Legalectric

Last night was the in-person scoping meeting regarding Xcel Energy‘s application for additional casks at its Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant. You can find the Xcel application and appendices here:

More Nuclear Waste Casks at PINGP?

There was a virtual hearing on Wednesday, and then this live one today, with a 200% increase in participants yesterday –SNORT — just three people commented. Public participation is so difficult to make happen.

Scoping means what? They’re asking for comments:

And it’s important to weigh in — if you don’t, well, you’re responsible and only our comments can influence the result. SHOW UP! SPEAK UP!!

For example, three of the City of Red Wing’s elected officials showed up, and all three are “my” representatives, and not one of them made a comment. What’s the point of showing up? The City keeps harping on how dependent they are on Xcel for the utility personal property tax revenue, but no comment on what the addition of another 20 years of casks would mean for the City’s coffers, no comment that they want the casks because of the increase in tax revenue. I’m presuming they want it, but maybe they know nothing about utility personal property tax? One I can see with a reason not to comment would be Ron Goggin, who is “retired” employee at PINGP, though is continuing there as a contractor.

For elected officials to show up, and not say anything, how is this representing us? Should they have SOMETHING to say, SOME comment, some concern, some question, to register about what should be reviewed in the EIS? Cost, safety, transportation out of PINGP, SOMETHING! But noooooo, nope, nada, N-O-T-H-I-N-G!

So what did I have to say? Well, lots… including:

• I’d misread the STrib article “The real cause of Xcel’s lengthy Prairie Island nuclear outage: Workers drilled through cables“ and though it was the “evacuation” plan that was inadequate, but it was EXCAVATION plan! GAACK!
• That the NRC has jurisdiction over most things nuclear, EXCEPT COST. The state has jurisdiction over cost issues, so that is the thing that should be focused on in this Certificate of Need proceeding. And there are a LOT of cost issues. As far as environmental review goes, the EIS is to address socio-economic issues.
• Cost? Utility personal property tax. What are County, City, and School District receiving now, or, say, in the last 5 years, each. What will approval of additional casks add to that utility personal property tax that means revenue for the County, City, and School District?
• This is a Part 72 application, separate from the PINGP’s Part 50 license. If this is approved and there are more casks, or even “just” the casks now loaded or in the plant, what happens if they shut down for some reason or other? What happens to the nuclear waste?
• Xcel included in its application App-I_Nuclear-Leave-Behind-Report-20242-203189-09 Download. It’s “Exhibit M” in the IRP, PUC Docket 23-67. It looks at system (transmission) impacts of retiring Monticello, Prairie Island, and Monticello and Prairie Island.
• In 2002, together with the natural gas replacement plan for Prairie Island, MISO performed review of RFPs for replacement power on the transmission system, both this, and the scenario above should be considered:

• Socio-economic costs include lobbying costs. In other jurisdictions, utilities are prohibited from recovering lobbying/promotional/PR costs from us ratepayers. Here, nope. SO, what has Xcel spent on lobbing costs in 2023 and 2024 for this cask addition, in Red Wing and other jurisdictions (Xcel was before the Red Wing City Council about the IRP and casks on February 26.
• IF THE COMMISSION AGREES TO THIS ADDITION OF CASKS, IT LOCKS US INTO LONG TERM GENERATION OF NUCLEAR WASTE, WASTE WHICH MUST BE DEALT WITH. But that’s not all, it will commit us to dealing with decommissioning, which means ordering more casks and emptying fuel assemblies out the reactors and the pool, the pool water, securing transportation and making that happen, replacing the casks that aren’t transportable or acceptable at the “indeterminate” storage facility (the 2 in Texas and New Mexico of which Xcel was depending on are now declared unconstitutional, and that’s in the courts for a while, a long while) with ones that are, and repackaging them, all the contaminated equipment, cost of building a transport facility and cost of transferring to train cars, cost of shipping (if there’s a shipper that will accept nuclear waste and get the job done) — that’s a lot of cost. The Commission needs to be mindful of what approval of additional casks means beyond “additional casks,” what that decision would commit us to, and make a fully knowledgeable and responsible decision.
• Things change — it’s premature to make a decision now when there is storage available until 2033. Why spend this money now, why commit us NOW, as above, to such extreme costs going forward. It’s irresponsible to dive into these long term costs NOW. Xcel plans to submit a relicensing proposal to the NRC in 2026, an expects it to be approved in 2028. That’s 5 years before they need it. If it takes 2 years for the NRC, and a year for Minnesota, why apply earlier than 2030, or even 2029? Who know what will change, what new technology will emerge?

That said, written scoping comments are due May 9, 2024. WRITE THE “24-68” DOCKET NUMBER ON COMMENTS! File comments in one of these ways:

At Monday’s meeting of the Red Wing City Council, Mike Johnson, Chair of the Sustainability Commission, presented this year’s Jay McCleary Sustainability Award to… MOI!

My experience working on issues in Red Wing has been “interesting,” though I’ve yet to sue the City!! From helping on frac sand issues and ejecting our conflicted ex-Mayor Egan, to representing affected landowners on the “ash mining” fiasco and intrusion on the “Water Tank Mounds,” pushing for restoration of the nuclear waste utility personal property tax going way, way back, to working on/with the MPCA about the Xcel Energy garbage burner with the long expired (since 2009) air emissions permit… what all am I forgetting… but local issues are such a small part of my work, and I get the feeling that most of the members of the City Council have no clue what all I’ve been doing for the last 29 years!

It’s so encouraging to have this work recognized by the Sustainability Commission in this town!

Then again, before the presentation there was a reminder of past days in Red Wing when a certain public official tried to stop this 2024 Jay McCleary Sustainability Award from happening, and said (close but not absolute quotes),:

“I don’t want you giving Carol the plaque tonight.” And “This is not a night for presentations.” When the response was asserting that the public gets 3 minutes, that public official said, ” You get your 3 minutes, but not to give a presentation.” And then, a strongly worded “I WANT YOU TO PROMISE ME THAT YOU WON’T GIVE HER THAT AWARD.”

And then when it was time, that public official left the room until the 3 minute presentation was over.

Wish it would have been recorded… Oh well, on with the presentation.

A hearty thank you from me to the Sustainability Commission.

Today and tomorrow are the Public Utilities Commission‘s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Scoping meetings for Xcel Energy’s latest application for additional nuclear waste storage casks. “Scoping” means determining what all should be covered by the EIS.

What do you think should be included in the EIS? What documents, studies, observations do you have, know of, that are important for the Public Utilities Commission to consider?

Here are Comments from Communities United for Responsible Energy on Completeness and other topics as requested by the Commission:

What we’re doing here at these meetings is similar to what we did a couple years ago, and I’d individually filed quite a bit then. To get at these filings, click on the link, and then plug in the “Submission Number” in the space provided:

Here are filings from the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant Study Group (PINGP Study Group) in that earlier “additional cask” docket:

And Overland and Muller filings in that same docket, circa 2012:

A BIG thanks to Joyce Vance for the link to the Trump N.Y. criminal trial transcripts.

LIVE LINK: https://ww2.nycourts.gov/press/index.shtml

In October, while Xcel Energy’s Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant’s reactor 2 was out for refueling, there was an outage at reactor 2 that shut down that unit also for months. It was shut down for so long that the Mississippi River FROZE! Here’s the scoop on that outage that I’d not gotten around to posting.

OOPS!

The real cause of Xcel’s lengthy Prairie Island nuclear outage: Workers drilled through cables

The company said it did not use ground radar that would have shown where the underground cables were in the Red Wing plant and admitted its excavation planning and oversight was inadequate. 

By Walker Orenstein Star Tribune April 12, 2024 — 8:02am

Xcel Energy initially pinpointed the cause of a lengthy outage at its Prairie Island nuclear power plant as an equipment issue between the turbine and the electric grid.

But that didn’t quite tell the full story: Xcel workers at the plant actually cut a bundle of power cables when drilling sideways underground in October, interrupting power to some of the Red Wing plant’s equipment and causing one of the two reactors to shut down.

Xcel told federal nuclear regulators last month it did not use ground radar in an area that would have shown the cables’ location. The company also said its excavation planning and oversight was inadequate, admitting to “procedural weaknesses and poor communications” between departments.

https://www.startribune.com/nuclear-power-plant-xcel-energy-prairie-island-red-wing-outage/600358326/

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Now they say “evacuation planning and oversight was inadequate.”

Remember when the Red Wing City Council approved Xcel’s PINGP Emergency Plan in a consent agenda vote?

How are the inadequacies going to be corrected?