have some other cause to which to attract attention--

• December 3, 2007

  2:26 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  CL writes:

  rellimpank -

  "I can assure you that most of the so-called opposition is the usual anti-nuke garbage without scientific basis."

  Really? Was it the "anti-nuke garbage" that convinced the state of Nevada to fight the DOE over water use at Yucca Mountain?

  "A short-lived discussion between state and federal attorneys over using Nevada's water at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site probably will end today with the parties at loggerheads unless the Department of Energy adheres to the state's ultimatum to stop using its water for bore hole work."

  Nevada remains opposed to conceding Yucca water
  http://www.lvrj.com/news/9351741.html

  Was it "anti-nuke garbage" that caused the state of Nevada and it's residents to oppose the rail route?

  "It's a day that state officials who are battling the federal decision to build a 319-mile-long railroad to haul nuclear waste from the outskirts of Caliente to a yet-to-be-built repository at Yucca Mountain say might never happen."

  YUCCA MOUNTAIN RAIL LINE: Residents oppose route
  "Most see effort to grab swath of land latest in long line of government abuses"
  http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_hom...

  Nevada has been fighting the DOE over this for years. Sure the Martin Sheens get in front of the cameras demanding attention, but that's not where the real fight has been going on.

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