Nuclear Energy Risk Management

Opening Statement By The Honorable Donna F. Edwards

I look forward to today’s hearing because for too long we have heard a drumbeat about how nuclear energy is both safe and efficient, with electricity produced “too cheap to meter.”  I want to thank the Chairmen for giving Members a chance to get to the bottom of these claims.

The idea of nuclear power as a cost-effective source of power can be traced back to a statement in 1954 by the then-Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission who suggested that “Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter...”  That same year, General Electric ran an advertisement that optimistically trumpeted how the industry would be on its own two feet within 5 to 10 years.  After suggesting that the big question on atomic energy was whether it could be done economically, the ad says:

“We already know the kinds of plants which will be feasible, how they will operate, and we can estimate what their expenses will be.  In five years - certainly within ten - a number of them will be operating at about the same cost as those using coal.  They will be privately financed, built without government subsidy.”

The reality is that nuclear power has always required government subsidies.  In the almost sixty years since that ad appeared, the taxpayer has seen more than $80 billion spent on nuclear power research and development.  In fact, it is the largest single energy research area since 1948.  And there are billions and billions and billions of dollars in other subsidies created through government actions designed to distort markets to give nuclear power a competitive edge.  Subsidies include the Price-Anderson Act, which caps nuclear plant operators exposure to costs that would come from an accident, loan guarantees to underwrite the capital costs of plants, tax exempt bonds for construction of public plants, no charges to plants for their use of water and the list goes on and on. 

Despite decades of support, nuclear power plants are still unable to operate competitively in the U.S. energy market.  Now, we are being asked for still more subsidies to build another generation of plants.  According to an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, these subsidies could be worth twice as much as the value of the electricity produced by the plants.  That strikes me as throwing good money after bad.

We recently held a hearing on renewable energy in which the Majority seemed to want to make the point that subsidizing renewable energy would be “picking winners and losers” or distorting the market and that the energy produced would not be competitive without government support.  Well, if you truly reject such support, the nuclear power industry should be the poster child for an industry that needs government to prop it up. 

I do not oppose subsidies to help new energy sources get on their feet.  I believe we should be investing in wind and solar and battery technologies and exploring other potential renewables to give them a chance to demonstrate their value to meeting our country’s energy needs.  They appear to be safer to the public and the environment than any other sources of electricity and they promise true energy independence without worries about proliferation of nuclear materials.  They deserve at least as much of a chance as nuclear has had, and since nuclear cannot stand on its own feet after sixty years, it is time to say “enough.”  The public gravy train has got to come to a stop for this now mature industry.

As to claims of safety, the events at Japan’s Fukushima plant illustrate how safety is contingent on a complex set of systems all working perfectly.  If those systems go down, safety starts to slip beyond our control.  Natural disasters and human folly know no national bounds and it would be beyond arrogant to think that something similar to Fukushima could not happen here.

The risks posed by nuclear power are unique in their potential health and environmental scope.  In the last thirty years, we have had three catastrophic accidents of varying effect:  Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.  To avoid another accident requires aggressive regulators, safety-minded operators, and perfect luck.  As was illustrated in a recent New York Times article, operators often confuse profit margins with safety margins and regulators are too passive or overwhelmed to always enforce accountability.

To keep the public safe from disaster, you have to get nuclear plant safety right every second of every day of every year and everywhere.  And natural disasters cannot be allowed to interfere or those carefully calibrated perfect systems can fail.  I think that this is an impossible standard, but a failure once a generation or so is not acceptable to me.  In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists has issued a report documenting 14 near misses just in the past year, including one at Maryland’s own Calvert Cliffs plant. 

Located approximately 50 miles from where we sit today, Calvert Cliffs has two reactors.  In February 2010, both reactors were automatically shut down.  The cause of the shut-down was that water had shorted out a degraded piece of electrical equipment that had neither been inspected nor replaced.  And the water, as a subsequent NRC investigation revealed, was the result of chronic roof leaks.  In fact, the NRC found that there were 58 outstanding work orders to repair roof leaks.  Despite some of the orders being two years old, not one of them had even been scheduled for repair. 

I am sure that a nuclear advocate would point to Calvert Cliffs’ automatic shutdown as a “success”.   But such successes, in which safety systems shut reactors down in the face of systems operating out of spec, are not cost free.  Each shutdown costs plant owners, and ultimately rate payers, an average of more than $1.5 billion dollars.   Since the Three Mile Island accident safety failures that resulted in plant shutdowns cost more than $80 billion.

So we subsidized the industry’s creation, the building of plants, the production of electricity and then we subsidize the failures of plant managers. 

I think enough is enough. 

Witnesses

Panel

0 - Mr. Lake Barrett
Director Principal LBarrett Consulting, LLC Principal LBarrett Consulting, LLC

0 - Mr. Brian Sheron
Director Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research Nuclear Regulatory Commission

0 - Dr. John Boice
Scientific Director International Epidemiology Institute International Epidemiology Institute

0 - Mr. Dave Lochbaum
Director Nuclear Safety Project Union of Concerned Scientists Nuclear Safety Project Union of Concerned Scientists