And it’s creating a rift within the scientific community. Some scientists believe their work should speak for itself. Others say academics need to stand up for evidence-based inquiry — particularly where the fate of the planet is concerned. The March for Science, planned for April 22 on the National Mall, has drawn both sharp criticism and enthusiastic praise from scientists.
In the midst of this debate, newly published research has come down on the side of the outspoken. Not only do climate scientists have the public’s trust, they also have considerable latitude to advocate for climate action, a new study finds………
Scientists lead Boston rally, urging others to fight against anti-science and climate change denialism
SCIENTISTS CAN WIN THE WAR ON #SCIENCE #CLIMATECHANGE #AUSPOL, J Pratt. 5 Mar 17 By Jeremy Deaton Scientists have historically stayed above the political fray, but now that researchers face regular attacks under the Trump administration, many are planning to fight back.
Last week, scientists in Boston led a rally during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes addressed those assembled, urging researchers to stand up to Trump. “There have been many conversations in the scientific community about whether a rally is the right response,” said Oreskes. “We did not politicize our science. We did not start this fight.
Our science has been politicized by people who are motivated to reject facts because those facts conflict with their worldview, their political beliefs or their economic self-interest.”
The assembled scientists and their supporters, armed with signs that read “stand up for science” and “bring back facts,” greeted her words with cheers and applause. Oreskes concluded with a forceful plea for scientists to advocate for their work — an act that cannot be discredited by those in power……https://jpratt27.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/scientists-can-win-the-war-on-science-climatechange-auspol/
New York’s public institutions will pay up big for Gov. Cuomo’s upstate nuclear plant bailout
Gov. Cuomo’s upstate nuclear plant bailout will cost MTA, NYCHA big on utility bills, Daily News, by Glenn Blain, 5 Mar 17 ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo’s plan to bail out three upstate nuclear plants will cost public institutions, including the MTA, millions of dollars in added utility costs, a new study says.
The study by the New York Public Interest Research Group found that public institutions will see their electric bills rise by as much as $112 million a year for the first two years of the deal and then even more over the next dozen years.
“Since the Cuomo Administration has kept this process largely in the dark, it’s up to us to educate the public on the tremendous hit all ratepayers are going to take,” said NYPIRG Executive Director Blair Horner. “We hope this analysis will spur lawmakers to block the plan.”
According to NYPIRG’s analysis, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is on track to see its annual utility bill rise by $11.6 million thanks to the bailout.
The New York City Housing Authority will see an estimated $522,160 in additional costs. The Port Authority will pay an additional $435,098 a year while the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp. will see an estimated increase of $2.44 million a year, according to NYPIRG.
Cuomo’s plan, dubbed The Clean Energy Standard, requires utilities across the state to purchase power from the nuclear power plants at inflated rates……
Last fall, NYPIRG and other critics of the deal estimated it would cause Con Edison’s residential customers to shell out an extra $705 million over the next 12 years. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/cuomo-upstate-nuclear-plant-bailout-cost-mta-nycha-big-article-1.2988203
This year, Tesla’s solar roofs on sale
Tesla will begin selling its solar roof this year — here’s everything you need to know [excellent pictures] Business Insider DANIELLE MUOIO FEB 27, 2017, Tesla will begin selling and installing its solar roof later this year, the company wrote in its fourth-quarter investor letter.
How Donald Trump manipulates media news anchors
CNN reports Trump successfully manipulated anchors for positive coverage
“Maybe we shouldn’t believe what they say.” Think Progress Aaron Rupar, 2 Mar 17 On Wednesday, CNN’s Sara Murray reported that President Trump manipulated a team of CNN anchors into providing him with hours of positive coverage ahead of his first speech to Congress on Tuesday night.
During the “Sara’s Notebook” segment, Murray characterized what Trump told the anchors at the White House on Tuesday as “the bait and switch that the president pulled when it came to immigration yesterday.”
“He had this meeting with the anchors, he talked about a path to legal status,” Murray, a D.C.-based political reporter, said. “Basically they fed us things that they thought these anchors would like, that they thought would give them positive press coverage for the next few hours. A senior administration official admitted that it was a misdirection play.”
Murray went on to note that “when the president was actually out there speaking to the American public, he didn’t talk about a path to legal status.”……
The White House was happy enough with the coverage of Trump’s speech that officials decided to postpone signing a new Muslim Ban executive order, which was originally planned for Wednesday, so the administration could fully bask in the positive news cycle. Not even a month ago, Trump argued that an immediate ban was necessary for urgent national security reasons.
Just as he has with immigration policy, Trump has flip-flopped about his Muslim ban…….
During the transition period after the election, President-elect Trump distracted the media from his plans to profit off the presidency by tweeting out criticisms of Saturday Night Live and the actors and producers of Hamilton. He never divested from his business, but took advantage of a well-established media norm — if the president-elect says something, it’s news — and manipulated the media into publishing stories like this: [picture on original]
Trump appointed white nationalists to some of the most powerful positions in his administration, but the media covered his meetings with Mitt Romney instead.
In late November, Trump adviser Newt Gringrich explained how Trump does it.
“He understands the value of showmanship,” Gingrich said during a Fox News interview. “And candidly, the news media is going to chase the rabbit. So it’s better off for him to give them a rabbit than for them to go find their own rabbit. He’s had them fixated on Mitt Romney now for five or six days. I think from his perspective, that’s terrific. It gives everyone something to talk about.” https://thinkprogress.org/trump-cnn-immigration-compromise-d3b96490e0aa#.bxnac4y5m
Electric cars can bring a Zero Carbon Energy Grid
Electric Cars are the Missing Link to a Zero Carbon Energy Grid, Skeptical Science 2 March 2017 by Ryan Logtenberg, (good graphs) Since the start of the industrial revolution, humans have released hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, acidifying oceans, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, raising sea levels with the worst effects yet to come. The general consensus gleaned from the Paris Climate Summit in 2015 is that in order to halt the relentless march of climate change and its forecasted catastrophic consequences, one step we need to take is to transform our fossil fuel based economy to one powered by zero-emission renewable energy.
The good news is that investments in solar and wind generation have become competitive and in many cases cheaper and more profitable than similar investments in fossil fuels. The graphs below shows how solar and wind installations in the US have beaten fossil fuel installations for the past 3 years.
Globally, the conversation has shifted from “can renewables compete with fossil fuels?” to “how much intermittent renewable energy can our power grid handle?” Currently power grids rely on a steady and predictable stream of power generation. They can handle only so much of the fluctuation that comes from solar (surges during the day) and wind (surges when it’s windy).
The investment required in energy storage facilities to fulfill the needs of a 100% renewable energy grid is typically believed to be very high. Essentially millions of large industrial-scale batteries or creative energy storage solutions are needed to smooth out the surges. But what is often forgotten is that a creative solution is currently being built at an accelerating rate, in the form of vehicle batteries from the budding electric transportation system. Electric vehicles will herald in a new age of clean air on busy city streets, but they can also serve a secondary purpose of solving the energy storage issue of renewables.
Mass adoption of electric vehicles is coming. Many of the drawbacks of electric vehicles are quickly being addressed: From inexpensive vehicles with 200-335 miles of range, to the rapid expansion of ultra fast charging stations that can charge vehicles to 80% in 15 minutes or less. Several countries in Europe now see zero emission vehicles as the logical solution to addressing air pollution and are looking to implement bans on new fossil-fuel powered vehicles as early as 2025. Some major cities are even going a step further and will be banning all diesel powered vehicles from their cities. Clearly, the age of the fossil fuelled powered vehicle is quickly coming to an end. But, how big of an impact can an electrified transportation sector have in creating a green energy grid? Well let’s look at the numbers:……….
An Intensive peer reviewed study titled “Cost-minimized combinations of wind power, solar power and electrochemical storage, powering the grid up to 99.9% of the time” evaluated billions of 100% renewable energy grid scenarios using 4 years of real weather and grid load data. They concluded that with 15kWh set aside from each electric car for grid energy storage a 100% renewable energy grid could power 90%-99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today’s prices. Something to note is that the study was done in 2013 before the second generation of electric vehicles like the Chevy Bolt, Tesla 3 and other large battery, mass market vehicles were introduced to the public. Using 45 kWh for battery storage from a Chevy Bolt instead of 15kWh that was used in the study would increase total storage capacity by 300% making it a whole lot easier and cheaper to run America’s grid on renewables.
V2G integration into our zero carbon energy grid makes sense because it eliminates the needs for investing in expensive energy storage since the vehicles we will be driving could already provide that service. It also allows a vehicle owner that participates in V2G services to generate revenue from their vehicle while they sleep…….
As the same factors hold true for electric vehicles, don’t be surprised when you see a substantial reduction in total US greenhouse gas emissions from a zero carbon energy and transportation sector occurring sooner than you think. You can help accelerate this transition by making a pledge that your next vehicle will be electric. https://www.skepticalscience.com/Electric_Cars_are_the_Missing_Link_to_a_Zero_Carbon_Energy_Grid.html
Worker sneaked a gun into a nuclear power station
Contractor brings firearm into nuke plant, http://www.enewscourier.com/news/local_news/contractor-brings-firearm-into-nuke-plant/article_443c1832-005b-11e7-af38-4fd2702fa81a.html Adam Smith, 4 Mar 17, A decision by a contractor to bring a firearm into the protected area at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Thursday led to the plant declaring an “Unusual Event,” an official said Friday.
Ray Hopson, spokesman with the Tennessee Valley Authority, said the contractor is working as part of the scheduled refueling outage on the plant’s Unit 2. The firearm, a small-caliber derringer, was not discovered on the worker’s person, he said.
The firearm was brought through the plant’s stringent security portal. Hopson said TVA Nuclear has taken compensatory measures to bolster security screening across its fleet.
There were no injuries or safety threats to employees or to the public.
The Unusual Event, which is the least severe of the four emergency classifications, was declared at 12:30 p.m., Hopson said. Officials with the Alabama Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission were notified. The plant exited the Unusual Event at 3 p.m.
He said the contractor was escorted off the site and his nuclear access clearance was revoked.
“TVA Police are conducting an investigation to determine the next steps in the legal process relating to potential violations of federal statutes,” Hopson said. “The company takes this incident seriously and is in communication with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate performance and ensure that proper steps are taken to prevent a recurrence.”
NRC Approves License Transfer of FitzPatrick Nuclear Plant
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2017/17-008.pdf The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the transfer of the operating license of the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in upstate New York from Entergy Nuclear Operations to Exelon Generation Co. The transfer will become effective March 31 once the NRC amends the license to reflect the plant’s new ownership.
Entergy had announced plans to cease operations at FitzPatrick in January, citing unfavorable economic conditions. Exelon agreed to purchase the plant and keep it operating after the New York Public Service Commission approved zero-emission credits for nuclear power plants. The two companies jointly applied for the license transfer on Aug. 18. FitzPatrick is a boiling-water reactor located near the shore of Lake Ontario in Scriba, N.Y., about six miles northeast of Oswego. It is licensed to operate through Oct. 17, 2034. The license transfer includes the generally licensed independent spent fuel storage installation located on the plant grounds.
The NRC staff’s review of the license transfer application concluded that Exelon is financially and technically qualified to conduct the activities under the license, has satisfied the NRC’s decommissioning funding assurance requirements for the facility, and is not owned, controlled, or dominated by a foreign entity.
US Senators introduce Bill to promote easier licensing of nuclear reactors
Bipartisan group of senators introduce Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, Wyoming Business Report ,WBR Staff, Mar 2, 2017
The financial cost to electricity consumers of subsidies for Upstate NY nuclear plants
How will subsidies for Upstate NY nuclear plants affect your electric bill?, Syracus.com By State regulators ordered utilities to begin collecting the money next month to cover $462 million in annual subsidies the state will pay. The money goes to the Nine Mile Point, FitzPatrick and Ginna nuclear plants in return for producing low-carbon power. The Public Service Commission said sustaining the nukes will save jobs and prevent greenhouse gas emissions from increasing.Thanks to the extra revenue, the once money-losing nuclear plants are now expected to add millions to the profits of parent company Exelon Corp. Exelon owns Nine Mile Point and Ginna, and expects to complete the purchase of FitzPatrick from Entergy Corp. this spring.
— The new surcharge
New York utilities will file tariffs this month detailing the rates they will charge to collect the nuclear subsidy payments. There will be minor variations among utilities, but the rates should all be close to $0.0033 per kilowatt-hour (KWH), regulators say. That’s one-third of one cent per KWH.
For a residential customer using 600 kilowatt-hours per month, the surcharge will add about $2. Use 900 KWH per month, and the charge grows to $3.
Large commercial and industrial customers will pay much more. A typical large hospital uses more than 1 million KWH per month. Onondaga County, with facilities ranging from a jail to a sewage treatment plant, used more than 10 million KWH per month in 2012, according to the county’s climate action plan.
Each utility will turn over what it collects to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which then pays the plant owners. NYSERDA signed contracts with each of the three nuke plants to buy their “zero emission credits,” or ZECs, as compensation for producing electricity without carbon emissions.
For the first two years, the ZECs will be priced at roughly 1.75 cents per kilowatt-hour of power produced. The prices will be recalculated every two years after that. The amount of the subsidies will decrease if wholesale power prices increase.
Nuclear profits rise
Exelon told investors last month that its cash flow and profit outlook have improved thanks to the New York nuclear subsidies and a similar program adopted in Illinois.
In December, four months after New York regulators created ZECs to subsidize struggling Upstate nuclear plants, Illinois passed a law creating ZECs to bail out two nuclear plants that Exelon had threatened to close in that state. Beginning in June, Exelon will receive $235 million in annual ZEC payments for the Clinton and Quad Cities plants.
In a conference call with investors, Exelon executives said the ZEC programs in New York and Illinois are expected to boost the company’s gross margin (revenues minus fuel and purchased power costs) by $400 million this year and by $600 million in 2019.
The legal challenges
The New York nuclear subsidies face a legal challenge in federal court in Manhattan, where a group of non-nuclear generating companies has sued the Public Service Commission, claiming the subsidies interfere with wholesale markets. The lawsuit is attracting national attention from industry watchers.
An expert who is under contract to monitor wholesale markets for the grid operator in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland filed a brief in the case warning that the nuclear subsidies could distort markets even beyond New York state. But two environmental groups, National Resources Defense Council and Environmental Protection Fund, filed briefs defending the subsidies as a legitimate effort to control carbon emissions.
Last week, a Harvard University energy expert asked the judge to provide an audio feed to courtroom hearings so that anyone could dial in and listen. U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni has not yet responded to the request.
If the case goes to trial, it probably will not be resolved before summer, after the subsidies take effect, according to the transcript of a conference between the judge and lawyers.
A second lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Albany also aims to overturn the nuclear subsidy program. The state lawsuit was filed by environmental group Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and organic farm Goshen Green Farms. They claim the PSC failed to follow correct procedures by approving the subsidies too hastily and by adopting regulations that were “arbitrary and capricious.”
That lawsuit is pending.
Contact reporter Tim Knauss anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-3023 http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2017/03/how_will_subsidies_for_upstate_ny_nuclear_plants_affect_your_electric_bill.html
Georgia Power Suspends Study for Nuclear Plant Near Columbus
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/georgia/articles/2017-03-03/georgia-power-suspends-study-for-nuclear-plant-near-columbus Georgia Power is suspending its study of a site near Columbus for a new nuclear power plant. March 3, 2017, LUMPKIN, Ga. (AP)
Cooling system steam leak shuts down N.J. nuclear plant
http://www.nj.com/salem/index.ssf/2017/03/cooling_system_steam_leak_shuts_down_nj_nuclear_pl.html By March 01, 2017 LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK TWP. — An increase in steam leakage in the cooling system of the Salem 1 nuclear reactor has prompted its operators to take the plant out of service, officials said.
The reactor was shut down at 2:44 p.m. Tuesday, according to Joe Delmar, a spokesman for the plant’s operator, PSEG Nuclear.
Delmar said that the condensation collected from the steam was initially measured at a stable .17 gallons per minute. That increased, though, to .30 gallons per minute.
The reactor’s cooling system contains more than 90,000 gallons of radioactive water, Delmar said Wednesday. In order to find the source of the leak, operators cut the plant’s power down to 28 percent, but later determined the reactor needed to be totally shut down to correct the problem.
The steam leak was found on a valve used to draw samples of cooling system water for testing.
With the plant offline, it will make it safe for workers to enter the reactor containment building where the leak is located and fix the problem, Delmar said.
Delmar said there is not estimate when Salem 1 will return to service producing electricity.
He said on Wednesday that PSEG Nuclear’s other two plants at the Island, Salem 2 and Hope Creek, were operating at full power.
Growing opposition to Ohio nuclear bailout
New Ohio ‘bailout’ request shakes up nuclear/carbon debate, Midwestern Energy news, The growing debate over nuclear power’s role in curbing emissions is running headlong into an ongoing controversy over “bailouts” for Ohio’s largest utility.
FirstEnergy, which has previously sought support for noncompetitive power plants, is now asking Ohio lawmakers for “zero emission credits” for its aging nuclear plants. Environmental and consumer advocates say the plan is just another bid for more subsidies.
After FirstEnergy president and CEO Chuck Jones reported “excellent results in distribution and transmission service reliability and plant operations” during a February 22 earnings call with financial analysts, he said the company wants a zero-emission nuclear, or “ZEN,” program to support the company’s Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear generating plants in Ohio.
“The ZEN program is intended to give state lawmakers greater control and flexibility to preserve valuable nuclear generation,” Jones said. A bill to implement the program will be introduced soon, he said.
The Davis-Besse power plant in Oak Harbor and the Perry nuclear plant in North Perry are now valued at about $1.5 billion, including the value of their nuclear fuel. “The debt is significantly higher than that,” Jones noted. “Absent something to raise the value of these units and make them attractive to a buyer, there’s only one way for us to exit this business.”
Unless and until a sale occurs, though, the responsible party would be First Energy Solutions, or FES…….
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ruled last spring that it would allow extra charges to guarantee sales of all power from the Davis-Besse plant and certain coal plants. When federal regulators said they would require strict scrutiny of the deal, FirstEnergy dropped references to power purchases but still asked for the rider, which critics said would have cost ratepayers $4 billion. The company’s funding requests grew over the ensuing months.
Last fall the PUCO ruled that ratepayers would instead have to pay a “distribution modernization rider” of $200 million per year. Despite the name, the money collected is not for any specific grid projects. Instead, it’s supposed to boost FirstEnergy’s credit rating to make it easier for the company to borrow money as and when it eventually does any such work.
Back in the fall, FirstEnergy claimed the money would not be enough. Now the company is asking lawmakers for more………
“FirstEnergy’s two nuclear plants are old, and we are asking why Ohioans should be paying for a nuclear subsidy when other resources are less risky, less expensive and much better for the environment overall,” said Demeter at the Ohio Environmental Council.
“Not all zero-emissions sources are alike,” she stressed. “Nuclear energy carries with it a heavy toll when evaluating this resource cradle-to-grave.” In Demeter’s view, it makes much more economic sense to invest heavily in renewables, which avoid those risks.
“Once a wind turbine or solar panel is installed, there is no fuel that must be extracted from the ground, and there is no waste to deal with afterwards,” she noted. And combining them with innovative technologies like battery storage “will make renewables virtually unstoppable as the primary energy source we rely on in the near future.”
Demeter also distinguished FirstEnergy’s ZEN proposal from the state’s renewable portfolio standard.
“Ohio’s RPS is a market mechanism to ensure we’re maximizing clean energy opportunities in Ohio, and diversifying our energy portfolio in a responsible way,” she explained. “What FirstEnergy is asking for is a direct subsidy of two nuclear power plants that appear to be losing money in the regional energy markets.”
“The company is seeking ratepayer protection for these plants, but shareholders, not ratepayers, should be on the hook for the bet the company made on nuclear plants,” Demeter said. http://midwestenergynews.com/2017/03/02/new-ohio-bailout-request-shakes-up-nuclearcarbon-debate/
Work suspended on proposed Stewart County nuclear plant
Georgia Power suspends work on proposed Stewart County nuclear plant, Atlanta Business Chronicle Dave Williams Mar 2, 2017, Georgia Power Co. is suspending plans for a new nuclear power plant south of Columbus, Ga., the Atlanta-based utility announced in a letter to the state Public Service Commission (PSC).
The PSC voted last summer to authorize Georgia Power to spend up to $99 million to cover the early stages of the project in Stewart County through the second quarter of 2019.
But since then, Toshiba Corp. has announced that subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. – the chief contractor currently building nuclear plants in South Carolina and at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle – will stop constructing nuclear reactors. Last month, Toshiba blamed a projected $6.3 billion write-down on losses from its U.S. nuclear operations.
In a letter dated March 1, a lawyer representing Georgia Power wrote that the work in Stewart County is being suspended because demand projections show there will be no need for new nuclear generation of electricity until outside the utility’s three-year planning process.
But critics of nuclear power blamed the decision to suspend the Stewart project on Toshiba’s financial meltdown.
“We appreciate that [Georgia Power parent] Southern Co. has pulled back on the Stewart County nuclear proposal, which was clearly a bad deal for the citizens of Georgia,” said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Tennessee-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “[But] it’s outrageous that Southern Co. already has spent more than $50 million [in] ratepayer dollars on this proposal. … Southern Co. already has ratepayers paying too much for the over-budget and behind-schedule Vogtle nuclear units.”….http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/03/02/georgia-power-suspends-work-on-proposed-stewart.html
Toshiba won’t be building FPL’s nuclear reactors. Customers should not have to keep paying.
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article135578328.html BY RACHEL SILVERSTEIN rachel@miamiwaterkeeper.org As a nonprofit organization that works to safeguard South Florida’s clean water, we’ve been hearing a lot of public concerns about Florida Power & Light’s plans for Turkey Point. FPL has been trying to expand its nuclear power plant, with the addition of two new reactors — Units 6 and 7 — for many years. However, FPL has not yet received a Combined Operating License from the federal government’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which authorizes FPL to operate the plant.
Licensing and constructing a nuclear power plant is an arduous process. No new nuclear plants have been built in the United States since the 1990s, although a handful are under construction and have been for many years. It’s so risky, in fact, that most banks will no longer finance the licensing and construction of such plants, shifting costs to ratepayers who shoulder the risks instead.
Florida’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has, for almost a decade, allowed FPL to charge the public, via rate increases, for the cost of licensing and permitting these new reactors. If the reactors are never approved or built, FPL simply keeps the public’s money. So far, FPL has charged its ratepayers more than $280 million for its anticipated construction of the new reactors at Turkey Point. The total cost of the new reactors is now estimated to be between $13 billion and $20 billion.
In order for the PSC to approve such rate increases through this advanced cost recovery process, FPL must demonstrate each year that their proposed reactors are still feasible. This burden just got a lot more difficult, if not impossible, to meet. In late December, technology giant Toshiba made public its mounting financial woes. These woes, it is now clear, are related to problems with its nuclear reactor business — a business it runs through a global nuclear power plant construction company called Westinghouse.
In February, Toshiba reported $6 billion in losses, accrued over time from its involvement in the nuclear construction business. These losses are largely attributable to problems with Westinghouse’s current construction of its model AP1000 nuclear reactors in South Carolina and Georgia. As a result, Toshiba announced that Westinghouse would be leaving the nuclear reactor construction business. Why should this matter to Miami? It matters because the new reactors at Turkey Point are supposed to be Westinghouse designed and constructed AP1000 reactors.
In short, Westinghouse will not be building FPL’s new reactors. So the plan, already beset by environmental and safety concerns, has been put in even more jeopardy. Amazingly, we are still paying for the construction of these new plants — that, it is now clear, will never be constructed as planned.
The PSC should immediately stop funneling advanced cost recovery funds from our wallets into FPL’s pocket. This project is likely no longer feasible, and as ratepayers, we should not be footing the bill. The PSC and the NRC must investigate how Westinghouse’s collapse will affect FPL’s plans for new reactors at Turkey Point. In the meantime, all licensing and permitting at the state and federal level should be suspended. FPL owes it to ratepayers, at an absolute minimum, to report on the feasibility of this project to the PSC and to cease charging Floridians for a project that looks less and less likely to be built.
Nuclear power bill receives approval from Kentucky Senate
Senate Bill 11 would amend statutes to change the requirement that facilities have means of permanent disposal of nuclear waste. Instead they would only be required to have a plan for its safe storage, and that the plans be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
It would also eliminate several other obstacles to the construction and maintenance of nuclear facilities……..
Senate Bill 11 was approved on a 27-8 vote and now goes the House of Representatives for consideration. http://floydcountytimes.com/news/9961/nuclear-power-bill-receives-approval-from-senate
1 This Month
PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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