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Britain’s Moorside nuclear power project on the rocks?

 

 

 

Moorside on the rocks? NucClear News October 18

 Plans for a new nuclear power station in Cumbria are on the verge of collapsing after the Toshiba-owned company – NuGen – laid off 60% of its workforce and embarked on a final effort to sell the project. Toshiba was due to sell the NuGen consortium to South Korean state-owned firm Kecpo in early 2018, as the Japanese firm exits international nuclear projects and looks to recoup some of the £400m it has spent on the Moorside plant.

But Kepco has been delaying a final decision, due in part to the UK government signalling a new approach to financing nuclear power stations. That has forced NuGen to cut 60 of its 100-strong workforce after a six-week consultation with staff. (1)

Unions said the project’s problems showed the need for the government to take a stake in Moorside. Justin Bowden, the GMB national secretary, said: “The looming collapse of this vital energy project has been depressingly predictable for months.” The GMB wants the NDA to be scrapped as it currently exists and a Nuclear Development Agency created to make sure Moorside and the accompanying creation of thousands of new jobs and apprenticeships, goes ahead. (2) The skeleton NuGen team is now focused on clinching a deal with Kepco by the end of the year before Toshiba writes the unit off entirely at the end of March 2019. Success will hinge on whether Kepco buys into a new financing approach for nuclear power plants that the government is exploring, known as the regulated asset base (RAB) model. Officials think it could deliver the government’s nuclear ambitions more cheaply for consumers than alternatives.

The RAB approach involves a regulator – in the case of nuclear power stations most likely to be Ofgem – setting a fixed sum for the costs of the scheme, and a fixed return for the project’s backers. Those returns would be funded by energy bill payers. But the model is likely to be ditched if Jeremy Corbyn comes to power. Alan Whitehead, the shadow energy minister, said: “Using customers’ bills to make a bet that construction of such large and complex projects will not overrun in terms of cost or time is a reckless act.” (3)

The Chief Executive of NuGen said he will “fight tooth and nail” to salvage the £15 billion Moorside nuclear power station in an impassioned speech to industry leaders gathered in Cumbria. He says he is fully behind using the RAB model. (4)

 The FT reported that Toshiba had entered talks with Canadian asset manager Brookfield over the potential sale of NuGen. Brookfield bought Westinghouse from Toshiba for $4.6bn in January after the US nuclear business filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2017. (5) But the claims were later rubbished by Toshiba. It added that it was still considering the sale of NuGen to Kepco. (6)

Later NuGen admitted that there are no firm plans to save Moorside. (7)

 Workington Labour MP, Sue Hayman, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nuclear Energy, wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Greg Clark MP, at the end of July, when NuGen announced it was consulting on job losses, calling on him to guarantee Government support for the project and 20,000 future Cumbrian jobs. Mr Clark said in June that he “will consider direct Government investment” in the proposed Wylfa nuclear power station in Wales, but he has refused to make any similar commitment to Cumbria. In a response to Sue’s letter, energy minister Richard Harrington MP said: “The Secretary of State and I understand the potential importance of the Moorside project to the local area. However (…) the proposed sale of NuGen is principally a commercial matter for Toshiba and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on those ongoing negotiations.” Sue Hayman said: “This Tory government could not care less about the Cumbrian economy, the Moorside project, or the 20,000 future jobs it will bring.” (8)

but he has refused to make any similar commitment to Cumbria. In a response to Sue’s letter, energy minister Richard Harrington MP said: “The Secretary of State and I understand the potential importance of the Moorside project to the local area. However (…) the proposed sale of NuGen is principally a commercial matter for Toshiba and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on those ongoing negotiations.” Sue Hayman said: “This Tory government could not care less about the Cumbrian economy, the Moorside project, or the 20,000 future jobs it will bring.” (8) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NuClearNewsNo111.pdf

September 29, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK Labour has a credible energy plan, unlike the floundering Tory government

Dave Toke’s Blog 27th Sept 2018 Labour’s low cost and practical proposals for expansion of onshore and offshore wind, solar power, energy conservation and increases in renewable heat are the surest sign yet that they are the competent choice for Government.

Their proposals need some elaboration in places and some work on detail, but seem to be in a different dimension compared to the Tory Government who seem increasingly certain to be heading for self-destruction on the anvil of Brexit.

Rebecca Long-Bailey is aiming for 85 per cent of electricity to come from low carbon power by 2030. This is an easily
achievable target, and will be done at low cost if simultaneously Labour cancels the disaster-in-waiting project at Wylfa, and some way can be found to avoid Hinkley C being built.

As I indicated in a recent post, there’s already enough offshore wind in the pipeline to ensure well over 50 per
cent of electricity coming from renewables by 2025.
http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2018/09/labours-green-energy-plans-are-surest.html

September 29, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Update on UK’s Bradwell nuclear project: it may not go ahead

Bradwell Update, NuClear News October 18

 China’s leading nuclear energy company CGN says it would consider pulling back from control of the Bradwell nuclear plant to appease political sensitivities.

 Under a 2016 agreement, CGN would have a 66.5% stake in Bradwell and EDF would have the remainder when it starts generating electricity in the late 2020s or ealry 2030s. However, CGN’s chief executive Zheng Dongshan told the Financial Times (FT) CGN would be willing to consider “not being the majority operator. We understand the political and local sensitivities”. (1)

Should the Bradwell project proceed, it would be the first Hualong HPR1000-type reactor. The Office for Nuclear Regulation is currently assessing the reactor design but a final decision on the Generioc Design Assessment is expected to take at least three years. (2)

BANNG’s Andy Blowers says the project may be doomed anyway as the site is totally unsuitable and is widely opposed by communities all around the Blackwater Estuary. The Chinese withdrawal, should it come, would reflect widespread concerns about the security issues surrounding their investment into a highly sensitive part of the UK’s national infrastructure. Recent manoeuvres off the disputed, Chinese-built, artificial islands in the South China Sea have increased tensions in the area and provoked warnings of Chinese investment withdrawal from the UK. It is possible that the Bradwell project could be an early victim of deteriorating relations between the two countries. In any event the project was already looking doubtful. It is facing considerable challenges in delivering vast quantities of cooling water by pipeline and the need to avoid polluting the Marine Conservation Zone which gives protection to the Colchester Native Oyster and other marine life. Most of the site is vulnerable to flooding and it will be a heroic feat to demonstrate that highly radioactive spent fuel can be safely and securely stored on the site until the end of the next century. (3)

 The Blackwater, Crouch, Roach and Colne Estuaries were designated as a Marine Conservation Zone in 2013. As part of the designation native oysters have been legally protected indeed there is the Essex Native Oyster Restoration Initiative to further the aims of the MCZ designation. The MCZ designation is a major change in the site status since Bradwell was selected in 2011 as a potential site for power generation by the Government. Despite the new MCZ status CGN and EDF Energy still confirm their belief that Bradwell is a good site for nuclear development. If you take into account this and all the other environmental protections that run along the proposed site you would have thought it would be the last place to build a nuclear power station!  http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NuClearNewsNo111.pdf

September 29, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

France not facing up to nuclear problems, as High Commissioner for Atomic Energy leaves the position?

Le Monde 27th Sept 2018, After  the end of Yves Bréchet ‘s term at the end of September, the
position  of High Commissioner for Atomic Energy will be vacant. This is not
surprising. The government has known  since May that Yves Bréchet would not   continue beyond the end of his term.
This deliberate vacancy of the office is therefore a government failing of primary importance. It reveals
that the current political power is not facing up to nuclear
issues, both civilian and military. The High Commissioner, for example, has
a controlling role in the management of plutonium stocks.
http://huet.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/09/27/alerte-rouge-le-nucleaire-na-plus-de-haut-commissaire/

September 29, 2018 Posted by | France, politics | Leave a comment

UK’s Sizewell C nuclear power project – a figment of the imagination

 NuClear News, October 18 Sizewell C – a figment of the imagination In an interview with The Times in April EDF Energy’s UK chief executive, Simone Rossi, said that rapid progress was needed on the development of Hinkley Point C because promised cost savings would not materialise if there was a significant delay between work on the two. (1)
 EDF does not need to strike a deal on Sizewell with the government this year, but Mr Rossi wants to be confident that it will be possible to reach an agreement. “This is the year where we need to understand whether this whole thing is really feasible or not,” he told The Times. “If we were to conclude that maybe it’s not feasible, then at that point maybe we say we are not in a position to continue the project.” EDF is pushing for a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model.
The GMB has been urging a go ahead for Sizewell C because it faces an uncertain future, after the tion in National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) pushed for a reduction in the government’s plans for new nuclear power stations. (2)
  1. Times 4th April 2018 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nuclear-site-in-danger-without-deal-onfunding-mfbp6f7cd
2. Compelo 27th Sept 2018 https://www.compelo.com/what-is-sizewell-c/
  http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NuClearNewsNo111.pdf

September 29, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK Labour government would aim to to treble the UK’s current solar capacity

Solar Power Portal 26th Sept 2018 A Labour government would look to treble the UK’s current solar capacity
and create more than 400,000 green jobs by 2030. Those were the key facts
from this week’s Labour Party conference which comprised speeches from
some of the opposition party’s central figures. Yesterday the party’s
shadow business, energy and industrial energy secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey
said that Labour had been working with an “expert team” of energy
professionals, engineers and academics to assess how the country could meet
such a target. A near trebling of the UK’s solar capacity would equate to
around 39GW of operational solar in the UK, enough, according to
Long-Bailey, to power seven million homes. Leonie Greene, director of
advocacy at the Solar Trade Association, stressed that expanding wind and
solar capacity should be an economically-driven decision that crosses party
political lines. “The government estimates that around £180 billion
needs to be invested in the electricity sector alone to 2030, so enabling
the lowest cost technologies which do not need public subsidy and which do
not contribute to climate change – namely solar and onshore wind – would be
very good news for consumers.”
https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/corbyns_labour_government_would_treble_uk_solar_capacity_create_400000_gree

September 28, 2018 Posted by | politics, renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Poor region of Japan is now very dependent on Rokkasho nuclear recycling project

Japan vows to cut its nuclear hoard but neighbours fear the opposite, By Motoko Rich, 25 Sept  2018 New York Times, “………Pulling the plug would also deprive one of Japan’s poorest regions of an economic lifeline. Over the years, the central government has awarded nearly $3 billion in incentives to the prefecture, where political leaders reliably support Japan’s governing party.

Even inoperative, the plant employs more than 1 in 10 residents in Rokkasho and accounts for more than half the town’s tax revenues.

“It is now indispensable for Rokkasho,” said Kenji Kudo, the fourth generation to run his family’s clothing distribution company, which sells uniforms and protective gear to the plant.

As demand from local squid fishermen disappeared, he added, the plant “rescued our business.” The town has also received more than $555 million in government subsidies for hosting the facility, including funding for a 680-seat concert hall, an international school with just eight students and a new pool and gym complex that opened last year.

There are small reminders that the munificence comes with some risk.

A screen in the lobby of the concert hall reports the radiation level at 32 places around the prefecture, and a sign at a local nursing home warns residents not to use the baths “in case of nuclear disaster.”

Kaoru Sasaki, director of the nursing home, said she doubts the plant will ever operate given concerns about nuclear power around the country. “But we don’t talk about that among friends here,” she said. “It is so important to the community.”

The plant itself is sprawled across nearly 1,000 acres of farmland, surrounded by fields of solar panels and wind turbines.

Some 6,000 workers are installing steel nets to protect it against tornadoes and digging ditches for pipes to carry water from a swamp into its cooling towers. Inside a large control room, workers in turquoise jumpsuits mill about computer consoles, monitoring dormant machinery.

The final piece of the plant to come online will be a facility, now under construction, that will take a mix of plutonium and uranium and turn that into fuel. But no one knows what would happen if the government could not persuade communities to reopen and upgrade more reactors to use this type of fuel.

“Our only plan right now is that we want to start reprocessing in 2021,” said Koji Kosugi, general manager for international cooperation and nonproliferation at Japan Nuclear Fuel.

“But we do not yet know how it will be consumed. This is something that has to be worked out with the utilities and the Japanese government.”

One of the reasons Japan is so wedded to recycling may be that it does not want to confront the politically toxic question of what to do with its nuclear waste, much of which is being stored temporarily in cooling pools on the sites of its nuclear power plants.

Thomas M. Countryman, an Obama administration official who is now chairman of the nonpartisan Arms Control Association in Washington, said the Rokkasho plant is “in a sense a delaying tactic in order to put off the most difficult decision that any country has to face.”

One option, said Tatsujiro Suzuki, a nuclear scientist at Nagasaki University, is to turn Rokkasho itself into a nuclear waste storage facility.

Nuclear plants across Japan have sent waste that cannot be recycled to Rokkasho — steel drums full of ash, contaminated filters, steel pipes and protective clothing.

Huge concrete boxes holding the drums are lined up in vast dugouts on the grounds of the plant, and canisters holding highly radioactive waste are stacked nine deep in a cavernous underground room where only their bright orange lids poke out of the floor.

The government promised that the waste would only be stored here temporarily but never came up with a permanent plan. In Rokkasho, residents are still waiting for the recycling plant.

“If the government had asked the village to only accept waste in the first place,” said the mayor, Mamoru Toda, “I don’t think the village would have accepted it.” https://www.sbs.com.au/news/japan-vows-to-cut-its-nuclear-hoard-but-neighbours-fear-the-opposite

 

September 26, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Kenya postpones its nuclear power plans

Kenya now pushes nuclear power plant plan to 2036, https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Kenya-now-pushes-nuclear-power-plant-plan-to-2036/3946234-4777866-b05oauz/index.html, By PATRICK ALUSHULA, SEPTEMBER 25, 2018  Kenya was already hunting for a partner to produce nuclear power by 202.
Kenya has postponed its plan to build Sh968 billion nuclear power plant by nine years to 2036 in favour renewable energy projects and coal plant.

Updated power development plan prepared by the Ministry of Energy and covering the period 2017 to 2037, now show that the earliest the country can build the nuclear plant is 2036 and not 2027 as initially planned.

In the revised plan, the first unit is expected to be completed in 2036, followed by another in 2037, making it the last project in the ministry’s 20-year plan for power generation expansion.

“All energy sources were considered in the system expansion planning. However, it is noteworthy that nuclear was not brought on board in both optimised and fixed MTP cases,” reads the updated plan shared by the Ministry.

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In addition to the delay, the plan size has been scaled down. Initially, Kenya was to construct two nuclear power plants, each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW) at a total cost of $4.05 billion (Sh405 billion) per plant.

However, the new plan is to have each plant with a capacity of 600MW at a cost of $4.84 billion (Sh484) billion.

The Ministry did not explain why the cost had gone up despite cutting the capacity of each unit by 40 per cent.

Kenya was already hunting for a partner to produce nuclear power by 2022 to help match-up rising demand and diversify from hydropower and geothermal.

It joins South Africa South Africa, which in August cancelled plans to add 9,600 MW of nuclear power by 2030 and will instead aim to add more capacity in natural gas, wind and other energy sources.

September 26, 2018 Posted by | Kenya, politics | Leave a comment

Japan’s Environment Ministry forced to change its forecast in order to make the nuclear industry look better

September 24, 2018 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Cost of Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power project is becoming a big worry to law-makers

Cost of Georgia nuclear plant draws scrutiny from lawmakers, https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/cost-of-georgia-nuclear-plant-draws-scrutiny-from-lawmakers  Financial Post, The Associated Press, Ben Nadler, 21 Sept 18, ATLANTA — A group of ranking Georgia lawmakers is sounding the alarm about cost overruns from construction at a nuclear power plant near Augusta.

The two additional reactors being built at Plant Vogtle, approximately 30 miles (50 kilometres) south of Augusta, are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. The lawmakers said they want a “cost cap” established to protect Georgians from getting gouged on their electricity bills.

In August, the plant’s owners, which include Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power Corporation and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, learned that the plant would require an additional $2.3 billion, bringing the total cost estimate to $27 billion.

That new overage initiated a clause in the ownership agreement where ninety per cent of ownership must agree to move forward. A down vote from any one of those organizations would mean the multibillion-dollar project is abandoned.

Georgia Power’s parent company, Southern Company, pledged that its shareholders would absorb its share of the costs. That leaves Oglethorpe Power and MEAG with a decision: pay up or pull out.

The letter lawmakers sent Wednesday was signed by 20 members of the Georgia General Assembly, including Rep. Terry England, chairman of the House appropriations committee, and Sen. Butch Miller, president pro tempore of the Senate. It said that unlike Georgia Power, the other organizations “don’t have the luxury of shareholders to absorb these additional costs and will have to increase rates even higher.”

They asked the owners to “ensure prior to voting in support of moving forward … that a cost cap is established to protect all Georgia electric ratepayers from this and future overruns.”

But Gov. Nathan Deal took a different stance. A day before the lawmaker’s letter was sent, Deal sent a letter to Oglethorpe Power encouraging completion of the project.

“Given the project’s critical economic impact to the State of Georgia, I strongly encourage (the project’s) co-owners to continue work and complete the construction,” Deal said. “I am counting on the project co-owners to follow through on the commitments you made to the citizens of Georgia, ratepayers and myself.”

The plug was pulled on a similar project in neighbouring South Carolina in July 2017 when the V.C. Summer plant was abandoned after going billions of dollars over.

September 21, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

USA Democrats’ Bill to ban new low-yield nuclear weapons

Democrats trying to ban low-yield nuclear warhead https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/09/20/democrats-trying-to-ban-low-yield-nuclear-warhead/

By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON – A group of Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill to ban the Defense Department from developing a new low-yield nuclear warhead, arguing it could fuel a dangerous arms race and hasten nuclear war.

The new warhead, for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, would also siphon money from other military needs, said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and four other lawmakers who co-sponsored the bill. Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is a frequent critic of nuclear modernization costs and an opponent of this weapon in particular.

The move comes after Congress passed, and President Donald Trump signed, an appropriations package this month that applies $65 million to the program. The money pays to modify the W76-1 warhead for the Navy’s Trident II D5 ballistic missile into a W76-2 warhead. (The measure also orders a study of the weapon’s long-term costs.)

“We should not fund President Trump’s request for new low-yield nuclear weapons. His proposal dangerously lowers the threshold to nuclear use and siphons money away from genuine military readiness needs.” Smith said in a statement.

“We already have a nuclear deterrent that is more than adequate to achieve our national security goals. Funding new, low-yield weapons would only draw us further into an unnecessary nuclear arms race and increase the risks of miscalculation.”

The bill would prohibit the research, develop, production, and deployment of a low-yield nuclear warheads for submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Sponsored by Smith, and Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; John Garamendi, D-Calif.; Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., it’s called the Hold the LYNE (Low-Yield Nuclear Explosive) Act. It’s just the latest push from Democrats in an ongoing battle.

The requirement for the weapon is part of the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review—meant to deter Russia from using its own arsenal of low-yield nuclear weapons. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others have said Russia might attempt to use a tactical nuclear weapon to win a conventional war quickly.

The Defense Department requested $22.6 million for FY19 and $48.5 million spread over the life of the Future Years Defense Program, or FYDP, a series of projected numbers that cover through FY23, meaning the combined cost for the development in FY19 will be $87.6 million.

The lawmakers pointed to a Congressional Budget Office estimate last year that upgrading America’s nuclear weapons at $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years.

The bill has been endorsed by Arms Control Association, Global Zero, Union of Concerned Scientists, Ploughshares, Win Without War, and other nonproliferation advocates.

September 21, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK: Labour parliamentarians raise concerns about Nuclear plant mud dumping

Nuclear plant mud dumping worries raised by Labour AMs , BBC News, 19 September 2018 

Two senior Labour AMs have raised concerns in the Senedd about the dumping of mud from a nuclear plant site into the sea near Cardiff.

Julie Morgan and Jane Hutt – both close to leadership frontrunner Mark Drakeford – said constituents had safety worries about dredging 300,000 tonnes of mud from Hinkley Point.

Dumping began last week. AMs were told the mud poses no risk to human health.

Campaigners have called for more tests, and are seeking an injunction.

Ms Morgan and Ms Hutt quizzed Rural Affairs Secretary Lesley Griffiths following a topical question raised by independent AM Neil McEvoy.

The project to build the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset includes dredging mud and sediment from Bristol Channel near the sites of the decommissioned Hinkley Point A and B nuclear plants, and disposing of it just over a mile out to sea from Cardiff Bay.

Protestors want the licence from Natural Resources Wales (NRW) which permitted the dredging to be scrapped, amid worries the mud could be contaminated from discharges from Hinkley.  In the assembly on Wednesday, Cardiff North AM Julie Morgan asked why the dumping site was chosen “when it’s only two kilometres from the shore”, and what the benefits to south Wales were. ……..

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-45578768

September 21, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

A good move – Malaysia rejecting nuclear energy

September 21, 2018 Posted by | Malaysia, politics | Leave a comment

Brexit has brought Britain to a standstill

Bloomberg 19th Sept 2018 , . “The country—as an
administrative entity—has virtually stopped working.” The energy issue
has been particularly badly hit. “There are the micro-processes of
government that are in turmoil because of the revolving doors of ministers,
and then there’s been the internal party fighting and squabbling, which
is then consuming all of the political oxygen,” says Mary Creagh, a
lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party and chair of Parliament’s
Environment Committee. “It means the normal decision-making of government
is not happening and has not happened for two years.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-19/brexit-has-brought-britain-to-a-standstill

September 21, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Effect of Hurricane Florence on nuclear power stations – ruins the Trump administration’s case for supporting nuclear power

The Energy 202: Hurricane Florence blows hole in Trump team’s case for helping coal and nuclear power, critics say, WP, By Dino Grandoni,18 September 18 Hurricane Florence has blown a hole in the Trump administration’s argument that bolstering nuclear and coal-fired power is essential to providing reliable electricity to homes and businesses, especially during times of crisis, according to energy experts long critical of the plan.

For months, the Department of Energy has considered throwing a lifelineto that sector of the power market to make the electric grid more resilient to natural and man-made disasters. The Trump administration has been preparing to use a Cold War-era law, once marshaled by President Harry S. Truman to secure U.S. steel production, to compel regional grid operators to buy electricity from nuclear and coal plants.

The rationale is that only these two types of generation regularly have enough fuel on site to run for when national security is threatened. Wind turbines and solar panels only generate electricity when the weather is right while natural gas stations often have their fuel pipelined in from afar.

But hours before the once powerful hurricane made landfall in North Carolina on Friday, Duke Energy shut down its two reactors at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant near Wilmington, N.C. in anticipation of high winds. The temporary shutdown illustrates how many other factors beyond just fuel stored on site affect grid reliability. 

“There are so many flaws to their argument, we hardly need this to add,” said David Hart, professor of public policy at George Mason University. “There are lots of better ways to get reliability than to stockpile a lot of fuel.”

……..The Energy Department has yet to detail exactly what the plan to bolster coal and nuclear will look like after Trump ordered aid in June. The request comes as expensive coal and nuclear assets are retiring across the country in the face of competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy resources……..https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/09/18/the-energy-202-hurricane-florence-blows-hole-in-trump-team-s-case-for-helping-coal-and-nuclear-power-critics-say/5ba022621b326b47ec9596b9/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.66a830d4f690

September 19, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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