Wednesday, December 14, 2005
| 3rd investor abandons PFS project for nuclear waste News is another nail in effort's coffin, Hatch says WASHINGTON -- Florida Power and Light Co. will no longer help Private Fuel Storage move forward, it announced Tuesday, marking the third financial hit for the proposed nuclear waste storage site in less than a week. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the financial shake-up last week was the "first nail in the coffin for PFS" and called Tuesday's announcement "another strong nail." He said 57 percent of the PFS consortium's investments are now on hold, and he believes the remaining companies will not be able to move to the construction phase. "It would be a tremendous costly burden for them to do this on their own," Hatch said. But PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said not to read too much into the companies' decisions. The site was always going to be done in phases, and there are a lot of other companies out there who have storage needs that could sign on in the future to move the project to its next stage, she said. "The future of the project is not in the hands of these eight," she said "We always knew they were either going to sign on as customers or not." She said like any big project, the market will ultimately decide when the right time would be for PFS to be built. Hatch approached three of Private Fuel Storage's eight investing companies in an effort to persuade them that storing 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County would be a bad idea. So far, all three have changed their status, according to Hatch's staff. He is pursuing others, but his office would not say which. Florida Power and Light, like Xcel Energy and Southern Co., used the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project as their main catalyst for the change. The Energy Department intends to store 77,000 tons of used nuclear fuel at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress approved the site in 2002, although it still faces numerous challenges, so it may be several years before it opens — if it opens at all. The government agreed to take used nuclear fuel from companies by 1998 but failed to do so. Utilities needing another option for a place to store their increasing inventory of nuclear waste spurred the formation of Private Fuel Storage more than a decade ago. "To provide further support to PFS at this point would require us to conclude either that the federal government will not fulfill its absolute obligation under law to receive and store used nuclear fuel or that it is appropriate for (Florida Power and Light) to assume responsibility for storing used fuel at away-from-reactor sites," wrote Lew Hay, chairman of the utility's holding company, FPL Group, in a letter expected at Hatch's office today. "Neither of these conclusions comports with our view of the law or of our proper role as an owner and operator of nuclear power plants," Hay wrote. "Therefore, after carefully evaluating our goals, (Florida Power and Light) has concluded that at this time PFS is no longer in our strategic interest and that for the foreseeable future we will put no further effort into developing that project." The Florida utility was one of six investors that promised Hatch and Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett three years ago it would not support PFS beyond the licensing phase. The July 8, 2002, letter said, "We will pledge to both of you that our companies will commit no funds to construction of the PFS facility past the licensing phase so long as the Yucca Mountain project is approved by Congress and repository development proceeds in a timely fashion." Southern Co., one of the six that signed the letter, said last Wednesday that it would no longer support PFS. Xcel Energy, which did not agree to the first letter, said it "will hold in abeyance future investments" into the construction phase of PFS as long as "there is apparent and continuing progress" toward a federal interim storage site, reprocessing or permanent disposal of nuclear waste. Xcel holds the largest portion of the consortium at about 37 percent. Genoa Fuel Tech, a subsidiary of Dairyland Power Cooperative, is the only original investor left that has not made any changes to its plans. It has a non-operating nuclear power plant along the Mississippi River that it wants to decommission, but it has no place to put the waste. Charles San Crainte, vice president of generation at Dairyland Power Cooperative, said the company has needed a storage solution since 1987 and right now it "judges PFS to be a better decision for us." He said over the 11 years the site has been in play, the storage needs of those involved have changed, but his company still has an immediate need for a storage option. "We wouldn't be in the position to fund that independently," San Crainte said. But Southern California Edison is in the opposite situation. Spokesman Ray Golden said the company has not made any financial contributions to PFS since 1999. It originally joined because it did not have dry storage for nuclear waste on site, but now it does, so the need for PFS is not as great. "We have no immediate plan to store at PFS," he said, adding that a decision on whether to move forward with investments in construction would have to be made at that point. Todd Schneider, spokesman for First Energy, based in Akron, Ohio, said the company's commitment through the licensing phase is still valid, and it would look at PFS's potential and Yucca's progress before making any other decisions. The project has not technically moved into the construction phase yet. Another investor, Entergy Nuclear, said it still stands behind the position it took in the July 8 letter, manager of nuclear communications Carl Crawford said. Entergy inherited interest in the project when it bought a nuclear power plant in New York. Crawford said the company is still with the project at this point. Managers at American Electric Power were not available Tuesday, so the public affairs office could not comment on its latest status with PFS.
E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
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