Reading from an article in the Star-Telegram about Luminant's Application for their *joint venture* with Mitsubishi to add to more nuclear reactors reactors to Comanche Peak in Glen Rose. Is Luminant paying for this themselves?Well, no.

Luminant also announced that its partner in the project is the maker of the reactors, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan. Mitsubishi Heavy will underwrite much of the estimated $200 million cost of obtaining the combined construction and operating license, and it can own as much as 12 percent of the project through additional investments, Luminant said.

It said it also applied to the Energy Department for a federal loan guarantee to cover borrowing for the project. Under 2007 legislation aimed at encouraging nuclear power by reducing financing expenses, up to 80 percent of nuclear-reactor construction costs can be insured.

So.... the Department of Energy will only do loan guarantees for 80 percent of a project.  Heres' from the DOE guidelines for the *loan guaranttes.

In June, the Energy Department announced that it will accept up to $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power plants, plus up to $2 billion for nuclear fuel processing.

What's a loan guarantee? That IF the company, ie, Luminant or Mitsubishi, defaults on the loan, the Energy Department (um, who? Me! You!) guarantees the loan. Remember what just happened in the last two weeks. WHO was on the hook?????? (And remember that in August, Energy Futures, the holding company for Luminant lost 3.3 billion dollars)  Let me repeat that. A company that posted a 3.3 billion dollar loss only last month is going to get corporate welfare loan guarantees to build more nuclear reactors-and if it defaults on the loan or somethign happens to the econonmy, does anyone really think Luminant/Energy Futures won't be standing on line to get a bailout OR skipping down the road with taxpayers holding the bag through the DOE loan guarantees? 

Here's from a Nov 2007 press release from Union of Concerned Scientists.

WASHINGTON (November 1, 2007) — More than a dozen environmental, science and public interest groups today called on Congress to oppose a provision in pending energy legislation that would put U.S. taxpayers at risk for billions of dollars in nuclear power loan guarantees and undermine congressional oversight of the energy loan guarantee program.

In a letter sent to Congress, the groups criticized the provision slipped into the Senate version of the energy bill (H.R. 6) by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) that would provide a multibillion dollar taxpayer subsidy to the nuclear power industry.

"Now that energy bill negotiations are underway, lawmakers need to know about this provision that would allow the nuclear industry to devour as much as $50 billion of the loan guarantees that are supposed to be for 'innovative technologies,'" said Jon Block, manager of the Nuclear Energy and Climate Change Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), one of the groups that signed the letter. "Nuclear power already has eaten up billions of taxpayer dollars over the last four decades, and it's time for the industry to stand on its own. This provision would shortchange truly innovative, clean technologies, such as solar and wind, that don't have the safety, security and financial risks associated with nuclear power."

The groups, which also include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen and the Sierra Club, urged members of Congress "to reject this controversial provision that would allow the Department of Energy to provide a blank check signed by the taxpayers to such high-risk energy projects as nuclear at the same time that it removes congressional oversight from the loan guarantee program. It is not only fiscally irresponsible, but also bad energy policy." The groups noted that the Bush administration also opposes the provision.

 Incidentally, I just read yesterday that the NRC has changed the definition of the word "construction" so that it can bypass public hearings on such things as excavation, road building and other construction elements.

A reminder on the heels of the LARGEST BAILOUT IN OUR HISTORY that is going to bail out BANKS and private investment houses that the Republican Congress in 2005 voted in corporate welfare spiffs for corporations.  The article mentions the 2007 Energy bill.

And the Mitsubishi reactors are NEW and UNTESTED. What was in that Republican bill  passed in 2005 for that?

Public Citizen said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should deny the application because the Mitsubishi Heavy reactor design has not been certified.

Video from the NRC Meeting in Somervelll County *How can you be reviewing the application at a time when you haven't certified that the design works?"

"The NRC is speeding reactors through the licensing process as quickly as it can, even to the point of accepting half-baked, incomplete license applications," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the group’s Austin office.

The Sierra Club’s Cyrus Reed said his group is concerned both about nuclear power’s cost and the long-term storage of nuclear waste. The nation should pursue smaller-scale generation projects as well as conservation, he said.

Here was Cyrus Reed at Somervell County at the NRC Meeting a couple of months ago.

NRC about the uranium fuel cycle issue.

Lon Burnam on rate increases for constitutents (incidentally, I don't think anyone in Glen Rose actually benefits from the reactor directly, aside from work-we have a diffferent electricity provider)