Washington State has a tortured history with nuclear power. The biggest bond default in the history of the United States was the collapse of the WPPSS project to construct five nuclear power reactors in Washington. It cost utilities over two billion dollars. Ultimately, only one of the intended reactors was built at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and is still operating today. Critics of nuclear power call for that plant to be shut down. Supporters of nuclear power have been calling for new power reactors in Washington. Recently three bills related to nuclear power made it through the state Senate under the sponsorship of Washington Senator Sharon Brown with a pending fourth bill awaiting a vote. Sharon Brown is the Senator from Washington's District 8 which contains the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Currently under Washington State law, electric utilities must make a voluntary option to buy "green power" available to customers. Green power is defined as "electricity generated from wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, gas produced during the treatment of wastewater, and other specified sources." Washington Senate Bill 5091 would change the definition of "qualified alternative energy resource" or green power to include nuclear energy. This is a bad idea. Low-carbon emissions should not be the only criterion for being green power. The horrible pollution from mining uranium, the dangers of accidents at nuclear plants, the radioactive waste produced by nuclear plants and many other negative aspects of nuclear energy should disqualify it from ever being considered "green."
There are thousands of people working in the fields related to nuclear power, nuclear research and nuclear cleanup in Washington state with most of them at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. That workforce is aging so Washington Senate Bill 5093 would create a nuclear education system with the goal of teaching Washington students about nuclear energy. The program would pay for science teachers to attend courses on nuclear energy and to bring "nuclear ambassadors" from the field into Washington classrooms. I hope that the classes would include serious information about the dangers and problems of nuclear energy but I fear that they could become one-sided cheerleading for only the benefits of nuclear power.
Washington State Senate Bill 5113 requires that "the Washington State Commerce Department coordinate and advance the siting of both small modular reactors themselves and small modular reactor-manufacturing facilities within the state, advancing nuclear power as part of Washington’s future energy mix." Prototypes of small modular reactors have been designed and constructed for testing but no commercial versions are available yet. They can be manufactured in a standard production line and moved to their operational site. They produce less than three hundred megawatts of power. It may take ten years or more to license and construct a small commercial modular reactor. This is an untested new technology and may encounter unanticipated problems on the way to production.
A fourth bill is waiting for a vote in the Washington Senate. Senate Bill 5115 calls for the "state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council to study the siting of small modular reactors in the state, identify possible locations, and decide what permits and studies are needed for these kinds of siting decisions. They would also investigate how to streamline the process." As I said above, small modular reactors are a new technology.
While I appreciate the fact that Senator Sharon Brown is working on jobs for people in her district, I do not agree that an expansion of nuclear power in Washington will ultimately be beneficial to District 8 and Washington. I fear that if the State legislature passes these bills into law, Washington State may wind up spending considerable funds under these four bills. As momentum builds for constructing small modular reactors in Washington State, it may become more and more difficult to stop nuclear projects even if there are severe cost overruns and scheduling delays. Let us hope that we do not repeat the mistakes of WPPSS and wind up with no new power sources and a lot of new debt.
