By BENITA DODD

The Governor’s Energy Policy Council took its draft energy strategy on a five-city tour of Georgia last month. With federal projections estimating the nation’s electricity use will increase 50 percent between 2004 and 2030, the strategy that the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority is developing is crucial to Georgia’s future and deserves the input of all its citizens.

The Georgia legislature, in separate resolutions from the House and Senate this year, urged utilities in the state to consider building new nuclear power plants and urged the Public Service Commission (PSC) to take “appropriate steps” to encourage this policy.

But be afraid. Be very afraid. In this, the second draft of a 160-page strategy for Georgia, there are just 19 references to nuclear energy, the most promising, safe, clean and efficient of energy sources, compared with 227 references to renewables.

In its “Idea 1G” recommending expanding nuclear energy, the draft strategy merely concludes: “This issue will be litigated before the PSC, which has the procedures in place to permit detailed public debate on the issue. Because of this fact, this strategy defers to the Public Service Commission process on the development of new nuclear capacity in Georgia.”

A stance that defers to the PSC instead of an enthusiastic endorsement of an expansion of nuclear energy is hardly an effective strategy, especially when, as the energy strategy draft notes, Georgia’s population grew 51 percent from 1984 to 2004 but energy use increased 76 percent — even while the economy became more energy-efficient.

Worse, the strategy is uncomfortably enthusiastic about renewable resources, noting that the four sources of renewable energy available in Georgia — solar, wind, biomass and hydropower — in addition to what it calls environmental benefits, “have stable prices, are readily available, reduce dependence on foreign energy sources and promote local economic development.”

“Solar, wind and hydropower energy sources do not have ongoing fuel costs,” the strategy notes. “Their primary costs are the capital, construction and maintenance activities required to convert the source to usable energy. Once fixed costs are incurred, the facility can produce energy on a relatively stable basis.”

These are pipe dreams. Aside from their environmental demands, wind and solar power are not stable or reliable sources of electricity in Georgia; both are intermittent and unreliable. Hydropower is largely tapped out in Georgia. Electricity from biomass will never capture a large enough share of the market to make a significant difference; finding a reliable and steady supply of material to fuel biomass power plants is no easy task.

Coal is cheap and abundant, but has gained an unsavory reputation for contributing to pollution despite utility clean-coal technology that has reduced emissions immensely. Fluctuating prices for natural gas mean this promising source of energy is used largely for peak electricity production.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, is cheap, safe, reliable and emission-free. France and Japan are among the nations that have embraced the technology.

Nuclear power generates about 25 percent of U.S. electricity. In Georgia, about 27 percent of electricity is generated by the state’s two nuclear plants, Plant Vogtle and Plant Hatch. On a recent tour of Vogtle, outside Augusta, plant officials pointed out that the two reactors’ domes are at least 42 inches thick and able to withstand a hurricane, tornado and plane crash — simultaneously. Plant security ranges from biometric to bullets; the safety standard is reflected in the motto: “Target Zero.”

Plans are to add two reactors at Plant Vogtle’s 3,000-acre site by 2015; the legislature’s supportive resolutions are part of the application presented to the federal government.

Technological advances since Vogtle’s second dome came on line in 1989 mean the new reactors would be half the size of the current reactors. But, as the draft energy strategy notes, “GEFA received numerous comments through the State Energy Strategy Web site strongly opposing any new nuclear power development.”

Constructing a nuclear plant is an enormously costly endeavor, because Americans insist on safety and security — and rightfully so. But then, low fuel and operating costs for a completed facility make nuclear energy among the cheapest forms of energy in the nation.

Georgia citizens must [tell] the Governor’s Energy Policy Council to ensure that the dog and pony stay behind and center stage is occupied by common sense, environmental responsibility and economic progress. And that means nuclear energy in the forefront.

Benita Dodd is vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and heads the Foundation’s Environmental Initiative.

login to post comments