Nuclear industry bemoans Clean Power Plan stay, Power Source, February 23, 2016 For an industry that said it was ignored by the Clean Power Plan, nuclear interests sure took it hard when the Supreme Court halted the rule earlier this month.
Existing nuclear power plants didn’t get any credit for being the largest source of carbon-free electricity in the country, advocates said. There are no direct incentives built into the rule to subsidize new nuclear plants or keep existing ones from retiring early, as more than half a dozen have done or plan to do.
And yet, when the Supreme Court stayed the rule while its merits are hashed out in a lower court, it sent shockwaves through the industry that was counting on the states’ compliance plans to give nuclear energy the credit that the federal government didn’t…….
Across the country, five nuclear plants have already shut down or been put on the early retirement list…..
the nuclear renaissance that the industry banked on, that federal nuclear regulators staffed up for, didn’t happen. ….
