Beyond Nuclear - Nuclear Costs What's New

Dr. Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis, Institute for Energy and the Environment Vermont Law SchoolAs posted by the Hastings Group:

Expert: Pandering to Nuclear in EPA Clean Power Plan, IL and NY Bailouts of Exelon, and FirstEnergy Reactor Prop-up Plan in OH, Only Postpone the Transformation of the Electricity Sector… at Considerable Expense to Ratepayers.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 17, 2015 – The 20^th Century model of large baseload electricity generation, including nuclear reactors, is in an irreversible decline in the face of the emerging 21^st Century decentralized power model relying on renewables, energy efficiency, and technology-based demand management, according to a new report by Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School.

The Cooper report, "Power Shift: The Deployment of a 21^st Century Electricity Sector and the Nuclear War to Stop It," is available online at
http://www-assets.vermontlaw.edu/Assets/iee/Power_Shift_Mark_Cooper_June_2015.PDF.

For policymakers and ratepayers, Cooper's stark conclusion means that last-ditch efforts to prop-up nuclear power with amendments to the EPA Clean Power Plan, state-level subsidies (e.g., Exelon's "nuclear blackmail" threat of Illinois lawmakers over five reactors in that state and FirstEnergy's bailout scheme involving the Davis-Besse reactor in Ohio), attacks in Indiana, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina and other states on renewable energy standards, and preferential rate-setting arrangements (e.g., Exelon's Ginna reactor at Rochester, New York) are costly detours on the road to a much more consumer friendly, reliable and sustainable low carbon electricity sector … (more) …

To read the full 06/17/15 news release, click here.
To read the new "Power Shift" report, click here.
To listen to streaming audio of the 06/17/15 news event, click here. (Available after 4 p.m. EDT on 06/17/15.)

MEDIA CONTACT: Alex Frank, (703) 276-3264 or afrank@hastingsgroup.com.

Update on June 18, 2015 by

admin

Just two days before Cooper's report was unveiled, Beyond Nuclear joined with allies from Sierra Club's Nuclear-Free Campaign, Ohio Citizen Action, Nukefree.org, and others at the Public Utility Commission of Ohio's headquarters in Columbus, to protest the proposed multi-billion dollar bailout of Davis-Besse near Toledo. Hearings on the proposed ratepayer robbery have now been postponed twice, first from April to June, and now from June to July, likely in direct response to growing public opposition.

Meanwhile, First Solar, headquartered in Toledo just to the west of the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor, announced yet another major breakthrough in photovoltaic technology.