With the Illinois bailout of two Exelon nuclear power plants this week as background, U.S. hard-core anti-nuclear groups are raising doubts about the details of the Biden administration’s massive infrastructure legislation. In a recent press release, the groups – Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Beyond Nuclear, Indigenous Environmental Network (INEN), and Nuclear Energy Information Service (NIES) – asked, is the Biden “Build Back Better climate salvation or Trojan horse?”
The press release states, without useful citations or detailed language, that the administration’s $3.5 billion reconciliation infrastructure plan is flawed. “Close inspection of the mark-up language being proposed in parts of the ‘Build Back Better’ reconciliations package have uncovered large hidden subsidies and loopholes that benefit Big Dirty Energy, including approximately $50 billion in subsidies for existing nuclear power plants,” the groups claim.
The groups cite unspecified provisions in the draft bill language to segue into generalized attacks on bailouts of uneconomic nuclear plants and the Illinois legislation that has saved the Exelon Dresden and Byron plants in Illinois. That was the end of a long, and convoluted process that included, among other aspects, charges of bribery and the defenestration of a long-time, powerful Democratic leader of the state legislature.
Tim Judson of NIRS said, “Nuclear bailouts of aging, money-losing nuclear reactors are a waste of precious time and money – resources better spent on getting us directly and truly to a clean-energy future. Money wasted on old reactors that will close soon anyway is money not spent or available for the technologies we need to bet to a real energy future: energy efficiency, energy storage and transmission improvements.”
After months of playing chicken between Chicago-based Exelon, owner of the nuclear plants that have been unable to bid successfully into competitive capacity auctions, and the Illinois legislature, the solons caved in hours before Exelon said it would shut down Byron. The legislation, which had earlier passed the state lower house and had the support of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, passed the state senate by a 37-17 vote. The bill needed 36 votes to pass.
Exelon said it would shut down the Byron plant later that day if the legislation failed, and would close Dresden in November. The utility said its Braidwood plant would also be in danger of a shutdown. Pritzker said afterward, “Frankly, the people of Illinois, the people of our nation, of the globe can’t wait for a clean energy future.”
The measure provides some $700 million in subsidies over five years for the three nuclear plants.
–Kennedy Maize