Skip to main content

The Happiest Place in the World

That of course would be Walt Disney World, but in neighboring Levy county, the next most happiest, Progress Energy is set to build a new nuclear power plant. The response by Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas is exceptionally upbeat:

Locally, the only major controversy comes from neighboring Citrus County, which houses the utility's Crystal River nuclear plant and is miffed it isn't getting this one.

The state of Florida is gung-ho, which means no major obstacles from the Public Service Commission or Department of Environmental Protection.

Nuclear power is the only option available to meet Gov. Charlie Crist's ambitious goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A new state law will allow Progress Energy to begin collecting money for the $17 billion facility in advance. So the utility's customers could see a $9 bump in an average electric bill beginning in January.

To speed up the federal review process, Progress Energy plans to use a next-generation Westinghouse AP1000 reactor. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission already has signed off on the basic design.

The only way this plant does not get built is if Progress Energy makes a business decision not to build it.

That I can make such a statement without being laughed out of the newsroom shows how far we have come in our view of nuclear power.

And the money line?

I would much rather live down the street from a Westinghouse AP1000 than a coal-fired plant.

Wouldn't we all?

---

Also at the Orlando Sentinel is an op-ed extolling the virtues of loan guarantees to build new plants. Lynn Edward Weaver is president emeritus of the Florida Institute of Technology and does an excellent job explaining that it is appropriate and historically apt that government take a role here.

Federal support for a strategically important energy source is hardly new. We wouldn't have the oil, gas or coal industries as they are today without massive federal support. Wind and solar power exist only because of government subsidies. The main alternative fuel for vehicles -- ethanol -- is totally a result of tax credits and subsidies. For national security and environmental requirements, the government has an appropriate role in supporting the development of clean, American energy sources. And the request for nuclear is not an outright subsidy -- just a guarantee that if an extremely serious and unlikely delay occurred, the government would help fund the additional cost. Most experts agree that it is extremely unlikely that the guarantees would ever cost the government a dollar.

Weaver does not mention that new plant over in Levy County, so this might be an editorial making the rounds, but since he is a Floridian, his words added to Thomas' suggest a strong vote for nuclear power in the state. All those trips to Tomorrowland have paid off.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should