The Washington Post’s Steven Mufson has a report on states allowing utilities to charge customers for the construction of nuclear power plants. This is happening because the federal government will only provide part of the funding for these new plants — it’s too much federal money for utilities to decide the project isn’t worth it but not enough to prevent utilities from coming hat in hand to state legislatures. For example, the Energy Dept. announced last month that it would provide $8 billion for a nuclear power plant in Georgia. But that plant costs $14 billion to build, there are so far no interested private investors — and suddenly states like Georgia and utility companies in charge of constructing the plant must invent new funding streams.
Maybe in some cases charging consumers to finance a nuclear regulator is a good idea for both the local economy and long-term energy generation. But it obviously shows the lack of confidence people outside of Washington, D.C. have in nuclear power if no one outside the Energy Dept. is willing to invest. It’s unclear how nuclear energy will fit into a new national energy policy if/when the federal government passes a law to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
Maybe the Wall Street Journal is trying to set some kind of record. A couple of days ago it ran four stories about nuclear power, covering issues like earthquake safety at nuke plants, the potential for danger from powerful floods at a Nebraska facility, a push by Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Gregory Jaczko to move quickly to institute new safety standards, and debates and discussions within the Nuclear Regulatory Council about reforms in U.S. nuclear safety practice following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. (more…)
