Nuclear Power in Elmore County

Nuclear Power in Elmore County

I received the following announcement, and thought my readers in Idaho would find it of interest:

Public informational meetings to be held for proposed power plant

Meetings June 10 in Mountain Home and June 16 in Glenns Ferry to answer questions

June 2, 2008
For more information, contact:
Martin Johncox, IEC spokesman, 208-658-9100
Don Gillispie, CEO, 208-939-9311

Idaho Energy Complex representatives will hold public meetings on Tuesday, June 10 and Monday, June 16 to inform the public about their plans to build a 1,600-megawatt nuclear reactor in Elmore county.

The June 10 meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mountain Home Junior High School Gym, 1600 East 6th South in Mountain Home. The June 16 meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Glenns Ferry Opera House, 208 East Idaho Avenue in Glenns Ferry. Boise City Councilman Jim Tibbs will moderate the meetings.

Don Gillispie, president and CEO of the Idaho Energy Complex, noted Idaho Power’s recent decision to raise rates by an average of nearly 11 percent, in part because the company was forced to buy electricity out-of-state to meet demand last year.

“Idaho seriously needs in-state generating capacity to keep our costs down,” Gillispie said. “Our homes, farms, factories and businesses need it and Elmore and surrounding counties will especially benefit from the economic impact of the plant.”

An economic study calculated the IEC would grow employment in Elmore and Owyhee counties by 25 percent and produce total annual labor income benefits in Owyhee and Elmore counties of $52.3 million during operation. Building one reactor would contribute $2.6 billion to the State’s economy, boosting it by nearly 6 percent, while its operation will generate $74 million in state tax revenues a year.

The Idaho Energy Complex (www.idahoenergycomplex.com) will be a 1,600-megawatt; $4.5-billion advanced nuclear reactor with low cooling water requirements located about 65 miles southeast of Boise, in Elmore County. The plant will also include a biofuels component, using excess reactor heat to produce fuels from local ag waste and crops. Company officials plan to submit a Combined Operating License Application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009. The approval process is expected to take three years and cost $80 million. Construction could begin as soon as 2012 and finish with power generation beginning in late 2016.

Remember that the 1% of the population of Elmore County that are raving leftist environmentalists will show up and start talking about three eyed fish and other evidence that their knowledge of nuclear power comes from 1950s science fiction movies and watching The Simpsons.

I've always thought that nuclear power could be done right. The environmentalists whine about carbon dioxide; they won't allow drilling for oil in ANWR; they want the existing hydropower dams breached; they won't allow drilling for oil off the coasts of California or Florida (although the Chinese are apparently slant drilling from international waters off Florida); this June 2, 2008 Associated Press story reports that the first new refinery in decades has been approved in South Dakota. Nuclear power is one of the few options left.