Tag Archives: Nuclear

UPDATE: Trump Throws Free Market Principles Out Window On Behalf Of Coal, Nuke Plants

This article has been updated to reflect that President Trump has in fact given the order rather than just considering it.

Trump

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Well, that’s not very free market of him.

In a move that made George Gilder do a spit take, President Donald J. Trump has ordered the Energy Department to instruct grid operators to purchase electricity from failing coal and nuclear plants in an effort to keep such faltering plants alive and well, according to the Associated Press.

[wds id=”3″]

Earlier today, Bloomberg indicated such a move might be imminent, citing a memo it reviewed that previewed the action the Energy Department has now been ordered to take, using its power under the Federal Power Act – Section 202 powers, to be exact.

At the time, Bloomberg called the move “an unprecedented intervention into U.S. Energy markets,” in the master-of-understatement style for which they are known. The news organization quoted from the memo that argues:

“Federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secure generation capacity.”

The phrases “premature retirements” is the key one in the memo, as it has long been policy of this president to try to prop up failing nuclear and coal plants by any means necessary. It was what was behind the study Secretary of Energy Rick Perry ordered shortly after his appointment into the importance of “baseload power” and the completely arbitrary idea that electrical generation facilities must have 90 days of reserve power on site.

The study was expected to find that an increase in coal and nuclear plants were necessary. When it didn’t, Perry ordered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a rule that would have provided for bailouts of failing nuclear and coal plants. FERC respectfully declined.

Which is why the ball has landed back in the Department of Energy’s court, and they appear to be on the verge of simply ordering grid operators to buy power from these plants to provide the plant operators with a financial bailout orchestrated by the federal government.

It’s no shock that this action could be coming. After all, it was President Trump who stood in front of West Virginia coal miners and offered them the impossible dream of bringing coal jobs back to the United States, despite the electricity market – including a majority of utilities – voting against such a move with their market-based plans to close the plants instead. To fulfill his campaign promise, the only way to save those jobs is to rig the system in favor of coal plants.

Bloomberg notes the order is only a draft and has not been finally decided yet, but it’s hard to imagine a circumstance under which the president wouldn’t manipulate the market this way to allow him to claim victory in the mythical “war on coal.”

More:

Trump orders ‘immediate steps’ to boost coal, nuclear plants (Associated Press)

Trump Prepares Lifeline for Money-Losing Coal Power Plants (Bloomberg)

Trump To Throw Free Market Principles Out Window On Behalf Of Coal, Nuke Plants

Trump

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Well, that’s not very free market of him.

In a move that made George Gilder do a spit take, President Donald J. Trump may soon order grid operators to purchase electricity from failing coal and nuclear plants in an effort to keep such faltering plants alive and well, according to a Bloomberg report.

[wds id=”3″]

A memo reviewed by the news organization says the Energy Department is considering using its power under the Federal Power Act – Section 202 powers, to be exact – to use emergency powers to take such action.

Bloomberg called the move “an unprecedented intervention into U.S. Energy markets,” in the master-of-understatement style for which they are known. The news organization quotes from the memo that argues:

“Federal action is necessary to stop the further premature retirements of fuel-secure generation capacity.”

The phrases “premature retirements” is the key one in the memo, as it has long been policy of this president to try to prop up failing nuclear and coal plants by any means necessary. It was what was behind the study Secretary of Energy Rick Perry ordered shortly after his appointment into the importance of “baseload power” and the completely arbitrary idea that electrical generation facilities must have 90 days of reserve power on site.

The study was expected to find that an increase in coal and nuclear plants were necessary. When it didn’t, Perry ordered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a rule that would have provided for bailouts of failing nuclear and coal plants. FERC respectfully declined.

Which is why the ball has landed back in the Department of Energy’s court, and they appear to be on the verge of simply ordering grid operators to buy power from these plants to provide the plant operators with a financial bailout orchestrated by the federal government.

It’s no shock that this action could be coming. After all, it was President Trump who stood in front of West Virginia coal miners and offered them the impossible dream of bringing coal jobs back to the United States, despite the electricity market – including a majority of utilities – voting against such a move with their market-based plans to close the plants instead. To fulfill his campaign promise, the only way to save those jobs is to rig the system in favor of coal plants.

Bloomberg notes the order is only a draft and has not been finally decided yet, but it’s hard to imagine a circumstance under which the president wouldn’t manipulate the market this way to allow him to claim victory in the mythical “war on coal.”

More:

Trump Prepares Lifeline for Money-Losing Coal Power Plants (Bloomberg)

Jeff Flake Doesn’t Understand Baseload Power

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened: People, I know he’s darn purty, but seriously, if you care about the future of energy in this country DO NOT think Jeff Flake is a 2020 savior, no matter what Sean Penn tells you. He doesn’t even understand the basics of energy baseload.

  • In a recent speech at St. Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics, in what was widely reported as the first speech of the 2020 Presidential campaign, Arizona (Short-Time) Senator Jeff Flake said that maybe, just MAYBE, the Republican Party should consider accepting climate change science and consider doing something about it.
  • But before you give him a standing ovation, in literally the next breath – the next breath – Flake insisted, all evidence to the contrary, that the country needs more nuclear power as “baseload” power if we’re going to have more renewables added to the grid.
  • (*Ring, ring* Senator Flake? It’s Germany. They’d like to explain how they were able to add wind and solar and still commit to shutting down all their nuclear plants by 2022.)
  • (On the plus side, he pronounced nuclear right.)

SolarWakeup’s View:  So Senator Jeff Flake, who is leaving the Senate in November because of the “divisiveness” of Washington politics in the age of President Donald J. Trump, went up to New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College last Friday to discuss said divisiveness and, as mentioned above, reportedly launch a 2020 Presidential campaign.

That would have been largely unremarkable, even for a political junkie like me. But then a woman, in the last question of the session, asked this:

“Do you see a path forward on climate change?”

And at that moment, Flake would have done well to heed Mark Twain and kept his mouth shut. But he just had to weigh in.

He started off OK, talking about how great solar has been in Arizona and how increased energy storage (particularly utility-scale storage) is offering market-based opportunities that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. He added that it might also be a nice change for the Republican Party to accept that climate change is real and maybe try to do something about it. And if he’d just stopped there…..but, well, he just couldn’t.

Democrats, he says, need to accept that the United States needs a carbon-free baseload power source and – wait for it – nuclear power is the answer.

Oh, Jeff – you were this close.

See, here’s the thing: Not only is “baseload” an increasingly irrelevant term in a world of electricity storage – something you had just praised seconds ago – but even if that were a true thing, nuclear is definitively not the answer (at least not new nuclear power plants).

[wds id=”3″]

I live in Ohio, and I am still paying for the Perry and the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plants built around 30 years ago through my electricity rates – and that’s after Davis-Besse’s containment cap started to rust away, forcing the plant to shut down for a year to get it fixed. They are expensive, they take a long time to build and they are dangerous.

(Ask me sometime about the story I once wrote about Davis-Besse’s advice to its neighbors in case of a meltdown – advice that included long sleeves, sunglasses and a hat).

And sometimes, even when you throw billions of dollars at these plants, they still don’t get built (South Carolina anyone?).

Look, I know Jeff Flake looks the part, but if he thinks nuclear power is the answer to bringing more renewables like solar on to the grid, then I’m sorry – he won’t get my vote. He shouldn’t get yours either.

More:

Jeff Flake: The Key To Solar Power Is More Nuclear Power (Sam Seder Podcast)

Jeff Flake delivers ‘Politics and Eggs’ speech (full video of speech; question comes at 45:26) (WMUR 9, Manchester, New Hampshire)

South Carolina Spent $9 Billion on Nuclear Reactors That Will Never Run. Now What? (Governing)

Germany’s nuclear phase-out explained (Deutsche Welle)

Engie Executive Sees The End Of Coal, Gas and Nuclear Power Plants

Who: Thierry Lepercq, EVP of Research, Development and Innovation at Engie. Member of the executive committee. Engie is a global energy company with $78billion in revenues and 150,000 employees.

What: A discussion about the future of energy regarding the use of traditional power plants, transition to renewables and investing in innovative companies around the world.

Impact to You: Engie has sold its US portfolio of coal and gas power plants. It closed a 45 year old coal plant in Australia and sees mobility as a massive impact to the energy system. If they view the future to be without central power fueled by fossils, what does that mean to your business and your customers? Thierry may be paid to be a futurist but getting Engie to turn its business strategy into this direction matters to you.

Sometimes while in deep conversation with a leading energy executives, they say something extraordinary in such a casual way that unless you are paying attention, you might miss it.

I had that experience the other day when SolarWakeup had an exclusive conversation with Thierry Lepercq of Engie’s Executive Committee and the company’s EVP of Research, Development and Innovation, in which he made a bold prediction: Rotating-machinery electricity production—meaning all fossil-fuel and nuclear plants—are going away.

“That’s a given,” he said matter-of-factly, as if this as if it were common knowledge. I can attest, however, that I had never heard anyone say it out loud before—especially from someone leading the future for an energy company with 150,000 employees and over $75billion in 2016 revenues. After all, the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are on a fast-tracked course to bail out failing and dissipative nuclear and coal plants at an enormous cost to taxpayers.

But Lepercq remained steadfast in his contention, even pointing to Engie’s decision in February to sell its U.S. assets and its decision to close its 1.6 GW-capacity Hazelwood Power Station in Australia, a brown-coal plant that had operated continuously for more than 45 years.

Lepercq added that Engie is not the only company that recognizes this reality. One of its partners, the EDF Group (a French company that operates in the United States with its EDF Renewable Energy subsidiary), declared on Monday that it would add 30 GW of solar capacity in France by 2035.

“I’ve had this conversation with their research-and-development head, and we’ve established a joint working group with them to determine how you make a grid with 60% renewables work,” Lepercq said. “And we are in the process of figuring it out.”

The more I thought about what Lepercq was saying, the more I thought he might well be right. Even though the most visible manifestations of this idea are taking place in Europe and the current U.S. administration is doing its level best to scuttle plans like them in this country, there are signs the utilities are already seeing the writing on the wall.

After all, despite President Trump’s most energetic efforts, a survey of U.S. utilities last year revealed that coal plants representing 15,6 GW of capacity will come offline in the next 12 years, no matter what regulatory dismantling takes place.

And the pace of coal-plant retirements is staggering. The survey also reported that enough coal-fired plants to generate 20.5 TWh of energy production annually are coming off the books this year.

Will the United States ever completely retire rotating-machinery electricity plants? That’s hard to imagine in the current political climate, but with visionaries like Lepercq and the team at Engie leading the charge around the world—essentially showing us the way forward.