Beyond Nuclear heads back to Columbus, OH to battle Davis-Besse $3 billion bailout

Beyond Nuclear is heading back to Columbus, Ohio, to resist FirstEnergy's attempted ratepayer robbery, to the tune of $3 billion, to prop up its dirty, dangerous, and uncompetitive Davis-Besse atomic reactor, and Sammis coal burner.

(Joining with grassroots Ohio environmental, public interest, and ratepayer rights activists, as well as the Sierra Club's national Beyond Coal campaign and Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Committee, Beyond Nuclear was there for a rally of 100 against FirstEnergy's money grab, at a protest at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio HQ in Columbus on June 15th. There'll be another rally on August 31st, as called for by the Ohio Sierra Club's Nuclear-Free Committee, which has also provided PUCO's email address, and the bailout docket number, for taking action!)

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps will present on a panel at one in a series of People, Peace, and the Planet sponsored by the Community Organizing Center. The events mark 70 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

At the August 8th Peace Activist Conference at First Unitarian Universalist Church, Kevin will focus on the various debacles at Davis-Besse, from the current attempted ratepayer robbery, to more close calls with catastrophe than any other atomic reactor in the U.S. The safety risks are compounded significantly by Davis-Besse's cracked concrete containment Shield Building, which cracks worse every time it freezes.

Kevin will also discuss the inextricable links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and what we can do to abolish both.

Beyond Nuclear, along with Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Ohio Green Party, have intervened against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension since Dec. 27, 2010. Davis-Besse's current 40-year license expires on Earth Day (April 22), 2017. The coalition is represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge.

In 2013, the Sierra club joined the coalition to resist Davis-Besse's risky experimental steam generator replacements. Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc. in Burlington, VT served as the coalition's expert witness.

"Duke Energy spending on Lee nuclear plant remains slow"

As reported by John Downey in Charlotte Business Journal, Duke Nuclear's spending on "pre-construction" activities at its proposed new Lee nuclear power plant in Gaffney, SC, has been relatively low in the past couple years -- if $3-4 million per month can be regarded as "low." After all, significant energy efficiency, and even renewable energy projects, such as wind power and solar photo-voltaics, could be built for that kind of money!

Duke Nuclear had originally proposed firing up Lee Unit 1 in 2017. But now initial start up has been postponed till 2024 at the earliest.

Duke proposes to build two Toshiba-Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, just as is happening at Vogtle 3 & 4 in GA, and at Summer 2 & 3 in SC. Both the Vogtle and the Summer new reactor construction projects are billions of dollars over-budget, and years behind schedule.

Duke has not yet charged its $450 million in "pre-construction" activities to its SC rate-base, but it could under SC's generous "Construction Work in Progress" (CWIP) law.

Already, South Carolina Electric & Gas and SCANA have charged their SC ratepayers more than half a dozen rate increases, entirely devoted to CWIP costs on building Summer 2 & 3, with the SC public service commission's blessing. SCE&G and SCANA have not applied for federal nuclear loan guarantees, however.

Vogtle 3 & 4 has slogged ahead, thanks not only to CWIP surcharges on GA ratepayer electricity bills, but also compliments of an $8.3 billion federal taxpayer-backed loan guarantee, and loan. President Obama and Energy Secretary Moniz have provided that massive loan guarantee, and loan, without charging Southern Nuclear and its partners a single penny of credit subsidy fee, to protect federal taxpayers at least to some small extent, should Southern default on its loan repayment.

$8.3 billion is 15 times more federal taxpayer funding than was lost to the U.S. Treasury at Solyndra, when that solar loan guarantee repayment defaulted. But Vogtle 3 & 4 are at a significantly higher risk of defaulting, than was Solyndra when the solar loan guarantee was awarded.

More than $10 billion in nuclear loan guarantee funding remains available, for projects like Lee 1 & 2, or Fermi 3 in MI, to apply for. Lee 1 & 2 still needs COLA (combined Construction and Operating License Application) approval by NRC, something that Fermi 3 already won on May 1, 2015. However, Beyond Nuclear and allies continue to challenge the Fermi 3 license, now by appealing to the federal courts. One of the appeals by the environmental coalition is a challenge to NRC's Orwellian permission to grant the go ahead for "pre-construction" activities at new reactor construction sites, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.