Is Renewable Energy Headed for a Nuclear Wedgie?

It turns out U.S. citizens have a short memory when it comes to nuclear energy. Although nuclear plants account for nearly one fifth of the country's energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had not received an application to build a new reactor since 1979, when the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island caused a major scare and cost the tax payers nearly $1 billion in clean up fees.

But after the drought comes the deluge. Since 2007, the NRC has received a "tsunami" of 31 new applications to build reactors on 14 sites, forcing the NRC to hire more than 600 new staffers at its cramped warehouse in suburban Washington, D.C.

The uptick in nuclear applications has been attributed to the increasing urgency of the energy crisis that intensified during the Bush administration — which was considered friendly to nuclear interests. Although environmentalists are generally critical of nuclear energy because it's expensive and potentially dangerous, they've often been willing to include it when they push for federal funding for renewable energy resources like wind and solar.

The result? The proposal of new nuclear plant in California, once a hotbed for anti-nuclear activism. In 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a global warming bill that requires the state to increase renewable energy production 30 percent by 2020 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Nuclear critics didn't expect is that those goals could lead the state to go nuclear.

"When you look at the need to cut carbon emissions, and California is in the lead in that department, you have to consider nuclear power," says a spokesman for Areva, the French utilities company that proposed the California plant.

To capitalize on the public push to go nuclear, industry lobbyists have targeted influential Senators like John Kerry (D-Mass), one of the sponsors of the climate bill limping through Congress. A senior Democratic staffer close to the climate talks told a reporter for Mother Jones that the lobbyists had "enough political muscle and enough support across the aisle" to secure billions in loan guarantees from the U.S. government.

On one hand, the rising popularity of nuclear energy makes sense. It's renewable, efficient, and utilizes existing technology. But while we chase quotas to increase renewable energy production, we risk losing an opportunity to develop cleaner renewable options that can solve the energy crisis without the nuclear headache. Jim Metropulos, a Sierra Club California legislative expert, is confident that Californians won't forget about incidents like Three Mile Island or the nuclear waste that accompanies new reactors if the issue shows up on ballots this fall.

"People have a long memory of some of the problems with nuclear," he says. "So it's not a slam dunk."

Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps