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The nuclear industry’s game plan to take your money and keep reactors operating
http://safeenergy.org/2016/03/17/the-nuclear-industrys-game-plan-2/
The nuclear industry’s game plan to take your money and keep reactors operating
March 17, 2016
With the failure of last decade’s nuclear “renaissance” leading to dismal prospects for expansion, and rising operating costs–including modest and insufficient post-Fukushima improvements–making a large number of existing reactors uneconomic in the deregulated marketplace, the nuclear power industry over the past couple of years has focused on its sheer survival. This means bailouts in one form or another.
<snip>
Fortunately, we don’t have to guess at what the large number of these new strategies and tactics are, because the ANS has helpfully laid it out for all to see in Nuclear in the States Toolkit Version 1.0, which consists of 40 pages of ways for nuclear utilities to take your money and keep nuclear reactors operating at any cost.
From using the Clean Power Plan to support existing reactors, to setting up “low-carbon” energy portfolios to override increasingly effective Renewable Energy Standards to encouraging utility mergers (Exelon/Pepco anyone?) to keep reactors operating, it’s all here. And the publication doesn’t just provide policy options, it includes brief case studies of how some are working now, or could be working, along with tactical advice to utilities about how to frame their messages to support the policies. Some of these are obvious and come as no big shock; others may well be surprising and indicate the depths of the industry’s desperation. Nuclear power is not only dirty energy, but the nuclear industry plays dirty too.
Here is just one sample of the Toolbox text, which remarkably suggests using the TARP bank bailout program as a precedent for a federal bailout of failing nuclear reactors:
<snip>
In short, this is must reading for any activist working to close nuclear reactors, prevent rate and/or tax increases to prop up the nuclear industry, and encourage more renewable energy and energy efficiency. In other words, all of us working to build a clean energy future.
<snip>
The nuclear industry’s game plan to take your money and keep reactors operating
March 17, 2016
With the failure of last decade’s nuclear “renaissance” leading to dismal prospects for expansion, and rising operating costs–including modest and insufficient post-Fukushima improvements–making a large number of existing reactors uneconomic in the deregulated marketplace, the nuclear power industry over the past couple of years has focused on its sheer survival. This means bailouts in one form or another.
<snip>
Fortunately, we don’t have to guess at what the large number of these new strategies and tactics are, because the ANS has helpfully laid it out for all to see in Nuclear in the States Toolkit Version 1.0, which consists of 40 pages of ways for nuclear utilities to take your money and keep nuclear reactors operating at any cost.
From using the Clean Power Plan to support existing reactors, to setting up “low-carbon” energy portfolios to override increasingly effective Renewable Energy Standards to encouraging utility mergers (Exelon/Pepco anyone?) to keep reactors operating, it’s all here. And the publication doesn’t just provide policy options, it includes brief case studies of how some are working now, or could be working, along with tactical advice to utilities about how to frame their messages to support the policies. Some of these are obvious and come as no big shock; others may well be surprising and indicate the depths of the industry’s desperation. Nuclear power is not only dirty energy, but the nuclear industry plays dirty too.
Here is just one sample of the Toolbox text, which remarkably suggests using the TARP bank bailout program as a precedent for a federal bailout of failing nuclear reactors:
<snip>
In short, this is must reading for any activist working to close nuclear reactors, prevent rate and/or tax increases to prop up the nuclear industry, and encourage more renewable energy and energy efficiency. In other words, all of us working to build a clean energy future.
<snip>
"Nuclear in the States Toolkit Version 1.0"
http://nuclearconnect.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ANS-NIS-Toolkit-download.pdf
