Skip to main content

What's the FERC Technical Conference About and Why Is It So Important?

By
Here in a Washington that's preoccupied with political spectacle, it can be easy to miss important details about the business of government that really matter. One of those is coming up next week when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) holds a two-day technical conference about electricity markets in the Northeastern U.S. 

Since policymakers in Washington have not been able to find consensus on a comprehensive energy policy for the country, states have shown leadership in trying to ensure that the electricity system of the future will meet their needs. For some time, state governments have adopted renewable portfolio standards (RPS) to spur the growth of wind and solar to meet environmental policy goals. More recently, states like Illinois and New York have enacted similar programs to preserve nuclear power plants, in order to support nuclear energy's unique package of grid stability, zero emissions and fuel supply diversity.

Illinois Future Energy Jobs Bill preserves more than 4,000 jobs

How these state policies are implemented can be complicated as many states participate in competitive electricity markets that are intended to figure out which power plants should run to maintain reliability at a reasonable cost. This conference will help FERC explore the best ways for markets to work in concert with state policies to achieve broader goals. Next week, when all of the stakeholders get together in Washington, the folks at FERC will be listening intently in order to be able to chart a sensible path forward. 

Of particular interest to us are the programs in New York and Illinois that have valued nuclear plants in those states for avoiding emissions. From where we sit, it seems clear that state programs like an RPS or these more recent Clean Energy Standards programs that include nuclear energy are all pursuing the same broad goal of environmental protection. In terms of policy intent, they aren't really different at all, and if you support one, it would be counter-productive not to support them all.

New York Clean Energy Standard saves consumers $1 billion each year

So why is this so important now? When the electric markets were established in this area of the country, grid operators had spent decades planning and making wise investments in order to support both reasonable prices for customers as well as reliable service. Supporting that was a commitment to diversity of fuel supply that kept the lights on and prices stable. 


What's changed is that the arrival of cheap natural gas has forced prices so low that the diversity of supply we've taken for granted is under threat. And when it comes to natural gas, history has told us that what might look like a glut today can evolve into a frightening shortage tomorrow. It's up to staff and leadership at FERC to take a longer-term view and make prudent decisions today to hedge against inevitable risks tomorrow. We'll be paying close attention to the conversation next week and in the months to follow. You should too.

The above is a post from Matt Crozat, senior director of business policy at NEI.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

By
Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
7 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more