Emission-free nuclear industry blasts EPA plan

Washington Examiner - By Zack Colman
 
The nuclear power industry says it’s getting a raw deal under President Obama’s proposal to limit carbon emissions from power plants.

States and energy utilities say the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan would penalize nuclear energy generation, which produces no greenhouse gases. The contentious issue has emerged prominently during the comment period that began after the rule was proposed in June.
The rule is intended to produce a 30 percent cut in power-sector emissions below 2005 levels by 2030, but industry has two big concerns.

One is an EPA policy designed as an incentive for states to keep operating reactors “at risk” of shutting down because of market pressure or expensive safety upgrades. Industry officials say the incentive is not enough and won’t work as intended.

The other issue concerns five nuclear reactors that are under construction. When it wrote its emissions proposal, the EPA counted these projects, in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, as completed. The states say this makes their emission targets difficult because they are not allowed to count these cleaner plants’ lower emissions toward their mandated cuts.

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