Snake River Alliance notes issues

Snake River Alliance executive director Andrea Shipley has a list of reasons she opposes Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc.'s request to rezone approximately 1,345 acres of Agricultural A zoned property to Heavy Industrial to build a nuclear power plant on the land.

She's concerned with the plant's cost, waste, security, safety, "proliferation" (terrorists using material to make "dirty" bombs) and water usage.

"Idaho's blessed with renewable resources that are cheaper, faster and safer," Shipley said. "It makes sense we would explore those options first."

Shipley contends that while AEHI has estimated the plant will cost $4.2 billion to build, actual costs will be much higher. She points to a nuclear power plant built in Florida that cost $14 billion to complete as a figure closer to the plant's actual cost.

She said in order for nuclear power plants to be built, companies depend on federal subsidies, which means if AEHI can't come up with the money to build the plant on its own, the federal government will subsidize the plant.

She said there is no solution for the plant's nuclear waste, since the half life of the waste is longer than any civilization has been around.

"Proposing a nuke plant without a solution for nuclear waste is kind of like building an outhouse without digging a whole first," Shipley said.

Security of the plant's facility, material and waste is of concern to Shipley.

She questions if Elmore County has the infrastructure to provide the security the plant needs and what doing so would mean to the county cost-wise.

Her concerns stem from a 1991-2001 study that showed almost half of the nuclear plants failed to prevent mock attacks that would result in significant damage.

She is also worried about ensuring the safety of facility employees and said the plant needs to be watched and monitored at all times, which isn't required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "cookie cutter policies."

The need for constant monitoring and watching causes her to question AEHI's accountability.

She said the company's $50,000 application fee in Owyhee County was three months delinquent. Owyhee County officials would not comment on that statement to confirm or deny it.

"If the company who seeks state and federal subsidies to build this plant and who's penny stock is trading about 20 cents a share, cannot be accountable to county government, how do we expect them to be accountable to the strict safety concerns of a nuke power plant?"

Because uranium has to be enriched to create both fuel for power plants and nuclear weapons, Shipley calls this a link between the two and one of the reasons our country went to war with Iraq.

The enrichment process leads to other concerns for Shipley. The material has to be transported to the enrichment facility, where additional waste is created, and to the reactor. It uses a lot of energy to create energy, she said.

She also said 90 percent of the fuel would have to be imported, which wouldn't solve the need for energy independence.

"It's an environmental, economical and energy loser," Shipley said.

Shipley's last concern is water usage. She said a 1,600-megawatt plant can consume close to 30 million gallons of water a day, 90 percent of which is evaporated.

"Water is one of the most precious resources we have for the lifeblood of our state, which is farming," Shipley said.

She said jobs can be created from renewable energy sources. Shipley said jobs were created in eastern Oregon and Washington from the creation of renewable energy sources there and as a result, Columbia Gorge Community College created an energy technician program.

Shipley said there are a lot of factors not in the application the planning and zoning commission needs to consider. The factors include onsite storage of nuclear waste; the plant's water usage; the legacy of the land for farming; the economical cost of renewable energy; new roads will have to be built; the safety infrastructure the country will have to paved, and the construction and plumbing infrastructure of such a large building.