n021  0824  31 Jul 84
PM-NUCLEAR
By WILLIAM E. SCHMIDT
c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service
    NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Nuclear power experts and 10 governors Monday
discussed ways to deal with the crushing financial burdens on their
states as the result of cost overruns in the construction of nuclear
power plants.
    ''We have not in this country before today made a concerted effort
to even gather the information'' on the problem, said Gov. Mario
Cuomo of New York, who helped lead the private working session at the
National Governors Association's annual conference here.
    But Cuomo and others in the meeting said that no consensus was
reached among the governors. He described the meeting as a
''belated'' effort to deal with what he called a ''severe national
problem.''
    State officials, consumers and electrical utilties have become
increasingly alarmed in recent years over the skyrocketing costs of
nuclear plant construction.
    Those costs not only threaten consumers with the prospect of higher
utility bills, but in some instances have also raised serious doubts
about the longterm financial solvency of the electrical utilities
themselves.
    Much of the discussion in the meeting concerned ways to avoid having
consumers bear the financial burden of cost overruns.
    Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas said that most of the governors agreed
generally with the suggestion of one nuclear industry expert that as
many as 10 pending nuclear plant projects that are less than 50
percent completed ought to be scrapped.
    But other governors said there was no agreement among them as to how
to go about dealing with the problem. ''The meeting was merely an
exchange of information,'' said Gov. Anthony S. Earl of Wisconsin.
    Monday's session grew out of a memorandum circulated among governors
earlier this year by Cuomo. ''The states are having difficulty
deciding whether these plants should go on line and, if they do, who
should pay for them,'' said Tim Russert, an aide to Cuomo.
    Among other things, Russert said, the governors were looking to the
federal government to recognize that state governments, taxpayers,
consumers and utilities have a problem dealing with the economic
consequences of a nuclear power program that has been encouraged, to
a large degree, by Federal energy policy.
    The cost of building the plants has grown sharply over the past
decade as a result of inflation and higher interest rates that the
utilities must pay on the money they borrow and because many
electrical producers projected that demand for electricity would grow
more sharply through the 1970s and 1980s than has been the case.
    
nyt-07-31-84 1122edt
***************