War Funding Bill May Include Renewable Power Loan Rider

The $58.5 billion emergency military funding legislation for Iraq and Afghanistan now working its way through Congress might give a small boost to power plant construction in the form of $180 million in loans for nuclear plant construction and wind and solar power plant development. Speaker Pelosi is insisting that a nuclear loan program proposed for addition to the emergency funding bill give parity to wind and solar power development, with $90 million for nuclear construction loans and $90 million for wind and solar power development. If the package survives the legislative process, this funding could support as much as $9 billion in additional loan guarantees for nuclear power plant construction and $3 billion in loan guarantees for wind and solar power generating facility construction, including the $2 billion “borrowed” from earlier legislative proposals to fund extension of the “cash for clunkers” program in the economic stimulus package.

Climate Change Advocates Move Slowly, Embracing Nuclear Power

Now that world leaders have acknowledged the impossibility of coming to any binding agreement at next month’s Copenhagen conference, Senate action on climate change legislation has lost its urgency for the time being. The Obama administration, however, still wants a comprehensive cap and trade measure, like the House bill passed earlier this year, rather than a more limited measure targeted at the electric power production industry, as some legislators have been heard to suggest.

White House climate adviser Carol Browner said last week that incremental greenhouse gas emission reduction measures are not in the cards. “We need comprehensive energy reform,” she said, including power plants, refineries, factors, farms and other sources of carbon emissions. She said she expects negotiation of an international climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol will take up to a year after the Copenhagen conference.

Meanwhile, former Greenpeace commando Stephen Tindale, who once broke into a nuclear power facility to scrawl “Danger” on the side of the reactor building, acknowledges that significant greenhouse gas emission reduction in future years will depend upon construction of a large number of nuclear generating plants around the world. “It’s really a question about the greater evil – nuclear waste or climate change. But there is no contest any more. Climate change is the bigger threat, and nuclear is part of the answer,” Tindale says. “Like many of us, I began to slowly realize we don’t have the luxury any more of excluding nuclear energy. We need all the help we can get.”

EPA Sees 180 New Nuclear Power Plants Over The Horizon

USEPA’s analysis of pending climate change legislation predicts construction of 180 new nuclear power reactors by 2050, more than doubling the currently operating 104 reactors in 31 states, which provide 20% of the nation’s electric power. Presently the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has only 30 applications pending for new reactor construction. At an estimated investment of $10 billion each, the projected increase represents total projected cost of nearly two trillion dollars.

It will be interesting to see whether environmental groups come out in greater force against nuclear waste storage or carbon sequestration as the debate over details of greenhouse gas reduction legislation proceeds in Congress. Either way, nasty stuff is getting buried underground in someone’s back yard.

Even The Chinese Plan To Rapidly Expand Nuclear Power Generation

While authorities in the United States endlessly debate whether to promote, allow, or prohibit construction of more nuclear power generating reactors here, as climate change legislation wends its painful way through innumerable Congressional committee hearings and mark ups, China, the world's biggest consumer of electric power generated by burniung coal, is accelerating plans to exponentially expand its national nuclear electric generating capacity. Previous Chinese plans called for 440% growth in the proportion of electricity that country generates from nuclear power by 2020, but China's newest plan calls for 770% expansion in nuclear generating capaicty by 2020.

All the while, our Congress continues to debate whether or not to define electric power produced by nuclear reactors as "renewable energy" for the purposes of computing carbon emission credit allowances. Last time I checked, nuclear power doesn't give off a single gram of greenhouse gas emissions. What gives?

Lamar Alexander Pushes Nuclear Plant Construction

Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander, responding to questions after his speech to the Institute for 21st Century Energy of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, says he is pondering whether to introduce separate legislation, or an amendment to the climate change bill now pending in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, to push his proposal for construction of 100 additional nuclear power reactors in the nation by 2030. He noted that unlike solar power and wind power, getting nuclear plants built would not "require huge subsidies." A separate bill from Alexander is the more likely outcome, since he opposes any cap-and trade legislation, unless the committee adopts proposals from some of its members to try advancing the measure by splitting energy efficiency from cap and trade to pass them separately. That move would free Alexander to vote for nuclear power growth while still voting against cap and trade.

Will Climate Change Legislation Promote Coal And Nuclear Power To Cut Down Foreign Oil Dependence?

Senators Joe Lieberman, Lindsay Graham and Lamar Alexander are pushing for a far larger role for nuclear power generation and new technology coal fired power plant construction as part of the climate change legislation now moving through Congress at a snail's pace. Alexander is promoting a provision which would call for construction of 100 new nuclear power plants by 2030.

Lieberman echoes Alexander's sentiments. "Without a nuclear title that's stronger than in the House climate change legislation, we're not going to be able to get enough votes to pass climate change." Lieberman, who changed party affiliation from Democrat to Independent last year after campaigning for President Obama, was stripped by his party of his seat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, but he is still actively talking to committee members about developing a bill in the Senate.

Nuclear Power Construction Creeps Forward At NRC And In Congress

For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a permit for limited construction on two new nuclear power reactors in Georgia. NRC has pending before it 17 license applications for construction of a total of 27 reactors. Although America's 104 nuclear power reactors nuclear reactors produce 20% of the nation's electrical power, no permits for new reactor construction have been issued since the 1979 partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island.

Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Pitts has introduced H.R. 3448 to cut through the red tape and speed up the process of reviewing applications for construction permits and operating licenses on new nuclear power generating facilities, but the bill has been referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and to the subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands of the House Natural Resources Committee.

NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko acknowledges that the processing of the pending paperwork has been two slow, but at the same time he opposes Congressional intervention to move things forward. "I would love for us to be able to do our job even more effectively than we do," Jaczko said. "We're constantly looking for ways to do that, but we won't ever compromise safety to do that."

Because of the financial risk from regulatory delays, private investment in new nuclear power plant construction id virtually impossible to obtain. Consequently, the Energy Department has established $18.5 billion in loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry, but that fund will provide for construction of only about three of the 27 reactors for which construction permit applications are pending. Of course, approval of the construction permits could go a long way to freeing up private investment to pay for this construction.

So, paperwork at the NRC is holding up the start of $162 billion in projects which could go a very long way towards jump starting the heavy industrial segment of the construction industry.

Federal Loan Guarantees For New Nuclear Power Reactors

It appears that four power companies will split the $18.5 billion in loan guarantees established by the Obama administration for construction of new power generating reactors in the next few years. Construction of these new reactors by UniStar Nuclear Energy, NRG Energy, Scana Corporation and Southern Company could begin as early as 2011, with the power coming on line in 2015 or 2016. If you are involved in nuclear power plant construction, sharpen your pencils right now and get ready to bid.

Secretary Chu Announces Clean Coal Grants, Faces Congressional Grilling

Last week energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the release of $2.4 billion in grant funds for development of clean coal technology, remarking to a meeting of the Clean Coal Council that the U. S. has the world's largest deposits of coal. Of the money released, $800 million is for efforts to reduce sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollution, $1.5 billion for carbon capture projects, and $50 million for identification of geologically suitable CO2 injection sites.

Yesterday, Chu faced a grilling from Senators regarding their pet energy projects, including questions from Byron Dorgan of North Dakota about flat funding of clean coal research, and reduced funding for fuel cell technology; from Robert Bennett of Utah about nuclear power reactor development; from Lamar Alexander of Tennessee about failure to include nuclear power in the definition of "renewable energy," from Thad Cochran of Mississippi about strategic petroleum reserve storage in Mississippi subterranean salt domes, from Diane Feinstein of California about wind farms in the California desert, and from Washington's Patty Murray about cleaning up Defense Department nuclear weapons sites. I am guessing we can look for Senate earmarks to may of these projects.

Climate Change Legislation Shuffles Forward

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman now predicts he will have the votes to sent to send a climate change bill to the House floor next week, following a closed door meeting of Democrats on the committee. Expect a draft of the bill Thursday and a markup beginning Monday. Apparently the bill will set a greenhouse gas emission reduction goal of 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050. Cap and trade credits will be distributed 35% to electric utilities, 15% to heavy industry, with details still to be worked out regarding credits to refineries.

The bill will likely require 20% electric power production through a combination of energy efficiency measures and renewable power production by 2020, with 5% of that coming from efficiency measures, unless a state's governor certifies 15% renewable production is not possible in his or her state, in which case an additional 3% efficiency offset will be allowed. Further increase to 25% renewable/efficient energy by 2025 is also to be required. "Renewable" sources will most likely include energy from waste and biomass, but not nuclear energy. The compromise is to exclude existing nuclear facility power from the baseline for measuring the reductions.

On the Senate side, Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman is marking up plans for a new power transmission grid, facing 28 proposed amendments to his draft proposal, which will then become part of the cap and trade Senate bill originating in Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee.

At a Chamber of Commerce energy forum today House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Obama administration is committed to a comprehensive energy program including coal, oil and nuclear power as well as renewable energy. Hoyer reminded the audience of business people that nuclear power and coal produce 85% of electrical power in this country. Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee reminded the same audience that wind and solar power are inefficient, expensive, occupy a large amount of space, and cannot be counted on to provide sufficient power during peak demand.

All of this legislative committee activity has certainly brought out the industry and environmental lobbyists on all sides of these issues. Statistical analysis shows Democrats on Waxman's 58 member committee who oppose the bill have receives on the average six times as much campaign money from industries emitting greenhouse gasses as those committee Democrats supporting the legislation. In the first quarter of 2009 industry interests have spent a total of nearly $80 million lobbying against cap and trade, with environmental groups spending $4.7 million pressing for passage, and the renewable energy industry adding another $7.5 million in support of the measure.