A bipartisan bill sent to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s desk last week could signal warming national attitudes toward nuclear energy.
The Wisconsin Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would lift the state’s decades-long ban on new nuclear power plants. While Walker had not made any public statements about the bill as of Wednesday, he had campaigned on a promise to repeal the moratorium when he was elected in 2010.
In 1982, Wisconsin lawmakers passed a law banning the construction of new power plants unless there was an acceptable place to store the plant’s spent radioactive fuel and it was advantageous to ratepayers to build one. The bill lifts the ban by eliminating those conditions.
The bill passed the legislature with veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
Republican Rep. John Macco, one of 33 lawmakers from both parties who introduced the bill, said the requirements are no longer necessary. He pointed to the recently closed Kewaunee Power Station, a former Wisconsin nuclear power plant that now stores spent radioactive fuel, as an example that large facilities are no longer needed.
“We need to work on keeping energy affordable, safe and environmentally friendly, and bringing nuclear energy back to Wisconsin will do just that,” he said. “With this bill, Wisconsin will be a nationwide leader in nuclear energy.”
For decades, nuclear energy was put on the backburner of U.S. energy sources following disasters at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Ukraine. Sixteen states have restrictions on nuclear power plant construction, similar to Wisconsin’s law, and Minnesota has an outright ban that has been debated for years.
Many of those states ended up with de facto bans, similar to Wisconsin’s law, because they deal with disposal of nuclear fuel. Wisconsin’s decision could end up showing a way forward for pro-nuclear power activists in other states.
In addition, President Obama’s attempts to cement his legacy of fighting climate change has put nuclear power among the sources of energy his administration has been pushing because it is the cleanest form of energy.
In his proposed budget for fiscal 2017, Obama wants to spend billions on nuclear research in the areas of energy production, safety and cleaning up nuclear waste.
Wisconsin has one active nuclear power plant, the Point Beach Nuclear Plant, which produces about 14 percent of the state’s power.
Wisconsin Rep. Kevin Petersen, a Republican who led the push in the legislature to lift the ban on new nuclear plants, said the Obama administration has opened the door to new plants.
He pointed to an August 2014 Nuclear Regulatory Commission finding that said spent nuclear fuel can be safely managed in dry casks, which are containers that hold spent fuel that has been in a cooling pool for one year and inert gas. The casks, which are bolted or welded shut, are the type of containers used at the Kewaunee Power Station in northeast Wisconsin.
“Advanced nuclear energy is a clean, safe and affordable way to meet future energy demands in Wisconsin, the United States, and around the world,” he said. “Lifting Wisconsin’s nuclear moratorium reopens the door to a technology that has advanced well beyond what it was when our state closed that door 30-plus years ago.”
Petersen emphasized that the bill requires local and state agencies to prioritize new power plant projects in a certain order. The top priority is energy conservation and efficiency, with noncombustible renewable energy resources, combustible renewable energy resources and nonrenewable combustible energy resources bringing up the rear.
If new power sources that are as clean as nuclear power but don’t carry the same kind of baggage are proposed, they would have priority, Petersen said.
“The bill does not contemplate nuclear will displace any of the statutorily prioritized resources, such as energy efficiency and conservation, or renewable energy,” he said. “If those sources can cost effectively and suitably supply Wisconsin’s energy needs, then no nuclear plant would need to be built.”
