Energy Biz - September/October 2008 - (Page 48) they’ve done in Japan and Korea, adjusted to circumstances here, you get a range of prices in today’s dollars that is somewhere between $6 billion a plant and $8 billion a plant. Yes, we can afford them because EnErgyBiz Did this industry miss an opportunity in all the alternatives are going to cost even more than l eadershiP the last eight years to spur the administration to develop a that. The problem is these are very large investments roundtabl es sound national energy policy? that require either a great deal of policy coordination r aTcLiFFE Well, my dad always told me that hindsight between regulators and utilities in states where regulation was 20/20. It’s always easy to look back and say we could prevails, or they require very large companies or consortiums have and should have done more. It’s awfully difficult in with a lot of courage in a market environment. It’s our opinion, this Congress to get much done. I think which could be wrong, the progress we made with the energy that even at those prices, act of 2005 and the more recent energy nuclear power will be policy that we’ve passed in the Congress cheaper than similar scale We’ve had great has provided some incentives around coal with gasification and difficulty in terms of a new technology funding base for effective carbon sequestrarenewables and new nuclear technology. tion. There’ll be all sorts getting people to We are never satisfied that we’ve got of bets made about that recognize the interenough because we need a lot. We’ve got proposition around this play between the to maintain a vigilance about continuing table, but that’s the one to try to achieve more. we continue to choose to environment, energy rOgErs We’ve worked hard to connect make for the future. and the economy. the dots. We’ve had great difficulty in terms of getting people to recognize EnErgyBiz What will the interplay between the environment, the consumer be paying? energy and the economy. rOwE Right now, As I look back, I would electricity in Georgia, have liked to see us North Carolina and Illinois is somewhere make more progress between 8 and 12 cents a kilowatt-hour. on the carbon issue. In California and New York, it’s more We will not be able to like 18 cents a kilowatt-hour. Most of us solve the carbon issue are actually going to live to see 30-cent-aunless we invest more in kilowatt-hour electricity in New York and technology. We failed to California. But in much of the country, if we get a good coal technology, or we do that. As a country, we really haven’t stepped up get next-generation nuclear going, we can and made the investment begin to deal with the climate issue with in technologies. The prices that I would say are somewhere failure of FutureGen is a between 15 and 20 cents a decade out. failure to be committed If we try to do it without coal or to technology for the without nuclear, we’re talking about 30future. If we don’t to 40-cent electricity across the nation. I Dave Goodin MDU Resources Group’s Montana-Dakota Utilities, find that a very big threat both to social commit to technology, Great Plains Natural Gas and Cascade Natural Gas equality and to the economy as a whole. we will never be able to president and chief executive officer solve our national goal EnErgyBiz The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has of a higher GDP per capita as well as our carbon objectives taken steps to streamline the licensing path for new nuclear tied to 2050 or later. projects. Is that working? EnErgyBiz John, we turn to you as the operator of the rOwE Saying the regulatory agency is easy to deal with largest nuclear fleet in this country. What will be the cost would be the worst thing you could say about it. The NRC of the next generation nuclear power plants? has made its procedures much more effective and efficient rOwE We don’t definitively know how much they’re going over the past years. But what the NRC will do in the future to cost, because we haven’t built one in so long. Based on what is a political question, not a legal question. If the next 48 E n E rgyB i z yackir a The DOE has come back out with six projects smaller in nature, and we have applied for funding. They’re trying to regroup. September/October 2008
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