Can Obama Stop the Nuclear Bomb in the Senate Stimulus Plan?

A radioactive dirty bomb has been dropped on the Senate stimulus package.

On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to add $50 billion in nuclear loan guarantees to the economic recovery package (S. 336). This "would more than double the current loan guarantee cap of $38 billion" for "clean energy" technology.

Yet this provision would not create a single job for many, many years, but would saddle the public with tens of millions of dollars more in toxic loans. As I noted in my 2008 report, "The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power":

In August 2007, Tulsa World reported that American Electric Power Co. CEO Michael Morris was not planning to build any new nuclear power plants. He was quoted as saying, "I'm not convinced we'll see a new nuclear station before probably the 2020 timeline,"

Morris further noted "Builders would also have to queue for certain parts."

Indeed, the nuclear industry is riddled with bottlenecks. For instance, Japan Steel Works is "the only plant in the world ... capable of producing the central part of a nuclear reactor's containment vessel in a single piece, reducing the risk of a radiation leak." And they have a backlog of a few years already.

The additional loans would probably not even result in a single new signed contract for a plant over the next two years, let alone produce a single job in Obama's first term -- other than maybe a few high-priced lawyers and lobbyists to twist the arms of state Public Utility Commissioners to shove the inevitable rate increase down the throats of consumers (see "Exclusive analysis, Part 1: The staggering cost of new nuclear power"). Turkey seems smarter than that (see "Turkey's only bidder for first nuclear plant offers a price of 21 cents per kilowatt-hour"). Are we?

Why are we still propping up an industry that can't survive without the taxpayer swallowing both the economic risk of an actual meltdown and the risk of the new nukes melting down financially -- all for a mature technology that has already received more than $100 billion in direct and indirect subsidies (see "Nuclear Pork -- Enough is Enough")?

Here is the proposed language for this nuclear bomb:

TITLE 17--INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY LOAN GUARANTEE PROGRAM

The Committee also recommends an additional $50,000,000,000 to support the deployment of eligible technologies under the Section 1702(b)(2) of EPACT 2005 that will contribute to transforming the energy sector. This funding will add to the existing loan guarantee authority provided in other appropriations bills to support self-financed loan guarantees. The Committee is aware of the strong interest in the program and the large number of pending applications.

The Center for American Progress noted last week (see "Senate stimulus plan out-greens the House"):

This expanded loan guarantee program is the type of unnecessary pork barrel spending that President Obama urged Congress to avoid, and it should be removed from the final bill.

WonkRoom has more details on just how outrageous this provision is:

In contrast, the committee allocated only $9.5 billion exclusively for "standard renewable energy projects." Although the loan guarantee program covers nuclear technology, carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants, as well as renewable energy, the vast bulk of requested loans -- $122 billion -- are for new nuclear power plants. This $50 billion nuclear throwaway nearly matches the total allocation for genuinely clean energy in the House version of the stimulus package: only $52 billion in total for smart grid, renewable energy, and energy efficiency investments.

Unlike renewable energy and energy efficiency technology, investments in the nuclear industry generate few jobs or economic growth. The nuclear industry has developed through massive federal subsidization from research to deployment over decades. Such a massive expenditure of nuclear pork has no place in the economic recovery bill. Brent Blackwelder of Friends of the Earth, who discovered the nuclear pork, called the appropriations "unconscionable":

"Now is not the time for another bailout boondoggle. Nuclear power is the most expensive form of energy there is. It takes 10 years or more to build a reactor, so it is impossible to claim with a straight face that this preemptive bailout has anything to do with creating jobs. Senate appropriators' decision to include such wasteful spending in the stimulus is an example of Washington at its worst."

 

E&E News reports that two of the Senate's strongest nuclear supporters, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Mike Crapo (R-ID), are pushing for more nuclear goodies:

"A proposed $2 billion in manufacturing tax credits in the Finance Committee mark only applies to production of components for renewable energy, electric or hybrid-electric car storage systems, grid and efficiency components, carbon capture and storage equipment and renewable fuels. Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) are working to change the manufacturing tax incentive so that it is 'technology neutral'."

Ban the bomb!

Related Posts:

• Nuclear power, Part 2: The price is not right


• Nukes, Part 1.5: Nuclear Bomb


• The Self-Limiting Future of Nuclear Power, Part 1


• How much of a subsidy is the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industry Indemnity Act?


• Nuclear storage at Yucca jumps 38% -- to $96B

Comments

[adamskj]

I'd like to know where Mr. Romm thinks wind and solar would be without massive government handouts. Without some major, eureka-type technology breakthroughs, they'll never compete with coal, gas, and nuclear on cost, even with carbon pricing factored in.

Trying to shut out nuclear is basically a guarantee that we'll build more fossil-fired electricity plants. Ignore all the headlines about wind in western Europe, and you'll notice that's the path they're going down.

If you want more coal and gas plants, keep up the efforts to slow down nuclear. "Environmentalists" will waste all their time and energy opposing new nuclear plants while utilities continue to greenwash themselves by putting up a few token wind turbines. Meanwhile, they'll keep quietly building new fossil fuel-based plants while everyone's distracted fighting the non-existent menace of nuclear.

[Dystopic]

http://www.dailytech.com/New+FusionFission+System+Invented+Promises+Clean+Nuclear+Power/article14081.htm

may get rid of the waste problem...

[atomicrod]

The EPACT 2005 loan guarantee provisions have already resulted in more than 15,000 jobs. Joe mentioned that there are applications for $122 billion in loan guarantees; those are for projects that are already making their way through the license process. If you have applicable skills and are looking for work, the industry is hiring.

Dozens of training programs involving universities, community colleges and union apprentice halls have been initiated in cooperation between industry and the education/training providers.

If the plants are built, the income will pay back the loans just as the income generated by the plants that a previous generation of Americans built paid their loans. Those plants produce 806 Million megawatt-hours of clean, reliable electricity every year. The INCREASE from 2006-2007 was 19 million megawatt-hours while the TOTAL amount of electricity generated by wind, solar and geothermal power in 2007 was just 47 million megawatt-hours.

In 2007 the average production costs at US nuclear plants was 1.76 cents per kw-hr. Dirty old coal plants cost an average of 2.47 cents per kw-hr. Natural gas costs averaged 6.78 cents per kw-hr.

The beneficiaries of the anti-nuclear activities of people like Joe Romm are the companies that sell energy. Nuclear plants take market share away from those sources and change the balance of energy supply and demand in favor of consumers.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast

[RAlvarez]

In addition to expanding loan guarantees for nuclear power plants, the Senate Appropriations Committee also included $1 billlion for the nuclear weapons program -- ostensibly for maintainence of old bomb plants. It is a real stretch to pour money into weapons of mass destruction and cal it econommic stimulus.

Since its creation in 1977, the great majority of the Energy department's budget has gone to maintain it's large nuclear weapons program. Regardless, of the big boost in energy spending in the Congressional stimulus spending bills,the mandate to maintain a large, antiquated nuclear weapons infrastructure will conntinue to be a millstone dragging down our energy needs.

[DannyDanson]

Nuclear Power has to be part of an energy independent America, personally I don't care if it is an Goverment controled industry. We should redesign a more efficient electrical power grid, with intial provisions for the future addition of nuclear power souces on areas designated by the government which are large enough to contain nuclear waste materials. If energy companies will not innovate new green solutions we should make their future existence dependant on it. The nuclear options excercised safely would eventually begin to pay for itself in terms of energy cost savings, and environmental benefits. Of course the mega-lobbies of the big energy industry will cry foul, and socialism, but who else besides those who have benefited finacially from the preference D.C. has shown them in the past would be adversely affected. If the government had the tools to control the cost of energy to Americans and companies they may be able to moderate the effects of any future financial crisis without billing the average taxpayer. Who knows coal and natural gas may become a profitable export product. There are more jobs involved with nuclear power than building the reactor alone.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

It's hilarious to see so many worshipers of the non-existent pure free market are also on the nukes bandwagon.
No nuclear reactor has ever been built without hundred of millions of dollars of public spending (i.e. 'socialism') and none ever will.
I have asked gold dollar sign wearing objectivists to give me examples of what they regard as successful nuclear energy programs.
Their favorite examples are the French civilian electrical program and the American nuclear navy.
In other words hardcore market fundamentalists cannot come up with any good examples that aren't government monopolies. Doesn't that say it all?
Nuclear Power=Socialist Power. Always has been always will be.

[dwalters]

Immanuel, no big energy source *especially wind and solar* has ever been built without hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payer subsidies. Not the great TVA system, Boulder and Hoover dams, much of the electric grid.

Most "hardcore market fundamentalists" don't advocate nuclear energy precisely because it involves tax payer handouts (like EVERY energy source does). The subsidies for nuclear are the *exact* same as they are for wind and solar.

I'm FOR this because that is what it *always taken* to implement new infrastructure. The fact is, too, that NO current nuclear power plant on line gets subsidies outside of standard industrial deprecations that all industries have. They are CASH COWs that anti-nuclear people want to TAX MORE. They have a good revenue stream that generates income for their operators.

David Walters

[cylindar]

Yeah, the Dems are putting in a lot of pork. You would think they were republicans or something.

[VikingQuest]

Do you even have a clue what you are talking about?

1. The entire bill is pork

2. What does party affiliation have to do with pork?

(here is a list where you can see they are all porkers, even Obama with $100 million last year)

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2008