Marathon Pundit: Suggestions from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future

As much as a justifiably rip Illinois, one thing we do well is power generation. The Land of Lincoln has 11 nuclear power plants, more than any other state. Half of the electricity generated here comes from nuclear power--and the percentage is even higher in northern half --where I live.

Yes, there was a very minor accident at Byron a few days ago. Very minor.

Last week a bipartisan panel on nuclear energy, the Blue Ribbon Commission, released its extensive report on this under-utilized--even in Illinois--source of power.

The issue of waste from nuclear power plants is confronted in its report. "[T]his nation's failure to come to grips with the nuclear waste issue has already proved damaging and costly and it will be more damaging and more costly the longer it continues," the commission says.

Politics is preventing a workable to solution to this problem. Other than storing the waste adjacent to plants--a decades long "temporary" solution, we have no plan. Which is a pity because we are funding one. "U.S. ratepayers are already paying for waste disposal (through a fee collected on each kilowat-hour of nuclear-generated electricity)—but the program they're paying for isn't working. Taxpayers are paying too—in the form of damage payments from the taxpayer-funded Judgment Fund to compensate utilities for the federal government’s failure to meet its contractual waste acceptance commitments."

Not good.

President Obama has suggested that we streamline the federal government--and the Republicans agree with him. The commission offers this suggestion in regards to nuclear power. "The overall record of DOE [Department of Energy] and of the federal government as a whole, however, has not inspired widespread confidence or trust in our nation's nuclear waste management program. For this and other reasons, the Commission concludes that a new, single-purpose organization is needed to provide the stability, focus, and credibility that are essential to get the waste program back on track. We believe a congressionally chartered federal corporation offers the best model, but whatever the specific form of the new organization it must possess the attributes, independence, and resources to effectively carry out its mission."

In other words, keep it simple. Along that line, the Blue Ribbon Commission suggests using that kilowatt-per-hour fee for disposing of nuclear waste for its intended purpose.

And the commission is aware that finding a permanent solution won't be easy, so it's suggesting "developing consolidated storage capacity" instead of the inadequate waste storage we're now utilizing.

Read the entire report here.

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