Skip to main content

The NEI Clip File

Here are some of the news clips we're reading at NEI today.

The energy bill is the first thing on everyone's mind, with the Senate approving the legislation by a vote of 74-26:

The Senate action a day after the bill breezed through the House completed the first major overhaul of the nation's energy policies in 13 years. The White House said in advance of passage that Bush looked forward to signing it into law, possibly next week.

...The bill provides $14.5 billion in tax breaks and potentially billions more in loan guarantees and other subsidies to encourage oil and gas drilling, improve natural gas and electric transmission lines, build new nuclear power reactors and expand renewable energy sources, especially construction of wind turbines.

Its cost, put at $12.3 billion after revenue offsets, is nearly twice the $6.7 billion price tag the White House had sought.

...The bill's cost was overridden by its widespread political support, in part because it includes something for virtually everyone.
In other news, NB Power's Point Lepreau nuclear power station in New Brunswick, Canada, has been slated for refurbishment:

The Province of New Brunswick will proceed with a C$1.4 billion refurbishment of NB Power's Point Lepreau nuclear power station with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd as the general contractor, Premier Bernard Lord said at a news conference Friday.

"This is the lowest cost option for the ratepayers of New Brunswick. It makes good economic and environmental sense, while keeping our energy sources diversified," Lord said.

The province is seeking to generate a third of its future energy from nuclear power, a third from renewable sources and a third from existing fossil and hydro sources, Lord said.

NB Power and AECL will start the detailed engineering and procurement this summer, with completion expected by March 2008. The construction of temporary facilities and waste storage will begin in April 2006.
TXU Corp. announced its plans to build a big coal-fired power plant in the state that could reduce emissions that help produce acid rain and ozone:

TXU, which operates power plants fueled by coal, natural gas and nuclear energy, on Wednesday filed for an air permit for the 1,720-megawatt power plant with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said TXU spokesman Chris Schein.

...The plant would burn Texas lignite coal to produce electricity and use selective catalytic reduction -- SCR -- technology to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, which contributes to the formation of acid rain and ozone.
Come back Monday morning for more news from the NEI Clip File.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should