The Department of Energy has until March or so to hammer out the details of a tax credits program for financially-troubled nuclear power plants after President Joe Biden signed a long-awaited infrastructure package into law this week.
The bipartisan bill, which opens up around $6 billion in federal funding over a five-year period to provide tax credits to nuclear plant operators, also instructs DOE to establish a bidding process for allocating that cash. During a virtual press conference Nov. 10, the agency said it would have around 120 days — or four months — to put those credit auctions together.
More information on the bidding process could come out “in the coming weeks and months,” a DOE official said at the time.
A spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee told RadWaste Monitor last week that the committee doesn’t have to take further action to make the $6 billion allocated in the infrastructure package available.
Since the infrastructure bill passed Congress Nov. 5, industry leaders have spoken out in support of the law’s nuclear bailouts.
In a statement Monday industry group the American Nuclear Society (ANS) applauded the bill’s signing. “With this support, the U.S. nuclear community – of utilities, suppliers, scientists, and engineers — stands ready to usher in a new generation of technology to decarbonize and keep resilient our electric grid,” ANS president Steven Nesbit and CEO Craig Piercy said.
In a Nov. 9 statement, the trade group Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) said that the infrastructure package was a “hallmark piece of legislation” that is an example of “the momentum that continues to build around nuclear energy.”
“We thank the House and Senate for their bipartisan leadership on the bill and look forward to carrying this momentum forward to ensure nuclear energy plays a pivotal role in our energy future,” NEI president Maria Korsnick said in the statement.
A potential federal bailout for nuclear power comes at a good time for the industry as power plants are closing down at a rapid pace. The Palisades plant in Michigan is the next reactor on the chopping block in early 2022, and New York’s Indian Point Energy Center shut down for good at the end of April. Exelon’s Byron and Dresden plants in Illinois were also supposed to go dark this fall, but were saved in September by a state-level stimulus package to the tune of around $700 million.
