Au revoir, Areva ... or bienvenue?

I got dueling emails this afternoon, one from Boise, the other from Idaho Falls. First, from the Snake River Alliance, came word that there will be an "Au revoir, Areva" rally at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday on the Capitol Annex steps to protest the Idaho Legislature's recent (and much-criticized) tax breaks to French nuclear company Areva. It continued:

Tell the legislature we're not fools ... Idaho is one of five locations Areva, a French government owned nuclear giant, is considering to build a uranium enrichment plant. 

As an incentive, the Legislature is providing Areva millions of dollars in tax breaks if they choose Idaho. Their facility would import a uranium concentrate, called "yellow cake," and then separate out the rare uranium-235 to be used in nuclear reactor fuel -  leaving TONS of NUCLEAR WASTE  in Idaho and taking their PROFITS BACK to FRANCE. Read today's press release, join the Alliance, make a contribution, at www.snakeriveralliance.org.

Minutes later, I got this reply from John McGimpsey of Idaho Falls, who narrowly lost a legislative race there in 2006 and who is running again this year. McGimpsey, a Democrat, had this to say:

This MUST be an April Fools joke! The proposed enrichment plant has nothing, NOTHING, to do with yellowcake. The material entering, and leaving, Idaho would be UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) gas. The "waste" (which is uranium hexafluoride gas depleted of U-235) will be shipped to the DOE facility in Ohio for separation. If the SRA is saying that yellowcake would be imported into Idaho, they're either being willfully ignorant or lying - there's been more than enough testimony, that the SRA's executive director has attended, that presented accurate information. 

The U.S. imports 80 percent of the enriched uranium it uses in existing plants. The majority comes from Russia - the contracts for which expire within 5 years. Regardless of one's views on building additional nuclear plants, I don't know anyone who seriously believes that we can replace the 20 percent of existing US electrical power supplied by nukes in that time frame. Therefore we will need a supply of enriched uranium for fuel, or else be subject to huge supply risks which present significant security, economic, and social justice risks!

While Areva is a French company, they've been operating in the U.S. for 50 years, and have thousands of U.S. employees. The proposed plant would provide 250 high-paying jobs, plus several years of good-paying union construction jobs.

While I don't like tax exemptions, the fact is that there will be NO break if the plant doesn't locate here, and even with the cap, the plant will REDUCE property taxes for families. And there is, in my mind, NO
justification for requiring this plant to pay $20M+ in property taxes to the county when it requires few services. That would constitute more than 1/3 of Bonneville County's budget. ... With the exemption, the plant would STILL be paying 10% of the county budget, still subsidizing local taxpayers.

Sorry, in my opinion, the SRA's not being progressive on this issue - they're just using scary language to try to generate an emotional response.

So now I'm interested to know what others think. My long-held view is that although I believe Idaho needs to focus on clean, renewable energy - and definitely turn down merchant nuclear plants like that proposed for Bruneau - the nuclear industry remains an important part of the state economy, especially in Eastern Idaho, and it may still have a small role to play in helping us kick our fossil fuels addiction. But I am no expert, so I would like to hear from people (like both the Snake River Alliance and John McGimpsey) who know more than I do, and who have suggestions on how to boost Idaho's chronically low-wage economy while protecting our precious environment. At this point, with Areva apparently within days of announcing its decision, conflicting messages are the order of the day.

Comments

[idagreen]

Without even addressing the issue of "yellow cake", I think that much of John's argument in favor of the Areva plant as a component of a strategic energy plan actually illustrates the drawbacks of an enhanced nuclear approach. For me, advocates of nuclear power production do not adequately address the drawbacks of waste, the energy actually required to manufacture and build nuclear facilities in the first place, the complete disregard for any serious attempt at conservation of existing resources, and the ever present coupling of the nuclear power industry to military weapons development.

Regardless of the state or disposition of the byproduct of enrichment, there is nonetheless, waste. If find it no less objectionable that a gaseous uranium compound will be trucked back and forth across the US that if solid waste were left in place.

The building and manufacturing of any new facility requires an input of energy and materials. As these resources become more and more limited, it does not make sense to apply these resources towards building the infrastructure for a system that creates too many problems with too few benefits. Members of communities and future generations may have a different perspective on social justice when they forced to deal with the issues of nuclear waste and an energy policy founded on unsustainable technologies.

The connection with Russia also demonstrates the tenuous nature of nuclear power production, and how materials and technology for power production bleed over into military and security applications. Is that not why we are supposedly so concerned with nuclear development in Iran? The difficulty of extracting peaceful from other uses of uranium enrichment are is too great to support the proliferation of this technology anywhere in the world.

As to replacing the 20% of electricity in five years, I don't see that as an unreachable goal. I'll bet at least that much is wasted through outdated equipment and practices. Show me a comprehensive and aggressive plan of cutting energy waste and demand before you insist on the necessity of new, nuclear production.

Nuclear power is a dead end in the long term. Our investment of time and money should be towards renewable and sustainable technologies, and nuclear is neither.

As for tax breaks, I'd say there should be a moratorium on new exemptions until the exemptions currently in place are evaluated and adjusted. Imagine the potential tax relief for homeowners if even a portion of the nearly $2 billion in lost revenue was collected and redirected.

If the SRA was looking for an emotional response, it looks like it worked with John.

[Gem State Avenger]

I have yet to see a non-green house gas alternative for generating the electricty that this country will need in the near and longterm. Wind, solar and agressive conservation will get us partially there leaving natural gas and coal as the only other alternatives.

As for Areva the incentive passed by the legislature is available to any company willing to make a billion dollar investment in Idaho. Land one firm of this caliber and others are likely to follow. Companies like Areva bring high paying jobs to Idaho (something I thought progressives were in favor of) which actually generates general fund revenues that pay for things that progressives allegedly favor (education and welfare). Now if being a good progressive means becoming a CAVE (Citzen Against Virtually Everything) then I might need to rethink my politics.

P.S. - It really bothers me when so called progressive groups Hannitize the facts. It was bad enough that Bush lied about "yellow cake" to get us into the Vietraq war.

[djysrv]

I have extensive coverage of the Areva issue on my blog IDAHO SAMIZDAT I disagree with the way you have characterized this issue.

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2008/03/quest-is-still-in-west-for-arevas-new.html

[Julie in Boise]

Testing the comments ...

[Deborah Silver]

The tax "incentives" for Areva allows this company to opt out of taxes that existing companies already pay. If new companies aren't required to pay, will Micron and others not insist they deserve equal treatment? If Micron is exempted, in the name of "fairness", how is the loss of that revenue going to be made up? The fact that a company will bring people to your town means that more services will be used. What about the roads that are broken up by the construction traffic and equipment during the building process? What about the traffic generated by the business during the normal business operations?
The state and local goverment already has a problem with maintenance of infrastructure. Why open the door for other businesses to opt out of a tax?

[Irene/EI]

First of all, at the $400 Million and above level, Areva (or any other investing company) will STILL be paying more in taxes than any other entity in the taxing district. This over time will be an advantage to other taxpayers in the area because the company's large tax bill subsidizes the services for others, and SOMETIMES reduces the tax levy rate for all.

As far as "services", in Areva's case they will have their own water/sewer system, dedicated power substation, their own security, and will maintain the roads on their own property. Presumably, all construction trucks and vehicles (owned by other companies/vendors) will be paying their own way on the infrastructure thru fuel taxes, registration fees, etc. - Areva would not be their ONLY customer. Therefore, the roads are not an issue either.

It is regrettable that large companies are villified instead of welcomed when they may introduce new capital into the local and state economy. Even Micron has changed the landscape of Boise, with a positive economic impact, new jobs, better paying jobs, spinoffs, etc. These tax paying for-profit companies are subsidizing the rest of us, and I'm all for it.

[IdahoRocks]

It's unfortunate that some of the vital issues like NIMBYs, infrastructure costs, taxes, and health issues are not addressed by any nuclear advocates. Or, if they're addressed at all, they do not base their claims on what has historically happened in many communities around the US or even the world for that matter. Finally, the dirty little secret is that there is nothing that can be done with the waste. Oh, yeah, DU can be used in weapons - is that really what we want for the future of our children? The German newspapers report that Iraq, for example, is a health and environmental wasteland because of all the DU used in BOTH Iraq wars. Of course, it's all sanitanized here, so much so that our war veterans don't even receive decent health services.

It's unfortunate that the SRA wrongly used the "yellowcake" reference. I have found some major mistakes on their site and in their arguments which is why I don't contribute money to them. Their intentions are good but their science is sometimes lacking. As for John, his intentions are sincere as a pro-nuclear guy, and he's smart as hell, but he's obviously blinded by his subjective attachment to the nuclear industry.

It's a problem with universities and grants, you won't get the money if you knock the industry that's paying for your research. Such a sorry state for the "pursuit of knowledge" as opposed to the pursuit of the buck....

As for me, I don't care how much money INL may be given to research what can be done with nuclear waste, but I don't want or need any nuclear plants, waste re-processing, etc. in this great and beautiful state of Idaho.

Alternatives exist. Doesn't anyone ever investigate how well zero-waste plans are doing all over the world? We are a garbage society par excellence. Our re-cycling is eons behind European cities and we just consume like crazy, buy merchandise that never lasts longer than the latest rave or fashion, and throw away piles of "garbage" instead of introducing any kind of sustainable concept into our ken. Isn't it about time that we began to change the way we conceptualize and treat waste?