MEMORENDUM
Policy Options to Address the Economic Unsustainability of Nuclear Power Plants in Illinois
To: Senator Mattie Hunter, Illinois Senate Environment and Energy Committee Chair
From: Jon McDonnell, Policy Analysis and Energy Impact Center
Date: April 30, 2015
Subject: Nuclear Power Plant Closure Resolution Act of 2014 and Policy Alternatives
Executive Summery
In Illinois, three large nuclear power facilities, belonging to the energy giant Exelon, are under threat of premature closure. They have lost the ability to be economically competitive in Illinois’ energy market. Illinois’ nuclear energy sector and Exelon have set extremely high standards for efficiency, safety, and reliability and the closure of these plants will result in the loss of thousands of jobs, a weaker state economy, the opening of the gates for more environmentally harmful sources of power, and would make it harder for Illinois to comply with new federal standards. The Illinois House of Representatives devised a bill called The Nuclear Power Plant Closure Resolution Act, which sought out to establish committees to study the effects of the closure of these facilities and to provide possible market-based solutions. As you have requested, I have analyzed policy alternatives for Nuclear Power Plant Closure Resolution based on robustness, feasibility, effectiveness, and equity. I have concluded that a state-wide production tax credit would be a fair, robust, and effective policy to keep Illinois’
Smithsonian, 2010. Cracking the Code of the Human Genome: Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal Cells’. (Extracts from ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ (Rebecca Skloot, 2010)) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/henrietta-lacks-immortal-cells-6421299/ [Accessed 26th June 2017].
Practice Problem 1: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed a rule that allows nuclear power plants leeway in the disposal of nuclear waste, and thus lawmakers and citizens alike are oppose to this rule. Nevertheless, congress can consider public commentary; however, it is not mandated by law to withdraw an unfavorable rule even if the majority of the public opposes its guiding provisions.
The new nuclear power plants will all be federally run by the Department of Energy. The price of the energy will be exactly the breakeven point because there is no incentive for the government to make a profit because they are funded through taxes. This will keep the prices of electricity low to satisfy the customers. Regulations will be extremely high to prevent against disasters and to calm citizens about the dangers of nuclear energy. Based on 2016 estimates from the EIA, to completely replace coal energy with nuclear alone, 1.24 trillion killowatthours of nuclear energy will have to be generated. This would equate to roughly 13 new nuclear reactors the size of the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona. In reality, more than 13 plants will be needed to save on
Firstly, the atomic incidents of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Russia are often mentioned as examples for nuclear plants being unsafe. In both cases failures of workers led to a meltdown in the reactors and increased radiation in the surrounding area (Henderson 12-17). And as the recent disaster in Japan shows, a nuclear crisis cannot only be caused by human mishaps, but also by unpredictable and untamable natural hazards. Consequently, nuclear crises cannot be predicted or prevented completely. Nuclear plants are, furthermore, considered uneconomical because in the eighties the construction costs of nuclear plants were underestimated and exceeded the estimation by $100 billion (Henderson 103). Therefore, the nuclear power opponents are arguing that nuclear power is burdening the American economy unnecessarily. According to the nuclear physicist Jeff Eerkens, antinuclear groups are also claiming that nuclear power is not necessary for the future since renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power will be providing sufficient energy for the United States, and are at the same time much cheaper than the costly nuclear power plants (Eerkens 20). Over all, opponents consider nuclear power to risky and inefficient to “deserve further support from U.S. taxpayers” (Henderson 104).
Although nuclear power cost the least for the amount of power it makes, it is still very expensive. To make nuclear power you have to build a nuclear power plant. To build a nuclear power you need millions of dollars. Not only that, you have to also run the nuclear power plant. To run a nuclear power plant you need to either mine the uranium and then refine yourself, or buy the uranium from another company. Once you have done this you need to run everything in the power plant, which cost money, and then pay your workers. Also when creating nuclear energy you create radioactive waste which need to be stored far away somewhere, under surveillance, to make sure that it does not ruin the environment. The owner of exelon, the one who owns Three Mile Island, said that they have lost around 800 million dollars in recent years. If exelon decided to change their mind they would end up losing even more money and eventually have to shut down.
The article is directly related to the debate is showing the pros about when the nuclear power plant shuts down due to winter storms it's still stable, safe, and there was no danger to the public. Then it tells us that the facility has fuel that can run emergency generators for ten days. How it connects to the project is by explaining what happens when a nuclear power plant shuts down. The nuclear power plant is stable and the systems worked like they were designed. Usually, when nuclear plants shut down or have a meltdown it's very dangerous and unstable.
Early in the morning of April 27, 1986, the world experienced its largest nuclear disaster ever (Gould 40). While violating safety protocol during a test, Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl power plant was placed in a severely unstable state, and in a matter of seconds the reactor output shot up to 120 times the rated output (Flavin 8). The resulting steam explosion tossed aside the reactor’s 1,000 ton concrete covering and released radioactive particles up to one and a half miles into the sky (Gould 38). The explosion and resulting fires caused 31 immediate deaths and over a thousand injuries, including radiation poisoning (Flavin 5). After the
To many times people talk about the negative side of nuclear energy, and how it can impact the environment around them, but too few talk about how nuclear energy had improved their lives. In truth nuclear energy is responsible for creating a fair amount of revenue in the local economy, state revenue, and federal revenue. For every dollar a nuclear power plant spends it generates an estimated 1.04 in the community, 1.18 in the state, and a 1.87 for the nation (Nuclear Energy Institute). With such a great revenue it would be detrimental to the nation if nuclear energy was disbanded, and deemed a great threat to national security. Nuclear energy generates roughly $16 million dollars annually for the state it resides in, and about $67 million dollars annually for the nation (Nuclear Energy Institute). That revenue generated for the state is used for the construction of new schools, improved state wide emergency response training and response times, and a whole multitude of things that just can’t compare. To add to this nuclear
The beginnings of the nuclear power market were largely government-controlled but today the marketplace is driven by private industry. However, because of the nature of the energy source, there is a limit to the extent to which the nuclear power industry can be highly competitive. High barriers to entry exist due to the fact that the power plants require "complex plant and equipment, and 地 high level of specialised expertise" (Taylor 2008: 16). Another limit is the fact that competition on price is relatively limited. For obvious reasons, "in nuclear energy markets, quality and reliability are often at least as important to customers as price" (Taylor 2008: 16). Finally, 'customers' are inevitably governments, given that it is government regulation which determines whether nuclear power plants are constructed. The citizens (other than electing representatives) are at the mercy of what the nation decides is safe and feasible as a source of energy even though they may fear the consequences (Moens 1986). The 'consumers' in the industry affecting the demand side of the equation are thus
The State of Illinois electrical grid consists of a variety of power generating sources that provide electricity to transportation, industrial, residential, and commercial customers within the state. Illinois leads the nation in electricity generation from nuclear power. Typically about one-eighth of the nation 's nuclear power generation, and about half of all net generation in Illinois, is produced by the state 's 6 nuclear power plants with their eleven reactors. Most of the rest of the electricity generated in Illinois is generated by coal-fired power plants. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in Illinois, wind and natural gas provide almost all of the remaining electricity supply, about 8% of all
educational preparation, underutilization, and title ambiguity. “ At the time when mothers had preemies there was not much they could do because they did not have the technology that we
Writing is a task that involves many cognitive processes. Because of this, it can hold some challenges and teachers can struggle with finding the right methods to teach the skill effectively. Fisher and Frey (2013) explain that “Writing needs to be taught” (p.96). A teacher cannot only give a prompt and tell their students to write about it without giving some instruction before it (Fisher & Frey, 2013). Also, writing cannot be limited to just English. Language Arts (ELA). It comes down to writing in every subject every day. Another point is that we cannot tell a student to write if we as teachers are not willing to write themselves. To teach students to be passionate about writing then teachers need to have that passion too. Young children
This paper will address how the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant violated the following NSPE Canons of Engineering Ethics: holding the paramount of safety, health, and welfare of the public, and avoiding deceptive acts. The misjudgment and underperformance by the engineers during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake caused a large uproar of rejection towards nuclear power in Japan, which could have been prevented if the engineers had not misconducted before the events.
This has deeply important implications across the state and national economy, for both individuals and businesses, as energy expenditures currently make up approximately 8% of the national gross domestic product , and Ohio as a national would nominally be the world’s 23rd ranked economy . This would be a causal study, in that the research design is fundamentally about cause and effect. In this case, the cause is the policy intervention of establishing a RPS, and the effect is the change the RPS brings to renewable energy generation and the state’s economy. This unfortunately could never be set up as a true experiment with control groups and set policy interventions, as no one governing body carries enough political clout to pull that off. However, by looking at the results of what is basically a natural experiment across the 36 other states with a RPS, it is possible to make real policy recommendations. The outcome of interest from this case study would be a method of establishing mandates that has been successful in states demographically and economically similar to Ohio. In particular, similar states to look at would be those with a heavy industrial and agricultural heritage, strong current focus on technological development, and a budding environmental based economy. Other states’ cause-effect relationships would most definitely still apply, but demographically similar states would have the most validity for comparison. The unit of analysis in this case
Debates about the use of nuclear power plants in New York City have received much attention in the last few years. Many scientists believe that the use of Nuclear Power would be beneficial for New York City, since an abundant amount of electricity is necessary to fuel the Big Apple; however, one primary argument espoused by opponents is that the use of nuclear power will bring about negative effects like radiation exposure, debt and may allow the power plant to become a potential target for terrorist attacks. This paper describes selected constitutional issues related to the use of nuclear power plants with a focus on the risks it poses and concludes with implications for alternative sources of energy.