Obama drags a nuclear Trojan horse along with his “clean” energy plan

President Obama recently announced his “blueprint” for addressing global climate change in a recent speech at Georgetown University. The President had plenty to trumpet about his Administration’s “clean energy” achievements. In 2012, the Administration’s Department of Interior permitted the development of 10 gigawatts of renewable wind, solar and geothermal energy on federal lands in the United States. By the end of July 2013, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will have launched the first-ever offshore auction of federal land along the Atlantic coast for offshore wind energy development between Martha’s Vineyard, MA and Block Island, NY. According to Stanford University, interconnected offshore wind farms positioned ten to fifity miles out along the Atlantic Seaboard from New England to Virginia could produce one third of the entire nation’s electrical energy just from renewable wind energy. Obama’s speech comes just weeks after the first-in-the-world offshore floating wind turbine was commissioned on June 13, 2013 in the Gulf of Maine and began transmitting renewable generated energy to the land-based electrical grid.

But the President could not shed the nuclear industry’s yoke that he has been harnessed in since the beginning of his first Administration. With the collapse of new reactor applications for lack of industry willingness to risk their own financing, President Obama once again took the opportunity to call upon the nation, (i.e. taxpayers) to buck up to an unknown amount in investment in  “emerging nuclear technologies--including small modular reactors.” Nuclear power has forever been an “emerging” technology where after decades of financial subsidies and liability protection still fails the economic test. Now the industry and it’s champions’ latest new hope hangs on the development of new infrastructure, the equivalent of atomic big box stores for untested and uncertified reactor systems rated under 300 megawatts.  According to a recent webinar on Small Modular Reactors sponsored by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, what was indisputably unaffordable as a behemoth “economy of scale” experiment will be even more expensive as a mini-nuke factory assembly line.  To continue to stake addressing the climate crisis on a historically failed and dangerous nuclear industry represents a colossal energy policy blunder. 

Wind outcompetes nuclear at Exelon's LaSalle, IL & Limerick, PA reactors

As reported by Hannah Northey at Greenwire, Exelon Nuclear has blamed low wind power prices for its decision to cancel power uprates at its LaSalle, IL and Limerick, PA atomic power plants.

The American Wind Energy Association kicked Exelon out of AWEA for its scapegoating of wind power for its own financial woes, as well as its opposition to an extension of the Production Tax Credit for wind.

"Court ruling called a game changer for renewable power"

As reported by Hannah Northey at E&E, a federal appeals court ruling could lead to the transmission of "millions of megawatts of wind power from remote areas to population hubs around the Great Lakes." Millions of megawatts represents the electricity equivalent of thousands of atomic reactors.

The court ruled "Michigan cannot, without violating the commerce clause of Article I of the Constitution, discriminate against out-of-state renewable energy."

The court ruling supports Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) policy named Order 1000. 

On March 19, 2009, President Barack Obama named Jon Wellinghoff as FERC Chairman. Wellinghoff quickly established the integration of renewable energy sources, including wind, into the electric grid. He famously said early on in his tenure that “We may not need any [new nuclear or coal plants], ever.”

Wellinghoff submitted his resignation to President Obama on May 5, 2013. He is to remain in the post until a new chairman is appointed.

MidAmerican Energy's $1.9 billion investment in Iowa for wind energy the biggest single economic investment ever in the state

As reported by the Des Moines Register, MidAmerican Energy's May 8th announcement that it will build 656 new wind turbines, amounting to 1,050 Megawatt-electric (MW-e), represents the biggest ever single economic development investment in Iowa's history.

Since 2004, MidAmerican has already installed 1,267 wind turbines in Iowa, or 2,285 MW-e worth.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, referred to the good news as "Iowa's renaissance in wind."

The good news comes on the heels of some more very good news: MidAmerican's decision to cancel its proposed "SMR" (small modular reactor), as also reported by the Des Moines Register.

Swan SONGS as Edison opts to permanently close San Onofre

Southern California Edison has decided to permanently shutter its Units 2 and 3 San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations (SONGS) reactors in Southern Cal! Congratulations to all who fought so hard for this great victory! Read the Edison press release.

"This is very good news for the people of Southern California," said [a] statement from Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica. "We have long said that these reactors are too dangerous to operate and now Edison has agreed. The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with the safe and clean energy provided by the sun and wind." 

And, as S. David Freeman, FOE senior advisor, pointed out on a telephone press conference, San Onofre's closure paves the way for CA Governor Jerry Brown's call for not only 33% of the state's electricity to come from renewables, but even a whopping 40%. Freeman added that electricity load management, efficiency upgrades, energy storage (as from lithium batteries, compressed air energy storage, etc.) will be critical to CA's nuclear-free, carbon-free energy future.

FOE's Damon Moglen pointed out that CA is becoming one of the single largest economies in the entire world leading the way toward a nuclear-free energy future.

Beyond Nuclear has compiled comprehensive media coverage on, and other reactions to, the San Onofre 2 & 3 closures at its Nuclear Retreat page.