HELENA – In a House committee in late February, a legislator passed a tiny cylindrical object around the room, saying it is the key to Montana’s future energy security.
The cylinder was a model for one nuclear pellet, which Rep. Gary Parry, R-Colstrip, says is equivalent to 157 gallons of regular gasoline. According to Parry, nuclear energy is the way forward for Montana as the coal energy industry wanes.
“What we need to do is make sure that for Montanans we have a reliable, dependable base load,” Parry said in an interview, “that when it's 50 below zero we know is going to provide the electricity we need.”
Parry has proposed bills, House Bill 623 and House Bill 696, both aimed at opening the door for the nuclear energy industry in Montana. HB 623 would allow for the creation of facilities to handle nuclear waste, while HB 696 would allow the building of a uranium enrichment facility.
Both bills passed the House earlier this month and are scheduled for hearings in the Senate on March 27.
Supporters of the bills say they want to prepare Montana for the possibility that nuclear energy could be on the horizon. But opponents doubt the feasibility of nuclear projects in the state and have safety concerns for the communities near the facilities.
Coal Generation on the Outs
Winds are shifting in the West, Parry said. The power plants in Colstrip have been providing power to the American West since the 1970s, but coal-powered electricity is now facing criticism and powerful adversaries.
Many coastal states in the West have passed resolutions to be coal-free by 2025, or 2030, as part of a push to reduce emissions. The state of Washington’s measure will go into effect at the end of this year. When it does, Montana will be in a sticky situation, Parry said.
Parry said there are “significant forces at work” to close Colstrip units three and four, offering wind and solar power as renewable alternatives to coal energy. Colstrip’s two older units, one and two, were closed in 2020.
“Wind and solar are being offered as the replacement generation,” Parry said. “The wind will not always blow at the acceptable ranges, and the sun will not always be shining when power is needed.”
But Anne Hedges from the Montana Environmental Information Center says there is evidence that suggests that renewable energy may withstand extreme temperatures better than people think. Hedges said last summer when Billings hit 113 degrees, the Colstrip power plant was offline for days.
“What saved our bacon is we were able to find a path to bring solar from the desert southwest up into Montana,” Hedges said. “That solar power is what powered our air conditioners.”
Potential issues with renewable energy can be addressed through solutions like this, Hedges said, and through energy storage and investing in better transmission systems.
“If we could improve that transmission system and allow that to happen on a more formalized and efficient trading system, which is what's being developed in the West right now, we wouldn't need so many of the resources that these utilities want to build,” Hedges said.
For Hedges, the benefits of the nuclear avenue are unclear. The cost of nuclear is astronomical, she said, and Montana is primed to utilize and produce much more renewable energy than it currently does. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Montana ranks fifth in the nation for wind energy potential.
“We have the potential to generate more energy than we would ever use,” Hedges said.
And, nuclear would raise energy rates for Montanans in a staggering way, Hedges said, when Montana already has the fourth highest rate of electricity cost in the nation, according to a 2024 study from the New York Times.
Parry acknowledged that the cost of installing a nuclear plant is not cheap, but he said it ends up paying off in the long run.
“With a coal-fired power plant, with natural gas plant, what you're dealing with is inputting and paying for a continual supply of fuel,” Parry said. “On a nuclear basis, your supply of fuel would be changed every three years.”
But Hedges pointed out that with renewable resources, Earth’s natural patterns generate the fuel needed to keep electricity going. She said to “beware of the wolf in sheep’s clothing” when it comes to nuclear energy, since utility companies will benefit greatly from the nuclear path.
“They are out there because they are a business that has to answer to its shareholders and has to earn them revenue,” Hedges said. “And that's what nuclear does. It could earn them a lot of money.”
If Parry’s bills pass, they would not lead to the immediate creation of these facilities, Parry said. It would simply let the larger national energy sector know that Montana is ready for nuclear to be a possibility in the state.
For HB 623, Parry said, the goal is to meet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s standards for the implementation of a nuclear facility. Per the commission’s rules, every nuclear project must be prepared to handle its own nuclear waste.
Parry said these waste facilities can actually create a possibility for spent nuclear fuel to be recycled and reused as energy, since spent nuclear fuel just means nuclear fuel that is no longer hot enough to be used. He used France as a model for the method that he would like to see in Montana, since they recycle their nuclear fuel by reheating it and re-enhancing it with uranium. France currently gets about 70% of its energy from nuclear, according to the World Nuclear Association.
HB 676, on the other hand, would allow a uranium enrichment facility to be built in Montana to process uranium from mines either inside or outside the state. Parry said he views this as an issue of national security, since currently the U.S. relies heavily on Russia for its supply of uranium.
Parry said his idea is to put Montana in the driver seat, so the state could supply other nuclear projects and set the prices for nuclear materials.
“I’d like to see Montana be the hub, be the place, and we can supply then all of the needs for the United States, the entire United States, and a good part of Canada by doing this,” Parry said.
But Hedges pointed out that in the unstable state of world politics, this may not be in Montana’s best interest.
“I feel like we're entering this era in which things are more dangerous,” Hedges said. “We are keeping strange friends and the world feels very volatile. And so is that what you want sitting in the middle of your community, is … this potential target? I don't think that's a good idea.”
Community Concerns
The idea of nuclear facilities in Montana has raised safety concerns for many in the legislative body, prompting proposed amendments on each bill.
The amendments, proposed by Rep. Shelly Fyant, D-Arlee, and Rep. Jade Sooktis, D-Lame Deer, would require a county vote to approve a nuclear facility in their area. It would also allow for any tribe within 50 miles of the nuclear project to hold a vote of all tribal electors before the project could be approved.
“People who will live near a nuclear disposal site, and or those may have traffic carrying nuclear waste on their roads or traveling through their communities should have a say in whether or not they want that activity to occur near their homes and families,” Fyant said.
Fyant said this is an important vote for tribal sovereignty considering the history of nuclear waste storage and mining happening close to or on tribal lands. One of the most notable examples of this is the uranium mines in the Navajo nation in the 1900s.
“Historically, American Indians have experienced a disproportionate impact from the mining and storage of nuclear materials near their lands, without having a meaningful voice in the process,” Fyant said. “This amendment helps make sure that that doesn’t happen in Montana.”
Parry’s response to concerns about the safety of nuclear projects was that technology has come a long way since nuclear first came on the scene. He added that the U.S. Navy has been using nuclear to power their submarines since 1952.
I don't know very many of the submariner guys, and I know several of them, who glow in the dark or were adversely affected about traveling around in the ocean on a nuclear reactor,” Parry said.
And since 1952, Parry said, the technology has improved immensely.
“The safety levels on these reactors are phenomenal, and in fact, the safety utilizing nuclear has improved by quantum leaps,” Parry said.
Fyant, Sooktis, and Parry discussed the amendment prior to a debate on the House floor, according to the three of them, but negotiations fell apart as the votes on the amendments went down. Parry said on the floor that he viewed HB 623’s amendment as neither friendly or unfriendly.
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the one that oversees all of this,” Parry said. “They’re going to make sure that the county commissioners and that the tribal organizations are online and know what’s going on.”
Later in the floor session when HB 696 was debated, Parry said he viewed HB 696’s amendment as unfriendly since Sooktis and Fyant did not vote in favor of HB 623.
The debates led to HB 623’s amendment passing, and HB 696’s amendment failing. Sooktis and Fyant maintained in the floor debate that Parry had agreed to support the amendments in their earlier conversations.
Representative Denise Joy, D-Billings, said in the debate that while she initially planned to support HB 696, she could not support it without the amendment requiring community input.
“As an elected official at the municipal level for seven years, what I can tell you every constituent hates is getting broad-sided by a big, huge change and not knowing it’s coming down the road,” Joy said.
Fyant said in an interview that she can’t support the bills because wherever uranium extraction is taking place, the people and environment in those places will suffer the consequences. And those consequences, she said, don’t stop at Montana’s border.
“We all live downstream,” Fyant said.
Emma White is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association, the Montana Newspaper Association and the Greater Montana Foundation. White can be reached at emma.white@umconnect.umt.edu.
