Bye bye Nukes, glad to see you GO

S. Texas' hopes for new nuclear funds vanish

By Anton Caputo - Express-News

If the companies looking to build as many as four new nuclear reactors in South Texas are going to succeed, they're going to have to do it without a massive infusion of federal financing from the stimulus package.

Several sources in Washington have confirmed a proposed $50 billion that could have been used for nuclear loan guarantees was removed from the stimulus package Wednesday during negotiations between the House and Senate.

The money would have tremendously increased the pot of loan guarantees that most in the industry say are necessary for the multibillion-dollar nuclear projects to go forward.

There currently is $18.5 billion available, but 17 companies applied for loan guarantees totaling $188 billion.

These include San Antonio's CPS Energy, which is partnering with New Jersey-based NRG Energy to build two new reactors at the South Texas Project in Bay City. Exelon Energy, which wants to build two nuclear reactors in Victoria, also is seeking federal backing for its projects financing.

“We certainly were disappointed that the loan guarantees were removed,” said Craig Nesbit, Exelon vice president of communication. “We'll look for other avenues to shore up the loan guarantee program. The $18.5 billion, it's clearly inadequate if you believe that nuclear power has a role to play in reducing greenhouse gases.”

Wednesday's action was the latest in the battle over the potential resurgence of the nation's nuclear industry, which has been at a standstill since the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania the late 1970s.

Recent emphasis on energy security and the need to find power sources that don't emit greenhouse gases has helped revive interest.

Opponents cite worries about the billions nuclear power plants will cost — there still are no solid cost estimates for the South Texas projects — and the chance that energy companies could default on guaranteed loans, leaving taxpayers holding the bag.

Other foes have concerns about problems associated with storing nuclear waste and potential safety issues.

The debate has become increasingly contentious in both Washington and South Texas, and both sides predict the discussions will intensify with the oncoming debate over the nation's energy policy.

“The nuclear industry is not going to give up until they get what they want,” said Michele Boyd of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group opposed to nuclear power. “The program is just a monster, and it will only get worse.”

Mitch Singer of the Nuclear Energy Institute said many of the groups opposing nuclear loan guarantees are being hypocritical because they don't oppose the tens of billions of dollars in loan guarantees in the stimulus package earmarked for renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

“The loan guarantees are important primarily because it acts as a catalyst for new technology, new plants and clean energy technology to access capital at a reasonable rate,” he said. “It's an interesting juxtaposition. They don't seem to have a problem with any kind of economic stimulus for their preferred technology.”

It's unclear what impact Wednesday's decision will have on CPS Energy's proposal to build two more nuclear plants in Bay City.

Officials with the utility and partner NRG contend their project is in good position to capitalize on the existing pot of loan guarantees. The Energy Department is expected to release its next round of ranking of projects looking to qualify for the financial backing by May.

“The $18.5 billion that is already there, we still feel very good about our chances to get that from the Department of Energy,” said Mike Kotara, CPS Energy executive vice president of energy development. “Fifty billion would make our chances even better.”

Target of Hond of Hondo recall seek specifics

By Zeke MacCormack - Express-News

HONDO — Surrounded by boisterous backers, three Hondo City Council members targeted by petitions seeking their ouster from office beckoned the threatened recall election Wednesday, saying they were proud of their record since being elected last May.

“Bring on the recall, because it’s going to fail,” said Councilman Chavel Lopez at the public hearing where he and council members Lucio Torrez and Virginia Gonzales rejected petitioners’ contention that they had failed to meet their fiduciary duties and placed the city’s financial stability at risk.

Precious few of the 690 voters who signed the petitions were in the crowd that yielded speaker after speaker who praised the work of the new council majority — which hasn’t shied from flexing its muscles as the new majority — and said “good ‘ol boys” must adjust to the new reality of a government controlled by Hispanics.

“We’ve been waiting a long time and it’s about time we have this new change,” said resident Isabel Luna, one of 11 speakers who opposed the recall referendum that’s expected to go before voters May 9. “I’m very proud of these new council people.”

Calling the petition verbiage vague, Hondo attorney Clyde Haak, one of the few non-Hispanic speakers Wednesday, invited anyone present to explain what conduct of the three newest council members threatened the city’s financial stability.

No one immediately stepped forward.

Mayor Jim Danner, when asked by Haak if he knew the grounds for the recall effort with which he has disclaimed association, only described the petition language as “fairly generic.” Councilman Vance Tomey, whose father, Jim, is active in the recall effort, said he knew of instances to back the claim, but wouldn’t divulge them. “I don’t choose to comment,” he said, drawing heckles from the crowd of about 50.

The petitioners’ designated spokesman, former councilman Bob Heyen, didn’t attend the meeting and declined earlier to cite any specific examples of the actions by the recall targets that he objected to.

“I’m not going to go too deep into this,” said Heyen Tuesday when asked to delineate actions to which petitioners’ objected. “The citizens of Hondo do not think they are doing a good job managing the city. They are not fulfilling their obligations,” Heyen said.

The lack of specific allegations in the petition prompted Haak to say, “Before we vote people out of office, we ought to know what we’re talking about ..... I don’t know what it’s about and you can’t tell by looking at it.”

He also questioned the mathematical aptitude of those behind the recall initiative — the first in the history of the municipality since it became an option in 2007 when a home rule charter was adopted — since those targeted were the top vote-getters in elections last May.

“It’s incomprehensible to me how the losing side in the last election is going to recall the majority,” said Haak.

Three backers of the recall stepped to the podium Wednesday to urge voters to closely examine the actions of the new council majority.

Resident Linda Hook criticized the council members for only achieving a balanced budget months into the new fiscal year, and for using certificates of obligation intended for long-term infrastructure project to do so. She urged audience members to go read the minutes of council meetings since last June to find additional causes for the recall effort.

Her husband, David Hook, posed questions — which he asked the council to later answer — to the petition targets about which campaign pledges they had met.

Juana Lopez was among several speakers who described the recall election as a devisive effort to roll back the clock and defy evolution in a city long controlled by Anglos.

“Change is uncomfortable for people,” conceded Lopez, the councilman’s sister. “But the wind of change is here. It’s time for change.”

She and others urged those with differences to come together, and abide by the democratic principle of “majority rules.”

“I don’t want to divide the community,” said Lopez, “I want a better community for my children. I want unity.”

The officials facing a recall defiantly defended their voting record, — which included holding the line on electric rates, boosting the pay of city employees and delaying the expansion of city facilities.

Councilwoman Gonzales told the crowd, “I take my responsibilities seriously, and I want nothing more than the best for Hondo and the community that my children will grow up in.”

Torrez asserted that the mayor, City Manager Robert Herrera and councilmen Tomey and Jay Gruber are helping push the recall intiative.

The recall effort means all six council positions are at stake in the May election because the office terms are expiring for Danner, Tomey and Gruber, who was absent Wednesday.

Chavel Lopez who has long alleged the city discriminated against its Hispanic residents, drew cheers from the crowd by declaring, “Their recall based on lies will fail ..... The ‘real change’ movement in Hondo has nothing to fear and victory will be ours.”

SWU Rallies at City Hall to protest CPS Nuke Plans

Greg M. Schwartz, SA Current
gschwartz@sacurrent.com
“Hey Hardberger, whatta ya say? We want clean energy and we want it today!”

“Hey hey, ho ho, nuclear energy’s got to go!”

These were two of the boisterous chants from members and supporters of the Southwest Workers Union as they demonstrated in front of City Hall yesterday afternoon.

SWU was there to deliver an open letter to Mayor Hardberger and members of City Council, in which the union pleads for the city to back off of its support for CPS Energy’s ongoing plan to expand the STP nuclear project.

“[We ] call on the City officials to follow through on its vision of sustainability by adopting binding commitments to implement a free low-income weatherization program, abandon its nuclear path, mandate transparency on the part of CPS Energy and the allocation of rate-payer dollars, and take immediate steps towards reducing our greenhouse gas emissions,” read the letter.

After two years of stalling, Hardberger finally threw his hat in the nuclear ring last month when he joined his fellow CPS board members in authorizing another $60 million investment toward the nuclear expansion project. A final decision on whether CPS will go through with the investment is set for this fall.

The SWU members and supporters held artful banners across the stairway to City Hall with various anti-nuke messages, while also chanting a variety of slogans.

It’s only too bad they didn’t have a naked PETA model taking a shower, or they might have drawn more media attention. The TV camera crews on hand were just a fraction of those present earlier in the day for PETA’s action on vegetarianism at the Alamo.

Some demonstrators also wore puppet heads, with one that looked like Hardberger and another that was three-eyed and lime green from the type of radioactivity that one might associate with Montgomery Burns’ nuclear plant on The Simpsons. SWU Environmental Justice Organizer Diana Lopez said the puppet show portrayed the two-faced actions of Hardberger.

“We’ve got to tell Mayor Hardberger that we [San Antonio] don’t want to invest any more money at STP,” said Lopez. She chastised Hardberger for trying to make himself seem like an environmentalist with his Mission Verde project while simultaneously backing the CPS nuclear plans.

“It [nuclear power] costs a lot of money for the ratepayers of San Antonio,” added Lopez about the financial issues of nuclear power. She said SWU and a number of student supporters will be headed to Washington D.C. at the end of the month for the Power Shift conference, where they’ll attempt to lobby their Congressional reps to stand up for environmental solutions and against supporting nuclear energy.


SWU also passed out flyers imploring citizens to ask city leaders to oppose the CPS nuclear plans by phoning or e-mailing Mayor Hardberger at 210-207-7060 or phardberger@sanantonio.gov, as well as City Council members at 210-207-7040 and the CPS Board of Directors at 210-353-2787 or MJBraggs@cpsenergy.com.

Lopez said SWU was also signing on to a letter protesting federal loan subsidies for nuclear power plants, an issue currently being debated nationally, after the Senate Appropriations Committee inserted $50 billion of loan guarantees into their version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 last week. Such loan guarantees would likely be used for nuclear subsidies. CPS Energy has made no secret of the fact that those loan guarantees are one of the primary factors in whether they will go through with the STP expansion.

Democracy Now hosted a heated debate today between independent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman and Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder and now member of the pro-nuke Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. They sparred over all of the nuclear issues, especially on the question of that $50 billion in federal loans. View the debate at:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/5/should_economic_stimulus_bill_include_billions

Activists accuse Balcones Heights of profiling

By Jeorge Zarazua - Express-News

More than 40 protesters rallied outside the Balcones Heights Police Department on Monday, accusing officers of racial profiling in efforts to detain unauthorized immigrants.

“Since early December there have been cases of racial profiling,” said Carlos de Leon, spokesman for the activist group Brown Berets of San Antonio. “The Police Department has been acting as immigration agents. As a result, they have been randomly stopping anyone who looks Hispanic and asking them for their papers.”

But city officials denied the allegations, saying officers understand they cannot enforce federal immigration policies.

“We're not acting as an ICE agent, no way,” said Police Chief Bill Stannard, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We're just acting as a police officer.”

Stannard said officers do not stop anyone unless they have probable cause, such as a traffic violation. He said officers then question the suspect, and if the person doesn't have any identification and can't be identified via computer, additional steps are taken.

“If we think they are a foreign-born national, we will call immigration,” he said. “The officer will call immigration. The agent will come out immediately or they talk to them on the telephone, and many of the times immigration is the one who will identify these people,” Stannard said.

It's that practice that drew the ire of the Brown Berets and several other Hispanic activist groups Monday as they marched into the Police Department's front parking lot, carrying banners and posters and shouting for justice.

“Everybody knows we're here today to stop racial profiling here at Balcones Heights,” Tony Mandujano of the American G.I. Forum said through a bullhorn.

Mandujano, De Leon and others argued that local police officers have no business enforcing federal immigration laws.

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said he didn't understand why Balcones Heights would be calling immigration officials.

“I think that's pretty reprehensible,” Harrington said. “They really don't have the right to demand people give their identification unless they have some reason to believe that the identification that person is giving them is wrong. People are not required in this country to carry some sort of proof with them of their identity.”

Spokesmen for both the Bexar County Sheriff's Department and the San Antonio Police Department said they don't make it a practice to call immigration authorities regarding suspects they detain. But Ino Badillo, spokesman for the Sheriff's Department, said immigration officials do make daily stops at the county jail in search of possible unauthorized immigrants.

Stannard, a 33-year peace officer, said he feels his department is acting properly when officers detain people who can't be identified.

“I took an oath as a police officer,” he said. “I feel like we're not racially profiling and that we're doing the right thing. It's not about race. It's not about color. It's whether or not they are here legally or not.”

More Testing for Kelly homes

By Anton Caputo - Express-News

To the average onlooker, the white bus parked outside Victor San Miguel's home could specialize in carpet cleaning.

That might explain the vacuum tube running from the bus through the home's front door. But this tube isn't sucking out dirt. Instead, it's siphoning air to a battery of high-tech equipment in the bus that is searching for traces of dangerous chemicals that could be seeping into the house from the toxic brew of pollutants that flows beneath the neighborhood.

This is the second and possibly final time the Environmental Protection Agency's specialized mobile unit has made the trip from New Jersey to test the air in homes around the defunct Kelly AFB. Crews tested 11 homes this week, trying to determine if potentially cancer-causing toxins could be migrating through the soil and collecting in the homes above. Results won't be available for at least two months.

San Miguel has hopes that the tests will finally prove that there is a silent and invisible killer in his neighborhood. That's a common belief on the working-class streets around Kelly. Many of the modest homes on Hollenbeck Street, where San Miguel has lived for three decades, sport purple crosses in memory of those who have died from cancer and other diseases. Residents here believe the diseases are linked to the pollutants from the base, which closed in 2001.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has found high rates of liver, lung and kidney cancer and other illnesses in the neighborhoods around the base. But none of the epidemiological studies conducted in the area have linked the disease rates with the pollutants that flow under the homes.

“I don't know much about science, but there are 13 homes on this block and 11 of those families have had someone die from cancer,” San Miguel said. “That is what is bothering me. Where did that come from?”

The plume of chemicals that runs beneath this neighborhood stretches at least five miles to the south and east of the base and lies under more than 20,000 homes and businesses. The chemicals leached into the ground over decades of aircraft operations at Kelly, although it is possible that nearby industrial businesses have contributed to the pollution. The toxic chemicals are contained in the shallow aquifer, but not the Edwards Aquifer, which supplies the area's drinking water.

The chemicals being tracked are trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE) and dichloroethylene (DCE). The first two are thought to be human carcinogens, according to the toxic substances agency.

Similar tests of five homes in May didn't show anything that alarmed EPA officials, although two of the 10 air quality tests done then did show chemical vapors at or slightly higher than federal screening levels. The EPA decided to come back in the winter to determine if there was any seasonal variation to the air quality.

“We were not satisfied with the summer sampling and wanted them back in winter because that is when people have their homes closed up and their heaters on,” said Robert Alvarado, whose home on nearby Baker Street was also tested. “Although it is not cold today.”

If results are similar this time, it is unlikely the mobile unit will return, said the EPA's Gary Miller.

The results will probably be released at the Kelly Restoration Advisory Board's April meeting.

Listen Up Mayor, City Council

February 4, 2009

It is time to implement real change to San Antonio for a new energy future. We applaud the ambitious, innovative ideas for decentralized, renewable power and efficiency outlined in Mission Verde. And yet, Mayor Hardberger and CPS Energy continue to undermine these goals and mortgage our future on nuclear power. Southwest Workers Union, the Youth Leadership Organization and the Committee for Environmental Justice Action call on the City officials to follow through on its vision for sustainability by adopting binding commitments to implement a free low-income weatherization program, abandon its nuclear path, mandate transparency on the part of CPS Energy and the allocation of rate-payer dollars, and take immediate steps towards reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

Weatherization: the anti-poverty, anti-pollution solution
San Antonio’s lack of energy efficiency programs has created a “low rate, high waste” economy where residential energy consumption is unusually high. At the same time, the coupling of high energy use with rising energy costs is causing a financial crisis for working families. Families eligible for federal home energy assistance spend 20% of household income on home energy bills, six times more than any other income group. Lower income households use 28% more energy per square foot than higher income households primarily because they live in older, less energy-efficient homes but are unable to afford insulation or other costly efficiency measures. Last summer, CPS Energy reaped $178 million in windfall revenue from the fuel adjustment charge, which created a $25 million surplus for the City. That windfall was borne on the back of San Antonio’s neediest families, and it’s time to give it back.

CPS Energy’s current program for low-income families consists of a subsidy towards their monthly bill (REAP). Weatherization instead assists families in permanently reducing their energy bills by making their homes more efficient, addressing the building envelope, its heating and cooling systems, its electrical system, and electric appliances. Residential retrofitting activities constitute the most cost-effective sector of potential emissions abatement, many of which could be achieved at a negative cost. They also increase consumer buying power and can create 52 community jobs for every million dollars invested. A recent update of several studies on energy savings from weatherization found an average savings of roughly 30 percent were achievable for less than $3,000 per home.

The pillars of CPS’s efficiency programs are rebates and incentives that only reward the customers who are able to make an initial investment. According to an EIA commissioned study, these programs increase disparity because high-income residents are the most likely to access them while the bottom 40% of the income bracket can seldom participate. Rebates also fail to realize the full potential for energy savings, because participants tend to occupy houses that are more energy efficient than those occupied by nonparticipants and the benefits are disproportionately received by those with higher income while it is the poor families who have the greatest opportunity for efficiency.

Existing federal weatherization programs also don’t go nearly far enough. Fewer than 2,100 homes across the state received weatherization assistance from the Department of Energy in 2006. In San Antonio alone, more than 125,000 homes would be eligible for this program based on their income.

Nuclear: still a bad idea
In spite of the concerns of both residents and elected officials, the Mayor has still endorsed a radioactive legacy. It is hard to see how this multi-billion dollar mega project fits into the Mayor and CPS’s new endorsement of a “21st century”, decentralized energy economy. With Mayor Hardberger’s blessing, San Antonio ratepayers have already sunk $266 million just to consider two nuclear reactors. At $3,000 a home, that is nearly 90,000 homes that could have been weatherized. Assuming a conservative savings of 4000 kWh per weatherized home, that’s over 40 MW in yearly energy savings that we’ve forgone just to “stay in the running” for nuclear reactors.

With price tag estimates that range from $6 to over $16 billion, the only thing we know for sure is that no one knows for sure what the reactors will cost today. Within 20 months after commencing construction, the Western world’s only current nuclear construction project by Areva in Finland is already 2 years behind schedule and is 25% over budget. Taiwan’s Lungman reactor has fallen 5 years behind schedule and China’s Taiwan project took 2 years longer than planned. While nuclear power is consistently estimated at over $0.06/kWh (and as high as $1), recent studies have priced wind energy between $0.04-0.06 and efficiency regularly comes in as low as $0.01 , . In this high stakes gamble, it is the vision for a new sustainable energy economy and San Antonio’s poor families, that will lose.

Towards an accountable and transparent CPS
The recent vigorous debate over San Antonio’s energy future has revealed a disturbing lack of accountability on the part of CPS to the City and its rate payers. Not once has CPS explained how the $266 million South Texas Nuclear Project allocation has been spent on what must surely be most expensive “feasibility study” ever conducted. CPS’s windfall profits last summer came on the heels of the first rate increase in years, and yet not one concrete re-investment has been made to put that money to work for working families. City Council members who rallied in defense of struggling families to deny CPS the full rate increase it sought have utterly failed to follow through on holding the agency accountable.

Climate change: get used to it
There is no doubt that climate change constitutes a looming catastrophe for South Texas and that federal greenhouse gas legislation is coming. With our arsenal of coal plants, San Antonio families and City revenue will be hit hard by a carbon price. When evaluating the upfront cost of weatherization and other efficiency programs, it’s important to remember that the most expensive option is to take no action.

San Antonio needs to take proactive steps towards mitigating the cost of adapting to climate change and a carbon price, starting with a greenhouse gas inventory and adopting a renewable portfolio standard at least as strict as that of the state. This standard should include a carve-out for roof top solar and other forms of distributive power to harness the benefits of producing clean power locally. Unlike nuclear reactors that won’t come online for over a decade, efficiency and localized renewable energy projects have the potential to make and immediate and lasting impact on our carbon footprint. And while contributing less carbon than fossil fuel-derived power, the lifecycle of a nuclear plant generates 7-10 times more carbon per unit of energy produced than wind or solar.

City leaders must also take the important step of decoupling CPS’s energy sales from its revenue. As long as City revenue depends on selling more energy, we will never harness the true potential of efficiency, the elusive “nega-watt” and the lowest cost option for meeting our energy needs.

The vision Mayor Hardberger has put forth in words is promising. Now is the time to put those words into action through binding mandates that will outlast his tenure. SWU, YLO and CEJA support immediate action towards binding legislation that will move this vision forward: a free low-income weatherization program, renewable portfolio standard, long-term efficiency loan program, ambitious building codes, commitment to reduce the City’s energy use, the decoupling of CPS energy sales from profit to align incentives with energy savings, and mechanisms for public disclosure of CPS information to ensure broad and informed debate.