At the state capitol, efforts to repeal the ban on new nuclear power plants appears to be picking up momentum. From the left-leaning news website Minnesota Reformer,
With 2040 carbon-free deadline looming, bipartisan legislators look to overturn nuclear moratorium.
With the legislature evenly split (101 D, 100 R), the word “bipartisan” implies that the measure has enough votes to pass.
The 2040 deadline refers to the state mandate that 100 percent of state electricity supplies must be “carbon-free” by the end of the next decade. The definition of “carbon-free” includes nuclear power.
The Reformer reports,
If Minnesota doesn’t lift its 32-year-old ban on new nuclear power reactors soon, it could blow through a self-imposed 2040 deadline to clean up its electric grid.
That was one of the messages hammered home by a bipartisan group of legislators and company officials in the Capitol rotunda this week. They appeared at the behest of the Minnesota Nuclear Energy Alliance, a coalition of 60-odd utilities, electric cooperatives, labor unions, local governments and others.
The Reformer includes quotes from one Democrat and two Republican veteran legislators appearing at the event. Their subheadline,
Buy-in from Prairie Island Indian Community needed.
The Prairie Island tribe’s reservation and its Treasure Island casino-hotel complex is located on property adjacent to Xcel Energy’s Prairie Island nuclear power plant near Red Wing.
The 1994 nuclear moratorium was passed as part of a larger bill to allow Xcel to store spent nuclear fuel in “dry casks” at the plant site. The casks are large concrete and steel vessels that encase the former nuclear fuel for storage outside of the plant building.
There are nearly 100 similar sites scattered around the nation at the sites of current and former nuclear power plants. The technology has been in use since the 1980’s.
In those four decades of operation, it appears that there have been no, zero, (0) incidents involving the casks.
Regardless, it would seem easy enough to address the tribe’s concerns by prohibiting new plant sites from locating within xx miles of the Prairie Island location.
The other objection appears to be around cost. Building a new nuclear plant is an expensive endeavor, but the danger is confusing “cost” with “value.” Nuclear plants run 24/7 for decades of operation. The large upfront investment buys years and years of relatively cheap, reliable electricity.
American Experiment has been running its own, independent effort to support repealing the ban, under the banner “Free the Nukes.”
As the saying goes, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
The post ‘Free the nukes’ gains speed appeared first on American Experiment.