Biden launches $6B effort to save distressed nuclear plants

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT and MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is launching a $6 billion effort to rescue nuclear power plants at risk of closing, citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change.

A certification and bidding process opened Tuesday for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy told The Associated Press exclusively, shortly before the official announcement. It’s the largest federal investment in saving financially distressed nuclear reactors.

Owners or operators of nuclear power reactors that are expected to shut down for economic reasons can apply for funding to avoid closing prematurely. The first round of awards will prioritize reactors that have already announced plans to close.

The second round will be opened up to more economically at-risk facilities. The program was funded through President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure deal, which he signed into law in November.



FILE— A sign warning of radioactive materials is seen on a fence around a nuclear reactor containment building on Monday, April 26, 2021, a few days before it stopped generating electricity at Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y. The Biden administration is launching a $6 billion effort to save nuclear power plants at risk of closing, citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-business-environment-nuclear-power-us-department-of-energy-2cf1e633fd4d5b1d5c56bb9ffbb2a50a

[oldsoftie]

1. Well its about damn time SOMEONE noticed the obvious.

I hope the administration now ramps up getting these facilities modernized & keep them open. And stop taking a dozen years to get new plants approved.
Without nuclear there is no real progress on greenhouse gases.

[peppertree]

25. Can you imagine Cheeto?

He would bellow about how "our nuclear power plants are like something you see in the 3rd world - let me tell you," do nothing at all - and then when something did happen, appoint Prince Jared as his 'nuclear czar' so as to make sure his family could cash in on the cleanup contracts.

Sending Jared to the disaster area would give him more "quality time" with Ivanka, to boot.

[oldsoftie]

26. I guess Ivanka would literally be "glowing'

[peppertree]

30. Straight out of the Roman Empire, those two

[Blues Heron]

2. Its only carbon free if you ignore the huge uranium mining industry

Otherwise, not so much.

[tinrobot]

3. It's more carbon-free than the coal mining/burning industry

[Blues Heron]

4. no doubt

Still, the nukers love to tout the carbon free aspect of it, which is true if you just pretend the fuel rods magically came into existence.

[PoliticAverse]

5. Like solar cells and wind generators?

Unless a thing is made using only "carbon-free" energy it won't be.

The real question is the net carbon impact over the lifetime, and for an energy source whether it can be reliability counted on not just when wind is blowing or sun is shining.

[kiri]

6. Please be honest in a life-cycle analysis of CO2 impact

You can say the same thing about wind turbines that make blades out of fiberglass and petroleum resins. The same thing about solar cells using refined silicon won from digging up minerals, sometimes sand, and getting out Si from SiO2. Then there are the deliberately added metal "impurities" mined.

And then the end-of-life issues; what to do with old solar panels, old turbine blades? Anyone who thinks these wind/solar matters are 'carbon neutral' is foolish.

[Blues Heron]

9. Im just talking fuel - uranium and the mining industry behind it

wind has no fuel costs - same with solar. Obviously the devices are constructed from materials, just like nuke plants are. I am just quibbling with the carbon free line they give that neglects the mining industry required to make the fuel to run the plants. That is just not carbon free by any stretch in a fuel to fuel comparison with wind or solar.

[kiri]

15. you are right--"a fuel to fuel comparison with wind or solar" i

"a fuel to fuel comparison with wind or solar" in comparing ultimate CO2 emissions.

A real analysis is quite difficult; it has been attempted many times.
Frequently forgotten is the distribution--that is, a nuclear power plant needs only transportation for supplies. It is in a fixed location. Solar involves trucking panels, etc., all over, and these trucks typically use oil-based stuff. The mining, processing costs of materials, including concrete for power plants, and steel for wind turbines stanchions, and silicon (+boron and phosphorus) for solar cells adds a great deal to the total C-impact.

Nuclear power plants compare very favorably.

[oldsoftie]

27. but many of those materials for solar & wind come from places like CHINA. AGAIN.

Once again we are chaining ourselves to a country that wants to take over the world. Not to mention the numbers don't add up & to hit goals People talk about we will simply HAVE to reduce our standard of living going down the road of popular opinion

[FBaggins]

31. Your "I'm just talking fuel"...

... is just as much of a dodge as ignoring the carbon cost of the steel/concrete to build a reactor or the uranium to fuel it or the impact of retiring it.

The only valid comparison for CO2 impact is how much CO2 is emitted (net) per kwh of electricity produced- including construction, operation (with fuel if used), and retirement of the generator. By that measure, nuclear power is right at/near the top of the list for the lowest-carbon sources of electricity.

And, for wide-scale adoptions of solar/wind (beyond ~20% in most areas)- we must also account for the impact of storage and excess backup capacity that would not be needed in more traditional mixes.

[Blues Heron]

34. I know - I only make this point when the carbon free claim comes up as it does a lot

I understand that one compares the totality of the system including all inputs, cradle to grave for the entire lifetime of the plant/installation. I would love to be able to put some numbers to the different components - the mining, the refining, concrete etc. for all the inputs - nuke, solar, wind etc.

But my point is not wrong - there is no fuel cost for solar or wind.

[FBaggins]

38. Have you even used fat free cooking sprays?

Did you realize that they weren't actually fat-free?

The government recognized the desire to reduce the intake of fats and defined "fat free" at a very low (but non-zero) level (IIRC .5g/serving)... to communicate that if you're trying to reduce the amount of fat in your diet - this is a product to use.

Nuclear power is at or among the lowest carbon sources possible. If they want to use a term of art "zero carbon" to communicate that truth, I don't have any problem with it unless there's a source that's significantly lower. By constantly fighting the term in the way you do, you imply that solar/wind (which also count as zero-carbon despite having the same mining issues) are those alternative sources that are lower in carbon emissions - but that isn't the case.

[Blues Heron]

42. I think carbon free is just nuke industry propaganda

When people hear the term carbon free, most assume it is referring to the lack of carbon required to turn the turbine, or the lack of carbon required for solar panels to pump out electricity, and then they hear that nukes are carbon free and just sort of ignore the entire mining industry required to keep the nuke turbines turning. That is the big difference to me.

[FBaggins]

43. You think wrong

The term is used for nuclear, solar, wind, and hydro (by news organizations, UN groups, state and international governments, etc.) to refer to sources that do not emit significant carbon in the generation process itself.

Quick examples:

Carbon-Free
Electricity generation either does not use fossil fuels or does not emit carbon. For example, a state is
carbon-free if all of its electricity is from clean energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear.

https://gain.inl.gov/SiteAssets/GAIN_WebinarSeries/2021.03.02_CarbonFreeFutureSeries-1/Carbon-FreeGlossary.pdf

Carbon free means no carbon dioxide emissions. A state would be getting all of its electricity from renewable or clean sources like solar, wind or nuclear.

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/18/724343789/going-zero-carbon-is-all-the-rage-but-will-it-slow-climate-change

[Blues Heron]

44. so now we are back to fuel then

fuel to fuel comparison, nukes are not carbon free while wind and solar are.

[FBaggins]

45. Which is entirely worthless

There's no reason to care whether carbon emissions from a source are due to fuel or something else.

The climate certainly doesn't care.

[mopinko]

8. also only true if they are made of fairy dust.

cement production is extremely energy intense, and those wall are several feet thick.
they are also highly, highly reinforced. lottttsss of steel. plus pipes, gates, etc.

they dont like to talk about that, either. it's easier to get around the uranium problem than the materials to build the thing.

[kiri]

16. right--see my post #15

The cost of concrete is similar to the cost of making silicon from quartz.

Both are high temperature chemical processes and involve trucking around tons of stuff.

Interestingly, the planet is running out of concrete-grade sand!

[mopinko]

17. that too.

maybe now we'll finally start using hemp instead.

[madville]

20. Like the Lithium mining industry for batteries?

Uses huge amounts of fossil fuel and environmental damage to mine lithium for EV batteries….

[Blues Heron]

23. that is storage - I am talking fuel only here

obviously industrial scale things that get built have carbon footprints. I am talking about the carbon that goes into fueling a nuclear plant over the long haul (a huge uranium mining industry) vs. the carbon that goes into fueling a wind turbine (zero CO2) or solar (zero CO2)

[FBaggins]

33. The question is "why should anyone else accept a 'fuel only' evaluation?"

If I want to live off of the grid and put solar on my farmhouse... but I need multiple Tesla batteries and end up running a generator 20 hours in the average week. Can I claim to be zero carbon in powering my home?

[Blues Heron]

35. See my other post- I only make the point to refute the carbon free claim

[VGNonly]

7. 3/8 of a inch of steel

is all that separated Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant from contaminating the lower Great Lakes potentially forever.

So there's that.

[roamer65]

10. Yup, 2002.

And the 3/8 of stainless steel jacketing was bulging.

They bought the emergency replacement vessel head from the never operational Consumers Energy nuke plant in Midland, MI.

http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com/2011/10/davis-besse-vessel-head-replacement.html

DTE Energy wants to add a Unit 3 at Enrico Fermi II…estimated cost around $30B.

Our bills are already high. Servicing $30B of debt ought to make it downright awful for us.

[VGNonly]

12. DB is about 40 miles away from me.

Another instance they had faulty nozzles inside the containment. They kept the shifting the sensors around to find a place where they wouldn't trip.

[roamer65]

13. I'm in far west burbs of Metro Detroit.

Close enough for either one to affect us BOTH.

Then there is Cook 1 and 2 over near Benton Harbor. I think the safety record is better on the Westinghouse reactors, though.

I do welcome the money, though. Many of these plants need maintenance desperately.

[mahina]

24. And plumes of radiation are slowly entering the groundwater in western Washington from WWII era work

Michael Lewis, The 5th Risk

However this is an all of the above moment and we don’t have time to get on our high horses.

/marched against nukes

/recognizing we have at least hundreds of years of baked in sea level rise even if we somehow cut off use of all CO2 generating fuels tomorrow


//I *need* us to do what we can to make the future less bad and u-turn as quickly as possible because I love my kid and my nephew, my neighbor kids, the world’s kids.

[FBaggins]

36. Far more than 3/8 of an inch of steel

3/8 was all that separated it from the failure of the first of three barriers between the nuclear fuel and the environment.

Even had that amount of remaining steel failed, there isn't a very plausible scenario that would have resulted in "contaminating the lower Great Lakes" - let alone "forever".

[Evolve Dammit]

11. Folks: There is no safe disposal option for rad waste. NRC has never designated a high level

nuclear waste repository despite decades of efforts. What do you propose to do with it?

[madville]

22. Yuka Mountian was the plan

But both the Obama and Trump administration denied it’s use.

[former9thward]

32. Yes, there is safe disposal.

It has only been stopped because politicians don't want it in their state.

[FBaggins]

37. As well as recycling. nt

[Evolve Dammit]

50. Attended hearings from NRC. The science was flawed as were the selected areas. High

level repository site in mind?

[hunter]

39. We're dealing with the fossil fuel wastes that are destroying the natural environment...

... by ignoring them.

The interesting thing about nuclear waste is that the volume is small enough to be contained. The great volumes of fossil fuel wastes cannot possibly be contained so they are dumped haphazardly everywhere -- on land, in the ocean, and the atmosphere.

Used fuel from light water nuclear power plants can be kept on site indefinitely. After a few hundred years it's about as dangerous as other hazardous industrial wastes, even the sorts of waste produced in the manufacturing and maintenance of solar and wind systems.

More importantly, light water reactors extract just a small fraction of the potential energy from their fuel. This used fuel can be reprocessed and turned into fuel for other sorts of nuclear reactors. This isn't widely done because freshly mined uranium is cheap. It would be foolish to bury this used fuel where it can't be retrieved.

If we quit mining uranium today and built more fuel efficient nuclear reactors we could power our civilization for centuries on fuel that's already been mined -- including used fuel from light water reactors, depleted uranium, plutonium cores from nuclear weapons, uranium and thorium extracted from mining wastes, etc..

Here's how used fuel from a nuclear power plant is stored:



It's not going anywhere, it's not doing anything.

Here's how some toxic coal power plant waste was stored:





Even worse are the greenhouse gasses dumped into the atmosphere in the normal operation of any fossil fuel power plant. Those will likely destroy our civilization.

[progree]

49. Another fossil fuel waste problem: 8 million deaths/year from waste emitted into the air

Fossil fuel air pollution responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide
02/09/2021 | Environmental Research
New research from Harvard University, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, found that more than 8 million people died in 2018 from fossil fuel pollution, significantly higher than previous research suggested—meaning that air pollution from burning fossil fuels like coal and diesel was responsible for about 1 in 5 deaths worldwide.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-for-1-in-5-deaths-worldwide/

While we rightfully are concerned about nuclear waste, for some reason we accept just spewing fossil fuel waste into the air, and yeah, we put on scrubbers and precipitators and so on to cut down the volume of atmospheric spewed fossil fuel waste emissions, so that its down to a mere manageable 8 million deaths/year.

This in addition to the civilization-ending CO2 and methane emissions (if continued at current rates) that you mentioned.

The number of people killed by nuclear waste and accidents per year by contrast, according to the latest estimates are .....

[Evolve Dammit]

51. Not arguing the substantiated threat of fossil fuel industry. Lack of enforcement has allowed

gross violations and loopholes. I am simply stating that we have no high level "repository" in the U.S. so to keep generating high level rad waste without a end-diposal is dangerous. Perhaps as you suggest, it can be re-used in some form as it degrades over centuries. I haven't seen that addressed as a viable option, but would welcome any progress on that front.

[erronis]

14. Eventually everything will be powered by fission or fusion.

(I only passed 5th grade science.)

I think we're better learning how to deal with the power of nuclear than to continuously try to mine secondary sources of energy from the planet.

Our understanding of the nuclear forces is less than 100 years old. In that time we have developed an incredible understanding of the mechanics (relatively speaking) but we still have much to learn.

Our knowledge of fossil-fueled energy to power most of our current lives/industry is around 200 years. And we have only recently discovered that this energy is killing us.

Unless we cut back on our energy needs drastically, we won't survive using just wind/solar/hydro. But it is attractive to those that can live on farms and don't need multi-mega-volt power-lines to run foundries, rail systems, industry.

[in2herbs]

18. These pro and con arguments here and elsewhere never mention how the air will clear

with the absence of fossil fuels and to the degree possible the Earth will begin to heal/regenerate. The skies after 9/11 are evidence of what happens when fossil fuels are reduced/eliminated. But the waste from a nuclear plant will exist for(ever).

I'd like a pro-nuclear person, here on DU or elsewhere, to post a paper on how nuclear waste/radiation will be addressed. In the 70s the experts said the waste from the Hanford nuclear plant would never be a threat. Well, it is today.

Don't tell me nuclear is the way of the future until you can guarantee we'll have a future in the event of a nuclear accident, because accidents happen.

[Kaleva]

29. Greenhouse gases are invisible to the naked eye

Some of which can linger in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.

Don't confuse smog with greenhouse gases.

[in2herbs]

40. I don't understand your post but here are a few excerpts from

an article (and another article inside the article) about nuclear energy and what is/is not being done with the nuclear waste created by nuclear power plants, an issue that I have yet to hear be discussed by nuclear energy promoters. The article link is https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315. The name of the article is “Fact check: Is nuclear energy good for the climate?” and is dated November 29, 2021.

Excerpts from within the above-cited article:

“There is currently no permanent storage facility for the radioactive byproducts of nuclear energy anywhere in the world, only facilities treated as temporary solutions. The Gorleben temporary storage site also currently holds waste imported from France, Europe's largest nuclear power producer, with the delivery trains frequently a site of public protests.”

****

“Dry cask storage containers, also sometimes known as castors, are left to cool in the current temporary storage facility near Gorleben. They contain spent nuclear fuel rods, stored in an inert gas for safety reasons. Their radioactivity will take many thousands of years to dissipate.”

****

“If the entire life cycle of a nuclear plant is included in the calculation, nuclear energy certainly comes out ahead of fossil fuels like coal or natural gas. But the picture is drastically different when compared with renewable energy.”

“According to new but still unpublished data from the state-run German Environment Agency (UBA) as well as the WISE figures, nuclear power releases 3.5 times more CO2 per kilowatt-hour than photovoltaic solar panel systems. Compared with onshore wind power, that figure jumps to 13 times more CO2. When up against electricity from hydropower installations, nuclear generates 29 times more carbon.”

End.

My additional comment: Nuclear power plants require an incredible amount of water to cool their reactors. According to the article “During the world's increasingly hot summers, several nuclear power plants have already had to be temporarily shut down or taken off the grid. Power plants depend on nearby water sources to cool their reactors, and with many rivers drying up, those sources of water are no longer guaranteed.”

[hunter]

48. Fine, I'll reply. Germany is fucked up. Their green faction is a largely a cult...

...egged on by fossil fuel interests including Siemens AG and Russia.

France closed its last coal mine twenty years ago and pensioned off their older coal miners, allowing them to stay where they lived indefinitely.

How France accomplished that is no mystery.

German households and small businesses in Germany pay some of the highest electric rates in Europe in support of their aggressive renewable energy schemes. Meanwhile German heavy industry is powered by coal. Their electricity and process heat is cheap.

Remember that German automobile emissions scandal? Automobiles were programmed to cheat government emissions tests. The entire German electric grid is like that.

Green energy in Germany is largely a bookkeeping trick. It all looks good on paper if you put your coal powered industry in another book you don't show the auditors.

Comparing solar or wind directly to nuclear power is another bookkeeping trick. The reason is simple. Wind and solar are not reliable power sources. The sun doesn't shine twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. The wind doesn't always blow. Without nimble fossil fuel backup power, usually natural gas (in Germany's case Russian natural gas) wind and solar energy simply aren't viable.

Hydropower resources are limited. Especially in Germany. Germany is not Norway. And dams suck anyways. Here in California I always support dam removals. Maybe we can tear down Hetch Hetchy someday. On a national scale, maybe we can tear down Glen Canyon Dam.

As per your comment (I could go on...) nuclear power plants are designed specifically for whatever cooling is available. A power plant that's cooled by Pacific Ocean water is not identical to one that's cooled by a river in France or treated sewage in Arizona. Global warming caused by fossil fuels can muck that up.

We could build air cooled power nuclear power plants if we choose. There's no magic there. It's an engineering problem.

Touching back to my California experience there are natural gas power plants here that can switch to entirely air cooled modes when water is scarce.

There's no difference between radioactive and non-radioactive toxins in terms of human suffering. The most important difference is that non-radioactive toxins often have a half-life of FOREVER.

[hunter]

19. Natural gas will destroy what's left of our natural world.

Coal is worse.

We idiot humans have worked ourselves into a tough spot. We are entirely dependent on high density energy sources for our survival. Our world civilization will collapse without them.

If we keep using fossil fuels billions of us will suffer and die.

If we keep pretending wind, solar, and other low density "renewable" energy sources will save us, then billions of people will suffer and die.

One of the reasons I oppose large scale wind and solar energy schemes is that they will only prolong our dependence on natural gas. Natural gas must be left in the ground. It's not in any way "green" even if it supports various solar and wind fantasies.

I've changed my mind about nuclear power. I used to be a radical anti-nuclear activist. Now I'm not.

I'm still a radical environmentalist.

Some of my thoughts on this subject are posted in my journal.

This is my twentieth year on DU and anyone who wants to follow the evolution in my thinking can do that.

In the late 'seventies I was opposing all nuclear power in California, working to shut down the existing nuclear power plants and protesting Diablo Canyon. I burned an unconscionable amount of gasoline driving between San Onofre and Humboldt Bay.

I was at an anti-nuclear rally near San Luis Obispo when Jerry Brown declared "No new nukes in California" and the crowd cheered... and then did a double take realizing Diablo Canyon wouldn't be stopped.

Now I'm opposed to closing Diablo Canyon until new nuclear plants replace it.

Aggressive renewable energy schemes in places like California, Denmark, and Germany have failed. The situation is especially horrific in Germany. Many people predicted that Germany's dependence on Russian fossil fuels would end in catastrophe. They just didn't expect it would happen so soon.

[dalton99a]

21. +1. Germany really fucked up

[oldsoftie]

28. Yes they did. And now UKR is paying the price for their mistake.

both Hillary & trump warned them about tying their needs to Russia. Repeatedly.

[in2herbs]

41. Please read my response to Kaleva above. TY nt

[Akoto]

46. I had to look again, read that as a $68 effort. Haha. nt

[beaglelover]

47. Good. We need more new nuclear power plants in the USA.