All the best for 2010, should be a good year for PEN.
U.S. Loans to Boost Nuclear Industry Seen Soon By Ayesha Rascoe December 28, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is poised to announce loan guarantees to help kick-start the country's nuclear power industry, which hasn't built a new plant in more than three decades.
Congress authorized $18.5 billion for nuclear loan guarantees in 2005, hoping to revive development of the carbon-free source of energy. Investments in nuclear power has dried up on soaring costs following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.
But earlier this year, the U.S. Energy Department signaled it was keen to aid the industry and narrowed the list of those likely to receive loan guarantees to four: Southern Co, Constellation Energy, NRG Energy and SCANA Corp.
"When DOE issues their first loan guarantee, that's going to send an important signal to private-sector financing, and Wall Street in particular," said John Keeley, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Southern, which wants to build two reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, is expected to be awarded the first loan guarantee.
Energy Department officials would not give a specific date on when the details will be announced but said they were committed to restarting the nuclear industry.
"We are on track to announce the first loan guarantee soon," said Stephanie Mueller, a department spokeswoman.
The money allotted would probably support construction of about two to three plants. A nuclear power plant can cost $6 billion to $7 billion to build, according to industry estimates.
Even after receiving a guarantee, the companies would still have to complete the licensing process and secure private financing before construction begins.
Barring major delays, actual construction of a plant would not start before 2011, with the first new plant coming on line around 2017 or 2018, according to the nuclear institute.
The nuclear trade group has called for $100 billion in additional loan guarantees for low carbon energy sources to help support replacing aging reactors and to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
New Loan-Guarantee Bailout for New Nuclear Reactors Puts U.S. Taxpayers at Risk as Department of Energy Hands Over Billions of Dollars to 'Poster Child for Cost Overruns'
Nuclear Power Industry is Perfect Illustration of Why Taxpayers Are Saying "No More Bailouts!" - Billions for Plant Vogtle Reactors Impossible to Justify in Terms of Rising Financial Risks, Reduced Demand for Power, Cheaper Renewables and Huge Potential of Energy Efficiency
ATLANTA, Dec. 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- First it was insurance companies, then it was banks and that was followed by auto companies. Now, the federal government is putting U.S. taxpayers and utility customers at new risk under a controversial U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee program that is slated to award $18.5 billion, with Atlanta-based Southern Company predicted to be first on the list for program funds to build two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Georgia.
Ironically, the DOE's "top choice" for the nuclear reactor loan guarantees, which are backed by U.S. taxpayers in the event of defaults, is the very same Plant Vogtle that helped to kill the previous nuclear power boom in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Huge cost overruns at the original Plant Vogtle - which escalated from $660 million for four reactors to a whopping $8.87 billion for two - likely played a role in putting the brakes on nuclear expansion plans pursued decades ago in the United States.
Will history repeat itself on Plant Vogtle cost overruns?
Higher bills and costly delays may already be in the works at Plant Vogtle. According to news accounts in early December 2009: "The proposed construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro could likely have cost overruns and possibly face delays, according to testimony released by the Georgia Public Service Commission. The group monitoring the progress of the new reactors is also being denied access to crucial information about the process, and Georgia Power is not revising economic evaluations based on a variety of factors that include a reduced demand for electricity and cheaper alternatives to nuclear energy, the document says."
Such developments for the proposed new Plant Vogtle reactors could parallel the current fiasco in San Antonio, Texas, where another would-be DOE loan guarantee is facing local rejection of a new reactor project that is plagued with a $5 billion cost overrun that amounts to 27 percent of the initially projected budget.
Dr. Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, points out: "Nuclear power is most certainly not the best path to clean and low-cost energy for the United States. Instead, the first step should be reducing our energy consumption in this country and efficiently using the energy that we do consume, not spending hundreds of billions of Americans' hard-earned dollars on risky new nuclear reactors that will pad the pockets of the nuclear industry even more. Utilities are doing everything they can to shift all of the risks onto ratepayers and U.S. taxpayers. Why? Because the utilities can't afford to do it any other way. The proponents for new nuclear reactors are essentially proponents for more taxpayer-funded bailouts for irresponsible corporations that continue to make bad energy decisions."
Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School, says: "2010 will be the seventh year of the so-called 'Nuclear Renaissance,' but it is shaping up to be a lot like the U.S. nuclear industry of the 1980s, a decade of no new orders, multiple delays and cancellations, hefty defaults, and emerging cheaper alternatives. Of 26 new nuclear reactor license applications submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 2007, 19 have been cancelled or delayed and every private sector project has suffered a downgrade by credit rating agencies. The reality is that capital markets will not finance new reactors because demand growth has slowed, reactors cost much more than available alternatives and they face too many technology, marketplace, and policy risks; so nuclear advocates have demanded a massive increase in direct federal subsidies to bail the industry out. What we are looking at is the prospect of 'nuclear socialism' that could only go farther if it involved outright state ownership of the industry."
(For more comments from Cooper and other experts on how loan guarantees will not fix the insurmountable obstacles in the path of a so-called new nuclear "renaissance" in the United States, go to http://www.psr.org/nuclear-bailout/nuclear4.pdf.)
What is the alternative to new nuclear reactors? Stephen Smith says, "We need to fully embrace renewable energy and energy efficiency and conservation. Unlike nuclear reactors, solar and wind are truly clean - they are emission free when they're producing electricity, no carbon, no deadly nuclear waste that remains highly radioactive longer than human civilizations have even existed. And don't forget that clean renewable energy creates jobs, lots of jobs, and lots of jobs right here in the United States. Energy efficiency is far, far cheaper than building new nuclear reactors and helps reduce carbon emissions immediately, all while saving consumers and businesses money. And this can be done right here in the Southeast."
Nuclear Power and the U.S. Energy Future by H. Sterling Burnett and James Franko
More than two-thirds of states now require that a percentage of their electric power come from approved "renewable" energy sources. Federal legislation mandating a nationwide standard has also been proposed.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate CO2 emissions resulting from energy use, and Congress is debating bills with the same goal. These developments have the potential to strain power supplies as demand for electricity is projected to increase 26 percent from 2007 to 2030, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA).
To meet this growing demand, nuclear energy remains one of the safest and most reliable forms of energy available - it also emits no greenhouse gases. Yet, the EIA projects a slight decrease in nuclear power use: from 19 percent of total electricity generation in 2007 to 18 percent in 2030.
Nuclear power is reliable, sustainable and clean. Policymakers need to consider it as a long-term solution to America's energy demands.
Nuclear Power Is Reliable. Not counting hydropower, renewable energy represents less than 2 percent of total generating capacity. This includes solar and wind, which supply an unpredictable amount of power because the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, or blow within an acceptable range of speeds to provide either baseload power (required to keep electric power flowing) or peaking power (required to meet daily spikes in demand). Thus, solar and wind require backup from coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants for day-to-day baseload power or for on-demand peaking power.
By contrast, the output from nuclear power plants can be adjusted based on user demand and to keep the electric grid at maximum efficiency.
Nuclear Power Is Sustainable. At current rates of consumption with present technologies, uranium reserves in the United States can supply all of the world's existing reactors for 300 years. An additional supply of nuclear fuel is readily available, after reprocessing, in the more-than-15,000 plutonium pits removed from dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons. There are additional supplies of plutonium from dismantled Soviet warheads that have been shipped to the United States for disposal. A reprocessing plant is being built in South Carolina to turn these warheads into a reliable power supply.
An even larger fuel supply can be found in spent fuel rods from existing reactors. One kilogram of natural uranium contains as much energy as 38.5 tons of coal, but conventional nuclear reactors only utilize approximately 3 percent of that energy. Thus, recycling could provide an almost unlimited supply of nuclear fuel in the United States.
Recycling spent fuel would significantly decrease the problem of nuclear waste disposal. Reprocessing can also be a boon to local communities and create jobs. For example, two reprocessing facilities in France employ 11,000 workers and generate more than $600 million for the local economy.
Nuclear Power Is Clean. Nuclear power has among the lowest CO2 emissions of all energy sources. Paul J. Meier of the University of Wisconsin analyzed CO2 emissions from various electric power sources over their entire lifecycle - including such activities as mining and drilling, plant construction and operation, and disposal of waste products. Meier found that for every gigawatt hour (one billion watt hours) of electricity generated:
* Coal emits 1,041 tons of CO2 equivalent. * Natural gas emits 622 tons of CO2 equivalent. * Solar power emits 39 tons of CO2 equivalent. * Hydropower emits 18 tons of CO2 equivalent.
Nuclear power, by contrast, emits only 17 tons of CO2 per gigawatt hour - less than half that of solar power and only slightly more than that emitted by wind turbines (14 tons per gigawatt hour). [See the figure.] Thus, from a greenhouse gas perspective, nuclear power is among the most earth friendly.
Nuclear Power Is Safe. Today, spent nuclear fuel is kept in over 100 facilities across the country. To ensure proper long-term storage of high-level waste, the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (amended in 1988) required the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop and maintain an underground storage facility as a central repository. The DOE required the site chosen for the facility to meet strict criteria, including the ability to safely contain 77,000 metric tons of material for up to 10,000 years.
After 26 years and $8 billion (collected from nuclear reactor operators) the DOE determined that Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is a satisfactory site. Yucca Mountain is more than 100 miles away from the closest major population center and 1,000 feet underground. By contrast, most of the existing storage facilities are located at nuclear power plants and many are near major population centers.
History shows that the risk from transporting the fuel from power plants to a storage facility is slight. Areva, a multinational industrial conglomerate, has been reprocessing nuclear fuel for France and other countries around the world for nearly 30 years. In those 30 years, they have never had a nuclear accident, theft of material or death of a worker due to the handling of fuel. In fact, Areva has won numerous awards for quality and safety.
The science behind Yucca Mountain is solid. However, politics has delayed the safe storage of the country's accumulated spent fuel in a single, isolated, geologically stable facility.
Conclusion. Nuclear power is a safe and reliable source of energy. The technology exists today for nuclear power to safely provide America's energy needs. Policymakers should remove barriers that prevent nuclear energy from being fully utilized.
Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow and James Franko is a legislative assistant with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Source URL: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba683
PEN Price at posting:
4.3¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
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