From: Sandy Perle [mailto:sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET]
Sent:
Monday April 02, 2001 5:38 PM
Nuclear solution to California power crisis
urged
(ENN) April 1, 2001, To end California's electricity shortage,
the
state should build a nuclear power plant to run pumps that
bring
Sierra-fed water to Southern California, an Inland lawmaker
said
Thursday.
"It's time to revisit nuclear," said Assemblyman Bill
Leonard, R-San
Bernardino. He said nuclear power is clean and
affordable.
Leonard has introduced Assembly Bill 1492 to suspend a 1970s
state
law that, he said, effectively blocks licensing of nuclear
power
plants.
But environmentalists and
consumer groups insisted that nuclear power
remains unsafe.
"It's an
outrageous idea," said Medea Benjamin, the Green Party
nominee for U.S.
Senate last year. "Tell him to get with the
21st
century."
An energy expert applauded Leonard's
attempt to prod Californians to
take another look at nuclear
power.
"We're going to as a nation, get back to nuclear power,"
predicted
James Sweeney, an economist and professor of engineering
and
management science at Stanford University. "It will be the right
thing
to do."
But even if state law is changed,
Sweeney said, federal licensing and
the construction of Leonard's proposed
plant would take 10 years. By
then, he said, California probably will have
built enough
conventional plants to eliminate
shortages.
Leonard said he is researching various aspects
of nuclear power
generation and plans to refine his proposal.
A draft
of a new version of the bill, not yet introduced, would
authorize the state
Department of Water Resources to issue revenue
bonds and build a nuclear
generator at an unspecified location -
presumably in the Central Valley,
where the State Water Project's big
pumping stations are located.
As
envisioned by Leonard, it would supply the juice needed to run the
State
Water Project's largest pumping station at Edmonston in
Kern
County.
The Edmonston pumps use enough electricity to serve
640,000 homes, he
said.
The entire State Water Project is California's
single biggest user of
electricity, Leonard said.
The project includes
29 dams and more than 600 miles of canals that
end at Lake Perris. It
consumes 2,200 megawatts - enough for 2.2
million homes, Leonard
said.
"If we would become self-sufficient on the State Water Project,
we
could almost single-handedly end the power shortages"
plaguing
California, Leonard said.
Leonard, a 22-year veteran of the
Legislature who served on the
Assembly's first utilities panel, said "the
safety record of nuclear
(power) in America is incredible."
He said
spent fuel rods from the proposed reactor can be stored
safely under water.
He said he does not know how much it would cost
to build a nuclear
generator.
The nuclear plant would be only the third built in the state
and the
first to be publicly owned and operated.
At one time,
privately owned electric utilities planned to build 25
nuclear generators
along California's coast, said former state Energy
Commission member Gene
Varanini.
Only two were built, including the San Onofre plant near
San
Clemente, of which Southern California Edison is majority owner
and
Riverside has a small stake. The other is Pacific Gas &
Eectric's
Diablo Canyon reactor in San Luis Obispo County.
The law
Leonard wants to suspend says the state should not license
additional nuclear
power plants until the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and state
licensing officials agree the U.S. has resolved
how to dispose of nuclear
waste safely and permanently. The federal
government still has not agreed on
where to build a nuclear-waste
repository.
Stanford's Sweeney said
"what really killed nuclear power plants was
... the cost of constructing
them just got too high, given the safety
measures that had to be imposed in
the plants."
-------------
Political Heavyweights Weigh In on Nuclear
Issues
March 28, 2001-The airwaves have been filled over the past week
with
senior Administration and congressional leaders talking about
nuclear
energy.
On MSNBC's Hardball on March 21, Vice President Dick
Cheney responded
to a question about the threat of global climate change by
saying,
"If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then
you
ought to build nuclear power plants . If you're really serious
about
greenhouse gases, one of the solutions to that problem is to go
back
and take another look at nuclear power."
The Vice President went on
to say the policy report that he and his
energy task force are preparing for
President Bush "will deal with
the nuclear questions."
Last Sunday, House
Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-TX) told Tim Russert on
NBC's Meet the Press that
he "absolutely" would lead the way in the
House to get nuclear energy on the
agenda, and that he firmly
believes new nuclear power plants will built in
the United States.
Meanwhile, on PBS's the Charlie Rose Show, Secretary of
Energy
Spencer Abraham on March 21 spoke of the need for balanced
energy
plan. "We're going to look at nuclear energy and what it
should
provide in terms of a percentage" of a diverse energy plan
that
includes natural gas, coal, hydropower and other renewable
energy
sources.
Another cabinet member, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans,
recently
told a group of Silicon Valley executives that "the construction
of
more nuclear power plants could be part of the long-term solution
to
America's deepening energy troubles," according to the
Industry
Standard. His comments echoed the sentiments expressed earlier
this
year by Craig Barrett of Intel and Scott McNealy of Sun
Microsystems.