News from Pueblo

BY CT.

Don Banner had whiffed on a bid to sell water from a ditch in southern Colorado when someone gave him another idea: Turn the surrounding ranch land into an energy park.

While supporters say the Pueblo attorney's idea will provide high-paying jobs and tax revenue, dozens of residents have voiced concerns that his proposal on about 37 square miles east of Pueblo includes not only plans for biomass, geothermal, solar and wind energy but a nuclear power plant too.

Pueblo County commissioners, who must approve a zoning change for the project, held three days of hearings to take public comment on the proposal, days after an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the power supply to a nuclear power complex in Japan, causing radiation leaks.

"I'm a Christian. I believe everything happens for a reason," said Banner, in his 60s. The reason this time? "I don't know why."

There haven't been any new nuclear reactors in the U.S. in a generation, but the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing plans for new ones.

Nuclear power generation doesn't emit carbon dioxide and can produce huge amounts of power cheaply, after a plant is built.

Rising gasoline prices and concerns about greenhouse gases and imported oil helped nuclear energy gain political backing, but the disasters at Japan have led to at least a short-term pull back for some countries.

"There are a lot of competing interests here. All of that is background for making a very local decision," said Pueblo County Commissioner Jeff Chostner.

Colorado currently has no nuclear power plants. A uranium mill in nearby Canon City hasn't processed uranium in years, but Energy Fuels Corp. has plans to build a mill in southwest Colorado. Powertech has plans to mine uranium in northern Colorado.

Pueblo, meanwhile, is home to an Xcel Energy Inc. coal-fired power plant and a Vestas plant that builds wind turbine towers. Black Hills Energy plans to add a natural-gas fired plant.

Banner proposes creating the energy park on land not far from the Pueblo Chemical Depot, which holds 2,600 tons of mustard agent awaiting destruction under an international treaty.

Banner gives his idea a 10 percent chance of happening. He has no partners or water rights lined up to get a $5 billion to $8 billion nuclear power plant built, saying
he doesn't want to waste time on that if the county blocks his idea.

If the project moves forward, he said, he has agreements from a Colorado family and the family of Mary Clark of Comanche, Texas, to buy their Pueblo County ranch land, where the longest shadows are cast by clouds and power lines.

Clark's son Frazier Clark lives about 50 miles from the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Texas and said he has watched it pump tax money into local schools and provide jobs for everyone from engineers to people with shovels.

He said the same could happen in Pueblo County.

"I know the deal in Japan has changed everyone's feelings and thoughts, and I don't blame them," Clark said. "I'm not going to be living close to it, so I hate to say anything much.

"It'd be a great economic boom for that area, but if people don't want it, we'll still be in the cattle business," Clark said.

The U.S. has 104 commercial reactors that supply about 20 percent of the nation's electricity. Residents who spoke at meetings on Banner's idea were split on whether Pueblo County should host one.

Tatiana Floka-Cosyleon lived in the former Soviet Union and considers herself lucky that she left Kiev, Ukraine, one month before the Chernobyl disaster.

Colorado School of Mines nuclear engineering student Aaron Ackerman, born and raised in Pueblo, said after the hearings that perhaps the disasters in Japan could prompt people to become more educated about nuclear power.

"People are afraid of what they don't know," said Ackerman, who will be a nuclear engineer on U.S. Navy submarines after graduation.

One of the most critical factors commissioners plan to consider when reviewing Banner's proposal is water, Chostner said.

Water will be critical for cooling reactors, but in Colorado, it's a limited resource guarded for farming, ranching, recreation, wildlife and drinking water. Banner hasn't signed any water agreements for an energy park yet.

Commissioners are scheduled to vote April 25 on the zoning change required for Banner's proposal.