House Bill 6 (HB6) would be a disaster for Ohio if it passes, an ecological, economic, and political disaster. Twice now I have spoken before the Ohio State Legislature in opposition to HB6, It is a proposed law which would add charges to every Ohioan’s electric bill in order to bailout the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants, as well as two coal burning plants, one in Indiana.
Nuclear power is inherently immoral.
Every moment that a nuclear plant runs, it is generating tons of nuclear wastes. These wastes are made up of over 200 different kinds of radioactive atoms or radioisotopes. They are chemically identical to regular atoms, so they get absorbed into the body and incorporated into cells. Then, at some random moment in time, radioactive isotopse explode, shooting subatomic particles in all directions, shredding cells from the inside, killing them or causing DNA damage that leads to cancer, mutations, and other diseases. Different radioisotopes stay deadly for different amounts of time. Some for a few hours or days, some for years or decades, some for centuries, some for hundreds of thousands of years.
Plutonium is one of these substances. It is a manmade element. All the plutonium on Earth was created in nuclear reactors or nuclear explosions. It is named after the god of the dead because in early tests of its toxicity, it always killed all the test animals, no matter how small the dose. One pound of plutonium is enough to kill between two million and seven billion people, depending on which expert you ask. But, plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, which means a pound of plutonium stays deadly for 240,000 years.
Creating a poison which will kill, maim, and sicken our descendants for a quarter of a million years is not just an ecological disaster, it is immoral. Nothing we do with that moment of elecricity generated in a nuclear plant is important enough to burden future generations with that curse, and remember plutonium is just one of over 200 radioisotopes created, each with differnt half lives, each causing different cancers or diseases.
Despite this, HB6 specifically defines nuclear power as “clean” energy. This is the equivalent of the Ohio state legislature repealing the law of gravity so that we can all have flying cars.
Not surprisingly, HB6 is opposed by a host of environmental organizations, but it is also opposed by many buisness and industry groups as well. Part of what this bill does is eliminate Ohio’s efficiency and alternative energy programs. The efficiency program has saved Ohio businesses over $5 billion by providing loans that are used to do things like add insulation to buildings or buy energy efficient lighting or equipment. The alternative energy portfolio standard has created a boom in solar installations. Together, they have created over 100,000 jobs, all wiped out if HB6 passes. It also creates insurmountable barriers to wind farms.
The 2014 setback law already froze wind farm development in Ohio, but billions in wind projects are still poised to be built, all cancelled if HB6 passes. Even electricity customers outside of First Energy service area, like us right here in BG, would see new charges on our bills and we would be forced to bailout a company which is currently bankrupt because of decades of bad business decisions. Perhaps worse in the long run is the clear signal the law would send to businesses that Ohio is a state opposed to new technolgy and ideas, not a place for innovative, technologically advanced companies to locate.
Economically, coal and nuclear can’t compete with low cost and low maintenance wind and solar. Bailing out nukes with new charges would not only lead to higher electric bills, it would further slow the switch we must make to renewables.
You might wonder how a bill which is such an ecological and economic disaster could even be introduced, let alone get sent to the full House by the Energy Committee on a 7-3 vote. This happened despite the fact that testimony was roughly 3 to 1 in opposition to the bill. The answer is politics. Just as a spent fuel rod is so deadly that a person walking towards it would die before reaching it, this bill is in the process of killing our Democracy. First Energy hand picked a dozen people to run in the 2018 Republican primaries, and donated enough money to them that 11 of the 12 were elected, unseating incumbent Republicans. This new breed of “representative” makes little pretense about caring for the desires, opinions, or needs of their constituents. They have expressed support for the bailout from the beginning, before it was even written or introduced.
In addition, First Energy has poured vast amounts of money into the campaign fund of the Speaker of the Ohio House, Larry Householder. In fact, so much money was funneled to Householder, some of it through the Ohio Republican Party that it violated election law and Householder had to return some. In my opinion, it appears that First Energy believes that simply by spending a few million buying politicians and taking out deceptive ads, it can secure billions in bailout dollars in charges from all Ohioans. If they succeed, they clear the way for every corporation that wants to burden all of us with charges we have no way of avoiding for products we do not want.
I do not want one dollar of my electric bill going to support nuclear power. One reason we moved to Bowling Green was the beautiful wind turbines, and we were overjoyed when the City added solar. But the nuclear power industry, through First Energy is trying to pervert the political process to take our money, even in Bowling Green. Unfortunately, at this point the Democrats’ “alternative” bill also includes the bailout. For these reasons HB6 must not pass, and we must switch instead to wind and solar power, today.
Joe DeMare
Bowling Green
(Joe DeMare is the Political Director of the Ohio Green Party and Green Party Candidate for Bowling Green City Council at large. Click here for a link to his testimony before the House Energy and Natural Resources Generation Subcommitee his testimony begins at the 49 minute mark.)
