Alternate Energy Holdings cited for fraud over new nuclear plant deal

Alternate Energy Holdings is facing fraud allegations stemming from its efforts to raise funds for a $10 billion nuclear power project in Idaho. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged AEH on Devember 16 with fraudulently raising money from investors across the country and Asia to build a $10 billion nuclear power plant. The accusations mark yet another example of the tumbling house of nuclear cards with almost every new reactor project facing financial or legal difficulties.

Set-back for Comanche Peak reactor expansion plans

Plans to expand the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant to the tune of $15 billion dollars are on hold after cuts in the House-passed version of the federal spending bill this week eliminated loan guarantees that Dallas-based Luminant said were vital to the plan's viability. However, the Star-Telegram, reporting the set-back, predicted that the arrival of fiscally-conservative Republicans in the House next session would make passage of nuclear loan guarantees even less likely.

Countdown to Shutdown of Oyster Creek in 2019

Rather than be sued by the State of New Jersey to save the Barnegat Bay by building less destructive cooling towers for the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, Exelon Nuclear Corporation and Republican Governor Chris Christie announced a negotiated agreement to close the nation’s oldest operating nuclear power plant early by December 31, 2019.  The 40-year old reactor had just received its 20-year license extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in April 2009 to operate until 2029. 

The agreement to operate the atomic reactor for only 9 more years comes amidst a much broader and growing controversy over the antiquated, deteriorating and destructive operation of the reactor. The deal was announced in context of New Jersey’s overall plan to restore the health to an endangered and dying Barnegat Bay.  Oyster Creek will continue to take 1.5 billion gallons of water per day to cool the 650 megawatt boiling water reactor and then discharge the super heated water back into the Bay until 2019.  The routine operations of the reactor will continue to literally strain marine life out of the Bay into the plant cooling water intake system until closure.

Many reasons remain why Oyster Creek should be shutdown overnight, not least of which includes the continued generation of unmanaged nuclear waste and its vulnerable onsite storage with the equivalent radiation from the Hiroshima nuclear weapon blast many, many times over. But clearly the agreement represents a concession by Exelon that the twenty year license extensions can be more mirage than reality for the nuclear industry. 

Aside from establishing an actual early shutdown date, albeit a distant 9 years, the one palatable measure the shutdown agreement affords  is the establishment of a three member panel for the outside, independent oversight and review of the operations of a nuclear power plant in its latter days. The fact that Oyster Creek was once already slated by Jersey Central Power and Light for closure in 2006 and subsequently abandoned costly maintenance activities only to be sold to Exelon, documents the ongoing safety and environmental concerns.  The review group will publicly report on its findings as well as hold annual public meetings in the countdown to shutdown.  While the members of this review group are not yet known, a demonstrable measure of independence from industry will be critical to gaining the public’s confidence.

It remains to be seen if and when Exelon will submit an amendment to its 20-year operating license extension already granted by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to inside shutdown in 2019. Aside from the public handshake between Exelon and the Governor, the NRC has the authority and control over the federal operating license.  To the best of our knowledge, the NRC has not received a license amendment request from Exelon to change the operating license from 2029 to 2019.  Without an amendment in the federal license, federal preemption will be a lingering question and potential test.  And without such a change it is difficult to place complete confidence in an agreement that doesn’t take effect for 9 more years.





"The US has lost control of . . .the nuclear fuel chain"

Boasts of a nuclear "renaissance" in the U.S. ring even more hollow when one recognizes that almost any new nuclear activities in the US are of foreign origin. Although the deal appears to have almost completely fallen apart, the new reactor frontrunners were French as is the threatened new uranium enrichment plant. Now comes news that proposed new uranium mines in Wyoming will be majority owned by Russia in a 51%-49% partnership with a Canadian firm. About 80% of all uranium used in the U.S. is imported. The mine deal - between Uranium One of Canada and ARMZ of Russia - was described by the Financial Times in a December 6, 2010 article as "the latest sign of how, after a three-decade hiatus in new reactor projects, the US has lost control of key parts of the nuclear fuel chain."

Time to go Beyond Nuclear with wind power in New England

Beyond Nuclear representative Paul Gunter went before a federal licensing board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to argue that rather than relicense New Hampshire’s Seabrook nuke for another 20 years, it can be replaced by wind power that is under development 10 to 50 miles out into the Gulf of Maine for five gigawatts of renewable baseload electricity by 2030. It is outrageous enough that NextEra Seabrook Nuclear LLC (aka Florida Power & Light) is submitting a license extension application 20-years before the current license even expires also in 2030.

In fact, NextEra is using the opportunity as an end run around the environmentally friendly renewable energy renaissance rapidly dawning offshore in the deep water of the Atlantic Ocean.  

Beyond Nuclear makes the legal case that NextEra’s application violates national environmental policy law by significantly misleading the federal government with a self-serving evaluation and dismissal of the  neighboring wind alternative which in fact will render the continued harmful operation of Seabrook obsolete.

Coincidently on December 1, 2010, the National Wildlife Federation released its own report “Offshore Wind in the Atlantic, Growing Momentum for Jobs, Clean Air and Job Protection” further validating Beyond Nuclear’s challenge to bring a halt to an unreasonable and dangerous extension of the nuclear age