Capon Valley Coalition

Many of us working on the Capon Valley Coalition campaign have found ourselves inundated with work from our “day jobs” and that thing we call a “personal life”.

Ralph W., who owns property with his wife on River Ridge, is riding to our rescue.

Ralph will begin updating the site more regularly — while I work through the backlog of email from July.

Our thanks to Ralph and all the CVC volunteers.

This fight ain’t over!

Ralph W. brought this July 31 article in The New York Times (link or see full text below) to our attention during the incredibly hectic month of July. Here is Ralph’s note:

According to this article, new nuclear plants could begin construction in VA (by General Electric), MD (by Areva), and PA (also by Areva) within the next few years.

In addition, the WV PSC web site CPV Warren, LLC has filed as an intervener in the Trans-Allegheny Transmission Line case because they are developing an “environmentally friendly, 600MW natural-gas fired electricity generating facility in Warren County, VA”.

Do these projects not eliminate the need to destroy so many families along the many hundreds of miles that would be impacted by the Trans-Allegheny Transmission Line and similar transmission-only solutions that are under review? Certainly they decrease the urgency of such projects and give an opportunity to consider better coordination with, for example, Corridor H construction. TrAILCo currently opposes such coordination.

Here is the piece from the New York Times:

July 31, 2007
Energy Bill Aids Expansion of Atomic Power

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, July 30 — A one-sentence provision buried in the Senate’s recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees.

Lobbyists have told lawmakers and administration officials in recent weeks that the nuclear industry needs as much as $50 billion in loan guarantees over the next two years to finance a major expansion.

The biggest champion of the loan guarantees is Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and one of the nuclear industry’s strongest supporters in Congress.

Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico and the energy bill’s author, has long argued that nuclear power plants do not need federal loan guarantees. Mr. Bingaman said that the industry was over-interpreting the provision and that it would provide loan guarantees for only the most innovative power plants.

But the provision has the potential to considerably expand the nuclear industry, which plans to build 28 new reactors at an estimated cost of about $4 billion to $5 billion apiece. And while the nuclear industry would be the biggest beneficiary, the provision could also set the stage for billions of dollars in loan guarantees for power plants that use “clean coal” technology and renewable fuels.

The nuclear industry is enjoying growing political support after decades of opposition from environmental groups and others concerned about the risks. An increasing number of lawmakers in both parties, worried about global warming and dependence on foreign oil, support some expansion of nuclear power.

But the provision could go much further than many lawmakers had in mind by giving the Department of Energy the power to approve an unlimited amount of loan guarantees for “clean” power generation. Under legislation enacted in 2005, nuclear power qualifies as a clean technology because it does not emit carbon gases that contribute to global warming.

Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government.

The federal government guarantees many billions of loans each year to help farmers, exporters, small businesses and students. The government does not actually lend the money but agrees to pay it back in case the borrower defaults.

While the nuclear industry says it will need $25 billion in loan guarantees in 2008 and $50 billion over the next two years, President Bush had proposed a far smaller amount — $4 billion — in new loan guarantees next year for “clean” electric power technologies, which include plants that run on so-called clean coal technologies and renewable fuels.

Many experts fear that the proposed subsidies could leave taxpayers responsible for billions of dollars in soured loans.

“Such projects, by their nature, pose significant technical and market risks,” the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned last month in an analysis of the provision. “Studies of the accuracy of cost estimates for pioneering technologies have found that estimates are consistently low.”

Michael J. Wallace, the co-chief executive of UniStar Nuclear, a partnership seeking to build nuclear reactors, and executive vice president of Constellation Energy, said: “Without loan guarantees we will not build nuclear power plants.”

The little-noticed provision in the Senate bill subtly refines and expands the loan guarantee program that Congress passed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

As before, the Department of Energy would be allowed to guarantee 100 percent of the loans and up to 80 percent of the total cost to build a reactor.

But the bill essentially allows the department to approve as many loan guarantees as it wants for both new reactors and plants that use other “clean” technologies.

That is a big change. Under current law, the government is only allowed to guarantee a volume of loans authorized each year by Congress. Last year, Congress limited the government to awarding just $4 billion in loan guarantees for clean energy projects during the 2007 fiscal year.

Mr. Domenici, who has been pushing the Energy Department to move much more aggressively in approving loan guarantees, has argued that there is no need for limits on the loan volume because power companies will be required to pay an upfront fee to cover the estimated cost of the guarantee. In essence, the “credit subsidy” payments would be used as a kind of insurance premium that could be used to cover the cost of any defaulted loan.

“It is very clear that this is a self-financing program,” Mr. Domenici told James Nussle, Mr. Bush’s nominee to become the White House budget director, at Mr. Nussle’s confirmation hearing last week. “There should already be $25 billion to $30 billion in the loan guarantee fund.”

But the Bush administration opposes the measure, fearing that it could prove extremely costly.

The provision would “remove appropriate controls over the size of the program and increase taxpayer liability,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in an official position statement on the energy bill.

Michele Boyd, legislative director of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said the measure would subsidize plants with conventional technology.

“None of these so-called ‘advanced’ nuclear reactors deal with the fundamental flaws of nuclear power, such as dangerous radioactive waste, vulnerabilities to air attack and excessive cost,” said Ms. Boyd, whose staff began investigating the provision shortly after the Senate passed the bill last month.

Mr. Bingaman, the bill’s primary architect, said that he was aware of the provision but believed that it would apply only to reactors with fundamentally new technology.

“I would be amazed if this generic loan program applied to most of the plants that are being proposed, either for the nuclear industry or coal industry,” Mr. Bingaman said Monday night. “The idea of this is not just to help an industry build plants. It’s to demonstrate new technology that meets the nation’s energy needs.”

But industry officials say the measure would directly affect the reactors on the drawing board.

“I think we can say that with all the projects moving forward on the schedule they are now on, that there could be a need for $20 to $25 billion in loan guarantees,” said Richard Myers, vice president for policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association.

The House is hoping to pass its own energy bill this week. But leading House Democrats have made it clear they oppose any kind of loan guarantees for nuclear reactors.

The House recently passed an appropriations bill for energy and water programs that included $7 billion in loan guarantees for projects involving renewable energy and specifically excluded nuclear plants.

Representative Peter J. Visclosky, Democrat of Indiana and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s panel on energy and water, said last month that the nuclear industry had estimated a need of $25 billion in guaranteed loans for next year and “more than that” in 2009.

The industry’s request, Mr. Visclosky warned, “overwhelms” what the committee had been willing to offer the entire energy industry.

Still, nuclear industry executives say they hope the Senate’s loan guarantee provision will be adopted by House lawmakers.

July was a busy month for everyone working on the Capon Valley Coalition. We are trying to catch up now.

The Washington Post reported on July 27:

Supporters Say Project Is Vital to Success Of Area Economy; Foes Question Its Need

Heated testimony at a hearing yesterday about a proposed 65-mile high-voltage power line through Northern Virginia provided a hint of the friction associated with the project and the tension ahead as the state begins deciding whether to approve it.

Many people waited all afternoon at Fauquier High School in Warrenton for the chance to address a State Corporation Commission hearing examiner, who will play a key role in deciding whether the 500 kilovolt line proposed by Dominion Virginia Power and Allegheny Power should be built.

Although organized opposition to the project has been fierce and many speakers condemned it, a parade of business owners and representatives from Northern Virginia chambers of commerce endorsed it, saying the area’s economy will depend on a reliable flow of electricity.

“The success of the high-tech-driven economy in Fairfax County and the rest of Northern Virginia” depends on maintaining the infrastructure, said William D. Lecos, president and chief executive of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, reading from a statement. “Without it, the economy of Northern Virginia cannot thrive.”

But William Arrington, whose southern Fauquier County farm could be sliced by the line, said that if Fairfax needs power, that’s Fairfax’s problem “because that’s where the over-development has been allowed to run rampant.”

The hearing was the first of eight scheduled this summer about the transmission line, which is planned for parts of Frederick, Fauquier, Rappahannock, Culpeper and Prince William counties before ending at a substation in Loudoun County. Without it, the region might face rolling blackouts within five years, Dominion officials have said.

Since announcing the project last summer, Dominion has encountered well-organized, sometimes emotional opposition from landowners, conservationists and others who say the line would scar the landscape and encourage the construction of polluting coal plants. The company revised the line’s route to avoid environmentally and historically significant areas, and the opposition has persisted.

Led by the slow-growth Piedmont Environmental Council, critics have promised to convince the state that the project is not needed for Northern Virginia. The Warrenton-based organization has raised about $1 million to fight the project, organizing rallies and commissioning studies that emphasize alternatives such as conservation.

This month, Dominion has stepped up its efforts to convince residents that the line is essential for the health of Northern Virginia’s electrical grid and that no alternative will suffice.

Dominion commissioned and is heavily promoting an April study by KEMA, a Massachusetts engineering firm, that shows “there will be significant problems in the system that will require new transmission facilities by 2011.”

A full-page newspaper ad by Dominion this week said, “Without a new transmission line, Northern Virginians will need to reduce electrical use by 40%.” And the company has been reaching out to business owners who support the line, asking them to speak out at hearings that are expected to be dominated by the line’s critics.

Six more meetings will take place next month — in Bristow, Winchester and Front Royal. The commission will spend the fall studying the issue and will reconvene in January to hear arguments from attorneys for the different sides. If the commission approves the project, Dominion officials hope to have it built by 2011.