Drilling and nukes stir nary a worry
By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published October 10, 2005
Where's all the outrage? Where's the squawking?
Funny how higher A/C bills and gasoline prices can influence even deep-seated points of view.
In the past week, a major provider of electricity in the Tampa Bay area and Central Florida unveiled plans to start hunting for a site for a brand-new nuclear power plant.
Floridians' response to Progress Energy? Nary a peep of concern. But plenty of talk about bringing new jobs to rural Florida or, perhaps, finding a good use for some of the many now-used-up phosphate mines.
In the past week, Gov. Jeb Bush and key members of Congress have endorsed a long-term deal that, if finalized, could allow oil rigs 125 miles off the Gulf Coast. That's a big concession from the current bans, long backed (until now) by Bush, that banned drilling within 200 miles of Tampa Bay.
"President Is Urged To Press Florida On Gulf Drilling" read the headline in Friday's Wall Street Journal.
So where is the Floridian backlash? It's not visible from where I sit.
Not long ago, talk of a new nuclear plant on Florida soil, or plans to weaken the rules keeping oil rigs away from Florida's coastline and tourists would have generated unrelenting howls of protest, legal actions and gnashings of teeth.
Not anymore.
Not since hurricanes Katrina and Rita plowed through the Gulf Coast oil and gas rigs and refineries, sending area gas prices briefly above $3 a gallon and area electricity rates heading up toward $100 per 1,000 kilowatt hours.
Not since global warming, a byproduct of burning oil and coal, has begun to be taken more seriously.
A price-chastised and more sober state and nation are looking anew at energy options once considered unthinkable.
A week ago, Progress Energy Florida chief executive officer Bill Habermeyer told the St. Petersburg Times the power company will likely propose a site in Florida for a nuclear power plant and submit a design to federal regulators this year. The likely spots range from the existing Crystal River power facility in Citrus County, where Progress Energy's one and only Florida nuclear plant operates, to rural sites in Polk, Seminole, Osceola and Highlands counties in Central Florida.
"When you look at the choices ahead, I think nuclear provides a better alternative," Habermeyer told the Times.
Florida's five nuclear reactors (Miami's Florida Power & Light operates four and Progress Energy operates one) help generate about 15 percent of Florida's electricity. Plants that run on natural gas are the fastest growing - projected to handle as much as half the electricity demands for the state in the future. But gas has become very expensive, very fast - another reason nuclear power is regaining some credibility.
It has been 22 years since the last nuclear reactor went online in Florida. A new nuclear plant in Florida would probably not start operating until 2015. These projects take time.
The Bush brothers - President George and Gov. Jeb - are giving their stamp of approval to more nukes in the U.S. energy mix.
President Bush's support of nuclear power development has revived industry interest. So has the recently passed federal energy legislation that provides incentives and subsidies for new nuclear power plants.
Gov. Bush also gave his blessing to nuclear power last week after the news of Progress Energy's plans. Bush said he has asked the state Department of Environmental Protection to review and, presumably streamline, the requirements the state places on utilities for power plant permits.
Nuclear power, Bush told the Sun-Sentinel, "is the safest, cheapest form of energy and provides the most stability as it exists with the current technology."
Orlando economic development leaders responded to the possibility of a nearby nuclear power plant with little surprise or worry.
"My sense is that given our energy woes, the unrest in the Middle East and our dependence on foreign oil, and the nuclear industry's relative safe track record over recent years, people are not as squeamish about nuclear energy as they used to be," said Joe Kilsheimer. He's a good observer of Orlando area trends as a public relations executive and former Orlando Sentinel reporter, and also a board member of the Council for Sustainable Florida, a Tallahassee group that advocates for practices that are proenvironment and probusiness.
Tico Perez, a Republican and a prominent lawyer who serves on the board of the city-owned Orlando Utilities Commission, suggests the idea of a nuclear power plant is not on anybody's radar. He suggests a site would be hard to find in the area because nuclear power plants require vast amounts of water for cooling.
"Everyone thinks it is just a balloon to get a better deal or easier permitting, or some other concession from another county," Perez said.
No outrage there. Maybe I could find an environmental advocate to be upset over another nuke plant. I called Charles Lee, executive vice president of the Audubon Society of Florida.
Ha! Was I wrong. Sure, Lee told me his group would be concerned if a nuclear power plant was built on some of the remaining sensitive ecosystems left in the state. Lee had been part of a team 15 years ago that helped Florida Power Corp. (now Progress Energy) look for future power plant sites in Central Florida.
Tens of thousands of acres of old phosphate mines, long tapped out, in Central Florida might make a logical site for a power plant, he said, if the water needed for cooling could be found.
Unexpectedly, Lee said nuclear power plants offer some environmental benefits to a state on the verge of being overrun by development.
Nuclear power plants on Florida's coastline operate with a 12-mile safety boundary around them where development is banned. That means some of the greatest stretches of natural Florida left along the coasts are adjacent to nuke plants.
"If those nukes were not here with their safety zones, the reality is, those places would now be wall-to-wall condos," Lee said. "A new nuclear plant might exclude thousands of acres from future development."
Where's all the outrage of old about nuclear power and gulf drilling? It's sharply diminished, it seems, and replaced with some new outlooks on the future of energy in Florida.
- Robert Trigaux can be reached at 727 893-8405 or trigaux@sptimes.com