Bill Fehrman stood before a skeptical crowd in Payette of more than 400 people patiently answering every question and listening to every comment about the nuclear plant he wants to built near their town.
The residents of Payette, New Plymouth, Fruitland and Ontario who filled the Payette High School auditorium had only learned two weeks before that MidAmerican Nuclear Energy Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holding Co., controlled by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, wanted to build a nuclear power plant next door. The company itself had only been formed just before the rumors were confirmed by the Idaho Statesman’s Ken Dey Dec. 4.
Suddenly, the future of their mostly agricultural community, already changing into bedroom communities for Boise, had a new direction. Naturally, people expressed their worries about how the plant would change the quality of life that kept them in the lower Treasure Valley.
The change came so quick for Phil and Nicole Hyatt that the people who offered to buy their home decided they didn’t want to live next to a nuclear power plant and backed out. That ominous vision scared many residents but not Duane Youngberg, the heating and cooling shop owner who noted that millions of people back east live next to one.
I grew up in Illinois and lived 30 miles away from several nuclear reactors. Some of my high school friends worked on their construction. Later, as a reporter I covered he nuclear industry and got a chance to tour the ones near my house.
I could relate when Kurt Key a Payette carpenter described his feelings as “not in my backyard.”
The anti-Boise attitude, so prevalent outside of Ada County came through in several comments. When someone asked Fehrman where he was going to put the waste, Tim Kennedy of New Plymouth yelled, “in the Boise foothills,” to the laughter of the crowd.
Charles Kauffman, a Weiser farmer said he wanted to see the plant built in Boise where there is better access.
“Why not build it out in the desert next to Micron?” Kauffman said.
Why Idaho?
Fehrman said the Willow Creek area met the company’s and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s strict criteria. And Idaho is a net importer of electricity.
In 2006, residents in Idaho used 22.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity but only produced 13.4 million megawatt-hours within its borders.
But anti-nuclear activist Peter Rickards of Twin Falls said Idahoans would have to compete with California for the power and suggested they would pay a higher price.
Fehrman said MidAmerican would go to Idaho utilities and electrical cooperatives first with offers of the power.
Considering the shock residents faced, Fehrman should consider the meeting a success. But it’s clear he and his company have a long way to go to convince Payette and Idaho MidAmerican’s nuclear plant is a neighbor they want.
But that’s an easier job than the small start-up company, Alternative Energy Holdings, run by a former nuclear industry executive, Don Gillispie has with his proposal to build a nuclear plant near Bruneau. He still has to convince people his project is real and he’s going to have the billions of dollars he’ll need to complete it.
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Still waiting
for a viable option for storing the waste. Until that happens, I'll be one of the noisiest protesters.
The leaking of corroded underground waste comtainers near the Columbia River doesn't get much press...here's an exerpt from a GAO report I hunted for:
"The Department of Energy (DOE) is actively assessing the risk to the
Columbia River from Hanford site contamination and is addressing
problems with deployed river protection technologies. While DOE has
extensive knowledge of contaminants that are currently in the
groundwater and river, DOE knows less about contamination in the soil
below the surface, known as the “vadose zone.” Before proposing a
cleanup approach, DOE has agreed with its regulators to take vadose
zone samples in many of the contaminated areas of the site. DOE is also
improving its computer simulation model that will predict future risk
from the contamination, and deploying alternative technologies it
believes will more effectively contain the contamination that may
threaten the river.
DOE has also begun to address concerns about its management of Columbia
River protection efforts, particularly the lack of integration between
groundwater and vadose zone activities. In March 2006, in response to
congressional committee direction, DOE proposed a new initiative to
better integrate its river protection activities. The initiative
included consolidating most groundwater and vadose zone
characterization work under a single project; better integrating vadose
zone, groundwater, and surface cleanup decisions; and improving the
coordination and control over computer models used to predict movement
of contamination in future years." http://www.gao.gov/htext/d061018.html
Who's paying for it? Why you and me, folks.
Question
A few years back a Seattle company paid for turbines at Lucky Peak. How much power do they generate? Why didn't Idaho Power purchase the turbines to generate electricity right here in the Treasure Valley? My understanding is that the power generated from Lucky Peak is in an exchange program that benefits Washington.
Seattle City Light Bought the Power
Idaho Power Company did not work out a power sales agreement with the local irrigation districts that own the license for the electricity from Lucky Peak Dam. Whatever Idaho Power proposed to the irrigators was not a sweet enough deal and the irragators said "screw you" in effect to Idaho Power, and went forward to cut a deal with Seattle City Light. It was in an era of electricity surplus and Idaho Power probably had little incentive to work out a deal at that time.
Let us remember...
We will be long dead if they do.
Of course, they DID put a strip club in Nyssa once.
Drive yourself crazy, kids.
Need Power
We need power other than dams that kill our Salmon. Nuclear will happen, but it shouldn't be here unless all the jobs are here as well. It is ridiculous to let other areas have the income and then want to ship waste here. Don't let this happen.
Then again, BD...
there are more bars than churches in Payette and there would seem to be some reason for it. Putting a reactor between here and Weiser would probably nuke every bit of money Highway 95 still manages to bring clear up to Riggins at least.
We love being washed up in Payette and Malheur counties...hopefully I'll die before I get older or Pete Townshend does something else really brilliant.