so it won't help the nuclear industry anyway.

But the nuclear industry is going to attack renewables anyway.

And they'll get help from ALEC.

Inside scoop from phone conference among people working on shutting down nuclear plants which have aged out. "There are a lot more shut downs in the offing." When asked why, reply was one word.

"Fracking"

It's never about safety, green house emissions, etc. with Big Power. It is always, Always, ALWAYS about profiteering.

Seriously, Divernan, it isn't a secret and the whispered nature of the comments serve your message poorly IMO.

Yes, fracking is hurting them, but it actually is an energy source that nukes need in order to function effectively as part of the energy delivery system. Fracking itself is an unsustainable blip on the energy radar. And the future for carbon based fuels (including natural gas) is limited as the EPA moves further to tighten regulation of carbon emissions.

Renewable penetration is skyrocketing and it is permanent. That's why companies like Exelon are working so hard to end policies promoting renewables while they say nothing about carbon.

This comes at a cost of increased carbon output from the NG industry, which is displacing nuclear via it's low costs.

Until we get that money into increased renewables, we're just re-arranging deck chairs, trading the risk of nuclear catastrophe for the risk of increased AGW via carbon output.

Nuclear isn't carbon free, by any means, but it is a lot less than natural gas. (Of which, both are better than coal)

Renewables are growing and growing fast. The more large scale generation we lose, the more quickly the system will change to one without carbon.
Here's the way it works.

More renewable penetration means reduced sales for any source of generation requiring fuel. Even though natgas, coal and nuclear can all serve the "base load" market, the lack of flexibility in traditional coal and nuclear means those plants can't adapt to increased renewable penetration by selling into the quick response market that works to augment the variability of wind and solar. Some natural gas plants can, and it is those that will be able to sell less and less power and still remain in business - because even though they sell less, what they do sell will have a higher value than "base load" power.

The market these natgas plants serve will steadily decline as they come under pressure from two directions. They will be competing with low carbon alternatives like storage, hydro, geothermal, and various biofuels; and the amount of wind and solar will still be steadily increasing, which will also act to fill in the gaps in variability.

Not a single incandescent bulb left in my house, outside the refrigerator light.

Hopefully this all coalesces sooner, rather than later. The clock is ticking.

These numbers are from memory but IIRC projections based on BAU large-scale centralized thermal plants show a growth in consumption of more than 200% over 50 years. Projections based on distributed renewables and improved energy efficiency show a decline of about 40% during the same period.

There is an incredible amount of slop in the system.

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You are going from a zero emission energy production and over to coal.

Nuclear is pretty clean in the United States, if the slack isn't taken up by wind/solar... Its going to drive up co2 emissions.

What it's going to drive is renewable energy technologies.

- The nukies and the coal boys can be flushed straight down the crapper as far as I'm concerned. With the rest of the turds.....

I would think the biggest costs in a Nuk would be building and decommissioning expenses. Retiring early just means you have a bigger capital loss. As there a fewer years to amortize the Capital investment.

They'll create a spinoff company, take on debt with the spin off company to 'purchase' the plant. Then laden with debt this new company will declare it can't afford to pay for anything and go under. Which is what Entergy did when they established ENVY.

RIP

This seems to be a bluff to get something or they are needing to blame somebody else because they need to shut down some old plants before they fail. Heaven forbid the nuclear industry admit that old nuclear plants need to be shutdown and decommissioned.

They are going to need to start shuttering their aging fleet of plants. Exelon has had a lot of leaks and operational problems at their plants in Illinois that rarely get any attention from the national media.

... although I'd think that they should start with Dresden, which is an old rustbucket.

Does not make a lot of sense on the closing of those two, although Byron seems to have a pretty big problem with tritium in the groundwater.

You are right about Dresden, the Units 2 and 3 are ancient, but they are licensed to operate until 2029 and 2031! Unit 1 was decommissioned after only 18 years. That plant sure has had lots of problems, wow.

Don't trust Exelon any further than I can throw them, but I hope they do shut these plants down.

Before declaring they are profitable