Everybody hates Trump's coal and nuclear bailout plan [View all]

[Rhiannon12866]

Except the president's favorite coal industry executive and a bankrupt nuke company.

President Donald Trump’s fixation on bailing out the coal and nuclear power industries has proved confounding to renewable energy advocates and climate activists. But other sectors of the energy industry, including one that Trump purportedly wants to help, are also questioning the need for the radical intervention in energy markets proposed last week.

The White House issued a statement last Friday that said Trump has directed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to “prepare immediate steps to stop the loss” of what the administration described as “fuel-secure power facilities,” a thinly veiled reference to coal and nuclear power plants. Also last Friday, Bloomberg News released a leaked draft proposal from the Energy Department that cited national security concerns as a reason for allowing Trump to require regional grid operators or electric utilities to purchase enough power from coal and nuclear plants to prevent them from closing.

But most of the energy industry concedes there’s no emergency that requires the federal government to intervene on behalf of coal and nuclear power.

Speaking earlier this week at an industry conference, Chris Crane, the CEO of Exelon Corp, the nation’s largest owner of nuclear plants, said the retirement of coal and nuclear plants is not a grid emergency that warrants urgent intervention from the federal government.


More: https://thinkprogress.org/renewable-and-nuclear-companies-oppose-trump-coal-bailout-plan-3bd1aa4fb3cf/


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A TRUCK DELIVERS COAL TO A PACIFICORP'S COAL-FIRED POWER PLANT ON OCTOBER 9, 2017. (CREDIT: GEORGE FREY/GETTY IMAGES)