nuclear-news

End failed nuclear loan program – 35 organisations urge USA Dept of Energy

35 clean energy organizations urge DOE to end nuclear loan program Green World, Michael Mariotte November 3, 2014 Today, 35 clean energy organizations from across the country submitted formal comments to the Department of Energy (DOE) urging it to end its nuclear loan program. The comments are in response to a DOE solicitation seeking to revive the failed program which, after seven years, has succeeded only in providing one loan to a nuclear project (the Vogtle reactors in Georgia) whose executives publicly said they didn’t need it and offering a loan to another project (Calvert Cliffs-3 in Maryland) for which it would have been illegal for its principal to receive it.

Given that record, which the 35 groups termed an “abject failure,” DOE is now attempting to reframe its program–in direct conflict with its intent under the 2005 Energy Policy Act that created the program–to allow it to provide loans to “small modular reactors” that don’t yet exist and to bail out uneconomic reactors by providing low-interest loans to nuclear utilities to enable power uprates and to meet NRC-required safety upgrades.

In short, DOE still has $10.2 Billion available in this program that clearly has not worked as either its Congressional or DOE supporters had expected, or at least hoped. At this point, you’d think DOE would just want to cut its losses; instead, like a child with a dollar in a candy store, that money is burning a hole in DOE’s pocket.

The groups, however, were kind enough not to lay the blame on DOE for the program’s inability to spark the “nuclear renaissance” it was intended to do.

Instead, they wrote:

The DOE’s nuclear loan program has been an abject failure, even on its own terms. The reasons for that are many, and for the most part have been out of the control of DOE. They include increased competition in the electricity generation marketplace; the explosive growth in renewables as costs for renewable technology continue to plummet—a trend expected to continue for years if not decades; and, unfortunately, the rise in fracking-produced natural gas…………

The full comments are available here.

http://safeenergy.org/2014/11/03/35-clean-energy-organizations/

November 6, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA