Nuclear lobby convincing USA govt of its climate change credentials ?

One major consideration is convincing investors to back new nuclear…...

The Clean Air Task Force is working with other industry and environmental groups to launch the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, which aims to improve investing for advanced nuclear in the United States. A formal rollout is scheduled for later this month

White House summit boosts industry’s sagging spirits Jean Chemnick and Hannah Northey, E&E reportersE&E Daily: Friday, November 6, 2015 The nuclear industry hopes today’s White House summit is the start of a more proactive effort by the Obama administration to put reactors into the U.S. push to meet its international climate change targets.

The summit comes as the days tick down to the Nov. 30 start of the U.N. climate conference in Paris aimed at producing a post-2020 emissions agreement. President Obama has staked out a large role in helping to broker a Paris deal.

But while administration officials profess that nuclear has a place in the United States’ low-carbon future, industry boosters say they have seen little action to boost the source of about two-thirds of the nation’s zero-carbon power.

The Obama administration has introduced numerous policies to bolster renewable energy and energy efficiency — goals for federal leasing for renewables on public land and regulations for efficiency and incentives programs as part of Obama’s climate push. And U.S. EPA has touted the role its Clean Power Plan is projected to play deploying renewable power and demand reduction.

But the administration hasn’t laid out a vision of nuclear power. Meanwhile, many reactors in the nation’s nuclear fleet are in danger of shutting down — a fact that nuclear advocates say would place the administration’s pre-Paris emissions pledges beyond reach…….

Paul Dickman, a senior policy fellow at the Argonne National Laboratory and former Nuclear Regulatory Commission official, said today’s summit should drive home the point that nuclear energy has a critical role to play….

While it’s not clear that funding of any type will be announced at the summit, Dickman said it is significant that it’s happening in advance of Paris talks and should be welcomed by nuclear energy proponents who will be in Washington next week for the American Nuclear Society meeting………

One major consideration is convincing investors to back new nuclear…...

Renewable energy standards don’t give credit for nuclear, even though they often exist to boost zero-carbon power.

The solution is to make those policies more technology “agnostic” so they can also support nuclear, Cohen said.

The administration could help lay the foundation for advanced nuclear facilities that would address many of the environmental community’s concerns about safety and waste, he said. It could ask the NRC to update its rules for project permitting to make them more appropriate to those technologies, making its reviews more efficient. And the Department of Energy could accelerate plans for a domestic pilot facility where innovators could demonstrate those new technologies……