Steve Wilson (614) 466-9737 Chair
Rob McColley (614) 466-8150 Vice Chair
Sandra R. Williams (614) 466-4857 Ranking Member
Andrew O. Brenner(614) 466-8086
Dave Burke (614) 466-8049
Hearcel F. Craig (614) 466-5131
Matt Dolan (614) 466-8056
John Ecklund (614) 644-7718
Frank Hoagland (614) 466-6508
Matt Huffman (614) 466-7584
Sean J. O'Brien (614) 466-7182
Bob Peterson (614) 466-8156
Michael A. Rulli (614) 466-8285
I learned at 5:45 PM today (12/21/20) that HB 104 (Anthem Act) is on the agenda for the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee on 12/22/20. If HB 104 comes up for a floor vote, I am imploring you to VOTE NO on this bill. In a nutshell, it repeals Section 3748.03 of the ORC and sets up an authority which can assume powers of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and the military to construct noncommercial-power-producing nuclear reactors and handle high-level radioactive waste and long-life fuel. Nothing like this has ever been proposed or attempted in any state. It creates tremendous potential safety risks, financial burdens, and liability for Ohio and its citizens. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Connie Kline 440-946-9012
PREVIOUS TESTIMONY SUBMITTED TO THE SENATE ENERGY AND PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMITTEE
Despite its deceptively brief 10 page length (an earlier iteration HB 771 in the 132nd General Assembly in 2018 was 56 pages long and an earlier version of HB 104 was 34 pages), HB 104 has been characterized by national experts as one of, if not the most, unprecedented, extreme, drastic, dangerous pieces of legislation ever introduced into a statehouse because it seeks to significantly alter provisions of Ohio’s agreement state status and create a Nuclear Development Authority (NDA) with sweeping, alarming, nearly unrestricted powers to "perform an essential governmental function and address matters of public necessity..." (Sec. 4164.04) by:
● having the (NDA) “act in place of the governor in approving agreements with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)...” [( Sec. 4164.11 (F)] and
● completely “repealing Section 3748.03 of the Ohio Revised Code” (Sec. 4164.20, Section 2) and
● transferring authority to the NDA “to assume any regulatory powers delegated from the U.S. NRC, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), (the U.S. Department of Defense DOD) or any branch of the military...governing the construction and operation of noncommercial power-producing nuclear reactors and the handling of radioactive materials."
Note that NDA's assumption of powers from the NRC, DOE, DOD/military is explicitly repeated numerous times throughout the bill:
● Sec. 4164.11 (E) "To assume any regulatory powers delegated from the NRC, DOE, or any branch of the US military or similar federal agencies, departments or programs governing the construction and operation of noncommercial power-producing nuclear reactors and the handling of radioactive materials."
● Sec. 4164.11 (F) (3) "The authority requests to jointly develop advanced nuclear research technology with the US DOD or another US military agency..."
● Sec. 4164.05(F) (3) "...an agreement with any of the following entities regarding the delegation of authority relating to nuclear energy...Any branch of the US military...(4) "Any other federal agency, department, or program governing the construction and operation of noncommercial power-producing nuclear reactors and the handling of radioactive materials."
It is precisely the brevity, lack of specificity, detail, and failure to address critical issues including, but not limited to, potential government/taxpayer subsidies; public health and safety requirements; reactor construction, clean up and decommissioning costs; liability; spills, leaks, discharges, accidents and contamination during and post reactor operation; nuclear waste disposal; nuclear weapons proliferation safeguards etc. that make HB 104 totally unacceptable. After perusing the 2018 website of a company called
eGeneration https://egeneration.org/, it was quite obvious and disturbing that they were behind HR 518, HB 771, and undoubtedly are behind HB 104. Their website contained a petition to the Ohio House of Representatives which became House Resolution 518 virtually verbatim.
https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA132-HR-518 A version of eGenerations’s proposed nuclear authority was incorporated into HB 771 and appears in HB 104 as the Nuclear Development Authority. Do we have an HB 6/Generation Now-type situation where a supposed non-profit corporate entity - eGeneration - is behind HB 104?
According to their website, eGeneration
envisions building state-sponsored (and potentially state-liable) thorium and molten-salt nuclear power reactors, but neither eGeneration nor HB 104 divulges where these would be sited or what criteria/considerations would determine siting. Sec 4164.05 of HB 104 mentions the only “stakeholders groups” as those within the nuclear industry.
HB 104 has no provisions for community or public stakeholder involvement, but in Sec. 4164.01 and 4164.04, the bill calls for the creation of an NDA “within the Department of Commerce” to “address matters...for which public moneys may be spent and private property acquired (eminent domain).” Location of the NDA within the Ohio Department of Commerce would mean that nuclear promotion, not regulation of health and safety, would be the priority. The public would have no say in NDA matters, but could potentially be on the hook for billions of dollars under worst case scenarios. There is an inherent conflict of interest in the NDA acting as both regulator and promoter of the nuclear industry. As noted above, according to Sec. 4164.11(E), the NDA “will assume any regulatory powers delegated from the U.S. NRC, the U.S. DOE, (the U.S. DOD) or any branch of the military...governing the construction and operation of noncommercial-power-producing nuclear reactors and the handling of radioactive material” while simultaneously in Sec. 4164.11(C), the NDA “(will) foster innovative partnerships and relationships...with private companies...to accomplish the purposes set forth in this chapter.”
This NDA has no restrictions regarding its relationship with companies designing/constructing/operating the reactors and/or handling the radioactive material. Nothing in HB 104 precludes such corporations from being members of the NDA.
This bill proposes that the “Authority” will be a “global leader in high-level waste reduction...and long-life fuel.” Sec. 4164.10 (B) (2) Does this mean HB 104 authorizes importation and reprocessing of high-level radioactive waste from commercial and weapons reactors from around the world?
SERIOUS ISSUES OHIO COULD FACE IF HB 104 BECOMES LAW
T
horium and Molten Salt Reactors - Contamination, Waste, Proliferation Problems● Contrary to industry promotion, unlike uranium, thorium is not a nuclear reactor fuel. It cannot power reactors because it does not contain enough fissionable/fissile material to cause a chain reaction. Uranium-235 or plutonium-239, which are some of the most dangerous man-made radioactive elements on earth, are necessary to start the reaction until enough thorium is converted to U-233 to sustain the chain reaction.
● Uranium-233 is, itself, a nuclear bomb explosive material. Furthermore, as described above weapons-grade highly enriched uranium or plutonium must be used to get the thorium reactor going.
Therefore, thorium reactors can contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation.
● Like larger reactors, thorium reactors produce high-level radioactive waste that remains dangerous and must be isolated for hundreds, thousands, or millions of years. For example, U-233 has a half-life of 160,000 years making its hazardous life (a factor of 10-20) millions of years. PU-239 has a half-life of 24,000 and U-235 has a half-life of 300 million years making it hazardous virtually forever.
● Molten salt reactors use thorium based liquid fuels containing a fluoride based salt and pose the same proliferation and waste problems as other thorium reactors. “The stabilization and disposal of the irradiated nuclear fuel at the very small Molten Salt Reactor Experiment that operated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s has turned into the most challenging cleanup problem that Oak Ridge has faced, and the site has still not been cleaned up (as of 2019).”
● The history of experimental reactors shows that they are unsafe and expensive.
Referenceshttps://thebulletin.org/2014/05/thorium-the-wonder-fuel-that-wasnt/http://www.ccnr.org/think_about_thorium.pdfhttps://thebulletin.org/2019/12/fact-check-five-claims-about-thorium-made-by-andrew-yang/https://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009factsheet.pdfhttps://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/thorium-reactors-statement.pdfhttp://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28076399/1549591884627/BN_ThoriumFactSheet.pdf?token=%2BhC94COVbA55iTMPPUULCtGjMJU%3Dhttps://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides
Reprocessing - Contamination, Waste, Proliferation Problems
● Reprocessing involves chemical processes to separate uranium and plutonium from highly radioactive irradiated reactor fuel. This uranium and plutonium can be used to fuel reactors but also to make nuclear weapons. A simple nuclear weapon can be made from less than 20 pounds of plutonium. Nuclear proliferation is the reason why the U.S. abandoned reprocessing in the 1970s and signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty.
● Reprocessing is extremely expensive.
● Reprocessing does NOT reduce the volume of radioactive waste. Depending on the reprocessing techniques used, the volume of highly radioactive waste can actually be increased which increases the need for waste storage and disposal.
● New York is the only state to ever set up its own nuclear development authority/agency which built the only nuclear waste reprocessing plant in the U.S. at West Valley, NY. The facility was a disaster and only operated for six years from 1966-1972 before permanently closing due to fires, high worker exposure and radioactive releases. Clean up has cost the state of New York and the federal
Page 3 of 3 - 12/17/20 HB 104 Opponent Testimony by Connie Kline
April 1, 2021 
U.S. Department of Energy info. graphic on HALEU. For legible size, see link in web post.The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is poised to forego a more comprehensive National Environmental Policy Act review of American Centrifuge Plant/Centrus's scheme to generate High Assay Low Enriched Uranium in Portsmouth, OH, containing up to nearly 20% Uranium-235, considered weapons-grade. This HALEU "demonstration" is intended for use in so-called Small Modular Reactors or other "advanced" designs, by both the military and commercial nuclear power industry, both domestically and overseas. However, Tom Clements of Savannah River Site Watch alerted Ohio Nuclear Free Network legal counsel Terry Lodge of Toledo, who, along with 104 endorsing groups, has demanded NRC undertake a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, to address the scheme's grave proliferation, security, safety, health, and environmental risks.