The interested public has until mid-March to submit comments to the Department of Energy on its multi-billion dollar bailout program for struggling nuclear power plants, the agency said in a notice Tuesday.
March 17 is the latest date that stakeholders can register their input on DOE’s civil nuclear credit program — a date made final in a Tuesday Federal Register notice that officially announced the agency’s request for information (RFI) about a credit-auction Congress created as part of the bipartisan infrastructure act President Joe Biden signed into law in November.
The RFI is aimed at helping DOE develop a process by which it will auction off roughly $6 billion in federal assistance for nuclear plant operators. The law provided the funding for the bailouts but left the mechanics of distributing the money to DOE, which under the law has until March to establish its auction scheme.
DOE is also working on “initial draft guidance” for certifying credit applications, Tuesday’s notice said. Comments on that part of the RFI should ideally be submitted by March 8, the agency said.
In its info request, the agency proposed establishing a review panel “comprised of DOE personnel,” for assessing credit applications.
Among the proposed criteria to qualify for an award, plant operators would need to demonstrate that their reactors operate in a competitive market, that the plant would otherwise shut down for economic reasons and that closure would result in an increase in carbon emissions, the notice said. Priority would be given to applicants that use uranium fuel sources originating from the U.S., DOE said.
The tax credits would be allocated in increments of around $1.2 billion annually over the course of a four-year period, the agency said. Plant operators would be allowed to reapply for additional federal cash to be allocated through September 2031, “subject to the availability of funds,” DOE said.
While the feds work on their bailout for nuclear power, plants are still closing down.
The Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan is next on the chopping block, slated for closure sometime in the spring. In 2021, three plants were scheduled to go offline — New York’s Indian Point plant and the Byron and Dresden plants in Illinois. Indian Point went dark last April, but the Illinois sites were saved by a last-minute bailout from Springfield.
