At Ontario’s request, Bruce Power currently is going through a federal impact assessment process to evaluate the potential for an additional 4,800 MW in a project referred to as Bruce C.

Although no decision has been made to advance a new build, Bruce Power said the multi-year assessment is an important step to support future electricity planning and allow faster execution if a decision is made to proceed.

Bruce Power will use the new funding to support project pre-development work, including the completion of an Impact Assessment and License to Prepare Site application; early engagement activities with local municipalities and Indigenous communities; and technical, environmental and engineering studies and evaluations.

This project is part of Powering Ontario’s Growth, the province’s plan to meet growing electricity demand and reduce emissions. Canada said the plan is an important step in building the first large-scale nuclear build in the country in more than 30 years.

The potential expansion represents more than 25% of the new nuclear capacity required for Ontario to meet its clean electricity needs in 2050, as recommended by Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator’s Pathways to Decarbonization Report, which indicates that as much as 17,800 MW of nuclear capacity could be required in Ontario to meet its clean electricity needs in 2050.

The Governments of Canada and Ontario are working together on the Canada-Ontario Regional Table collaboration framework, with priorities that include advancing the nuclear industry in Ontario, along with joint actions on electrification, critical minerals, hydrogen, and the forest sector, as well an improved permitting process and increased regulatory effectiveness and efficiency to get clean energy projects online in time to meet rising demand.

Bruce Power supplies 30 percent of Ontario’s electricity on its 2,300-acre site, which it said has significant space for expansion.

The site is a public-private partnership with the U.S. Air Force, located on a mixture of private land and land belonging to Edwards Air Force base – making it the largest public-private collaboration in the history of the U.S. Department of Defense. The site supplies power to the city of San Jose, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the Clean Power Alliance, and Starbucks, among others.

The 4,660-acre project, developed by Terra-Gen and constructed by Mortenson, began construction in early 2021, with “substantial completion” reported last year. Construction efforts included installing over 98 miles of MV Wire, over 361 miles of DC Wire, 120,720 LG Chem, Samsung, and BYD batteries, and more than 1.9 million First Solar panels. [Editor’s note: I’m reading this like this meme.]

Last month, NASA’s Landsat 9 satellite captured an image of the project as seen from space.

The Air Force Civil Engineer Center, a primary subordinate unit of the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center, worked with Edwards AFB to solicit lease proposals for the underutilized parcel of land on the northwest corner of the base using the Air Force Enhanced Use Lease (EUL) program. The Air Force and Terra-Gen signed a 35-year EUL agreement in November 2018.

“Through the program, Air Force installations can lease non-excess, underused land to private sector developers in return for rent or in-kind consideration subject to approval by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations,” said Jeffrey Domm, Director for AFCEC’s Installations Directorate.

The Edwards array is the fifth and largest solar EUL project in the Air Force, with the others located at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona; Eglin Air Force Base, Florida; and two at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Originally published in Renewable Energy World.

Approximately $442 million of combined term loans, letter of credit loans and revolving loans related to the Harquahala facility were closed as part of the transaction.

Harquahala is a three-unit gas plant that became operational in 2004. New Harquahala Generating Company is an indirect subsidiary of Talen Energy Supply that owns generating operations in Arizona. In 2016, Talen said it was looking at selling the Harquahala plant — or moving all or part of the generating equipment from its current location to either the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast markets. The moves were being considered largely because the plant, which Talen purchased from MACH Gen, was underutilized at its location in Maricopa County, Arizona, company officials had indicated.

The Harquahala Acquisition and the acquisition of the 1,062 MW La Paloma natural gas-fired generation facility in California were previously announced on November 20, 2023. The acquisition of the La Paloma facility was completed on February 9, 2024. The net purchase price for the two acquisitions attributable to Capital Power is $1.1 billion, subject to working capital adjustments.

Capital Power will be responsible for the operation, maintenance and asset management of the facilities relating to the acquisitions and will receive an annual management fee for the Harquahala facility.

The Clinton plant, which began operation in 1987 and can produce up to 1,080 MW, is currently licensed to operate through April of 2027. The license renewal, if approved, would extend to 2047.

Later this year Constellation is scheduled to file a second license renewal for its two-unit Dresden Clean Energy Center in Morris, Illinois, which would allow Unit 2 to operate until 2049, and Unit 3 to operate until 2051. The move, announced in 2022 along with the plans to extend the life of the Clinton plant, marked a reversal in fortune for both power plants, which were on the road to early retirement due to unfavorable economics less than two years before the announcement.

The continued operation of Clinton has been enabled by state legislation enacted in 2016, and the enactment of the federal nuclear production tax credit in 2022 extended policy support through 2032.

“The Clinton Clean Energy Center is not only the largest carbon-free electricity source in Central Illinois, but it also provides a major boost to the economy,” said Dan Matthews, president of the Clinton School District Board and a member of the DeWitt County Board. “The more than $13 million in annual property taxes supports education and county services, and the large number of employees live here and spend money, which supports local business and creates additional jobs. The plant’s relicensing is an important part of DeWitt County’s economic future.”

The Clinton license renewal application is the latest in a series of investments across the company. In 2023, Constellation announced the acquisition of a 44 percent ownership stake in the South Texas Project nuclear plant, an $800 million uprate project at the Braidwood and Byron clean energy centers in Illinois, and a $350 million uprate of its Criterion Wind Project in Maryland.

This comes following reports that the federal government intends to offer a $1.5 billion loan to Holtec International to restart the plant. Palisades would be the first successfully restarted nuclear plant in the U.S. if the plan is fulfilled.

The proposed budget includes a one-time general fund for a $150 million targeted investment to support efforts to reopen the 800 MW plant in Covert Township, Michigan, following the initial $150 million approved for the 2023 budget. Holtec International bought the plant in 2022 and has applied for federal dollars to help get the plant running again.

In early 2023, Holtec applied with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office for federal loan funding to repower Palisades, and the Biden Administration has expressed support for extending the lives or even restarting large nuclear plants. These facilities have been retiring over the last decade because of competition from cheaper natural gas and renewables.

There is currently a $6 billion fund aimed at supporting the continued operation of U.S. nuclear plants or the reviving of already closed ones. The Civil Nuclear Credit (CNC) Program was born out of the infrastructure bill signed into law in November 2021.

Any restart of Palisades is contingent on federal dollars coming through. Holtec officials have been quoted as saying it would take hundreds of millions of dollars for facility renovations and to buy nuclear fuel.

Holtec will officially be offered the federal loan as soon as next month, sources told Bloomberg.

In September 2023, Holtec and Wolverine Power Cooperative announced the signing of a long-term power purchase agreement, where Wolverine would purchase up to two-thirds of the power generated by Palisades for its Michigan-based member rural electric cooperatives. Indiana-based Hoosier Energy, another G&T Cooperative, would purchase the rest.

Almost 50 environmental justice groups on Tuesday sent a letter to leaders of the federally-funded Midwestern hydrogen hub, imploring them not to try to loosen requirements for tax incentives for hydrogen produced with clean energy.  

The U.S. Treasury in December published draft rules saying that to receive lucrative 45V tax credits for producing clean hydrogen, the energy used must not be diverted from the grid, but be “additional” energy created specifically to power the electrolysis process used to produce pure hydrogen from water. 

Environmental advocates are largely pleased with Treasury’s draft rules, which also say clean energy must be generated around the same time and near where it is used for hydrogen production, to reap incentives. But organizations are worried that industry groups are lobbying to weaken the draft rules, which are open for public comment through Feb. 26. 

The Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2), a coalition of industry and research groups that won up to $1 billion in Department of Energy hydrogen hub funding, has proposed to produce much “pink hydrogen” powered by nuclear energy from Illinois. Critics say this, as well as “green hydrogen” produced with solar and wind, could divert zero-emissions power from other users and hence prolong the lives of fossil-fuel-fired generators that fill the gaps. 

“If MachH2 imperils the achievement of our states’ climate goals, harms the health of our communities, and causes electricity price spikes that disproportionality impact low- and moderate-income households, it will face stiff opposition from our coalition and from communities that will bear the brunt of harmful, and avoidable, pollution,” says the letter from 47 organizations, including We the People of Detroit, Interfaith Power & Light, North Dakota Native Vote, StraightUp Solar, the Sierra Club, Eco-Justice Collaborative and Illinois People’s Action. 

MachH2 declined to comment for this story. 

Three pillars 

The environmental and justice groups praised the draft 45V rules for including “three pillars” the groups see as crucial to making sure “clean hydrogen” is truly clean. Those pillars mean clean hydrogen production tax credits will only be awarded if new clean energy is used to power the projects, and the clean energy can actually be delivered to the site of the electrolysis around the time it is needed. The draft rules say that to be considered “additional,” the energy source must have been built within 36 months before the hydrogen production goes online. 

Accounting known as hourly matching, which can be verified with Environmental Attribute Certificates, ensures that hydrogen production isn’t removing clean energy from the grid that could be used by consumers at times of high demand.

A 2023 study by researchers at Princeton University’s Center for Energy and the Environment modeled the emissions impact that hydrogen production by electrolysis would have in the western U.S., and found that all three “pillars” would be necessary to ensure overall emissions don’t exceed fossil fuel generation. 

The environmental justice organizations’ letter notes that the EPA has supported the Treasury department’s decision that induced emissions on the grid — caused by replacing electricity diverted for hydrogen production — should be counted as indirect emissions of hydrogen.  

“Backsliding on Treasury’s proposed rule… would lead to significant emissions increases from hydrogen production, in violation of 45V’s statutory requirements,” said the organizations’ letter. “It would also directly harm communities that are home to some of our states’ dirtiest power plants, which would run more to replace the zero-carbon energy diverted to hydrogen production.” 

Lauren Piette, a senior associate attorney in the clean energy program for Earthjustice, said, “The important thing now is to make sure Treasury holds the line against pressure to weaken the rules.” 

Treasury asked for comment on possible exemptions to the additionality requirement, including the possibility that existing nuclear and hydroelectric plants could receive the tax credit, or that existing plants could get the tax credit if it helps them avoid retirement. Advocates have called these possible changes in the rules “loopholes.” An analysis by the Rhodium Group found these exemptions would generally increase greenhouse gas emissions, compared to modeling under the rules without exemptions. 

“Treasury needs to reject the loopholes industry is demanding, which would create enormous subsidies for dirty hydrogen, lock in more fossil fuel production and use, and increase dangerous health and climate-harming pollution,” Piette said. “Especially damaging would be any loopholes to the incrementality requirement, which are based on industry’s speculative claims about retirement risk, curtailment, and modeling. Such loopholes would reward the hydrogen industry for siphoning critical zero-carbon energy from the grid, creating a massive power demand that would be filled by our dirtiest power plants – the ones that should be retiring, not ramping up.”

The letter charges that if the three pillars aren’t mandates for receiving tax incentives, the electricity diverted from the grid to hydrogen production will cause consumers’ energy bills to spike. They point to cryptocurrency mining as an example of how this phenomenon has played out. 

“Cryptomining, which is subject to minimal constraints and requirements, has increased utility bills by tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for households and businesses in upstate New York and led to costly grid strains in Texas,” the letter says. 

Industry arguments 

BP’s Whiting oil refinery in Northwest Indiana is a focal point of the proposed Midwest hydrogen hub, as the company plans to ramp up hydrogen production at the site and provide it to regional users. BP asked the Treasury department to allow hydrogen made from existing generation to receive tax credits. 

“We encourage the IRS and Treasury to adopt flexible criteria on ‘additionality’ especially at this nascent stage,” said BP America’s comment to the IRS. “Strict additionality rules requiring electrolytic hydrogen to be powered by new renewable energy is not practical, especially in the early years, and will severely limit development of hydrogen projects.” 

BP and other members also argued against the requirement for hourly matching of renewable energy generation to use in hydrogen production, arguing instead for yearly matching. The draft rules currently allow for yearly matching until 2028, then hourly matching becomes mandatory. 

“Stringent requirements such as hourly zero-emission matching have the potential to devastate the economics of clean hydrogen production,” said BP’s comment. “Moreover, such restrictive requirements are likely not practical or feasible in these early stages. If a green hydrogen production facility can only produce during hours when wind and solar are available, the low utilization rate will dramatically increase the price of the hydrogen produced.” 

Bloom Energy Corporation, which manufactures electrolyzers, also said that adequate technology does not exist to timestamp energy generation and use in order to ensure that clean energy is generated when it is needed for hydrogen production. 

“Since electrolyzers will comprise a very small percentage of the overall EAC-qualifying energy produced for many years to come, there is ample time for those state, regional and voluntary bodies to work through their stakeholder processes and make any changes as needed to adjust those systems so as to avoid unintended outcomes,” said Bloom Energy in its comment, referring to Environmental Attribute Certificates.

The Princeton study noted that hourly matching can add considerable costs to hydrogen production, but said the 45V tax credit would be lucrative enough to compensate for those costs while driving the market development of better hourly matching mechanisms.  

Constellation Energy, owner of Illinois’s nuclear plants, also supported a mandate for hourly matching.  

“Setting an expectation of hourly matched clean energy will provide a market signal for the clean energy investments needed to further drive decarbonization in the power sector,” said the nuclear company’s comment. 

But Constellation is asking for exemptions to additionality, asking the government to decide that hydrogen made with behind-the-meter generation from existing plants qualifies for tax credits. The MachH2 hydrogen hub proposal calls for an electrolyzer on the site of Constellation’s LaSalle nuclear plant in Illinois, which could provide behind-the-meter electricity. But this electricity would still represent clean power that otherwise could have been sent to the grid, critics say. 

Constellation also argued against adding carbon emissions related to the nuclear supply chain when calculating hydrogen’s lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. 

“Measuring carbon content for nuclear fuel is not typically done by the mining, enrichment, fabrication and transport vendors in the nuclear fuel supply chain, and it would be extremely cumbersome, costly, and labor intensive to impose these requirements on said vendors,” Constellation said.

An EJ platform for hydrogen 

The letter to MachH2 comes as grassroots groups and environmental organizations are increasingly organizing around still murky but well-funded plans for hydrogen to be used in everything from power generation to steelmaking to transportation, including as part of the seven federally-funded hubs. 

On February 1, the national collaborative Just Solutions Collective released an Environmental Justice Platform on hydrogen, demanding strict limits on the type of hydrogen production and use that is incentivized as part of a clean energy shift. 

The organization says hydrogen production from natural gas, and hydrogen produced with power from the grid, should be “ruled out” since “fossil fuel-based hydrogen fails to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” by many estimates. They also demanded strict safety protocols around new hydrogen development, strident protections for water resources, protections around chemicals added to hydrogen fuels, and transparency in all hydrogen-related projects. 

Just Solutions leaders hope their platform influences policymakers and also helps community groups more effectively weigh in on plans for expanding hydrogen, including as the U.S. Department of Energy invests $7 billion in the seven hydrogen hubs nationwide. 

“The framework is meant to be a resource for climate and environmental justice advocates so they can advance clean energy technology that meaningfully addresses the climate crisis and to stop false solutions from taking root in our communities,” Just Solutions senior fellow and strategist Sylvia Chi said in a January webinar. 

Environmental justice organizations in other parts of the country have also opposed hydrogen hub plans. Last summer Indigenous, environmental justice, and youth groups urged the Biden administration not to fund a hydrogen hub based in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, and that proposal was not among the seven selected.   

“DOE is saying a lot of the right things, but there is widespread concern that environmental justice is going to be set off to the side and figured out later, after contracts are signed and projects are approved,” said Piette. “We have yet to hear a clear answer on whether communities will be able to say no to a Hub project. DOE needs to give its own guidance teeth and hold Hubs accountable to local communities, especially those already experiencing cumulative burdens of decades of fossil fuel pollution.”

Excess energy

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) produced a report released in January commissioned by the Just Solutions Collective.

The report points to a pilot program in New York state where the Nine Mile nuclear plant is powering hydrogen production. While the nuclear power is zero emissions, it displaces energy from the grid that, when replaced by New York’s natural gas-heavy energy mix, increases overall greenhouse gas emissions. 

IEER argues that the ideal place for zero-emissions-produced hydrogen is in areas like California and Texas where there’s often much more wind or solar power available than the grid can handle. These renewables are regularly curtailed, or kept off the grid, simply going to waste. A possible exemption to the additionality requirement for tax credits that Treasury has floated includes existing generation during times that renewables would be curtailed. 

The IEER report estimates that curtailed renewables at current levels could produce 34,000 tons of hydrogen annually in California, and 150,000 tons in Texas. And the availability of renewables in those and other states is only expected to increase. 

The environmental justice organizations’ letter similarly says that in the Midwest, MachH2 could successfully procure new renewables to power green hydrogen production. 

“The MachH2 hub is one of the best situated in the country, able to take advantage of excellent wind and solar resources in the Midwest,” the letter says. “With the anticipated buildout of new renewable energy in this region, the projects funded by the hub will have no difficulty procuring cost-competitive, new, hourly-matched power from the proposed deliverability zone to claim the 45V tax credit.”

This article first appeared on Energy News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

This “All-Source” RFP eliminates specific technology requirements, opening the application process for full competition of all non-emitting resources that are widely deployed and consistent with Oregon’s energy policy, PGE said.

The utility said this is its largest open application process to date and is the first in the company’s recent history to provide a flexible timeline for the start of operations.

This RFP, which accepts proposals for resources with a start date between 2025 and the end of 2027, is meant to be consistent with the objectives described in PGE’s 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which was acknowledged by the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC) on January 25, 2024. PGE will accept and evaluate bids throughout the first quarter of 2024 and present a shortlist of top-performing projects for OPUC acknowledgment later in the year.

Last year, PGE released a new Clean Energy Plan in addition to its IRP, which both focus on the addition of more community-based renewable energy (CBRE). In its IRP, PGE forecasts a significant capacity need of 1136 MW in summer, 1004 MW in winter and a significant energy need of 905 MWa (~2,500 MW nameplate) by 2030. To help meet that need, it plans to add up to 155 MW of CBRE resources by 2030 with plans to pursue at least 66 MW by 2026.

At the time, the utility said it also planned to conduct one or more RFPs for an additional 181 MWa (~520 MW nameplate) of non-emitting generation and sufficient capacity to remain resource-adequate each year.

The Clean Energy Plan includes:

• New utility scale renewable projects like wind and solar installations, both in-state and out-of-state.
• Non-emitting capacity such as batteries.
• CBRE resources, small distributed energy resources that include battery storage and solar, which can make customers more resilient and save them money.
• Customer-sited solutions including energy efficiency and demand response programs.
• Upgrades to local transmission lines and new regional transmission solutions to accommodate growth and bring a greater geographic diversity of resources to PGE’s portfolio.

PGE said 2030 emissions targets can be met with technologies and resources that are currently known and commercially available. The utility said to meet 2040 targets, new technologies not yet commercially available that can replicate thermal generation dispatchable capacity, such as advanced nuclear, hydrogen or carbon capture and storage, will be needed to support decarbonization and resource adequacy.

PGE also said its natural gas-fired plants would continue to play a role in meeting resource adequacy needs during the clean energy transition. The utility said it would “continue to invest in the efficiency, safety and emissions controls of those facilities as appropriate.”

SaskPower and GEH will collaborate on project planning and facilitate the sharing of expertise related to the design, fuel sourcing and fabrication of GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 small modular reactor. The companies will also support workforce and supply chain planning needed for a Saskatchewan-based SMR deployment. 

“Gaining detailed technical specifications, requirements and designs to the BWRX-300 is necessary for our planning work and license applications,” said Rupen Pandya, SaskPower President and CEO. “Leveraging experience and expertise from our colleagues in the nuclear industry is an important part of our planning work.” 

In June 2022, SaskPower selected the GE Hitachi BWRX-300 as the technology to be used in its SMR development work. The BWRX-300 was also selected by Ontario Power Generation for its Darlington New Nuclear Project and is a boiling water reactor that produces about 300 MW from one single unit. This innovative SMR is based on similar large-scale nuclear power plants that have been in operation globally for decades.

OPG aims to build North America’s first SMR at its Darlington New Nuclear site. OPG expects the first of four SMRs would be completed there by the end of 2028 and online by 2030. Subject to Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) regulatory approvals, the additional SMRs could come online between 2034 and 2036. The four units once deployed would produce a total 1,200 MW of electricity.

In 2023, the Canadian government approved up to $74 million in federal funding for small modular reactor (SMR) development in Saskatchewan, to be led by SaskPower. The funding will support pre-engineering work and technical and regulatory studies, environmental assessments and community and Indigenous engagement.

Earlier in 2023, SaskPower and OPG renewed an agreement to continue working together on new nuclear development, including SMRs. The utilities would provide mutual support by sharing lessons learned, technical resources and expertise, best practices and operating experience. SaskPower and OPG would consider future collaboration in other areas, including project development and plant operations.

NJ Transit will abandon plans to construct a gas-burning power plant in Kearny and recommit just over $500 million of funding dedicated to the plant to three other infrastructure projects.

The Kearny project, called the NJ TransitGrid Microgrid Central Facility, was meant to prevent service interruptions during severe weather events like those seen following Hurricane Sandy, but the proposal faced heavy opposition from environmentalists and local advocates who worried about the impacts the plant would have in Kearny and outlying communities.

“This is a victory for the grassroots activists who never stopped pushing the Murphy administration to reject a scheme to place a new fossil fuel project near communities that have suffered from decades of industrial pollution,” said Matt Smith, New Jersey state director for Food and Water Watch. “They did not accept the bogus notion that a fracked gas plant could be a sustainability solution in the midst of a climate emergency.”

NJ Transit said improvements to the state’s power grid had defrayed the state’s need for the Kearny plant, adding the project is no longer financially feasible.

The largest share of the plant’s funding, $240 million, will now go toward the replacement of the aging Raritan River Bridge, a span more than a century old that was damaged during Sandy. Plans for the new bridge have it standing higher above the Raritan and requiring less maintenance to ensure it can open properly.

Another $175 million will go toward the Delco Lead & County Yard Expansion, a train storage facility meant to guard up to 444 of the agency’s vehicles during severe storms and allow rail service to more quickly resume in the aftermath of inclement weather.

The remaining $80 million will go toward filling the Hoboken Long Slip, a 2,000-foot defunct barge canal that acts as a conduit for flooding in the Hudson County city. The filled canal would include new elevated tracks for emergency rail service if a severe storm causes outages on the line’s main tracks.

“While the TransitGrid procurement process provided valuable knowledge for the future, it showed the funding would be better used to protect these other critical points around the state,” said NJ Transit President and CEO Kevin Corbett. “This determination was reinforced by New Jersey’s utilities’ work to strengthen the state’s power grid since Superstorm Sandy.”

Originally published in the New Jersey Monitor. Republished under a Creative Commons license.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel will hear arguments Tuesday about whether two citizen groups can challenge Energy Harbor’s application to extend the life of Ohio’s Perry nuclear plant through 2046.

The Ohio Nuclear-Free Network and Beyond Nuclear say they are worried about potential radioactive leaks into Lake Erie, as well earthquake risks that were not understood four decades ago when the plant was originally licensed. They also question whether the company adequately considered whether relicensing is necessary.

Both Energy Harbor and the NRC staff oppose the groups’ petition to intervene, which would give the anti-nuclear advocates a formal role as parties in the case, with the right to submit and challenge evidence at a hearing.

“The idea of having an adversarial proceeding is for us at least to have a chance to scrutinize the evidence more closely than the NRC staff might,” said Terry Lodge, an attorney in Toledo who represents the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network and Beyond Nuclear in the case.

However, it’s not unusual for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff to seek to limit interventions, according to national experts on nuclear licensing cases.

In general, “the ways they construct their rules on hearings and standards are very restrictive,” said Diane Curran, an attorney who works on nuclear power plant issues and is not involved in the case. And companies that want to keep their plants running have had a winning track record for getting license renewals granted.

Remaining issues

The environmental groups’ reply brief said they plan to withdraw their contentions about earthquake risks, which the NRC staff argued can be “addressed by ongoing regulatory processes.” Although new information came to light after the plant began operating, those risks presumably existed when the plant was first licensed. So, the staff said, they don’t belong in a relicensing case. 

Beyond Nuclear and the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network argue that neither the renewal application nor its environmental report address the impacts of radioactive tritium or other radionuclides that can leak from the plant, including how they might interact with other contaminants in Lake Erie. Energy Harbor’s environmental report filed with its application notes that tritium was found in groundwater wells near the site in 2020 and 2021. The groups’ reply said they provided enough information to show there is an issue, whose merits would be decided later based on evidence at a hearing.

The groups also argued that Energy Harbor’s environmental report exaggerated the potential adverse consequences if the plant shuts down, and that understanding the actual consequences matters when it comes to considering alternatives that could avoid or mitigate environmental risks posed by the plant.

It’s unclear how much consideration the groups’ concerns will get if their petition to intervene is denied.

“The NRC’s technical review process includes multiple opportunities for the community near a plant to provide input on potential environmental impacts of license renewal,” said Scott Burnell, a public affairs officer at the commission. “The NRC technical staff consider this input to ensure our review appropriately addresses matters under the agency’s jurisdiction.”

But that consideration would not take place in the context of a public hearing, Lodge said. And there’s no guarantee about how deeply the staff would consider different issues in its back-and-forth communications with Energy Harbor. It’s “very optional,” he said.

And while the commission must publish its proposed environmental impact statement for public comment, its rules also make it hard to raise issues after the fact. The NRC often treats various issues as “generic,” even though the law calls for a site-specific consideration, Lodge said.

“The NRC has basically constructed the rules around relicensing to make them a very pro forma process,” said Tim Judson, executive director for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Generally, the main focus is on whether a company has an adequate “aging management program, to be able to monitor and repair things as needed.”

Connie Kline, a member of the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network, said she was surprised that the NRC staff was “so virulent” in opposing the groups’ participation in the case and basically echoing Energy Harbor’s points. From her perspective, that’s worrisome, because the agency’s job is to regulate industry in order to protect the public.

“We call NRC, in many respects, a lap dog and not a watchdog,” Kline said.

Members of the public may listen to but not comment during the oral argument and prehearing on Jan. 30. A Jan. 22 notice from the NRC provided the dial-in number, but did not state the time to call. A separate Jan. 4 order says the proceeding will start at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.

This article first appeared on Energy News Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.