Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Home › News › Local News

Nuke interest resurges in state

Utilities, others taking hard look at energy source

Todd Hartmanand Gargi Chakrabarty, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 7, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  

Related Links

More Local News

More stories »

Nuclear power, long in public disfavor because of safety, waste and cost concerns, is muscling its way back into the energy picture.

While its return is most prominent internationally - where dozens of countries are seeking nuclear generators as a source of new energy supplies - it's also getting a rethink in Colorado and across the United States.

Nationally, worries of pollution from coal-burning power plants are spurring renewed interest. Meanwhile, the nuclear industry has launched a major public relations campaign touting itself as "clean-air energy."

And Colorado, too, is again paying more attention to generating energy from splitting atoms:

* Tri-State, a major electricity provider to Colorado's small towns and rural regions, wants to study the possibility of a nuclear power plant on the eastern plains.

* Xcel Energy, the state's largest electricity provider, which owns nuclear plants in the Midwest, said nuclear power will be "on the table" as it considers future energy sources in the Centennial State.

* Colorado congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall, a Democrat and a longtime champion of renewable energy, says nuclear should be part of the conversation as the country tries to ease off of fossil fuels. His opponent, Republican Bob Schaffer, also supports nuclear power.

* And most significantly for Colorado, the state is the nation's third-largest source of radioactive fuel - uranium. And whether or not another nuclear plant is ever built here, Colorado appears to be in for another mining boom as international demand for uranium ramps up.

"We're seeing tremendous increases and the beginnings of activity right now," said Jim Burnell, director of the minerals program at the Colorado Geological Survey. A record 10,000 new mining claims were filed on federal lands in the state in 2007, with the bulk of those for uranium, Burnell said.

The nuke is back, said Robert Meyer, a Fort Collins-based energy consultant with long experience in the nuclear industry.

"It's happening. . . . Nuclear power is being further considered (where it already exists) . . . and reconsidered in countries that had decided to back away from it," he said. "We're seeing it everywhere."

Pros and cons

The nuclear renaissance seems fueled most powerfully by growing unease with fossil-fuel-based energy. Burning coal, oil and gasoline produces a host of air pollutants and is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. And rising oil prices are accelerating the move toward fuel substitutes, higher-mileage cars and mass transit.

"The handwriting is on the wall," Meyer said.

Still, no one expects fossil fuels to go away, not for decades, at least.

And skeptics remain unconvinced of nuclear's future, citing the enormous expense - several billions of dollars - needed to build a nuclear plant and the unresolved problem of where to put nuclear waste when highly radioactive fuel rods are spent.

"The private capital market isn't investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren't buying," wrote Snowmass-based renewable energy expert Amory Lovins and two others in a paper this spring called "Forget Nuclear," outlining the industry's many challenges.

"The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power's total cost have failed to entice Wall Street."

Many - although not all - environmental groups continue to disparage nuclear power as well. Greenpeace attacked nuclear energy as "1950s technology" last month when it criticized a Senate climate change bill for inclusion of subsidies for nuclear power.

"After 50 years of unresolved safety and waste-disposal issues, it perplexes many Americans why Congress would support massive subsidies for the nuclear industry," said John Passacantando, Greenpeace USA's executive director, in a press statement. "Nuclear power is a dirty and dangerous distraction from real global warming solutions."

National security watchers voice another concern: More nuclear power means greater risk of weapons proliferation, with rogue countries or terrorist groups taking possession of the basic tools needed to build nuclear arsenals.

Holly plant considered

But nuclear advocates such as Meyer say the costs and benefits of nuclear compare increasingly favorably to those of more conventional, carbon- based fuels. Nuclear becomes even more economically attractive if and when governments begin taxing global warming emissions from coal and gas- fired power plants.

They also argue that, contrary to some popular perceptions derived largely from Russia's Chernobyl disaster in 1986, it's the safest source of energy available.

"You really won't find a cleaner source of power, even though people get their hackles up when you say it," Meyer said. "There's no emissions, no carbon dioxide produced, very little waste produced. It's a very nice way to produce electricity as long as the reactors are designed well and operated well."

In Colorado, energy giant Xcel has no short-term plans for nuclear power, but a spokesman said it "certainly" will be looked at in future planning.

Xcel Energy CEO Dick Kelly has suggested utilities should be rewarded for managing carbon emissions and building clean-energy or zero-emission power plants, such as wind, solar or nuclear. For areas that don't have abundant wind and solar potential, nuclear has to be an option, he has said.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which produces and distributes power in rural areas of four states, including Colorado, decided this year to study the possibility of building a nuclear plant near Holly.

Nuclear, like coal, can run a power plant 24-7, without interruption. It's considered an ideal source of "baseload" power generation - the steady stream needed to meet the predictable, day-to-day consumption demands from refrigerators to factories.

A recent Tri-State study found the utility would need another 1,600 megawatts of such baseload power to meet demand by 2020 (a megawatt is roughly enough electricity to power 1,000 homes). Last month, Tri-State's board asked its staff to look at the possibility of a nuclear plant.

"The board didn't set a timetable," said Tri-State spokesman Jim Van Someren, emphasizing the idea is in its infancy.

Should the utility build such a plant, a newly acquired 5,000 acres north of Holly in far southeastern Colorado would be considered, Van Someren said. The land, along with water rights, originally was purchased to build a coal-fired plant.

Tri-State would consider approaching Xcel Energy as a partner, Van Someren said.

"Obviously there are challenges with nuclear as well; permitting a nuclear plant could be just as time-consuming as a coal plant," Van Someren said. "Certainly the cost of building a nuclear plant would come into play."

Nukes in Senate race

The changing energy landscape isn't lost on Rep. Udall, who has long championed greater efforts to incorporate wind and solar energy into the power portfolio. More recently, he has mentioned nuclear as also needing consideration, a view that could make some of his environmentalist backers wary.

"There is growing interest in the use of nuclear power for several reasons, including the rising cost of electricity generation and the urgency of addressing climate change," Udall said in a statement provided to the Rocky Mountain News. "I have long felt that we need to have a more diverse power generation mix - and nuclear power plants should be on the table as part of that mix."

Even so, Udall raised several caution flags.

He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees safety and security, needs more resources. And efforts to safely store and dispose of spent nuclear fuel must continue.

"In addition to the thorny problem of waste storage, the other big hurdle is potential weapons proliferation and security," Udall said.

Udall said he is skeptical that more federal subsidies should be provided to the industry, a move some in Congress are pushing.

"Like the oil industry, nuclear is a reasonably mature industry. And while we should always keep an open mind about how best to manage regulatory concerns (like liability, safety, waste storage), I am not convinced taxpayers should heavily subsidize this industry," he said.

Schaffer, also running for the open Senate seat, called nuclear "a consistent, reliable" source of baseload power, immune to the swings inherent in wind and solar power. The steady electricity supplied by nuclear, he said, would actually allow more use of alternative energy sources on top of that.

"You have to be able to sustain a consistent baseload demand in order for development of a new wind farm," Schaffer said.

He said the United States needs to re-evaluate its long-standing reluctance to reprocess spent nuclear material. Such a move would reduce the amount of nuclear waste stored around the country.

"Most other countries that have a large nuclear component do not tie their own hands with respect to reprocessing," Schaffer said, "and it dramatically reduces the nuclear waste stream."

Most critical for Colorado in the near term, though, will be a potential rush on the state's vast uranium stores.

For years, an ample stockpile of uranium kept prices down and interest in new mining low - even as the United States imports more than 95 percent of the uranium needed to run more than 100 nuclear reactors that provide 20 percent of the nation's electricity.

But all that changed in the past three years. Stockpiles shrank, and Congress' 2005 Energy Policy Act created new incentives for nuclear energy. In response, uranium prices began climbing, spiking in 2007 at $135 a pound. Prices have since settled at about $65 a pound, but that's still far above the $10 to $30 a pound uranium was fetching this decade.

The recent surge in claims doesn't mean each one will get mined, but it's a sign Colorado's long history of uranium mining, almost all of it on the Western Slope, could return big time.

"There's probably all kinds of (uranium) grades in there; some of those might have had just enough (uranium) to kick off a Geiger counter," said state geologist Vince Matthews of the rash on new claims. "It's not clear what will actually be mined out of them."

Even Weld a possibility

The rush isn't limited to remote mineral belts in southwestern Colorado. One company, Powertech, wants to take the radioactive metal from 600 feet underground in Weld County. Instead of using giant shovels and earthmovers, the company wants to use an "in-situ" technique.

The requires poking hundreds of holes in the ground, pushing water down the holes, leaching uranium out of ore then drawing the uranium-laced water to the surface and stripping it out there.

Neighbors have organized to fight the proposal, fearful that uranium mining will contaminate precious groundwater they use for drinking, livestock and crops.

Robin Davis, with the citizens group Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction, said her group wants to avoid the debate over nuclear power: "We are interested in clean water," she said. "Colorado is already in short supply of water; we see no reason to tamper with what little we already have."

But Meyer said uranium mining - both traditional and in-situ - has advanced and can be conducted with far fewer environmental impacts. He called in-situ mining "a system that can work very well."

Nuclear power as whole, Meyer said, can win the public over.

"As people participate in the licensing process, (they will) see the NRC is very serious this time around - and there will be any number of opportunities for people in nearby communities to participate . . . to make sure if some sort of facility is built nearby (that) it's run properly.

"I think people will come around to that."

hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5048

Comments

  • June 7, 2008

    6:30 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    bxwatso writes:

    Hurray! There was an article recently stating that to combat global warming, the world would have to spend tens of trillions of dollars. Nuclear can solve that problem for 1/10th that amount.

    Nuclear is vastly cheaper than wind, solar, bio, and ethanol, and it produces no pollution whatsoever. It is safer than coal, which is estimated to cut thousands of lives short each year. It works when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. It does not drive up food prices or pollute water with fertilizers.

    Anyone who is serious about the environment should look to nuclear power because it is the only currently proven industrial scale solution.

  • June 7, 2008

    7:26 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    greenleaf writes:

    bxwatso,

    As an environmentalist, I could certainly accept some additional nuclear power in the U.S.. However, to say that nuclear produces no pollution at all is a bit of a stretch. True, it doesn't produce Co2, SO2 or mercury, but it does produce radioactive waste. As a nation, we have yet to come to terms with the problem of storing something that remains dangerous for thousands of years. I would like to see that addressed before we build scores of new plants. Another problem is the Nimby syndrome; nobody wants one anywhere near them.

    You are right that nuclear plants do produce energy when " the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine." However, I remember when Colorado's own nuclear plant at Fort Saint Vrain was in operation, it was out of service more often than it was in service, and was eventually converted to natural gas, I believe. I also understand that all plants have to shut down for weeks at a time to refuel every few years. I hope that our resident power engineer poster will post some comments regarding nuclear. I could see new nuclear plants replacing some of our oldest, dirtiest coal plants. I think that would be a good compromise.

  • June 7, 2008

    8:02 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    Where are the burn wood, not atoms crowd?

    I am for the idea on 1 millions hampsters spining, but I fear PETA would object.

  • June 7, 2008

    8:03 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    DeltaDude writes:

    For a view of the anti-nuke argument go to the RMI site -

    http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php

    If you want to research everything you didn't want to know about nuclear go to this site -

    http://wsrl.org/nuclear.htm

    Both this article and Lovins ignore the benefits of advanced nuclear fuel cycles. Gulf General Atomic screwed up the Ft. St. Vrain design just as Babcock Wilcox screwed up Three Mile Island. I predict the Japanese will again succeed where U.S. designs have failed.

  • June 7, 2008

    10:59 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Vector049 writes:

    Build it in North Cherry Creek.

  • June 7, 2008

    11:53 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Cabermon writes:

    The French, more famous for their cooking than their engineering, get 80% of their electricity from nuclear power, and convert the "waste" into nuclear fuel which they sell to U.S. nuclear plants. http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article....

    The French took an existing US design (Westinghouse), improved it a bit, and made all their plants the same. Novel concept! Also, Sweden gets 20% from nuclear and the rest from hydro.

    Fort St. Vrain was an attempt to make the first large scale high-temperature-gas-cooled-reactor using Helium as the working fluid. The HTGC reactor never worked right since it was a prototype. Everybody in the '60s tried to make their plants unique, which was a mistake. Every time you reinvent the wheel, you repeat your mistakes.
    Nukes Now!

  • June 7, 2008

    1:08 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    REEnwall writes:

    Uranium mining opposition groups such as Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction are apparently unaware of the fact that uranium deposits are natural analogs of toxic waste deposits. The Weld County deposits lie directly in the Fox Hills and related aquifers and, like toxic waste deposits, they react with the groundwater to produce plumes of abnormally high concentrations of uranium and other potentially hazardous constituents in the groundwater. The fact that these processes are presently occuring in Weld County is supported by pre-mining baseline groundwater sampling data reported by the Colorado Geological Survey (Information Series Report #12). Groundwater samples were taken from 104 wells in the Weld Country area and analyzed for various constituents including uranium. Groundwater in 34 wells have concentrations of at least five times background values. Fourteen wells exceed U.S. EPA drinking water standard Maximum Contaminant Levels. Similar results have been reported for other deposits around the country such as the Crow Butte deposit in Nebraska where where pre-mining concentrations of uranium as high as 1000 times normal background were reported. Therefore, leaving the uranium in the ground is not a risk-free alternative to mining. Perhaps careful and responsible mining would, in fact, be beneficial for the long-term health of the Cheyenne Basin aquifers.

  • June 7, 2008

    2:21 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    RainbowWarrior writes:

    The best path to energy independance is decentralized utlilization of the alternatives; wind, passive & active solar, geothermal and small scale hydro.

    You will always have an energy bill with the centralized systems, after your initial investment in an alternative, you live FREE!

    Why does this scare so many people? Why has self sufficiency become such a low priority when it can be an economic advantage?

    How much $$$ did it take to heat your home five years ago compared to last winter?

    Can anyone intreplelate how many solar panels, wind mills, geothermal or hydro sytems could be built for the same amount of $$$ it takes to build ONE nuke? How many more people could be employed retro fitting homes with more insulation and decentralized enrgy systems than could be employed building a high security centralized power system that can kill you in numerous ways throughout it's usable life vs. the safety and usable life of the alternatives?

    How high of an insurance payment does it take to insure a nuclear facility vs. decentralized alternatives when the individual must pay for one or the other?

    I think we can utilize the alternatives to improve our lives and challenge energy corporations that require record level profitablity by reducing our dependance on them and reducing our need for them.

  • June 7, 2008

    4:02 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    pj writes:

    The PROBLEM with nuclear energy is that it is NOT clean. There is no where to go with the radioactive waste from this process. There are renewable resources that should be the FIRST ORDER of consideration. We have plenty of SOLAR, WIND, and GEOTHERMAL energy here, and it should be mandatory for all newer homes to reduce their "fossil fuel" footprint.

    Had we put in infrastructure for these options when public sentiment was high (no pun intended) in the 1970's as we should have, the USA would be in a much different energy picture already. We have the DOE's NREL facility here. They keep coming up with all sorts of nifty ideas. Why aren't they brought forward into use? Oil, gas, and nuke industries might not make as much profit?

    The nuclear energy plant "by-products" are recycled into the weapons industry. Let's not forget about the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant debacle, and the millions of tons of radioactive waste that have been generated by our government's Department of Energy facilities.

    Let's stop feeding the monster, and do what's right for the Earth NOW, and for future generations.

  • June 7, 2008

    5:12 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    greenleaf writes:

    Rainbow,

    Unfortunately, no utility company is going to give consumers the money they would spend on a nuke plant to go on a personal solar buying spree that would ultimately deprive the utility of income. The closest we can come is the deal with Xcel that subsidizes 1/2 of the cost. I took advantage off that with my 3kwh system and if I remember correctly you did too.

    What I would be curious to know is how the cost/benefit of a concentrated solar facility would compare to a nuclear plant dollar for dollar and kwh for kwh. This is where we need a power engineer such as TryThinking to give his input. Next time I see him posting I will ask that question.

    If you aren't familiar with concentrated solar, rainbow, check it out, it looks very promising!

  • June 8, 2008

    10:46 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    CoLoradoCitizen writes:

    This article says it costs 'billions' to build a Nuclear Plant. IF that is true, it would be economically absurd to build. For countless generations, there has been a saying, "dont put all your eggs into one basket". Yet that's exactly what this country has done, which has effectively made us reliant on Middle East oil, costing us billions in war efforts in the region. Solar cost more. Wind power cost more. WHO CARES!!?? It's better to cost more and be in control ourselves, than be so heavily reliant on such a war-crazy region. And in reality, they dont cost more. Not even CLOSE to the cost of these B.S. wars. Common sense should dictate a mix of alot of wind power, solar power, and coal power. Not ALL coal power. Or oil. States fight like cats & dogs over the dumping of the waste from the nuclear power plants, that in itself makes them completely illogical to use. NOBODY wants the glowing nuclear waste dumped in their state. Honestly, why not jettison the nuclear waste into one of the many asteroid fields floating around in outer space? Humans are not likely to ever settle in an asteroid field.

  • June 8, 2008

    12:44 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jbowen43 writes:

    Why would anyone want to put a nuclear power plant far out on the Eastern plains? Why not build it where the end users are located? This will save on building transmission lines over hundreds of miles of farmland. Build them in Denver, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs.
    As for the in situ uranium mines. They want to build them in residential communities. What sense does that make? They want to risk contaminating water supplies that are used by Denver and Aurora. Why take that risk so that some foreign company can get rich and leave us the mess to clean up. That is if it can be cleaned up. Remember Summitville. Everyone wants something for nothing. Let the other guy pay.

  • June 8, 2008

    9:41 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    Ok, just found all the former burn wood not atoms people.

  • June 9, 2008

    12:42 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    hdphd writes:

    Whoever said nuclear power doesn't emit greenhouse gases didn't do their homework. There are emissions during:
    * exploration,
    * mining,
    * treating wastewater from mining, enrichment, and power plants,
    * pumping wastewater from mining underground (yes, that's what they do with it)
    * transportation of the uranium and enriched uranium,
    * milling,
    * enrichment (which uses HUGE amounts of electricity),
    * building the power plants and all other facilities,
    * decommissioning the power plants and all other facilities,
    * transportation of nuclear wastes,
    * building storage for nuclear wastes (if it is ever available for high-level wastes).
    These are the things I can think of off the top of my head. Nuclear power, as others have said, is wildly expensive and leaves wastes that are radioactive for hundreds of millions of years. It only takes 500 modern wind turbines to replace one nuclear power plant. We have probably got that many along the Wyoming - Colorado border already. Let's go for more turbines!