The Oklahoma Legislature considered three bills designed to encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants. They are HB3995, SB1529, SB1794.
The Sierra Club is unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy. Reactor safety concerns and the long-term storage requirements of nuclear waste (which remains lethal for more than 100,000 years) make nuclear power a uniquely dangerous energy technology for humanity.
- SB1529 is the Oklahoma Senate’s version of SB3995. SB 1529 would allow nuclear power plants as an approved power source under the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority. Nuclear power has been specifically excluded up until this point. Section 24-104. This bill passed and was signed by the Governor on Apr. 26, 2022.
- SB1794 directs the DEQ and the Secretary of Energy and Environment to do a feasibility study on the establishment of nuclear power facilities in Oklahoma on or before January 1, 2024. This bill passed the Energy Committee and but stalled the Appropriations Committee.
- HB3995 would repeal the bans on the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority owning any interest in a powerplant jointly owned with an investor-owned utility and/or a nuclear powerplant. Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority statutes expressly prohibited Nuclear Power. HB 3995 changes the statute to allow Nuclear and joint investor-owned electrical utilities in Oklahoma. This bill passed the Senate but stalled in the House.
We oppose all these bills because
- On average it takes 14.5 years to build and deploy nuclear powerplants as compared to 2-5 years to build and deploy utility-scale wind and solar farms and about 6 months to install and deploy roof top solar PV;
- Electricity generated by wind is about 3.5 times more expensive that electricity generated by onshore wind and about 3.7 times more expensive than electricity generated by utility-scale solar PV;
- There is as yet no permanent solution for storing or disposing of radioactive waste produced by nuclear powerplants, and therefore this waste is accumulating in hundreds of radioactive waste sites that pose risks of radioactive leaks which can damage water supplies, crops, animals and humans; and
- Nuclear powerplants may meltdown in ways that produce enormous economic and physical damage as illustrated by meltdowns at Three-Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, Saint-Laurent France in 1980, Chernobyl Russia in 1986, and Fukushima Dai-ichi Japan in 2011.
Some History on Nuclear Power in Oklahoma: The Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant was a nuclear power plant proposed by the Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) in May 1973. In 1973, Carrie Dickerson embarked on a years-long battle against PSO’s Black Fox nuclear power plant near Tulsa. Citizens from all walks of life, including the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club, joined the battle, resulting in the only citizen-led defeat of a nuclear plant already under construction in U.S. history.
The near melt-down of Three Mile Island in 1979 brought home concerns about nuclear power. Oklahoma laws excluded Nuclear power from joint and investor-owned electrical utility production.
Today it has been years since the near-meltdowns and resulting nuclear wastelands of Chernobyl, Ukraine (1986) and the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in Japan in 2011 (among others) and along with little publicity of the difficulties with nuclear waste storage in the US or the high cost of plant construction, the allure of supposedly cheap energy from Nuclear power has risen again.
In reality, the only US Nuclear plant under construction, 2-unit Vogtle in Georgia, was approved in 2012 with an estimated cost of $14 billion, with the first electricity being generated in 2016. Earlier this year estimates again pushed back the start date for the first nuclear reactor to March 2023, with the second nuclear reactor at Vogtle now estimated to reach commercial operation in late 2023
The Vogtle nuclear units are now projected to cost more than $33 billion (approved with an estimated cost of $14 Billion).