NEI Nuclear Notes

Matt Wald The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning at NEI. It’s so obvious that it shouldn’t bear repeating, but it does: If you’re worried about climate change, one early, easy remedy is to preserve nuclear power plants that are already running. If you are facing limits on carbon emissions, don’t shut down perfectly serviceable merchant nuclear plants, just because cheap natural gas has left them, for now, a few bucks out of the money in the competitive electricity markets. Last Thursday the National Association of Clean Air Agencies , a group made up of officials from 42 states and the District of Columbia, plus 116 metropolitan areas, released its 465-page “ Menu of Options ” for complying with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan  ( Section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act). We could quibble with some details, like describing nuclear technology as “mature.” It is highly developed, but it ha...

Perhaps feeling a little besieged, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report the other day. It’s called The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020 . As you might expect, the word is good if a little steeply priced: EPA estimates that the total cost of implementing the CAA will reach $65 billion by the end of a thirty year period covering 1990 to 2020. The new report also estimates that the benefits of efforts to reduce fine particle and ground level ozone pollution under the CAA will reach $2 trillion by 2020. And here’s the thing: The Clean Air Act has been a notable success on a number of grounds. I was impressed that the report didn’t try to cover up uncomfortable data. There’s that $2 trillion price tag, for example, and more besides. The desire to be thorough is admirable. One thing, albeit a big thing, to note: while a lot of attention goes to coal in the report, none at all goes to nuclear energy. Granted, the act really went after oil...

When a new administration takes over, there are always some moments of dread, even among those constituencies that might expect to benefit. The change in Washington over the last two elections, however, has been seismic in nature, with the Republicans further out of power than at any time in my adult life, and the Democrats working the levers of power with considerable skill if not always with polish. So the dread is of the unexpected, the unknown, the unforeseen. Now, it’s practically a truism that the two parties are closer together than not in terms of policy, and it’s certainly true compared to Europe, where splinter parties act as hot wires at the far ends of local politics to give their governing coalitions a solid jolt. So while the shiver of the needle slightly leftward may cause the French to yawn, it’s dizzying enough for many Americans.  The post below about DOE Secretary Chu provides some indication what the nuclear industry has to wrap its collective mind around. ...