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As the new home of NHPIRG’s environmental work, Environment New Hampshire may be contacted regarding this release.

Only months after New Hampshire became one of the first states to address air pollution coming from its oil- and coal-fired power plants, a change proposed to state energy policy is set to make national news again—this time for setting a dangerous precedent for the rest of the country.

Next month, under pressure from lobbyists for the nuclear power industry, New Hampshire will move to extend a pollution subsidy to the Seabrook nuclear power station, rewarding the plant for what state officials argue are environmental and public health benefits—namely, a reduction in air pollution—that Seabrook may provide to New Hampshire. The Granite State would be the first in the nation to subsidize a nuclear power plant using that rationale.

At issue is whether Seabrook deserves a subsidy for not releasing smog-forming nitrogen oxide (NOx), as the state’s coal-, oil- and gas-fired plants do. Wind farms, energy efficiency efforts and other clean and safe projects that generate or save power without creating air pollution are already eligible for a subsidy, helping them compete with mature and established industries. Under the proposal, nuclear power would be added to that list.

"To subsidize Seabrook on the strength of its benefits for environment and public health is to wear very tight blinders," said NHPIRG’s Josh Irwin. "Sure, you can single out one or two environmental benefits from nuclear power. But you sweep a whole set of problems and dangers under the rug."

He said Seabrook’s creation of radioactive nuclear waste, its routine release of radioactive pollution into the air and water, and the risk of an accident or terrorist attack precluded Seabrook from any subsidy based on its benefits for the environment and public health. That’s especially true, Irwin said, when Seabrook’s new owners are seeking permission to run harder and hotter, looking to generate an additional 70MW of power and an estimated four percent more nuclear waste.

The proposal is part of a pending change to a state program designed to encourage a reduction in NOx pollution by subsidizing the use of pollution control equipment on dirty power plants. The program enabled the clean up of PSNH’s two dirtiest plants—Merrimack Station in Bow and Schiller Station in Portsmouth—during the summer smog season.

State officials argue the current proposal can be justified on the grounds that it provides an incentive for Seabrook to increase its power production and displace other power sources. Clean energy advocates counter, however, that the plant’s owners were already planning to increase power from Seabrook, and that the question of a subsidy is entirely separate.

"This is a proposal—and a program—that is in search of a justification," said Doug Bogen, state director of Clean Water Action, of the NOx trading program generally. "In our view, it is completely unjustified, either as an appropriate state subsidy or as a means for pollution reduction.

Bogen also noted that most of the work on the proposal for the Seabrook subsidy took place under New Hampshire’s previous governor, and noted that the Department of Environmental Services was moving ahead with the proposal even though the new governor has not yet chosen a permanent head for the Department, or for the Air Resources Division.

The debate in New Hampshire has attracted attention from both nuclear lobbyists and public health and environmental groups across the nation. Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear power front group, told a reporter from the national publication Greenwire this month that New Hampshire "could very well serve as a template for the rest of the nation."

"Unfortunately, wishful thinking and new subsidies will not do away with the host of problems that have plagued the nuclear industry," said Geoffrey Fettus, an attorney with the Nuclear Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The entire nuclear fuel cycle is problematic from an environmental and economic perspective. From uranium mining through uranium enrichment—both of which have negative air quality impacts—to the ultimate problem of isolating highly radioactive waste for thousands of years, the nuclear fuel cycle negatively impacts water, land, air and public health. Yet another subsidy for the nuclear industry, this time for the misguided notion that the nuclear fuel cycle has no negative air quality impacts, moves America away from a clean energy future."

A public hearing on the subsidy is set for Feb. 18 at 1 PM at DES offices, 6 Hazen Dr. in Concord.

Under the NOx trading program, New Hampshire divides up a pool of NOx pollution allowances, each of which represents permission to emit one ton of NOx pollution. Most of New Hampshire’s allowances are given for free to the state's three PSNH fossil-fueled plants, as well as new facilities, like New Hampshire’s two new gas-fired power plants. The balance is "set-aside" and can be awarded, again for free, to energy efficiency and renewable projects, or simply retired for environmental benefit.

The latter don’t need NOx allowances as they don’t emit pollution, but can sell those allowances to polluting facilities that wish to exceed their pollution caps, and then keep the profits. The proposal pending before DES would put Seabrook in the same category as renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, allowing the plant to receive pollution allowances from the set-aside pool, which it could then sell.

NHPIRG’s Irwin dismissed objections that Seabrook would only receive pollution allowances commensurate with its 70MW "uprate" in capacity, not for all of the power generated at the plant.

"This isn’t about how much of Seabrook’s power should be eligible for a further subsidy," Irwin said. "The question is whether or not we move forward with a first-in-the-nation subsidy, extended on a very flimsy rationale. That’s the bright line, and the important thing is not to step over it at all."