A watchdog group plans Wednesday to call federal spending on small nuclear reactors a "major ripoff for taxpayers."
Taxpayers for Common Sense plans to award its Golden Fleece award to the Energy Department's $452 million, five-year program to support industry designs and certification of the reactors, a program backed by the Obama administration and lawmakers in Congress.
The group has previously criticized the program on the grounds that industry should develop the reactors with private investment. It said in an advisory on Tuesday that the taxpayers have already paid for development of small reactors used in the Navy nuclear submarine fleet.
A number of profitable companies "are at the federal trough for another round of federal support for 'small modular reactors' that would go into suburban American neighborhoods," the group said. It added that there is no guarantee that SMRs, as they are called, will ever be certified or put into service.
The group also said it is holding the event in advance of President Barack Obama's 2014 budget proposal to Congress, in which it expects him to propose a continuation of the program.
The Energy Department last fall awarded the first round of funding under the program to a coalition led by North Carolina-based Babcock & Wilcox with Bechtel and the Tennessee Valley Authority. A second round of funding availability was announced at the time under the same program spending limit. Federal funds are to be matched by recipients under the terms of the program.
The administration has touted SMRs as a way to advance zero-carbon emissions nuclear power at lower cost and with more flexible siting compared to traditional utility-scale nuclear power plants. Small modular reactors are intended to generate 300 megawatts or less and be built underground in scalable segments that can be transported and assembled at the site. Typical nuclear power plants generate 1,000 megawatts or more.
They are envisioned by the nuclear industry and the administration as a potential way to re-power older fossil electricity plants and extend nuclear power generation to remote, low-population areas.
The Golden Fleece award was first conceived and awarded by then-Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., as a way to highlight government waste. Proxmire retired from the Senate in 1989 but Taxpayers for Common Sense revived the award in 2000 at his urging.
Written by: Edward Felker
Original Publication URL: http://www.energyguardian.net/small-modular-reactor-program-get-golden-fleece-award
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