Nuclear Energy and Energy Efficiency

The Interim Committee on Energy, Environment and Technology packed the committee room this week with the first item on the agenda, a discussion of Nuclear Energy. Dr. Ralph Bennett of the Idaho National Laboratory and Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research were the featured speakers.

Dr. Bennett noted that with regard to the change in administration, there are a number of different directions the country could go regarding nuclear energy. He stressed that INL does not take a position on proposed plant projects, such as the merchant nuclear power plant proposed for Hagerman. This is one of 28 applications for 34 proposed plants nationwide. On average, each of these plants, upon receiving approval can plan on an eight-year development cycle: four of those years dedicated to licensing, and another four toward construction.

Currently the biggest considerations with regard to nuclear energy center on the amount of water used for the traditional evaporative cooling tower technology, waste storage and cost. At this time, new dry cooling technology is coming online that utilized about 1/10 the water of the evaporative cooling towers.

Dr. Makhijani has written a number of books on the topic of nuclear energy including Carbon Free and Nuclear Free: a Roadmap for US Energy Policy. He noted that the French, who in 1973 were largely dependent upon oil as an energy source – not just for transportation, but for heating and electricity as well – found themselves in a much bigger crisis at the time than the United States. The very positive outcome of their efforts is the illustration that a substantial change in the energy sector is possible in the span of 25 years.

However, the French dependence on nuclear energy has generated some negative responses from their fellow Western European countries – 12 of 15 have asked them to stop polluting the ocean with the more than 100 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste they deposit into the English Channel every year. Dr. Makhijani also notes that the French recycling program of spent fuel makes use of only about 1% of the radioactive plutonium every year. France does not have a waste repository program to deal with the non-recycled materials.

Dr. Makhijani noted that were we to amp up to a level of nuclear energy as utilized by the French, we would come to a level half of that by building 6,000 reactors, or two per week for the next 50 years. He noted that Wall Street is reluctant to finance nuclear plants, and has estimated that the federal government would need about $500 billion in loan guarantees to cover the planned 34 plants currently in the application process. Dr. Bennett noted that, while financing and construction costs are considerable, with time, progress in the industry will bring the costs down. He also noted that a complete change to nuclear energy such as France underwent is not necessary, rather a diverse approach of different technologies for producing energy and increasing efficiency.

Both Doctors agreed that, whatever the solution, energy prices will rise for US consumers. Dr. Makhijani noted that with a focus on increasing efficiency, and reducing energy use, the cost of energy as a portion of overall household income will not increase dramatically.

Teri Ottens presented to the committee on behalf of the Community Action Agency Partnership about the need to be able to offer statewide energy assistance, and the obstacle state law presents by prohibiting discrimination between rate classes. Teri noted the record number of rate increase requests that have come before the Public Utilities Commission, and the 25% increase in requests for assistance in all areas. The PUC has further noticed an increase in the number of people protesting rate increases.

This group proposed a bill three years ago, which the utilities opposed because they didn’t want to be forced to offer assistance programs. The current version Ottens put before the committee makes it clear that participation in such programs is voluntary, and doesn’t outline any particular program, leaving that up to the utility. Idaho Power representatives attending noted that as a result of their assistance program, Project Share, Idaho Power customers received $174,000 in assistance last year.

Representative Bert Stevenson continued a discussion from previous meetings about New Customers paying for the development of increases in public utilities. This continues to be a contentious issue, not only because there is not a clear consensus about whether growth should pay for itself at the expense of potentially inhibiting said growth, but also because the committee was not clear on whether this was an issue under their prevue. A motion passed to send this issue to the State Affairs Committee to let the speaker decide who should be vetting it.

Roy Eiguren presented on amending the income tax law to allow investment tax credits transfer for renewable energy projects. This, along with a discussion on energy efficient school buildings and one on the formation of Renewable Energy Enterprise Zones made the afternoon theme one of moving toward encouraging new energy efficient development.

An amendment to the current law would allow existing income tax credits to be transferable to the period of development and construction of energy efficient development project. Under current law, the credits are applicable only to projects that are up and running, leaving new projects subject to ever-inflating development and construction costs, prior to completion.

The committee moved to endorse this proposal and send it on to the germane committee.

Paul KJellander presented a map that has been incorporated into the state energy plan that identifies what he termed “low hanging fruit,” in terms of developing wind resources – meaning that these were areas where there was access, good wind potential and transmission capacity, and therefore incentive to develop wind projects in those areas. This type of map is the first step in developing a renewable energy profile for the state, which is a good idea, given that the change in administration means that industry experts are beginning to anticipate mandatory energy plans.

Kjellander also noted that the Governor’s Office on Energy Resources is continuing to pursue transforming dairy waste disposal into pipeline-quality compressed natural gas as a target area to begin looking at increased efficiency.

The committee commended Kjellander on keeping the direction set by this committee in mind in his planning, and for a productive first year overall.

The committee then heard from Senator Elliot Werk, who followed up with the committee regarding the information requested on the subject of incentives for building energy efficient school buildings. Senator Werk’s original proposal was that school districts pursuing fundamental commissioning and integrated design be allowed a break from the 2% maintenance match on the value of the structure. Currently, schools are required to set aside 2% of the value of the structure into a maintenance fund which is matched by the state. Under Senator Werk’s proposal, the school would not be required to set aside the 2% in the first full year after completion, then gradually contribute over the course of the next 5 years in increasing amounts until they were contributing the full match.

Senator Werk’s research shows that the Avery school district, which contributes the most for a 70,000 square foot elementary school would save as much as $328,000 over the course of five years. For the Rockland school district, the savings would be $164,000 for the same sized building. This is in addition to the savings presented by the resulting energy efficiency of the building, a savings of about 20%. Fundamental commissioning is the act of bringing in a third party to oversee the coordination of the various elements of the project, and could be projected to cost as much as $75,000 for a project of this size. These figures do not take that expense into account, but even the schools in the Rockland district, which would receive the lowest benefit, would still see a benefit.

Senator Werk says that of the school districts he visited, there was overwhelming support of this bill. He also emphasized that participating in this program would be totally voluntary and not resulting a loss of revenue to the state.

Senator Jorgensen objected that the notion of integrated design was necessary to achieve higher efficiency. He challenged Senator Werk’s assertion that this program would not cost the state money and went as far to suggest that integrated design was redundancy.