FERC stands by competitive utility market by rejecting Trump’s nuke-coal bailout

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) unanimously rejected Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s proposal to rig the nation’s competitive wholesale marketing of electricity with a colossally expensive bailout through rate tariffs for financially failing nuclear power and coal-fired generators. On January 8, 2018, the FERC Order terminated the Trump Administration Energy Department’s September 29, 2017 proposed rulemaking for “Grid Reliability and Resilience Pricing.” The FERC regulates interstate electricity and gas transmission as well as the licensing of hydroelectric dams.  

In October 2017, the Department of Energy (DOE) had ordered the FERC to open a proposed rulemaking aimed at providing full cost recovery for financially ailing plants that have 90-days of fuel stored onsite as a national security measure to assure electric grid reliability and resilience during disruptive events like extreme weather. Secretary Perry’s disingenuous attempt was in fact more focused averting the impending economic failure and closure of increasingly expensive and unreliable nuclear power plants and coal-fired generators. But merely having a 90-day onsite fuel supply, such as enriched uranium fuel rods or a humongous coal pile, does not assure grid stability during extreme events. To the contrary, when hurricane force winds cause perturbations on the electrical transmission lines that supply 100% power to an operating reactor’s safety systems, nuclear power stations are designed to automatically shut down. Federal safety standards, in fact, require all U.S. nuclear power stations to manually SCRAM once a hurricane’s sustained wind exceeds 73 miles per hour (Category 1). It is because of safety concerns that nuclear power plants cannot re-energize or “black start” the electrical grid even once its repaired.  Similarly, extreme cold weather is responsible for shutting down coal-fired generators when coal piles freeze solid as did during the Polar Vortex of 2014. A frozen coal pile cannot be efficiently transferred as fuel to the generator’s furnace.  

Critics of Perry’s rulemaking, including Harvey Peskoe, a senior fellow of electricity law at the Harvard Law School of Environmental Policy Initiative, pointed out that DOE didn’t bother to make a cogent argument nuclear power’s reliability and failed to even define “resilience” of fossil and fissile power generators. What is crystal clear from expert and former regulators testimony alike is just how unpredictably expensive the Trump nuke and coal bailout was going to be. Former FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff was quoted to say “It’s going to be as expensive as hell. Expensive as it can be because we will be paying the full freight on coal and nuclear plants.”

Meanwhile, FERC is predicting an additional 116 gigawatts of renewable wind and solar power to be installed in the US by 2020 with the continued decline of coal and nuclear over the same timeframe.

Trump's own appointees don't buy need for nuclear and coal bailout

It was front page news on the conservative Wall Street Journal. The headlines ran: Federal Regulators Rule Against Trump Administration on Power Plants. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rebuffs plan to aid coal-fired and nuclear power plants." (WSJ articles are behind a pay wall and cannot be linked to or reproduced.)

"Federal energy regulators on Monday rejected a Trump administration proposal aimed at shoring up struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants to bolster the nation’s electricity grid, saying the administration hadn’t persuaded them the plan was needed to ensure the system’s reliability," read the WSJ lead.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post pointed out right in its headline that the FERC committee were not willing to play "follow my leader" and fall for the nuclear/coal boondoggle: "Trump-appointed regulators reject plan to rescue coal and nuclear plants," it read.

The Post opening paragraphs, in Steve Mufson's story, read: 

"The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday unanimously rejected a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that would have propped up nuclear and coal power plants struggling in competitive electricity markets.

The independent five-member commission includes four people appointed by President Trump, three of them Republicans. Its decision is binding."

Why do we continue to ignore the deadly risks of nukes in space?

Plutonium was jettisoned into the sea by the stricken Apollo 13 after its aborted moon mission. The ill-fated Challenger had been slated to carry deadly plutonium on a scheduled mission that would have followed the January 1986 launch that ended in tragedy. Even as far back as 1964, an aborted space mission carrying a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator had resulted in a reentry burn-up over Madagascar, releasing plutonium later found all over the world.

Why aren't people up in arms about these gambles, especially now as the Trump administration prepares to invest in space shots to Mars loaded with mini nuclear reactors and propelled by plutonium powered rockets? One journalist has covered these risks for decades -- Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman. Linda Pentz Gunter writes about his lonely quest for attention to these reckless endeavors in a December 29, 2017 Truthtout article. Read more.

PSC votes to continue Vogtle construction on artificial life support threatening Georgia economy

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE)Georgia Public Service Commission chairman Stan Wise revealed earlier that the political fix was in on the vote to extend the construction of Plant Vogtle Units 3 & 4 telling a local radio station the day before the commission vote. “This commission will not say, ‘Do not continue this plant.” The PSC granted Georgia Power's proposal for an increased cost of $12.2 billion and an added delay of 29 months to 2021 and 2022. Even these estimates are likely to prove grossly inadequate to chase after completion of the project. Votgle 3 &4 was the first U.S. new reactor project to be approved for construction in 2012. It was originally scheduled for operation in 2017.

The PSC vote gives new meaning and absurdity to “pouring good money after bad” with the inestimable proportions of mismanagement and cost overrun that the continuation of Vogtle construction portends for Georgia's economy.

The vote came despite the backdrop of the bankruptcy of Westinghouse/Toshiba stemming from the financial risk carried by the astronomically expensive design and predictably mismanged construction of the two AP1000 pressurized water reactors.  Even the PSC’s own staff had warned through well-founded analysis “that the completion of the project is no longer economic on a to-go (forward looking) basis given the additional costs and schedule delays.”  The staff further concluded that if Georgia Power is allowed to continue construction the purposed financial conditions should be “modified” so that the utility and its investors bear the risk and not passed on through advance charges to ratepayers. A $1.2 billion penalty is inculded in the decision on what Georgia Power can collect from future ratepayers but the decision but hardly punitive considering the overall bailout saddled to ratepayers. 

Advancing chronic high construction costs to ratepayers and eventually higher electric rates for Georgians inevitably undermines the state and region’s economy. 

The historical failure of the nuclear power industry to manage the cost-of-completion and time-to completion has been the writing on the wall now for decades. An industry tens of billions of dollars over budget and many years behind scheduled first grabbed the Forbes business journal 1983 cover story “Nuclear Follies.” Nothing has changed. The first two units at Vogtle had colossal construction cost overruns which jumped from $660 million to nearly $9 billion before becoming operational. The PSC vote essentially writes a blank check for a new chapter in the most expensive and wasteful way to boil water for steam generated electricity.

The state regulatory decision to stumble on seeking the completion of the Vogtle 3 and 4 nuclear power station keeps the last vestige of new reactor construction alive in the U.S.. The nation’s only other new reactor construction for two Westinghouse AP1000 units at the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina was suspended in July 2017 because of unaffordable cost overruns and an unpredictably delayed completion schedule.

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has put out its statement of disbelief and defiance to the state regulators’ decision. The fight for the democratization of energy continues as well. 

Tide is turning as Japanese anti-nuclear activists win in high court

From the Japan Times:

Wednesday’s ruling by the Hiroshima High Court halting the planned restart of a nuclear reactor in Ehime Prefecture has cast doubt on the judgment of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority — which had approved the restart under stricter post-Fukushima guidelines — shocking the government and utilities across the nation.

The ruling deals a heavy blow to a plan by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration to bring more reactors back online, and is sure to prompt the government and utilities to keep a closer eye on similar cases continuing across the country.

Yuichi Kaido, a lawyer representing local residents, called the ruling the “most important” since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, spurred by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

About 40 court cases — including those seeking injunctions — were filed in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown disaster. But while district courts have ordered some reactors stopped, each shutdown decision has been overturned by a high court.

“This is the first time (plaintiffs) have won at the high court level,” Kaido said at a news conference in Tokyo. He said the ruling may signal a turn of the tide.

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