SB 1597A – Requires an electric utility to disclose to its customers the costs of storing nuclear waste produced by an energy facility in generating electricity. Requires a person who develops an energy facility to disclose to the electric utility and the public the costs of storing any nuclear waste produced by the energy facility in generating electricity. Takes effect on the 91st day following adjournment sine die.

This is entirely anti-nuclear bias rather than neutral energy policy. Currently, nuclear electricity generating plants are not permitted in Oregon. The bill aligns only with environmental and anti-nuclear advocacy groups Setting the stage for voters to reject any innovative power. Still they try to entice large corporations or tech companies who want to put servers in Oregon that consume huge amounts of electricity and water, while knowing we are short on both.

According to the Oregon Department of Energy, the Columbia Generating Station in Washington State provides Oregon’s nuclear power, and the Bonneville Power Administration markets the electricity it produces. In 2004, Portland General Electric decommissioned its 1,130-megawatt Trojan nuclear-fueled power plant in Columbia County. Oregon’s Energy Facility Siting Council may issue site certificates for nuclear-fueled thermal power plants, but only after finding that an adequate repository for the disposal of the high-level radioactive waste produced by the plant has been licensed to operate by the appropriate agency of the federal government (see ORS 469.595). If an adequate repository exists and is licensed, the nuclear-fueled thermal power plant site certificate proposal must be approved or rejected by Oregon voters at the next available statewide general election (see ORS 469.597).