Our Hometown Nuke...

"Love it or hate it, it is ours. And it supplies about 10% of our juice to Xcel Energy customers in the upper Midwest..." 

Yes, we have one. Right up here in God's country, we have a nuke. And it has been here for a while. Like, since 1971. That would make it about 44 years old. But whether you love it or hate it, we need it. It does not supply all of our juice up here, but certainly enough to make it hurt should it be shut down. 

Now here is a shocker for most folks. Because of incredible foot dragging and herculean efforts needed to construct a new nuclear plant in the United States, we are stuck with a gaggle of plants which are of the same era as our Monticello plant. Almost 1/4 of all our operating nuclear plants use the same very old General Electric Mark 1 Boiler technology. If you are thinking that technology sounds familiar, it should. It is exactly the same which was used in the plant which failed at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Plant Japan early in March, 2011.

Even though this plant has undergone extensive upgrades to make it last until 2030, it is still old. And expensive. The massive upgrades it went through in 2007 cost a mint. Originally estimated to cost about $300M and change, the final cost is thought to be around $750,000. All that just to get this thing to safely last until 2030. And that is only 15 years away. And some are asking the uncomfortable question - "Then what?"

Let me play Dr. Rain-cloud one more time. I will mention something the government is trying to avoid talking about. And the press is avoiding reporting on as much as they should. As we know, nuclear power is very clean. That is clean as far as greenhouse gasses are concerned. However the dirty and toxic side effect of production is spent nuclear fuel. The United States WAS supposed to have had a permanent repository to all spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain. And we don't.

Just as a refresher, Yucca Mountain has been under construction and funded for decades now. That is until 2010, when the Obama Administration pulled the plug. After tax payers paid billions to have it constructed. And then stopped. Fortunately, the courts saw this as it was -  a political ruse. A ruse by both the  Administration and Harry Reid. So the courts ordered progress to continue if funding is authorized. And it is expected the new Republican Congress will do so in 2015 or 2016. 

Meanwhile, very toxic and dangerous spent fuel is stored in temporary facilities all over the country - including Monticello. How long is the shelf life of its toxicity? Nobody really seems to know. There was an argument between nuclear scientists about the shelf life at Yucca Mountain. What is the worst case scenario for the most toxic of the fuel. Should it be 10,000 years, or a million years? That is how dangerous this stuff is. And it is laying all over the country. Much of it is (according to some experts) is poorly secured. And a huge national security risk.

So that is it in a nutshell. We have an ancient nuke within 50 miles of the Twin Cities which cost (between initial construction and upgrades) over a billion dollars. And its operating license is only good for another 15 years. Besides providing us about 10% of our power, it also produces an extremely toxic byproduct which will last for hundreds of generations. And that is also currently being stored within 50 miles of the Twin Cities. 

Somebody recently said our energy policy is like walking on egg shells. Between our war on coal, the fragility of our energy grid, our outdated nuke plants, and no central repository to store spent nuclear fuel, I agree. And our leaders are clueless on how to fix these critical items. To me, that is the most fragile egg shell of all.