Today,
NIRS published a report exposing the nuclear industry’s attempt to
rescue itself through a renewed effort to stop renewable energy and
climate action, subsidize old reactors, and prop up nuclear as an
“offset” for fossil fuels. You can download the report here:
We
were proud to be joined by Dr. Mark Cooper of the Institute for Energy
and the Environment, Public Citizen, and several of our amazing
grassroots partners on the front lines of this fight to stop the
nuclear/fossil industry from stealing our carbon-free, nuclear-free,
sustainable energy future.
No Nukes!
Tim Judson, Executive Director
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tim Judson, Exec. Director
September 11, 2014 (301) 270-6477 timj@nirs.org
WATCHDOGS EXPOSE INDUSTRY EFFORT TO BLOCK CLIMATE ACTION & CLEAN ENERGY, PROP UP NUCLEAR, COAL
Report
details industry plans to subvert clean energy programs, rig energy
markets and climate regulations to subsidize aging nuclear reactors
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Major
utilities have hatched a plan to save nuclear power by blocking solar
and wind power, and efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions with them,
say environmentalists and consumer advocates. A coalition of five
organizations was joined by a renowned energy economist to release a new
report by Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS) exposing
the scheme. Titled “Killing the Competition: The Nuclear Power Agenda to
Block Climate Action, Stop Renewable Energy, and Subsidize Old
Reactors,” the report documents efforts by the country’s largest
utilities and power generators to prop up old nuclear plants with new
subsidies and electricity price hikes, while lobbying against programs
to grow clean energy and efficiency.
In
February, the country’s largest nuclear plant owner, Exelon, committed
to fund a high-priced public relations campaign—dubbed “Nuclear
Matters”—to create fears of a national energy crisis if the country
doesn’t rally to save nuclear power. If old nuclear plants go out of
business, the campaign predicts, economic devastation, electric grid
failures, and climate catastrophe will ensue. Exelon has now been joined
by several of the largest utilities and power generators, such as
Entergy, Duke, Southern, and FirstEnergy, who have mobilized their own
lobbying machines, PR firms, and front groups to the cause. As owners of
fossil fuel as well as nuclear plants, and with major carbon emission
regulations on the way, the companies have decided to dig into their
deep political coffers to save their old plants rather than adapt to new
technologies and environmental rules.
“The public deserves to know what these companies are really up to,” said report author Tim Judson, Executive Director of NIRS.
“Exelon and Nuclear Matters are running a deceptive campaign to scare
the American people into accepting their scheme to save old nuclear
plants, no matter how much it costs or what the collateral damage is. We
uncovered a disturbing pattern,” continued Judson, “a scheme to
undermine our most promising energy options and job-creating
industries—and stick ratepayers with rising energy bills—all to keep
polluting, uneconomical, increasingly dangerous power plants running,”
Judson concluded.
Last
year, the closure of several reactors highlighted the worsening
economics of nuclear energy. Five reactor shutdowns were announced, and
eight new reactors cancelled. The industry’s rising costs—with new
plants too expensive to build and old plants more and more costly to
maintain—came head to head with a brewing energy revolution: low natural
gas prices, rising energy efficiency, and affordable wind and solar
power. As a result, Wall Street firms reassessed the industry,
discovering an industry at risk and predicting more shuttered reactors
in the coming years. Energy economist Dr. Mark Cooper, of Vermont Law
School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, published a paper
outlining the factors contributing to nuclear energy’s poor prospects
and highlighting the vulnerability of dozens of reactors.
“Nuclear
power simply cannot compete with efficiency and renewable resources and
it does not fit in the emerging electricity system that uses
intelligent management of supply and demand response to meet the need
for electricity,” Cooper said. “Doubling down on nuclear power as the
solution to climate change, as proposed by nuclear advocates, is a bad
bet since nuclear power is one of the most expensive ways available to
cut carbon emissions in the electricity sector,” continued Cooper. “The
nuclear war against clean energy is a last ditch effort to stop the
transformation of the electricity sector and prevent nuclear power from
becoming obsolete.”
NIRS’s
report details the industry’s attacks on clean energy and climate
solutions and the key battlegrounds in this new fight over the U.S.’s
energy future. With large political war chests and armies of lobbyists,
the power companies have opened up aggressive fights across the country
this year:
· Blocking tax breaks for renewable energy in Congress.
· Killing renewable energy legislation in Illinois by threatening to close nuclear plants.
· Passing a resolution calling for nuclear subsidies and emissions-trading schemes in Illinois.
· Suspending renewable energy and efficiency standards in Ohio for two years.
· Ending energy efficiency programs in Indiana.
· Demanding above-market contracts for nuclear and coal plants in Ohio and NewYork.
One
of the main frontlines is the Environmental Protection Agency’s new
carbon pollution rule, which includes incentives for nuclear, and
encourages several costly, counterproductive measures. The regulation
includes subsidies of $50 million per year or more to keep uncompetitive
reactors from closing, and authorizes states to set up programs for
nuclear plants to sell emission allowances to coal and natural gas-fired
plants.
"Under
pressure from Exelon, the Illinois Legislature actually went so far as
to pass a resolution petitioning the EPA to order Illinois to use
nuclear plants to meet its pending carbon limits,” notes Dave Kraft,
director of the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service.
“To allow nuclear plants to sell or trade credits with fossil fuel
plants defeats the very purpose of regulating emissions. This is not
climate policy; it's political payback," Kraft believes.
The
companies are also seeking special energy market rules rigged to favor
nuclear and coal as “baseload” generators. The report spells out a slew
of the proposed reforms, the net effect of which would be to raise
energy costs for consumers and make it more difficult for providers of
wind energy and conservation programs to find customers. This would
reverse the entire way energy markets are set up. Currently, markets are
price-based and neutral on the type of energy source: the lowest-cost
energy sells first, higher-cost generators are cut out when there is
enough power. For instance, wind generators sell first because they have
no fuel costs and can bid the lowest prices. Because inflexible
baseload plants like nuclear and coal cannot cut their output when there
is too much power, the industry complains they must pay the wind owners
to turn their generators off. By
rigging the markets to favor increasingly expensive nuclear and coal
plants, the scheme would raise the cost to consumers while making it
harder for cleaner, low-cost energy sources to compete.
“Just
a few years ago, the industry had no complaints when some merchant
nuclear plants earned 100% annual rates of return,” said Tyson Slocum,
Energy Program Director atPublic Citizen.
“But now that conditions have changed, they want a rewrite of market
rules to guarantee payments to many of these same plants. Enough is
enough: household consumers cannot continue to subsidize inefficient
generators, especially when abundant, cleaner and safer alternatives
abound.”
New
York and Ohio residents have gotten a glimpse of how much it will cost
to prop up uneconomical nuclear plants. Exelon submitted a petition to
the New York Public Service Commission seeking a guaranteed contract for
one of the country’s smallest and oldest reactors, the Ginna Nuclear
Plant near Rochester. Just to meet the reactor’s operating costs,
ratepayers would be hit with prices more than 40% above the going market
rate—roughly $83 million/year. Similarly, FirstEnergy submitted a
petition to the Ohio Public Utility Commission, seeking a contract for
its troubled Davis-Besse reactor and three coal plants at an estimated
price of $65 per megawatt-hour – nearly 70% above market rates.
Environmental and consumer groups argue such costs are unwarranted,
especially with more affordable clean energy alternatives.
“New
Yorkers are rapidly adopting renewable energy, and the state’s policy
makers are pushing distributed electricity generation and energy
efficiency measures as a way to keep down costs and meet climate
goal,”said Jessica Azulay, Program Director of the Alliance for a Green Economy in
New York. “At a time of unprecedented momentum toward a smart,
efficient, renewable energy system, the nuclear industry is trying its
best to thwart the energy revolution and pull us back into the past with
scare tactics and spin.”
The
industry campaign was hatched after Entergy’s decision to close its
Vermont Yankee reactor in August 2013. Despite having won a legal fight
with the state of Vermont over the legislature’s decision the plant
should close, Entergy found the costs of operating of the reactor were
rising and the region’s grid operator had already decided the plant was
no longer needed. With all the rest of its reactors in the Northeast in
danger of closure due to economic pressure and licensing problems, the
company began publishing opinion pieces and lobbying elected officials
and market regulators for special treatment. Yet, the situation in
Vermont belies the industry’s message that old reactors are “necessary”
to protect consumers and workers, and prevent greenhouse emissions.
Vermont already has plans to replace all of the plant’s electricity with
low-cost carbon-free energy, expanded its renewable energy programs
this year, and Entergy cut a deal to keep half the Vermont Yankee
workforce employed in environmental cleanup and managing radioactive
waste.
“Until
the day Entergy announced Vermont Yankee's closure, it maintained that
Vermont Yankee was a benefit to the state and economically viable,” said
Deb Katz, Executive Diretor of Citizens Awareness Network in
New England. “Upon closure, it acknowledged that it would lose over
$200 million if VY continued to operate. In 2012 the state replaced
Vermont Yankee with contracts at substantially lower rates and expanded
its commitment to sustainable energy and efficiency.”
Contact the Presenters
Tim Judson (301) 270-6477 tim@nirs.org
Jessica Azulay (315) 480-1515 Jessica@allianceforagreeneconomy.org
Dr. Mark Cooper markcooper@aol.com
Dave Kraft (773) 342-7650 neis@neis.org
Tyson Slocum (202) 454-5191 tslocum@citizen.org
