Holtec gets $1.52 bln loan from US to restart nuclear power plant

[dalton99a]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/holtec-gets-152-bln-loan-us-restart-nuclear-power-plant-2024-03-27/

Holtec gets $1.52 bln loan from US to restart nuclear power plant
By Reuters
March 27, 2024 10:34 AM CDT

March 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said on Wednesday it would loan Holtec International $1.52 billion to help restart its Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan.

The Biden administration believes nuclear power is essential in the fight against climate change and for its goals to decarbonize the country's power grid by 2035 and the economy by 2050. Nuclear plants also offer some of the highest-paying union jobs in the energy industry.

Earlier this year, the administration also agreed to provide $1.1 billion in credit to keep PG&E Corp's Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in operation in California.

Florida-based Holtec says it aims to bring online its 800 megawatts (MW) Palisades nuclear plant, which it has said would employ more than 600 workers, along with its two small modular reactor units (SMRs).

...

[hunter]

1. Nuclear power is the only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely.

Quitting fossil fuels is something we must do.

Many people think we should build new natural gas power plants to support their solar and wind power schemes. Unfortunately that will only prolong our use of natural gas and do nothing in the long run to reduce the total amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses humans dump into earths atmosphere.

There's enough natural gas in the ground to destroy whatever is left of earth's natural environment as we know it. It's best we leave that gas in the ground.

Wind and solar power are not an existential threat to the natural gas and petroleum industries and those industries know it.

Nuclear power is an existential threat to the coal industry, which was demonstrated in France more than twenty years ago when they closed their last coal mines. The German and U.S.A. coal industry know this too.

Aggressive "renewable energy" programs and anti-nuclear activism in Germany served only to protect its domestic coal industry and increase German dependence on Russian natural gas.

When Germany's access to Russian natural gas was restricted they abandoned plans to shut down their older, dirtiest coal plants and spent billions of dollars increasing their capacity to import liquefied natural gas from the U.S.A. and other friendly nations.

Germany's aggressive renewable energy schemes are a failure that served mostly to increase the price of electricity to residential and small business customers. German heavy industry was shielded from the greater portion of these increased electric prices by accounting tricks that allowed them to continue burning coal.

[dalton99a]

2. +1. About 70% of France's electricity comes from nuclear reactors

[hunter]

3. You can compare Germany to France here:

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

Germany's Carbon Intensity this last year has been 399 gCO₂eq/kWh

France's Carbon intensity was 53 Carbon gCO₂eq/kWh

In other words, Germany is dumping 7.5 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per kilowatt hour than France.

Only 5.58% of France's electricity came from gas, and a negligible amount from coal

A little over 40% of Germany's electric power is produced by burning stuff.