Missourians for Safe Energy (MSE)

Very good news tonight from MSE’s perspective. The proposed mini-CWIP legislation that would have allowed Ameren to charge ratepayers for the cost of an Early Site Permit for a new nuclear power plant in Callaway County, years before it was built and operating, died due to lack of time at the close of the legislative session.

While we are very pleased that Ameren has been denied an nuclear foot-in-the-door, at least for now, we have a lot of work to do to educate the public and our elected officials as to what constitutes a safe, sustainable and affordable energy strategy. We invite your participation in this effort. Please contact us if you’d like to help.

For more details from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the way a supposed compromise between the industrial customers and the utilities died please CLICK HERE.

Also check out the coverage given in the St. Louis Business Journal, which can be read if you CLICK HERE.

Both these reports largely give the pro-nuke voices a pass by avoiding any critical questioning of their claims. For example, the Business Journal just reports, but never questions the Energy Alliance claim that min-CWIP would “create jobs, boost our economy and competitiveness, and keep rates affordable…”

In general, the media fails to question the notion that mini-CWIP is needed to keep “new nuclear power as an option.” As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, Ameren can pursue an early site permit with or without mini-CWIP. The $45 million the ESP would cost is within their abilities and they’ve actually already spent more than half of it. What they can’t do is get financing to build a new plant without full CWIP, which, of course wasn’t what they were asking for; at least not this year.

Another big failure in media coverage is the lack of questioning of the pro-nukers continual conflation of the supposed benefits of building a new nuke–years down the pike, if ever–and the passage of mini-CWIP, which would primarily reimburse Ameren for money already spent, which does nothing for jobs, boosting the economy, etc.

So, we need to educate the public, our elected officials AND the MEDIA.