How did I miss this? Neither The Freep nor The News mention this item.
The Biden administration is poised to lend $1.5 billion for what what would be the first restart of a shuttered US nuclear reactor, the latest sign of strengthening federal government support for the atomic industry.
[…] More than a dozen reactors have closed since 2013 amid competition from cheaper power from natural gas and renewables, and the Energy Department has warned that as many of half of the nation’s nuclear reactors are at risk of closing due to economic factors.
Holtec [International Corp.] acquired the [Covert Twp, MI] 800-megawatt power plant in 2022 after Entergy Corp. closed it due to financial reasons, but began pushing forward with plans to restart after pleas from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Holtec has said a restart of the reactor is contingent on a federal loan. Without such support, the company has said it would decommission the site.
Have I got this straight? Is this the only way we have to generate the needed electricity without leaning on “dirty” sources? The energy required can’t be fulfilled by existing clean sources?
Nuclear, beside being a clean and abundant source of energy, is also safe, like air travel is safe. Also like air travel, it’s safe…until it isn’t.
It has. Nuclear plants are just obscenely expensive to build. If we sat down and logically agreed to do the thing with the most long-term benefit, we’d have a bunch of them. But in a capitalist society, that’s not how decisions are made.