Nuclear a bad deal for Pueblo at any cost

 

City should not become a guinea pig for a technology that has not solved its waste problem

 

 by Joseph P. Griego

My opposition to this idea of a nuclear power plant in Pueblo to replace Comanche 3 has more to do with the safety aspects than the cost.

Pueblo City Council went through this exercise a while back. One of our city councilors, Joe Latino, grilled Frances Koncilja about Xcel Energy’s objective to convert Comanche 3 to a nuclear facility so it could continue exporting electricity to the greater Denver metro area.

Comanche 3 is situated within Pueblo city limits. The entire city of Pueblo lies within a 10-mile radius. Having a nuclear power station looming over Pueblo is somewhat disconcerting to many Puebloans.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified serious safety concerns with advanced nuclear technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs), even those that use as fuel thorium as opposed to the element uranium. This includes the nuclear waste that could remain highly radioactive for thousands of years from uranium or two to three centuries from thorium.

Koncilja, the advisory committee co-chair, told the Pueblo City Council that Xcel will simply store nuclear waste generated at Comanche 3 on-site in special glass jars, perhaps indefinitely. Nobody else wants it, and that includes the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository in Nevada.

Councilor Latino said Pueblo would become a “stepchild” of northern Colorado if Xcel were to get its way. Councilor Latino got that just about right but he said about the least of it.

Pueblo would also become a guinea pig for Xcel Energy as it transitions from fossil fuels to an equally or more dangerous source. Pueblo could become one of the first to adopt so-called advanced nuclear technology as there are no small-modular reactor facilities operating in the United States as of yet.

I maintain nuclear fission power is not a feasible climate change solution nor is it green or clean. We are continually being told that this advanced nuclear technology is absolutely safe — until it isn’t.

Nevertheless, I hope Big Pivots continues to write about this story and sincerely hope Denver metro folks don’t suffer the same fate as Pueblo, paying a regulated utility to capitalize their very expensive generating assets.

Pueblo residents pay over 22 cents per kWh for their electricity. Fort Collins, which has a municipal utility, charges their residential ratepayers about 12 cents per kWh on average for their power. Businesses here in Pueblo, large and small, fare much worse. That’s what that Black Hills Energy $500 million natural gas-fired plant by the Pueblo airport is costing us, especially as it adversely affects economic development.

Big Pivots should investigate what a multi-billion dollar generating asset will cost the greater Denver metro folks as that is what Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy love to do to make massive profits for their shareholders.

Several years ago Frances Koncilja also said when she was on the PUC that Black Hills would turn Pueblo into an “economic no-growth zone.” I wholeheartedly agree with that notion and that prediction. That’s why some of our local leaders and a certain advisory committee are so desperate to keep the base tax property revenue flowing from Xcel Energy.

Good luck to the outspoken Boulder lady who is not willing to pay high electricity rates to increase tax revenue and high-paying jobs in Pueblo. I wholeheartedly agree with her.

Xcel’s goals and their base greed for profits align perfectly with Pueblo’s desperate need for base tax revenue and jobs. We are, after all, what Frances Koncilja said oppressive electricity rates would turn us into — an economic no-growth zone that is now flirting with having fissioning SMRs burning without flame or smoke within Pueblo city limits having radioactive demons lurking at the center of their cores.

Joseph P. Griego is a retired senior systems analyst in the GIS/One Call department at Kinder Morgan, a natural gas distribution company.