Nuclear industry fears shift to decentralized electricity system – fights renewables, not gas

“One thing to understand about the nuclear industry is that nuclear is also the coal and natural gas industry”

These days natural gas-fired power is cheap, but wind is even cheaper.

Even if renewables make up only a small amount of generation, they represent a shift to a more decentralized energy system, less reliant on big baseload coal or nuclear power plants

Why the nuclear industry targets renewables instead of gas, Midwest Energy news, on 02/06/2015 by Kari Lydersen

Why attack renewables?……..“The fact of the matter is natural gas and wind power both compete with Exelon’s nuclear generation,” said Environmental Law & Policy Center director Howard Learner. “Exelon can’t do anything about the market price for natural gas, so Exelon is training its fire on trying to stop and hold off wind power and solar energy development.”

Some companies that own nuclear generation are also heavily invested in natural gas. Nuclear makes up 81 percent of Exelon’s generation and 54 percent of its capacity, while natural gas makes up 10 percent of its generation and 22 percent of its capacity. Wind and solar make up 1.9 and 0.3 percent of Exelon’s generation, respectively.

“One thing to understand about the nuclear industry is that nuclear is also the coal and natural gas industry,” said Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which published the September 2014 report “Killing the Competition” about nuclear attacks on renewables. “Wind and efficiency are just boutique elements of their portfolios.”……….

These days natural gas-fired power is cheap, but wind is even cheaper.

So a lot of wind on the market not only edges out other energy sources in the auction, it also can lower the price that all players are paid for their energy.

The nuclear industry is striking back at wind in a specific type of market known as capacity, where energy providers are essentially paid for promising to be ready to provide energy at peak times. The PJM regional market has adopted changes that greatly increase the capacity payments that Exelon’s nuclear plants will receive, while making it extremely difficult for wind and solar to benefit from these payments. Exelon lobbied hard for the changes, which must still be approved by federal regulators.

Paradigm shift

Nuclear companies also appear to oppose the proliferation of distributed solar and other renewable generation for the same reasons that apparently motivate utility companies like We Energies in Wisconsin.

Even if renewables make up only a small amount of generation, they represent a shift to a more decentralized energy system, less reliant on big baseload coal or nuclear power plants. While Exelon’s unregulated generation arm runs the nuclear plants in Illinois, Exelon is also a regulated utility in the process of acquiring Washington D.C.-area Pepco Holdings, which would make it the country’s largest utility.

“It goes back to the concept of maintaining the old model of utilities as long as possible because you have control, as opposed to something out of their control like solar panels on rooftops,” said Dave Kraft, director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service.

Ongoing improvements to the grid, including new transmission and increased grid storage, also pose a challenge to centralized power. When it gets easier to move electricity around or to store it on the grid, energy generated by the sun and wind can be better used when and where it is needed…….

Fighting over subsidies

Nuclear proponents have long depicted tax breaks for wind and other renewables as unfair and a threat to reliability.

In 2012 Exelon was expelled from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and its board, because of Exelon’s aggressive lobbying to end the federal Production Tax Credit which provided tax breaks crucial for wind development.

“It was simply a fact that they no longer supported the aims” of promoting wind power, said AWEA spokesman Peter Kelley. “They were marshaling allies, teaming up with anti-wind organizations that have always been against wind energy.”

Kelley said that cheap natural gas prices have had a much more profound impact than wind on the viability of nuclear plants.

“You have to ignore the real reasons and exaggerate a few outlier moments when wind had any impact on their business at all,” to be convinced by Exelon’s arguments, Kelley said. “They’re ignoring the real reasons and blaming wind because they may think it’s [politically] expedient.”……..

Environmentalists say that rewarding existing nuclear plants for their zero-carbon power is not in the spirit of the EPA rules.

“Exelon has talked about redefining clean energy to include nuclear plants that produce large amounts of highly radioactive waste,” said Learner. “That too-clever definition is simply not credible with the public. To redefine clean energy to include nuclear power really doesn’t pass the straight-face test.”http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2015/02/06/why-the-nuclear-industry-targets-renewables-instead-of-gas/