Nuclear

FERC Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur said this week she hopes the Commission receives many public comments over a Department of Energy (DOE) proposal to provide reliability and resiliency compensation to coal and nuclear baseload generators, on the grounds that “a lot of people will be affected by this.”

The notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) that the Department of Energy (DOE) submitted to FERC on Friday — a first of its kind proposal to implement reforms on the reliability and resiliency of the electricity grid — may not be completed in the timeline requested, nor exactly as DOE prescribed, analysts said Monday.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Friday submitted to FERC a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to implement reforms on the reliability and resiliency of the electricity grid — changes that, according to some industry groups, would benefit nuclear and coal at the expense of natural gas.

In a state already wielding some of the most aggressive climate change measures anywhere, California lawmakers are considering a measure (SB 100) that would phase out the use of natural gas for electric generation by 2045.

Cheap and abundant natural gas is the primary driver of coal and nuclear power plant retirements in the United States, but other factors, including stagnant growth in electricity demand, have contributed to the trend, according to a report by the Department of Energy (DOE).

Exelon Corp. warned that it would permanently shutter the single operating unit at its troubled Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania in 2019, unless the state agrees to subsidize the plant, which hasn’t been profitable in five years.

A fight that’s been unfolding for years over how to value electricity and fairly compensate those that generate it has drawn in Appalachian natural gas producers, which stand to lose if the competitive power markets are diminished with subsidies that favor some fuel sources over others.

Consumers Energy issued a request for proposals to acquire an existing natural gas-fired plant with up to 800 MW of generating capacity in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, part of its plan to continue shift away from coal and nuclear power.

U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2016 fell more than anywhere else in the world, down 3% year/year, driven by a flood of shale natural gas supply and renewable power increasingly displacing coal, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.