Preparing for the Blackouts

Figure 1. At least we will see the stars

Never let a crisis go to waste. This may be one of the least original thoughts ever. It's been attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli, Saul Alinsky, and Rahm Emanuel among others. As Emanuel explained, a crisis ``is an opportunity to do things you could not do before". Trite but true.

The Federal bureaucracy, specifically the NRC and the EPA, present an insurmountable hurdle to the promise of cheap, reliable, pollution-free, nearly CO2 free nuclear power. They are incapable of change. Congressional prodding with pieties such as the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act is slow walked by the NRC and then turned into even more onerous regulation. The ADVANCE Act if passed will have the same fate. Congress suborned by well endowed, wind/solar lobbies is not about to do anything that would make a real difference.

But this will change. Under the present deranged policy of promoting intermittent sources and discouraging dispatchable sources, it is only a matter of time before the nation suffers a string of debilitating brown outs and black outs. Congress will suddenly wake up to the fact that those lobbyists may have oodles of money, but they represent maybe 5% of Americans. The other 95% will be pissed.

The political beasts will be desperate to do something to keep feeding at the public trough. We must be in position to tell them what.

1) Congress must specify a fully defined, radiation harm compensation scheme, numbers and all, and require insurance for that compensation. Congress must also specify a set of plant boundary triggers and the penalties and interventions associated with violating those limits.

2) The NRC must be turned into an emission enforcement and compensation distribution agency. It monitors nuclear plants; it no longer approves them. It cannot tell a vendor how to build a plant. The only requirement is that the plant get insurance for the compensation scheme. The NRC cannot shut down a plant, unless that plant is violating the emission rules. In the event of a release, it collects and distributes the compensation money. Period.

3) Congress must exempt electricity sources from Environmental Impact Statement requirements. If the locals are willing to host the plant/farm, that's all that counts. This might be made politically more palatable by confining these exemptions to Federal properties. There are plenty of Camp Pendletons and Hanfords out there.

4) Our utilities must be free to buy nuclear electricity from anybody. We must eliminate any barriers that prevent foreigners from building plants or selling nuclear power domestically. Domestic vendors must face the rigors of competition. Besides we need dispatchable power now. It will take a while for our vendors to respond to the new rules. Meanwhile the Koreans can be building plants.

What we can and must do now is work on (1).

a) Fully define the triggers and the compensation scheme. This will require bringing in the underwriters and making sure they are on board.

b) Identify Senators and Congressmen that would be supportive.

c) In conjunction, with their staffs, draft the necessary legislation. This would all be low key, hypothetical, brain storming. Nothing for the defenders of the status quo to worry about.

d) Wait.

e) When the blackout storm breaks, introduce the ``emergency" legislation to the Senate and House, and dare them to vote against it.