A Santee Cooper investor is suing the state-owned power company and its former chief executive, alleging they violated securities laws by not adequately disclosing the financial risks associated with the V.C. Summer nuclear project while selling debt several years ago.
Murray C. Turka is seeking class-action status to include others who purchased as much as $118 million of the utility’s “Mini-Bonds” from 2014 to 2016.
Lonnie Carter, who was Santee Cooper’s CEO at the time, is named a co-defendant in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston this week.
The lawsuit alleges Carter and other key decision-makers knew by mid-2015 that the expansion of the V.C. Summer power plant “was hopelessly behind schedule” based on a largely unfavorable assessment of the troubled project by the engineering firm Bechtel Corp.
Auditors found that the reactors’ designs were sometimes impossible to build, that construction wouldn’t be finished in time to qualify for critical federal tax breaks and that South Carolina’s utilities were either too “inexperienced or reluctant to act” as problems mounted.
US halts recent practice of disclosing nuclear weapon total, https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/US-halts-recent-practice-of-disclosing-nuclear-13775654.phpRobert Burns, Ap National Security Writer, April 17, 2019 WASHINGTON (AP)— The Trump administration has halted, without explanation, the recent U.S. government practice of disclosing the current size of the nuclear weapons stockpile.
The decision was revealed in a recent Department of Energy letter to the Federation of American Scientists, a private group that studies nuclear weapons issues and advocates for government openness on national security issues.
The Obama administration, in May 2010, had declassified for the first time the full history of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile from its beginning in 1945. It revealed that the warhead total stood at 5,113 as of Sept. 30, 2009, approximately the number that private experts had estimated and about 84 percent below the official peak number of 31,255 warheads in 1967.
As recently as last year, the Trump administration had disclosed that the stockpile consisted of 3,822 nuclear warheads as of Sept. 30, 2017, down 196 warheads from the year before. The 2017 figure was made public in response to a request by the scientists group, which asked for a 2018 update last October.
“After careful consideration … it was determined that the requested information cannot be declassified at this time,” the Energy Department wrote in an April 5 letter responding to the federation’s request. The department provided no explanation for the decision, which it said was made by the Formerly Restricted Data Declassification Working Group, consisting of officials from the departments of Defense and Energy.
“Formerly Restricted Data” is a category of classification that pertains to information such as nuclear stockpile quantities, warhead yields and locations.
The Russian government does not disclose its nuclear stockpile total. The Federation of American Scientists estimates Russia has about 4,350.
Nuclear warheads are attached to bombs and missiles, such as those carried by strategic bomber aircraft, ballistic missile submarines and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, which form the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Hans M. Kristensen, director of the federation’s Nuclear Information Project, wrote in an analysis Wednesday that the decision against disclosing the 2018 nuclear stockpile number was “unnecessary and counterproductive.” In his view there is no national security rationale for keeping the number secret.
“The decision walks back nearly a decade of U.S. nuclear weapons transparency policy — in fact, longer if including stockpile transparency initiatives in the late-1990s,” Kristensen wrote.
“With this decision,” he added, “the Trump administration surrenders any pressure on other nuclear-armed states to be more transparent about the size of their nuclear weapon stockpiles. This is curious since the Trump administration had repeatedly complained about secrecy in the Russian and Chinese arsenals. Instead, it now appears to endorse their secrecy.”
The Pentagon did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
AARP foreshadows opposition to Ohio nuclear subsidies, Energy News Network BY John Funk 17 Apr 19
The group hasn’t taken a formal position on a bill introduced Friday, but recently told lawmakers it would oppose “any legislation” to prop up nuclear plants
AARP Ohio informed top Republican lawmakers before they introduced a bill subsidizing old nuclear and certain coal power plants that the organization would aggressively fight to defeat such legislation.
In a letter sent to House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, a day before he unveiled House Bill 6 last week, AARP state director Barbara Sykes wrote that AARP would strongly oppose “any legislation” imposing a customer surcharge to subsidize the nuclear plants.
“AARP Ohio, on behalf of its 1.5 million members and families, strongly opposes any surcharge or tax on utility customers in our state that would serve to subsidize the for-profit nuclear power industry,” she wrote………
GOP leaders have said the legislation would raise about $300 million per year from customers. While they maintain customer bills would initially be lower, clean energy advocates say the proposal will cost ratepayers more in the long run by defunding energy efficiency and clean energy measures.
An initial hearing on the legislation was held Tuesday before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Another round of hearings begin Wednesday before the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Generation.
Tuesday’s hearing began a day after lawyers for FirstEnergy Solutions asked a federal bankruptcy court in Akron for permission for an additional 90 days to file a plan of reorganization. The company sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Mar. 31. The court rejected the company’s first plan because it included reference to a deal absolving parent company FirstEnergy from any future liabilities for environmental problems caused by its power plants.https://energynews.us/2019/04/16/midwest/aarp-foreshadows-opposition-to-ohio-nuclear-subsidies/
In a Time of Cheap Fossil Fuels, Nuclear Power Companies Are Seeking — and Getting — Big Subsidies
Illinois and New York have approved hundreds of millions of dollars in clean-energy incentives for nuclear power companies. New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland could be next. Pro Publica by Talia Buford, April 17, 19“……….It would be a “safety net” for the company’s nuclear operations in New Jersey, Izzo said. ([Ralph Izzo, chairman, president and CEO of energy company PSEG] It would not, he emphasized, be “a bailout.”
On Thursday, regulators in New Jersey are scheduled to decide whether PSEG has shown that it needs the subsidies, which would be paid for through a surcharge on all customer bills in the state. If the Board of Public Utilities approves the requests, New Jersey would join two other states, Illinois and New York, in giving nuclear power plants hundreds of millions of dollars in order to stay competitive in the wholesale energy market.
The campaign for the subsidies took to the pages of the state’s largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, this week. A full-page ad on Monday signed by the employees of the Salem and Hope Creek plants, and another on Tuesday, signed by eight former New Jersey governors, praised the subsidy plan and warned of the consequences of not acting.
………..In recent years, the nuclear power industry has ramped up efforts to cultivate influence with legislators and alliances with environmentalists.
The industry’s gains thus far haven’t been easy, or cheap.
In New Jersey, PSEG spent nearly $4 million over the course of 2017 and 2018 lobbying the Legislature on the nuclear subsidies. By comparison, groups lobbying on marijuana legalization, the other big issue of the last two legislative sessions, spent $1.7 million, according to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission………
In each state, the push for subsidies has come after warnings that the plants would have to close. But critics of the programs say that in many instances, the plants are profitable, and the companies are using scare tactics to bully legislators into subsidizing shareholder profits.
“They rattled their saber many times,” said Abe Scarr, state director of Illinois Public Interest Research Group, a consumer organization that opposed the subsidies. “Regardless of whether it was a bluff or not, certainly their threats were a ploy to build pressure on Illinois decision makers.”
Threatening to close plants in the name of shareholder profits is a tactic Stefanie Brand, director of the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel, a state-appointed advocate for utility customers, said she hadn’t seen before.
Supreme court denies challenge to NY nuclear subsidy, Houston Chronicle,James OsborneApril 15, 2019 WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a power industry trade group’s petition to challenge New York state’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the subsidization of nuclear power plants.
The Electric Power Supply Association claimed in a lawsuit that the New York Public Service Commission had violated federal law requiring power rates be “just and reasonable” when they elected to award $7 billion in rate increases through their zero emissions credit program.
Bill prohibits, sets guidelines for nuclear waste disposal
April 17, 2019 BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota’s Legislature has passed a bill that prohibits nuclear waste dumping in the state. The bill passed by the House Wednesday and the Senate a day earlier also sets the regulatory framework for disposal and storage of the radioactive waste if the state is forced to accept it by the federal government…… (subscribers only) https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Bill-prohibits-sets-guidelines-for-nuclear-waste-13775275.php
Lowman S. Henry: Exelon and the death of competitive energy markets, The Phoenix, By Lowman S. Henry Columnist, Apr 17, 2019,
Exelon, the hugely profitable energy company, wants a bailout. Taxpayers can pay all $500 million at once, or take advantage of a convenient monthly payment plan in the form of higher electric bills. Either way Exelon wants you to pay for their under-performing nuclear power plants.
After raking in billions in “stranded costs” as Pennsylvania transitioned into a competitive energy market, Exelon now finds several of its nuclear power plants unable to compete economically with cheaper and abundant natural gas in the generation of electricity. Having thus benefited from free markets, the energy giant wants a return to government subsidies after having failed to adjust to changing market conditions.
Exelon has deployed an army of lobbyists in Harrisburg to spin the yarn that closing two of their nuclear plants would somehow endanger the region’s electricity supply. Were that true, of course, the plants would be making money and a bailout would not be necessary.
One of the plants is the damaged Three Mile Island facility south of the state capital. Forty years ago disaster was narrowly averted when there was an uncontrolled meltdown in one of its reactors. The plant has been operating at partial capacity ever since, contributing to its economic inefficiency.
Aside from being unprofitable and home to a damaged reactor, TMI as it is commonly known poses a security risk. Harrisburg International Airport lies literally in the shadow of the TMI cooling towers. In an age of heightened concern over terrorist attacks such proximity to an airport renders the facility vulnerable. Thus its closing might be a blessing in disguise.
Exelon has been pressuring state lawmakers for a $500 million infusion (bail-out) of taxpayer dollars to allow it to keep TMI and the Beaver Valley nuclear plant in western Pennsylvania open. The company is apparently unwilling to dip into its own profits to do this, and with a cash-strapped state budget legislators appear unwilling or unable to dish out the requested corporate welfare…….
I’ve been told that Julian Assange is in favour of nuclear power – with the suggestion that we should not support him. Also that his revelations about Hilary Clinton helped to get the abominable Trump elected.
But does this matter? Assange revealed the truth. And what will happen to the next whistlebower, perhaps one that reveals the corruption in the nuclear industry?
Whatever you think of Julian Assange, his extradition to the US must be opposed,Owen Jones, Guardian, 12 Apr 19, States that commit crimes in foreign lands depend on at least passive acquiescence. This is achieved in a number of ways. One is the “othering” of the victims: the stripping away of their humanity, because if you imagined them to be people like your own children or your neighbours, their suffering and deaths would be intolerable. Another approach is to portray opponents of foreign aggression as traitors, or in league with hostile powers. And another strategy is to cover up the consequences of foreign wars, to ensure that the populace is kept intentionally unaware of the acts committed in their name.
It is Manning who is the true hero of this story: last month, she was arrested for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks, placed in solitary confinement for four weeks, and now remains imprisoned. We must demand her freedom.
These leaks revealed some of the horrors of the post-9/11 wars. One showed a US aircrew laughing after slaughtering a dozen innocent people, including two Iraqi employees of Reuters, after dishonestly alleging to have encountered a firefight. Other files revealed how US-led forces killedhundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, their deaths otherwise airbrushed out of existence. Another cable, which exposed corruption and scandals in the court of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the western-backed then-dictator of Tunisia, helped fuel protests, which toppled him……..
Assange must answer the allegations of sexual assault in Sweden without the threat of extradition to the US………. That Swedish case must be entirely disentangled from the US extradition attempt. And while opposing Assange’s rightwing libertarian politics is perfectly reasonable, it is utterly irrelevant to the basic issue here of justice……….
Assange’s extradition to the US must be passionately opposed. It is notable that Obama’s administration itself concluded that to prosecute Assange for publishing documents would gravely imperil press freedom. Yes, this is a defence of journalism and media freedom. But it is also about the attempt to intimidate those who expose crimes committed by the world’s last remaining superpower. The US wishes to hide its crimes so it can continue to commit them with impunity: that’s why, last month, Trump signed an executive order to cover up civilian deaths from drones, the use of which has hugely escalated in Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan.
Trump, South Korea’s Moon look for way to curb North Korea nuclear weapons, Syracuse.co, By The Associated Press,12 Apr 19, WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in comes amid uncertainty over whether the leader of North Korea is considering backing out of nuclear negotiations or restarting nuclear and missile tests.
Trump, in his first meeting with Moon since the unsuccessful U.S. summit with Kim in Hanoi, said the U.S. wants to keep economic sanctions in place to pressure Kim to denuclearize. But Trump said he retains good relations with Kim and didn’t rule out a third summit or taking steps to ease food or other shortages in the repressive nation.
“We want sanctions to remain in place,” Trump said Thursday at the White House. “I think that sanctions right now are at a level that’s a fair level.”
Moon, for his part, has called for an easing of sanctions, including those holding back joint economic projects between North and South Korea. But he didn’t speak to the sanctions issue as he and Trump spoke with reporters at the start of their talks.
……… Negotiations on Pyongyang’s nuclear program appear to be stalled, and there is uncertainty over whether Kim is considering backing out of talks or restarting nuclear and missile tests. The Korean Central News Agency on Thursday said that at a party meeting on Wednesday, Kim stressed “self-reliance” in his country to “deal a telling blow to the hostile forces” that “go with bloodshot eyes miscalculating that sanctions can bring” North Korea “to its knees.”
Moon said it’s important to maintain the “momentum of dialogue” and express a positive outlook to the international community that a “third U.S.-North Korea summit” will be held.
…….. Trump walked away from making a deal with Kim at their meeting in late February. Trump said Kim was asking for sanctions relief without wanting to fully dismantle all his nuclear weapons programs. There is ongoing debate over whether harsh sanctions can pressure Kim to denuclearize or will keep him away from the negotiating table.
……… North Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said last month that Kim would soon make clear his post-Hanoi position. She said her country might pull out of the nuclear negotiations with the United States, citing a lack of corresponding steps to some disarmament measures North Korea took last year. She also hinted that Kim was considering whether to continue the talks and his moratorium on nuclear and missile tests. https://www.syracuse.com/politics/2019/04/trump-south-koreas-moon-look-for-way-to-curb-north-korea-nuclear-weapons.html
Brittany Crocker, Knoxville News Sentine April 12, 2019 Sick and injured Cold War nuclear workers are likely to see delays in their health care claims because the Department of Labor has added dozens of steps to the process, according to a home care provider that helps the workers.
The program provides medical care to former nuclear and uranium mine workers who were exposed to radiation and other toxic substances without their knowledge was established by Congress in 2000.
New rule changes to the program — called the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program — will increase the nine-step home health care preauthorization process to 36 steps, said Emily Baker, a spokeswoman for Professional Case Management, a home care provider for nuclear and uranium workers. Those additional steps could add two months to the process, she said.
Baker said the changes also prevent health care providers from helping patients submit the paperwork.
The Department of Labor has not responded to requests made Thursday and Friday for information regarding the purpose of the changes.
Professional Case Management sued the Department of Labor last month to try to stop the changes from going into effect, and more than 2,000 wrote and called the Department to protest the changes, according to the provider.
“These sick people can’t navigate all this red tape,” said Harry Williams, a 73-year-old former Oak Ridge nuclear security officer who helped lobby for the program’s creation.
“We’re old and dying and sick and they expect us to accurately fill out and navigate all these forms and send them to the right places by ourselves. It’s wrong to put these workers through that after all we sacrificed.”
Williams, a military veteran, went to work in 1976 at the K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Oak Ridge because it offered good pay and benefits.
He stayed there until 1994, when he moved to the Y-12 National Security Complex. Two years later he had to go on disability.
“I never realized I was being poisoned all the time I was working in Oak Ridge,” he said. “If someone had told me how hazardous it was I never would have worked there.
Harris has chronic beryllium disease, an incurable illness common among nuclear workers who inhaled dust or fumes of beryllium, a material that was commonly used at Y-12 and less often at K-25.
Harris said he developed heart disease, asthma, sinusitis and hypothyroidism because of the disease.
He has diabetes, has had six heart attacks, and has brain lesions he believes are also related to his work at the Oak Ridge nuclear sites. “I’m fortunate because I’ve never smoked or drank and have stayed fairly active with this illness, but I’ve been sick for a long time,” Harris said.
Revised Ohio nuclear ‘bailout’ bill raises more questions, ENERGY NEWS, 13 APR 19, John Funk,,An updated version of the bill would still exclude wind and solar from clean air credits, while allowing payments to unspecified “reduced emissions resources.”
COLUMBUS — Republican lawmakers in the Ohio House introduced legislation Friday that would provide subsidies for two Ohio nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, while at the same time defunding decade-old renewable energy and efficiency programs.
The bill also includes language to allow funds collected from ratepayers to “reduce the emissions from other generating technologies that can be readily dispatched to satisfy demand in real time,” without specifying what technologies that could include.
The Ohio Clean Air Program created by the proposed legislation would provide an annual subsidy for any power plant producing zero carbon dioxide emissions at the rate of $9.25 for every megawatt-hour produced. While the word “nuclear” does not actually appear anywhere in the bill, this designation would include nuclear plants and potentially some wind and solar installations.
But solar farms would have to be able to generate at least 50 megawatts (MW) in order to participate, and only wind farms between 5 MW and 50 MW could qualify.
A spokeswoman for the office of House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) acknowledged that there are currently no solar farms that large in operation in Ohio, but that three have been approved and another six very large solar projects are pending……….
Bill leaves many questions unanswered
The legislation proposes to create two categories of power plants — a “clean energy resource” and a “reduced emissions resource.” The first category would be defined as not producing any carbon dioxide, the latter describing power plants that have made, or will make, “significant contributions” to “minimizing emissions.”
The legislation does not specify what those terms mean, and leaves the details to the Ohio Air Quality Development Board, which must develop and administer the program. The bill would expand the OARDC, whose members are currently appointed by the governor, to include four state legislators…….
The company, FirstEnergy Solutions, which has just been dealt a setback in a federal bankruptcy court ruling rejecting its agreement holding parent FirstEnergy Corp. harmless for future environmental problems, has told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it would close all three of its nuclear plants by the fall of 2021. Davis-Besse is the first plant it would close, by May 31, 2020. …….
‘Nothing more than another bailout tax’
Clean energy advocates immediately condemned the legislation.
“The bill announced today is nothing more than another bailout tax for failing nuclear plants paid for on the back of hardworking Ohioans,” said Trish Demeter, vice president of Energy Policy at the Ohio Environmental Council.
“The proposed bill would dismantle one of the only state policies that reliably deliver electric bill savings to customers, decrease air pollution and create new jobs in Ohio,” she added in a prepared release.
Daniel Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy coordinator at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said “Ohio urgently needs to update its energy policies to match the national trend towards cleaner, cheaper and more reliable renewable energy and programs that reduce the amount of energy wasted in our homes and businesses.”
Sawmiller also predicted that the legislation would eventually cost ratepayers more.
“Eliminating the energy efficiency standard will result in higher electric bills as consumers would be forced to pay for energy that is unnecessarily wasted. This increases the output of Ohio’s generation stations, thereby increasing air emissions if we aren’t creating a path for significant renewable energy growth.
“It’s also important to keep in mind, the energy efficiency industry accounts for around 70 percent of Ohio’s clean energy jobs.”
This prospect prompted the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and 33 EU parliamentarians to issue strongly worded statements to both the UK and Ecuadorian governments in December last year, warning against facilitating the prosecution of a journalist, editor and publisher for “publishing the truth”. The statements demanded Assange’s “immediate release, together with his safe passage to a safe country”, and reminded the UK of its “binding” legal obligations to secure freedom for Assange.
A critical task for propagandists such as those waging a psychological war on Wilkileaks, then, is to feed audiences material that supports official narratives and exclude that which does not. Since its inception, the smear campaign against Julian Assange and Wikileaks has been remarkably concerted and consistent in that regard.
With the new year, however, news broke that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had offered Ecuador a $10 billion bailout in return for handing Julian Assange over to the United States. This bounty came on top of earlier US pressures and inducements, reportedly including increased oil exports, military co-operation and another $1.1 billion in IMF loans, with the US representative of the IMF instructing Ecuador that it must “resolve” its relationship with Julian Assange in order to receive the IMF money.
Australian Barrister Greg Barns has called it the blackmailing of a nation. News website 21st Century Wirecalled it “one of the biggest international bribery (or extortion) cases in history.”
While there is “not a single shred of evidence that any of [Wikileaks’] disclosures caused anyone harm”, writes journalist and author Nozomi Hayase, what Wikileaks did do in 2010 was expose thousands of previously unreported civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. These deaths included the nonchalant gunning down of children, journalists and their rescuers, and other “indiscriminate violence… torture, lies [and]bribery”, writes Chris Hedges. According to Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Elsberg, the leaks exposed “a massive cover-up over a number of years by the American authorities”.
Julian in ‘critical danger’, new rules ‘torture’ – Assange mother *AUDIO*
The Psychology Of Getting Julian Assange, Part 2: The Court Of Public Opinion And The Blood-Curdling Untold Story, New Matilda, By Dr Lissa JohnsonFebruary 25, 2019In her ongoing special investigation into the detention of Julian Assange, Dr Lissa Johnson turns to the art of smear, and how to corrupt a judicial system.
On Friday 14th February, the Editor in Chief of news website Consortium News, Joe Lauria, visited Sydney to host a ‘Politics in the Pub’ event: Whistleblowing, Wikileaks and the Future of Democracy. The event took place in anticipation of upcoming rallies to free Assange…….
. It is imperative that we pressure the Australian government to make sure its citizen, Julian Assange, is protected from the lawlessness of the American Empire.” Continue reading →
The draft “clean air” bill would keep bankrupt utility’s nuclear plants open—but drain money from renewables and efficiency programs.
JEFF ST. JOHNAPRIL 08, 2019 Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature has drafted “clean air fund” legislation that would slash renewable energy and efficiency subsidies while adding about $300 million a year to electricity bills in the state, in the name of keeping its nuclear fleet from closing. The move diverges sharply from other state-level policies in the U.S. to prop up financially struggling nuclear power plants for their carbon-free electricity.
Last week, Energy News Network released draft legislation (PDF) being circulated by majority leaders in Ohio’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives, primarily aimed at rescuing two nuclear power plants — the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo and the Perry plant near Cleveland, which bankrupt utility FirstEnergy Solutions has threatened to close by 2021.
The draft bill would add a maximum surcharge of $2.50 per month to every residential customer’s bill, a $20 per month surcharge to every commercial customer’s bill and a $250 monthly charge to every industrial customer’s bill, to raise roughly $300 million a year.
Of that, about $180 million would go to subsidize FirstEnergy’s two nuclear plants, according to analysis reported by Energy News Network. The remaining $120 million would be available to resources that are deemed by the newly created board of political appointees to meet the fund’s criteria.
But the newly created board would operate with more secrecy than a regular public utilities commission proceeding. And while the draft bill doesn’t use the word “nuclear,” its criteria for which emissions-reducing technologies are allowed to claim a piece of the new pot of money would appear to exclude most of the carbon-neutral energy resources now available, besides nuclear power.
Tailor-made for nuclear
First, the draft bill would require any qualifying resource to “exclusively” obtain compensation from the wholesale energy markets run by mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM and overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — a feature met by FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants, but not by energy efficiency, rooftop solar, or other non-wholesaleforms of carbon-free energy.
Second, the bill would exclude any facility that receives “state tax exemptions, deferrals, exclusions, allowances, payments, [or] credits, including production tax credits and investment tax credits” — the same federal tax credits provided to wind and solar, respectively. And third, it would bar any municipal utility or rural electric cooperatives.
The release of the draft legislation prompted a legislative aide of one of the bill’s sponsors, Republican state Rep. Jamie Callender, to tell Cleveland.com that much of the text was out of date, with a new version “still in a state of flux.” The aide declined to say what would differentiate the newer version of the bill from the draft version obtained last week.
The bailout bill comes at a difficult time for FirstEnergy, which has announced plans to close nuclear and coal-fired power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania if it does not receive additional state or federal support. Last week, Bankruptcy Judge Alan Koschik, who is overseeing the utility’s case in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Ohio, rejected FirstEnergy’s proposal to get out of bankruptcy more quickly in part by indemnifying parent company FirstEnergy Corp. from paying any future costs for environmental cleanup at its power plant sites.
“Opt-in” to support renewables
Ohio’s plan stands in stark contrast to the nuclear incentive programs that have been rolled out in states including Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Illinois. While these states have largely built their nuclear support programs on the foundation of existing state clean energy and carbon reduction policies, Ohio’s plan would actually undermine existing payment structures for the state’s relatively mild clean energy and efficiency goals.
The draft bill would do this by declaring that Ohio’s existing monthly charges for renewable energy, energy efficiency and peak demand reduction are now “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” charges on residential and commercial customers’ utility bills.
Today, these charges appear on every home and business electric bill, with only large industrial customers having the opportunity to opt out of them. But the draft legislation would flip this arrangement on its head, doing away with the monthly charges unless the utility customer sends “written notice of intent to opt in” to pay the extra fees.
The vast body of utility experience shows that switching programs from opt-out to opt-in leads to a drastic reduction in participation rates, since few people will choose to pay more every month, even if they support the services the surcharges pay for. These numbers are likely to be winnowed even further if opting in requires written and mailed-in applications, rather than simpler on-bill, over-the-phone or online options.
FirstEnergy Solutions bankruptcy rumbles on
FirstEnergy Solutions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2018, after failing to convince the U.S. Department of Energy to issue an emergency declaration that would have forced grid operators and utilities to pay out-of-market prices to its coal and nuclear power plants. While FirstEnergy and the Trump administration have argued the plants are critical to keep the regional power grid stable, multiple studies from PJM indicate the closures won’t affect grid reliability.
Many coal and nuclear power plants are struggling to remain competitive. Such plants have been closing at a record rate amid a flood of cheap electricity from natural gas and renewables, as well as continued gains in end-user efficiency.
Pennsylvania lawmakers are also considering a bill that would increase utility bills by about $1.77 per household per month to raise about $500 million per year, largely to support two nuclear power plants that owners FirstEnegy and Exelon have said they will be forced to close in the coming years without state support.
That bill has drawn fire from consumers and environmental groups for potentially allowing still-profitable nuclear power plants to receive incentives, while not addressing the state’s relatively low ranking in terms of the share of its electricity coming from wind, solar and other carbon-free resources.
Pompeo: Russia complying with nuclear treaty that’s up for renewal , The Hill 10 Apr 19, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that Russia is largely in compliance with the New START nuclear arms control treaty with the United States, but indicated the Trump administration is looking at expanding the scope of the pact as renewal talks begin.“There are some arguments on the edges each, but largely they have been compliant,” Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Both the Russians and the United States have been compliant. We’re at the very beginning of conversations about renewing that. If we can get the deal right, if we can make sure it fits 2021 and beyond, President Trump has made very clear that if we can get a good solid arms control agreement, we ought to get one.”
The New START Treaty caps the number of nuclear warheads the United States and Russia can deploy at 1,550 each. There are also limits on the number of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear warheads, as well as the number of deployed and nondeployed launchers.
The Obama-era treaty expires in 2021, but there is an option to extend it another five years.
Arms control advocates are worried Trump will let New START expire after he withdrew from a separate arms control treaty with Russia. Advocates warn that for the first time in decades the two biggest nuclear powers might not have limits on their nuclear arsenals.
The other treaty, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, banned the United States and Russia from having nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles.
Trump announced in February he was starting the six-month process to withdraw from the INF Treaty after years of Russian violations.
Current and former officials broadly agree Russia is in violation of the INF agreement, but there have been no similar accusations regarding New START.
Still, in 2017, Trump called New START a “one-sided deal” that was “just another bad deal” made by former President Obama.
Should the U.S. Revive Nuclear Energy?, NYT Len Charlap, 10 Apr 19, Princeton, N.J. I will support nuclear power the day after the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act is repealed. If insurance company actuaries consider nuclear power to be so dangerous that they cannot compute premiums that the industry can afford, then that industry is not economically viable. If the government (i.e., taxpayers) has to cover the industry with catastrophic insurance, then the government should own the reactors and provide nonprofit energy.
We were lucky at Three Mile Island. We were minutes away from a complete meltdown that given the plant’s location would have killed thousands and done billions in damage. Investigations of Three Mile Island showed that, like the Deepwater Horizon disaster, extremely dangerous processes cannot be allowed to remain in control of people whose first responsibility is profit or return to shareholders…. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/opinion/letters/nuclear-energy.html
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5 From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
nuclear-news 