Japan’s nuclear situation creates hiccup for Iowa legislation

The U.S. has 23 GE Mark 1 reactors like the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 which exploded and released radiation over the weekend — including Iowa’s Duane Arnold facility near Cedar Rapids. That information, as well as the crisis underway in Japan, have caused some state lawmakers to slow a bill that would have paved the way for new nuclear plants Iowa.

Twin bills that would have cleared a path for a second nuclear power plant are before legislative committees in both chambers, and the bill within the Senate was expected to reach the floor sometime next week. Now, however, the exact future of that legislation is more uncertain.

Sen. Joe Bolkcom (D-Iowa City) advocated for a the legislature to take a slower and more measured approach in a possible nuclear expansion, but other state Democrats and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds favor the current pace of the government’s and MidAmerican Energy’s exploration.

“I think we continue to move forward with that,” Reynolds told reporters during a Monday press conference. “We started this process last year with legislation, and we’re taking it to the next step this year.”

Reynolds noted that technology has changed since the 1970s, and that there is opportunity in Iowa for smaller facilities. The development, construction and licensing of such power plants isn’t a rapid process, she warned, and the state needs to continue on the exploratory path “in a thoughtful and sustainable manner.”

Bolkcom told Rod Boshart of The Gazette that he believes  that future construction should be at least temporarily stalled in the U.S. in light of the problems in Japan.

He questioned whether state lawmakers should move ahead with enabling legislation for the proposed MidAmerican project that last year was granted funding for a feasibility study.

“This thing appears to be on a fast track. I don’t think that there’s any real rush. Clearly what’s happened in Japan gives people pause for the safety and, frankly, the liability for who is going to pay when there are problems,” Bolkcom said. “The United States’ nuclear industry has been run rather safely. On the other hand, when you do have a problem, it has the potential to be catastrophic problems.”

A legislative news bulletin sent Monday by the Iowa Environmental Council also notes that lawmakers “are moving quickly” on the legislation, which the group believes provides an unfair advantage to nuclear power in relation to other renewable energy options.

… One of the concerns about this legislation is that it creates such favorable policy for new nuclear power that it will disadvantage clean energy, including wind, solar and energy efficiency. Iowa has made great progress realizing the economic and environmental benefits of clean energy in recent years, but there remains great untapped potential, if we can stay focused and advance the right mix of energy policy. …

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs) indicated that he doesn’t expect the recent disasters in Japan to completely derail the legislation, but he does anticipate that the situation overseas will prompt lawmakers to be more vigilant in terms of safety and the environment as they move forward.

Unlike many bills and issues before the Iowa Legislature that have made headlines this session, support for an expansion of nuclear power in the state doesn’t necessarily break along party lines. Within the state there are Democrats and Republicans who strongly support further exploration. Those who wish to proceed with more caution or who have advocated a temporary halt to further approval, however, do tend to be lawmakers who lean left.

And, on the national level, it appeared to be those types of lawmakers — those who are now bolstered in their advocacy of slower and more thoughtful discussion on nuclear power — that prompted The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, to distribute an message on Monday that claimed the events unfolding in Japan should have no bearing on U.S. plans for expansion.

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not need to regulate more in response to this,” the Foundation said in Morning Bell: Nuclear Facts to Remember While Following Japan. “We need to remember that nuke plants are privately owned and that their owners have every incentive to maintain safe operations. The government’s role should simply be to set and enforce fair, efficient, and effective safety and environmental standards and allow private industry to meet them.

“The plant in trouble in Japan is over 40 years old.” the foundation said. “Today’s designs are far more advanced.”

This opinion was echoed by staunch Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King during an interview with ABC News.

… King said that while the nuclear energy crisis in Japan raises important questions about safety, it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to shelve plans to build new facilities.“This tragedy is just mammoth proportions, and America will step up to support Japan. But … I think this: I’m not with Joe Lieberman on this, that we should put a freeze on what we do. But while this is going on, our people who are experts, the engineers who engineer and design these nuclear plants — those that can go back and go through the drawings of those plants that are 40 years old and older should, I think, be giving us their professional opinions as to the risks that we might have.

“But I wouldn’t if I were the president sign an executive order to freeze all construction of nuclear plants, as the president froze all drilling in the Gulf Coast after the [BP oil spill] disaster down there. We need to move forward, but while we’re moving forward we can also do the analysis so that we’re doing the prudent thing in the long term.” …

King is one of 64 national Republicans who have co-sponsored a bill that would require “the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [to]  issue operating permits for 200 new commercial nuclear reactors, enough to triple current megawatt capacity, by 2040, if there are a sufficient number of qualified applicants.”

Reuters reports the U.S. has 23 operating GE Mark 1 reactors — and that five of them are at least 40 years old. One of those older reactors is at NextEra Energy’s Duane Arnold Energy Center, which is located nine miles from Cedar Rapids in the small town of Palo. It is like the Fukushima Daiichi plant in that both use the GE-made boiling water reactors. Heat from the nuclear reactors are used to boil water, which creates steam that turns electricity-producing turbines.

Duane Arnold, Iowa’s only nuclear power plant, was given a permit to begin construction in the summer of 1970. Roughly four years later, in Feb. 1974, the facility was granted a full-power operating license. Commercial operations began exactly one year later in Feb. 1975.

In December 2010, following a 26-month environmental and safety review, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a 20-year license extension for Duane Arnold. The NRC is an independent federal agency charged with the oversight and regulation of all U.S. nuclear power plants.

The plant’s initial 40-year operating license was granted in 1974 and set to expire in 2014. Like all other nuclear power plants, Duane Arnold’s license was issued for 40 years based on accounting estimates of the time that would be require to recover construction costs. The application to obtain the extension was nearly 2,000 pages and summarized the results of evaluations on how materials and components within the plant age and how aging will be managed by testing, inspection, refurbishing or replacement. Before the extension was granted, the plan had to demonstration that technical information was in compliance with federal regulations, undergo on-site inspections and invite public comment.

At the time of the renewal Iowa Sen. Swati Dandekar (D-Marion), whose district includes the plant, said, “Duane Arnold has a good history in our community and plays an important role in our energy future.”

NextEra Energy is the facility’s primary owner by maintaining a 70 percent interest. Central Iowa Power Cooperative holds a 20 percent interest and Corn Belt Power Cooperative holds a 10 percent interest. At the time of the extension, officials noted that the plant had more than 600 employees and generated enough energy to power 600,000 homes. The plant operates a single reactor and is one of the smaller facilities operating in the U.S.

The companies, in general, sought to reassure Americans about the safety margins at all of their facilities following catastrophic events in Japan. Statements specific to Duane Arnold were not provided.

“[O]ur designs and ongoing maintenance programs are specifically based on a number of factors including the likely worst-case seismic scenario for the location of the plant,” noted a statement from NextEra.

Other U.S. plants similar to Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi facility are:

Reporter Eartha Jane Melzer with The Michigan Messenger contributed to this report.