NEI Nuclear Notes

One of the strengths of the electric system is its diversity, with energy flowing from generators that use a variety of fuels. But conflicting government policies and poorly constructed markets are reducing that diversity, and the result will be electricity that is more expensive, more prone to price spikes, and less reliable, according to a new study. The problem may not be immediately evident to consumers, for whom the light switch on the wall is like a water faucet connected to a vast system of reservoirs and feeder streams. As long as the water comes out, the user doesn’t really care where each drop came from. The consumer is well served by the diversity of supply, even if the diversity isn’t obvious. The same is true for electric current. But the power grid is changing, according to a report issued Tuesday by the economic analysis firm IHS Markit, Ensuring Resilient and Efficient Electricity Generation: The Value of the Current Diverse U.S. Power Supply Portfolio , which l...

Matt Wald The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald . Saving the reactors is good for consumers and good for the environment. Independent analyses show that the modest payments needed to keep nuclear reactors in the state’s supply mix will mean sharply lower electricity prices, and are the cheapest way to hold down carbon emissions. The Brattle Group, a consulting firm that specializes in energy, found that electricity in New York would cost $1.7 billion a year extra if the reactors closed. The reason is that the reactors’ output would be replaced by more expensive power. This is inherent in the method that New York uses to set prices: a computer totals up all the available resources, ranked by price, and the level of demand. The computer, which belongs to the New York State Independent System Operator, determines which generators are needed to satisfy demand, a...

The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald . Nuclear energy is by far the largest source of carbon prevention in the United States, but this is a rough time to be in the business of selling electricity due to cheap natural gas and a flood of subsidized renewable energy. Some nuclear plants have closed prematurely, and others likely will follow. In recent weeks, Exelon and the Omaha Public Power District said that they might close the Clinton, Quad Cities and Fort Calhoun nuclear reactors. As Joni Mitchell’s famous song says, “ Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone .” More than 100 energy and policy experts will gather in a U.S. Senate meeting room on May 19 to talk about how to improve the viability of existing nuclear plants. The event will be webcast, and a link will be available here . Unlike other energy sources, nuclear power plants g...

Over the years, Dr. Roger H. Bezdek has become the leading authority on the issue of federal energy subsidies. In the most recent issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly , Dr. Bezdek has returned to the subject and provides an important reminder that the conventional wisdom isn't all it's cracked up to be: [T]he refrain is often heard, "The fossil industries are being given huge federal financial incentives, while renewable energy is being starved." The data show that this conventional wisdom is wrong. In fact, there's a huge imbalance in recent federal energy incentives; however, the imbalance is strongly is strongly in favor of renewable energy (RE) especially when the contribution to energy supply of the different energy technologies is considered. While the report is for subscribers only, our archive of content on Dr. Bezdek's work remains free.

In 2008, NEI published a study based on an analysis by the Management Information Systems, Inc. that detailed the amount of subsidies that go to each energy source. The study has just been updated and now shows 60 years of energy incentives . Here’s the intro: With concern about the price and availability of energy increasing, public interest in the role of federal incentives in shaping today’s energy marketplace and future energy options has risen sharply. That interest has met with frustration in some quarters and half-truths in others because of the difficulty in developing a complete picture of the incentives that influence today’s energy options. The difficulty arises from the many forms of incentives, the variety of ways that they are funded, managed and monitored, and changes in the agencies responsible for administering them. It is no simple matter to identify incentives and track them through year-to-year changes in legislation and budgets over the 50-plus years that...

In 2008, the Energy Information Administration published a report that provided a snapshot of the amount of federal incentives each energy technology received during the year 2007. Three years later, EIA released an updated analysis that looked at the federal incentives received in 2010 . Below is the summary table EIA generated by examining the energy incentives for all sectors (p. xii). Renewables by far have received more incentives in 2010 than any other beneficiary: 40 percent of the total. If we look at the incentives received in just the electric sector (a subset of the overall energy sector), the numbers expose even more favor for renewables, which garnered 55 percent of the electric sector’s incentives in 2010 (p. xviii). What about nuclear? Incentives for nuclear have largely been for research and development. Since 1978, nuclear has received more R&D incentives than any other technology. Most of the R&D expenditures for nuclear took place in the 1970s a...

Steve Kidd from the World Nuclear Association, writing in Nuclear Engineering International magazine, discusses energy subsidies in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the U.S. view he cites figures from the Management Information Services, Inc., study commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute and released last fall. More importantly for this audience, Mr. Kidd describes the European experience on energy subsidies and reminds readers that nuclear energy has always had to include the cost of waste disposal in its calculations. According to Mr. Kidd, the Euopeans' cost of coal-generated electricity would double and that of gas-generated electricity would increase by 30% if they were required to internalize the costs and impacts of their wastes.

Federal subsidies and their role in promoting our national interests have been debated since the earliest days of our nation . Earlier this week, NEI and Management Information Services Inc. released a MISI report that catalogs in exhaustive detail the panoply of federal subsidies for energy development since 1950. This report presents the facts on the many forms of subsidies employed by the federal government and the amounts expended to promote each type of energy. As the principal author, Dr. Roger Bezdek , said to reporters at the National Press Club on Tuesday, the report does not make any judgments about the appropriateness of the mix, amounts, or targets of energy subsidies. It simply tries to lay out the numbers as completely and accurately as possible, so that public discussion about the history and future of federal energy incentives can be well informed. The MISI report also does not touch on the other side of the subsidy story - what the public gets in return. NEI has done ...

Dr. Roger Bezdek, President of Management Information Services Inc ( MISI ) and a noted expert on energy policy analysis, spoke at the National Press Club today, taking questions from the media on the release of a new report on federal incentives for energy development. According to the report, the main beneficiaries of more than $700 billion of federal energy incentives over the past five decades have been the oil and natural gas industries. The oil and natural gas industries together garnered 60 percent of federal incentives between 1950 and 2006, with 46 percent of the roughly $725 billion in federal support going to the oil sector, according to the MISI study. The report shows that the oil industry has benefited from $335 billion in combined incentives, with natural gas receiving $100 billion. The MISI study also shows that, contrary to some claims, federal energy incentives have not gone to nuclear energy technologies at the expense of renewable energy sources, such as wind and s...

In the world of Washington politics, one man's incentive may be another man's subsidy or boondoggle. A Wednesday afternoon posting on the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog reported the Senate's rejection of an attempt to extend tax credits given to renewable energy projects. The posting describes the on-again/off-again life of renewable energy tax credits and the punishing effect their uncertainty has had on investment in wind energy projects. Each time the production tax credit has lapsed, investment in wind energy has fallen off sharply, roiling the wind industry: The U.S. has never had long-term clean-energy subsidies in place; usually they are renewed for a year or two at a time. Lots of people in the industry blame that unpredictability for the stop-and –start pattern the clean energy industry’s developed over the last two decades. New projects generally come to a standstill the year after tax credits expire. The American Wind Energy Association, a ...

The Wall Street Journal 's excellent blog, Environmental Capital , takes a look at the federal energy subsidy pie and asks, Who's getting what? Since 1999, federal energy subsidies have more than doubled—from $8.2 billion to $16.6 billion in 2007. Who gets the most? “Renewables” landed $4.8 billion last year, but that includes $3.25 billion for ethanol and other biofuels. Coal and cleaner-burning “refined” coal took home $3.3 billion, while the nuclear power industry got $1.3 billion. In all, about 40% of the energy subsidy pie went toward electricity production; the rest for things like alternative fuels and energy conservation. ...But the raw numbers don’t tell the story. What does is how much cash the government hands out per unit of electricity produced. The winner there is refined coal, at $29.81 per megawatt hour. That’s even more than solar power ($24.34) or wind ($23.37). Nuclear power received $1.59 per megawatt hour. Regular coal took home $0.44 per megawatt hour,...

Details over at Atomic Insights .