Nuclear moratorium remains

A House division defeated a bill that would have opened a closed door for additional nuclear power plants in Minnesota.

After two evenings of public testimony on HF1091, the House Energy Finance and Policy Division voted 12-9 March 26, largely along party lines, to keep the current moratorium in place. On a roll-call vote, DFLers rejected the bill, with the exception of Rep. Joe Atkins (DFL-Inver Grove Heights). A companion, SF1078, sponsored by Sen. Jim Carlson (DFL-Eagan), awaits action by the Senate Energy, Utilities, Technology and Communications Committee.

Sponsored by Rep. Tim Mahoney (DFL-St. Paul), the bill was supported by local union laborers who said a new plant would create thousands of new jobs.

But a larger issue kept many from supporting the proposal: what to do with 66,000 tons of America’s nuclear waste that is being stored at 120 locations in 39 states. With no deep geological depository on the horizon to house the radioactive material, the waste keeps piling up at Minnesota’s two nuclear power plants in Monticello and Prairie Island.

Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, told a joint meeting of the division with the Legislative Energy Commission and the Senate Energy, Utilities, Technology, and Communications Committee March 25 that the only lesson to learn from France, which transferred nearly all of its energy production to nuclear within a 25-year period, is to stay focused on a course of action. Makhijani said Minnesota should focus on research and development for alternative fuels. “We cannot afford to be intellectually lazy,” he said.

Division Chairman Rep. Bill Hilty (DFL-Finlayson) agreed with Makhijani. “If we imply that we have an immediate nuclear energy future in Minnesota it will be a distraction from the course that we have … put Minnesota on to develop its own renewable resources to the greatest extent that we can. The utilities all find that challenging, but they’re doing it. Let’s keep focused on the path that we have already started,” he said.