The Department of Energy is planning to soon take some initial steps to nail down a process for allocating several billion dollars in federal funds to economically-troubled nuclear power plants, an agency spokesperson said this week.
A Request for Information (RFI) and notice of intent from DOE related to the civil nuclear credits program greenlit by the Joe Biden administration’s recently-enacted infrastructure package should be released “in the coming weeks,” an agency spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor via email Friday.
“The Department is working full tilt on delivering the benefits of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to the American people,” the spokesperson said.
The trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, signed by President Biden in November, includes around $6 billion in tax credits for nuclear power operators that post a net operating loss. Those credits would be doled out by DOE over a five year period, from fiscal 2022 to 2026, at an average of around $1.2 billion a year. Per the legislation, DOE has until March to establish a process for auctioning off the credits.
That’s “a very fast timeline,” agency deputy chief of staff Jeremiah Baumann told RadWaste Monitor during a November press call, but DOE is prepared to meet it. While more details about the auction process were still weeks or months away, Baumann said at the time, he said that plant operators would have to “show their need and [DOE would] make sure that taxpayers’ money is well spent.”
Tax credits for nuclear plants would certainly be good news for an industry in which reactors are shutting down much faster than they’re being built.
One plant is slated for shutdown so far in 2022: Michigan’s Palisades plant, which should go dark some time in the spring. Indian Point Energy Center in New York went offline in April 2021. Exelon’s Byron and Dresden plants in Illinois were also on the chopping block last year, but were saved by a hail-mary bailout from state lawmakers.
