Stimulus Update: Adios to Big Nuke, Coal Assistance
By Bill Lambrecht
www.Stltoday.com
WASHINGTON - Nuclear operators and clean-coal dreamers had better start looking elsewhere to finance their plants.A $50 billion Senate provision boosting government loan guarantees for energy projects was sliced away when House and Senate conferees pared down the economic recovery package to $789 billion.
A conference report isn't out yet but several sources tell us that the the $50 billion proved to be a target too fat to ignore.
The cut is a blow to companies in the St. Louis region looking to build so-called clean coal plants, like the $1 billion FutureGen project proposed for southern Illinois seeking a Holy Grail of energy production: burning coal with zero emissions.
It's also a bitter pill for companies like Illinois-based Exelon, the nation's biggest nuclear operator, and AmerenUE who eyed loan guarantees to put some cash behind the frenzied planning in this era of worry about global warming. AmerenUE is looking to add another reactor at its Callaway plant in Missouri.
Financing an $8-10 billion nuclear plant is all but impossible in the best of times considering all the risks. That's one reason we haven't seen an order for a new nuke plant in the U.S. for three decades.
Budget hawks like Taxpayers for Common Sense are pleased at the reduction, noting that the loan guarantees are a chancy propsition for taxpayers, to say the least. The Government Accountability Office places the risk of default of a new nuclear plant at 50 percent and worried in a report about DOE's ability to oversee all that loan money.
www.Stltoday.com
WASHINGTON - Nuclear operators and clean-coal dreamers had better start looking elsewhere to finance their plants.A $50 billion Senate provision boosting government loan guarantees for energy projects was sliced away when House and Senate conferees pared down the economic recovery package to $789 billion.
A conference report isn't out yet but several sources tell us that the the $50 billion proved to be a target too fat to ignore.
The cut is a blow to companies in the St. Louis region looking to build so-called clean coal plants, like the $1 billion FutureGen project proposed for southern Illinois seeking a Holy Grail of energy production: burning coal with zero emissions.
It's also a bitter pill for companies like Illinois-based Exelon, the nation's biggest nuclear operator, and AmerenUE who eyed loan guarantees to put some cash behind the frenzied planning in this era of worry about global warming. AmerenUE is looking to add another reactor at its Callaway plant in Missouri.
Financing an $8-10 billion nuclear plant is all but impossible in the best of times considering all the risks. That's one reason we haven't seen an order for a new nuke plant in the U.S. for three decades.
Budget hawks like Taxpayers for Common Sense are pleased at the reduction, noting that the loan guarantees are a chancy propsition for taxpayers, to say the least. The Government Accountability Office places the risk of default of a new nuclear plant at 50 percent and worried in a report about DOE's ability to oversee all that loan money.