The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

I’ve changed my mind.

I think everyone should support the governor’s big global warming bill that would cost us untold thousands of jobs.
With one, tiny caveat.

All decreases in temperature resulting from the new, hugely expensive initiatives in the bill must be reserved for Wisconsin’s atmosphere, and our atmosphere alone. If any of our new air leaks over to, say, South Beloit, Ill. or Stillwater, Minn., I can’t, in good conscience, support anything else in the bill either.

I know some skeptics will question the feasibility of making sure our investment benefits our state. I am, however, almost certain it will work at least as well as a provision in the bill itself that seems to support the potential development of nuclear energy.

It might surprise some that nuclear power is even mentioned in the bill, given the pervasive paranoia that has engulfed much of America since a pump malfunctioned at Three Mile Island in 1979. Wisconsin, of course, was one of the places after Three Mile Island that essentially forbid even the consideration of new nuclear power plants. It has been some 27 years now since state legislators such as then state-Sen. Russ Feingold sponsored what amounts to a de facto moratorium.

Gov. Jim Doyle’s global warming bill supports relaxing that moratorium – but only if any electricity produced by new nuclear power plants built in Wisconsin is reserved for Wisconsinites alone. If a court were to find that Wisconsin-only provision unconstitutional, then all changes proposed by the bill regarding nuclear power would be voided – a linkage known as non-severability.

Turns out, of course, that reserving Wisconsin-produced nuclear energy for Wisconsin alone doesn’t just possibly violate the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause, it is impossible because of the way electricity flows. Talk among bill supporters of relaxing the moratorium could be just that, talk.

But you’d hope not.

Nuclear power is not the end-all and the be-all. There is still no federal nuclear waste repository and up-front costs of building plants and producing nuclear power are gargantuan. Two nuclear reactors planned for rural Georgia – which could be the first new nuclear facilities built in this country in decades – would cost a total of about $14 billion, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (The coal-fired WE Energies plant that just opened in Oak Creek is reportedly costing about $2.3 billion, in comparison.) Production costs for nuclear are so large and risky that development is unlikely to occur without federal loan guarantees – which is why, just the other day, President Barack Obama announced $8.3 billion in guarantees for the Georgia project. He also called the federal backing “only the beginning” of federal support for such facilities.

The desire to reduce carbon pollution and fears about climate change, it seems, are suddenly making nuclear de rigueur – at least in some quarters.

Feingold’s office did not get back to me with an answer to the question of where he stands nowadays on nuclear. Gubernatorial candidates Mark Neumann, Scott Walker and Tom Barrett, in the meantime, all offered varying levels of support:

Neumann told me he thinks there is “a whole realm of things we should be looking into, including nuclear.” The state should either relax or get rid of the moratorium, he said, so we can “at least consider that as part of the solution.” Nuclear power, he added however, “needs to be market-driven and economically viable.”

Walker said he definitely thinks the moratorium needs to be lifted. He expressed support for seeking the sort of federal loan guarantees Obama announced for Georgia the other day and called nuclear power “definitely one of the components of the solution” to energy needs. He also said that once they get beyond the initial financial investment, nuclear plants have a “track record of reliable returns.”

Tom Barrett’s campaign replied that “more detailed policy information will be available in the future, but in short Tom has an open mind on the future development of nuclear energy but thinks safety issues and the economic viability of new plants that cost billions to build need to be addressed.” The statement did not address the issue of the moratorium, and also referred me to a story about the Milwaukee mayor touring a company in Manitowoc, Orion Energy Systems, that produces products such as “solar light tubes” that help customers “get off the grid.”

About 20% of all energy used in Wisconsin already comes from nuclear sources, and the state has three reactors: two at Point Beach and one in Kewaunee. For now, the moratorium quashes any chance of even considering the development of another and the moratorium isn’t soon going away even if the global bill passes.

It shouldn’t pass, of course. Warming is called global for a reason. It’s a global issue, just like nuclear power is in so many ways a regional and national issue. Wisconsin is not an island with its own atmosphere or energy issues – though you’d think it is.

It’s odd, the current Wisconsin mindset. Proponents of the global warming bill want to use our money and our jobs to cure whatever ails the world. Our current moratorium on nuclear, at the same time, tells everybody that we don’t want to even consider benefitting from one of the rest of the world’s solutions.

-February 22,2010

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