Wednesday, December 1, 2010 — UPDATE: We would like to encourage readers to check out the Comments for this post. — The Ed.
Monday, November 29, 2010 — This just in from Doug Bogen, of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League:
Portsmouth – Citizen groups will get an opportunity to make their case for intervention in the early relicensing of the Seabrook nuclear power plant to operate until 2050. The hearing will take place at 9 AM to 1 PM on Tuesday, November 30th at the Levenson Room of Portsmouth Public Library.
The groups – Beyond Nuclear (Takoma Park, MD), Seacoast Anti-Pollution League (Exeter, NH) and the New Hampshire Sierra Club (Concord, NH) – petitioned the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last month to convene a legal hearing. The groups want a fair and accurate assessment of the region’s potential and plans for clean, safe and renewable energy as an alternative to another 20-years of Seabrook plant operation. NextEra, one of the limited liability corporations of the owner Florida Power & Light (FPL), is seeking a twenty (20) year license extension for the Seabrook reactor when the current operating license expires in 2030. The groups charge that the company’s environmental report, as required under federal law, is seriously deficient and misinforms the federal licensing agency on energy alternatives, particulary offshore and deepwater wind.
The NRC will only allow one representative of of the three groups to speak at the prehearing, who will be Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear. Ray Shadis of the New England Coalition and Friends of the Coast will also be speaking, representing four additional contentions having to do with NextEra’s underestimation of the impacts of a large scale accident and the management of aging electrical components vital to future plant operations.
WHAT: NRC Prehearing Conference to hear oral arguments from intervention petioners
WHEN: 9 AM to 1 PM on Tuesday, November 30th. Citizen group members will gather at 8:30 AM with placards at Library entrance.
WHERE: Levenson Community Room, Portsmouth Public Library, 175 Parrott Ave.
Hey Dan,
There’s this little thing called the U.S. Constitution, that allows us to petition the government for grievances (like trying to slip this questionable re-licensing through 20 years ahead of time, hoping nobody notices) – it doesn’t say anything about paying for that right. And last I checked, use of the public library was free, even for out-of-town corporations and their government “regulators” (aka, lackies).
If you really are concerned about the cost of your electricity, you should take a look at your electric bill – if you indeed live in NH, there’s this little item called a “stranded costs” charge, which we all pay into to cover the cost of building Seabrook – even though most all of the power from it heads south of NH. And owner NextError gets to keep all the profits from those sales, since they bought it at bargain basement prices. And they then sell a bit of it back (at premium rates) to PSNH, who went bankrupt trying to build it in the first place. So who do you think is raising your electric rates unreasonably?
BTW, no group gets to submit one of these petitions without legally certifying that they have members living nearby and affected by the plant in question – so who are you calling an out-of-towner?
Doug
Its a shame that these ogranizations are allowed to increase the cost of our electricity by forcing these un-based and un-reasonable hearing to happen. The ratepayers absorb the costs these out-of towners cost the electricity providers as ‘costs of normal business’. Lets force some accountability and if the allegations are found through this process to be valid then the company should bare the costs, if no basis for these allegations are found then these organizations should bare the costs – not the ratepayers!