Energy Justice Network testified in D.C. against Exelon energy corporation’s takeover of Pepco, electric service provider to Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
This takeover is a bad deal for the District of Columbia and is not in the public interest. It would hit DC ratepayers with higher electricity bills, would undermine renewable energy and would not provide reliable power.
Exelon is the nation’s largest nuclear utility, with 23 of the nation’s 99 remaining nuclear reactors. 81% of Exelon’s electricity output in 2013 came from these 23 reactors. Two-thirds of them (15 of the 23) are in a list of reactors that are “at risk” of early retirement. Five of these “at risk” Exelon reactors have enough of these problems in combination that they’re said to “face particularly intense challenges.” The costs to keep unprofitable plants running means huge rate hikes for ratepayers. The costs of their closure are even more alarming, due to both the need for replacement power as well as the astronomical costs of reactor decommissioning.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that the cost of decommissioning ranges from $300 million to $400 million per reactor. Union of Concerned Scientists and the Nuclear Energy Institute both estimate that the average reactor unit now costs about $500 million to decommission. Actual decommissioning costs in recent years have exceeded $1 billion per reactor, as evidenced by the over $1 billion price tag for decommissioning Exelon’s Zion reactor in Illinois and the $1.2 billion price tag for decommissioning the Vermont Yankee reactor. The 2‑unit San Onofre reactor site in California, closed for good in 2013, has an estimated decommissioning price tag of $4.4 billion.
Nuclear reactors are NOT reliable. A reactor closed down temporarily for repairs, or permanently due to costs or unresolvable safety issues requires significant replacement power. Nuclear reactors also cannot take the heat. In the hottest summer days, when demand is highest due to air conditioner use, nuclear reactors increasingly have to curtail power or close temporarily, as they cannot legally discharge their heated cooling water that they cannot adequately cool.
Exelon is hostile to renewable energy, despite some minor investments. In Maryland, they’re starting to push for nuclear power to be included in state Renewable Portfolio Standards, which would decimate the market for wind power as existing nuclear facilities can name their price and undermine new wind and solar development.
Nuclear power is not environmentally sound. To produce the same amount of energy as coal, it lays waste to more land with uranium mining. It consumes extensive amounts of fossil fuels to mine, mill, convert, enrich and fabricate nuclear reactor fuel, and transport long ways around the country between each of these steps, before the fuel even reaches the reactor. Extensive radioactive and chemical pollution contaminates communities each step of the way, including in nuclear reactor communities, where radioactive air and water releases are routine and legal, not to mention illegal releases from spills.
For more info, see www.powerdc.org
