nuclear-news

federal policy can only do so much to push back against global market forces.

“President Trump may be surprised to find there’s a global oil glut underway that severely constrains whether or not it’s economically sensible to attract more investment,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow and policy director at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

The nuclear energy industry is also optimistic about a Trump presidency, as a number of existing nuclear power plants are slated for early retirement.

“During the campaign, Mr. Trump spoke out on the need to build more nuclear plants and expand the nation’s overall energy supply,” said Maria Korsnick, the Nuclear Energy Institute’s incoming president and CEO, in a statement. “We encourage President-elect Trump to continue advancing his support for nuclear energy to maintain our nation’s leadership in nuclear technology and its indispensable role in our critical energy infrastructure and environmental interests.”…….

Renewables, on the other hand, may not get support for new large-scale installations through DOE loan guarantees, but enough momentum has built up for wind and solar power over the past eight years that those industries will still grow without DOE backing.

Wind energy prices have declined 41 percent, and solar photovoltaic costs have fallen 64 percent since 2008. Wind and solar also received a crucial extension for their tax credits late last year.

Though Trump has railed against renewables, particularly wind energy, many Republican-leaning states, like Texas, Oklahoma and Iowa, strongly support them. “If [Trump] wants to do away with it, he’ll have to get a bill through Congress, and he’ll do it over my dead body,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Yahoo News in August.

“That is an area that has enjoyed bipartisan support,” said Dan Reicher, who led DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under President Clinton and served as an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Energy efficiency has also tended to be fairly bipartisan.”……http://www.wyofile.com/oil-gas-nuclear-industries-anticipate-friendly-trump-doe/