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Byron, UNITED STATES: The Exelon Byron Nuclear Generating Stations running at full capacity 14 May, 2007 in Byron, Illinois, is one of 17 nuclear reactors at 10 sites in three US states, is the nation’s largest operator of commercial nuclear power plants and third largest in the world. In the US, nuclear operators have focused on improving safety and efficiency at existing plants. There have been no notable US accidents since 1979 at Three Mile Island and the US reactor fleet has produced at about 90 percent of licensed capacity since 2001, up from efficiency figures of the early 1980s. Nuclear plants today produce about 20 percent of the electricity used in the US. Dozens of electrical company?s are seeking licenses for as many as 31 new nuclear power reactors in the US. AFP PHOTO/JEFF HAYNES (Photo credit should read JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images)
JEFF HAYNES | AFP | Getty Images

In September, Illinois lawmakers agreed to spend up to $694 million of taxpayer money over the next five years to keep several money-losing nuclear power plants open.

Nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gas emissions, meaning it can contribute to lowering carbon emissions. But today’s nuclear plants often can’t compete on price against cheaper existing sources of energy, particularly natural gas and government-subsidized renewables.

The negotiations in Illinois are a microcosm of a larger debate taking place across the country about the role existing nuclear power plants should play in the clean energy future.

For two of the nuclear plants at stake, the operator, Exelon, had already filed paperwork with federal regulators to shut them down for financial reasons. Lawmakers agreed to pay to keep the nuclear plants open so that Illinois could meet its clean energy goals, and Exelon agreed to keep two other marginal nuclear plants in the state open as well.

The deal is a culmination of a lot of painstaking negotiations and “midwestern practicality,” according to Illinois Deputy Governor Christian Mitchell.

But not everybody agrees. Illinois gets a much larger percentage of power from nuclear than other states, and it would’ve taken a massive new investment in renewables to meet the state’s clean energy goals. In a sense, Exelon had the state over a barrel.

“This is now the second round of such subsidies that Illinois is paying out,” explained Steve Cicala, a non-resident scholar at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, referring to a previous round included in an energy jobs bill in 2016.

“When this runs out, they’ll be doing the same ‘pay us or the plant gets it’ dance.”

The need for nuclear today

The latest battle started in Aug. 2020 when Exelon Generation announced that it would to retire two of its Illinois nuclear power plants in fall 2021. Byron was scheduled to close in September 2021 and Dresden would close in November 2021. Exelon said the plants were losing hundreds of millions of dollars, although it declined to disclose exact figures to CNBC.

“Submitting decommissioning paperwork is like a parent dangling their keys and saying ‘I’m really leaving…’ when their kid doesn’t want to put down the video game controller and get in the car,” Cicala said.

It can be hard to justify offering government subsidies to a profitable company with a market capitalization of $52 billion. Exelon in total earned $1.2 billion in GAAP profits in the third quarter of 2021 and its Exelon Generation subsidiary, which operates the plants, earned $607 million. However, as is often the case with utilities, its results can vary widely — for the first nine months of the year total, Exelon earned $1.32 billion and Exelon Generation showed a loss of $247 million, both worse than the equivalent period last year.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 25: Chris Crane (C) and the Exelon Corp. team attend as Exelon Corp. Rings Nasdaq Opening Bell at NASDAQ MarketSite on September 25, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Jared Siskin | Patrick McMullan | Getty Images

Exelon says it is unfair to ask it to compete in an open competitive energy market where carbon-emitting energy sources are able to emit their waste into the air for free while nuclear power plants have very strict and expensive waste management regulations to comply with.

Meanwhile, legislators were anxious to pass a comprehensive energy bill that moves the state toward 100% clean energy by 2050. The two nuclear plants at issue provided nearly 4,200 megawatts of power, while two others on the edge of viability, Braidwood and LeSalle, provided another 4,700. For reference, 1,000 megawatts of energy will power a mid-size city, according to Bill Gates’ book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”

To replace that much power with renewables would have required a tremendous amount of new wind and solar construction in the state.

The current capacity-weighted average size of a solar farm is 105 megawatts, and for wind it is 188 megawatts, Jason Ryan, spokesperson for American Clean Power, a membership organization representing the renewable industry, told CNBC.

That means the state would’ve had to construct about 85 solar farms, or more than 47 wind farms.

If the nuclear power plants were retired now, “renewables wouldn’t be ready in time to take their place,” Jack Darin, the director of the Sierra Club’s Illinois chapter, told CNBC. The environmental lobbying group does not support nuclear power as a long-term clean energy solution because of the nuclear waste that is generated, among other reasons. But Darin also suggested that building new natural gas plants would be worse in the long run.

“Once a gas plant is built, and pipelines are brought in, those are very likely to run for decades and decades and pump out carbon pollution,” he said.

Why are nuclear plants losing money?

According to nuclear advocates, plants constructed decades ago simply cannot compete on an economic basis with other forms of energy in today’s U.S. market. Ultra-cheap natural gas drove energy prices down across the board, and nuclear power plants have not been able to cut costs enough to be competitive.

“The trend that you’ve been seeing across the country of premature nuclear retirements are all entirely about economics,” according to Exelon’s Kathleen Barron, who oversees government and regulatory affairs for the company.

Exelon owns electricity generation facilities throughout the Midwest, mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Texas and California. Of those facilities, more than 85% of its output was nuclear in 2020, with natural gas making up most of the rest.

All of Exelon’s nuclear power plants in Illinois (except the Clinton nuclear plant) hook into PJM, which runs the largest electrical grid in the U.S. and operates one of the largest wholesale electricity markets in the world. Power generators bid into the wholesale marketplace and PJM accepts the mix of sources that keeps rates lowest.

“Everyone bids in, and then we accept the offers from lowest to highest until we reach the target capacity number we need to reach,” explained PJM spokesperson Jeff Shields.

PJM’s mix of energy sources has changed over the last 15 years or so, with natural gas increasing to about 40% of the total electricity and renewables increasing slightly to sit at 6%. Over the same time, coal has consistently decreased over time and now stands at 19%.

Along the way, nuclear has remained relatively constant at about 35%.

While the composite mix has changed, the wholesale electricity price has largely remained flat over the last 15 years when adjusted for inflation, PJM said.

Cicala argues the real problem isn’t the total supply of energy, but the ability to move power from the rural areas where it’s generated to high-demand areas like the city of Chicago. Today, there’s a surplus of inexpensive wind power in those rural areas — where Exelon’s nuclear plants are located — driving prices down.

“The plants would be in a much better financial situation if they could get the prices that power goes for downtown rather than downstate. Investments in high-voltage transmission could solve that problem and be done with it, rather than re-creating a crisis every few years and throwing money at it,” Cicala said.

“Ultimately this is a problem of too much supply depressing prices. The nuclear subsidies attempt to fix this problem by encouraging even more supply. It’s like thinking that one more flush is going to fix an overflowing toilet.”

UNITED STATES – DECEMBER 12: A sign marks the entrance to the Exelon Corp. Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station in Braidwood, Illinois, Tuesday, December 12, 2006. Exelon Corp., the largest U.S. owner of nuclear-fueled power plants, raised its dividend for the first time since 2004 and forecast an increase in 2007 profit as its generation unit sells power at higher prices. (Photo by Joe Tabacca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Exelon’s Barron disagreed.

“While transmission improvements in certain areas would aid the expansion of renewable energy and improve grid reliability, they would have no meaningful impact on the underlying market and policy failures that have put nuclear operators at a competitive disadvantage,” said Barron in a statement.

“What we need are state and federal policies that recognize the carbon-free benefits of nuclear energy, much as existing policies value the environmental benefits of wind and solar.”

The arbitrator comes in

To enable a fair discussion, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency hired Synapse Energy Economics in January to complete an independent audit of Exelon’s financials.

“Everyone had a baseline of agreement — from the governor, to the legislature, to the environmental groups to our union allies — everyone agreed that we needed to keep the nuclear fleet online. The only question was, ‘What is going to be a sufficient level of support to allow them to continue to operate?'” Deputy Governor Mitchell told CNBC. “That was really where the push was.”

A redacted version of the audit is publicly available, and CNBC has reviewed a version with fewer redactions, but none of the reports contained a precise breakdown of what each plant was losing, citing proprietary business information. That’s because energy trades on a competitive marketplace, and competitors could use that information to just barely undercut Exelon.

“We see this with other utilities and merchant generators, so Exelon is not unique,” said Max Chang, a principal associate at the auditing firm. “It would be really nice to improve transparency.”

The independent audit did confirm that Exelon was losing money on the plants and recommended a $350 million state subsidy.

Exelon disagreed with the number, saying the auditor left out some of Exelon’s costs and that the report was overly optimistic about where energy prices would trend.

Synapse later admitted its projections of energy prices were off. “As it turns out, our estimates of capacity prices are too high for 2022 and 2023 and our estimates of energy prices are too low for 2021 and possibly for 2022,” Chang told CNBC.

“The $694 million was within the bounds of our analysis. The report focused on the 95th percentiles, not the maximum values.”

Consumer protection advocates agreed the final deal was necessary. “The most cost-effective way to deal with climate change is just to build on what we’ve got,” said David Kolata, the executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to protect the interests of consumers.

“It became apparent to folks that you can’t, at the end of the day, cost-effectively reach 100% clean energy if existing nuclear plants close prematurely,” Kolata told CNBC. “None of this is an argument for a blank check for Exelon or for nuclear,” he added.

Another part of the deal says that if federal money becomes available to subsidize existing nuclear fleet, then Exelon must apply for those funds and return any money due back to the Illinois taxpayers.

“That made it much easier for us to pass a bill that had this $700 million nuclear support element to it, because if the feds do act, then there’s a strong likelihood that that money will be rebated to or maybe never collected at all from the ratepayers,” said Bill Cunningham, the assistant majority leader in the Illinois Senate, who was the Democratic point person on the negotiations.

That could come into play now that the Democratic-controlled Congress has passed President Biden’s infrastructure spending plan and could be on track to pass the larger Build Back Better plan.

In the end, Exelon won by keeping the plants open, Cicala said.

While a nuclear plant may lose money at times, it’s hard to turn on and off — think of it a like a 24-hour convenience store that makes more money at 8 a.m. than it does at 4 a.m.

“Of course, given the opportunity to get subsidized by the government, the 24/7 store is going to complain about how much money they’re losing at 4 a.m.,” Cicala told CNBC. “But there’s option value to holding onto the plant if the economics aren’t working for them right now — look how quickly gas prices can change!”

Exelon CEO Chris Crane celebrated the deal in the quarterly financial report, too, calling the legislation a critical milestone.

As far as costs to consumers, the total subsidy comes down to about 80 cents a month for the average customer, according to Exelon’s Barron.

Exelon Corp.’s Dresden Generating Station nuclear power plant stands in Morris, Illinois, U.S., on Saturday, March 19, 2011.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Unlikely bedfellows in an imperfect compromise

Although contentious, the final agreement involved some unlikely political alliances, which offers hope for similar compromises in the long-term transition to carbon-free energy.

Some environmental groups do not consider nuclear power to be clean energy because of the carbon emissions necessary to construct a plant and the toxic waste which needs to be stored long-term. But they were willing to join arms with nuclear power generators in order to meet short-term carbon-emission goals for Illinois.

Labor unions also wanted to keep the nuclear power plants open because they provide high-paying, community-sustaining jobs, pitting them against environmental advocates, who normally come from the same side of the political spectrum.

Pat Devaney, the Secretary Treasurer of the Illinois American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), told CNBC organized labor supported the bill and glad to see the nuclear power plants kept online.

“The economies of those whole regions, in regards to property tax funding for school and public safety, I mean, it would have just been decimated entire regions of our state” if the plants were to have shut down, Devaney told CNBC.

Environmentalists who wanted the plants shut down think the jobs argument is overblown.

“We dubbed that the nuclear hostage crisis,” said David A. Kraft, director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service, an anti-nuclear non-profit. “What we mean by that is you know they would cry economic hardship, we’re losing money, we’re gonna close the plants. And wouldn’t that be awful — you’re going to lose all those jobs.”

Kraft does not believe the financial woes of the plants are a reason to give operators subsidies.

“Competent adults plan for their retirement. We think utilities should do the same thing,” Kraft told CNBC.

Ultimately, Illinois ended up with an imperfect compromise. But the fact that it was possible to reach a compromise in the name of reducing carbon emissions was an accomplishment.

“Even if the bill isn’t what we would write if we were kings and queens, we’ve got to move forward,” J.C. Kibby, the clean energy advocate for the National Resources Defense Council for Illinois, told CNBC.

“It was on the back of years and years of organizing and education. And that filtered up to putting elected officials in place who understood that how important that existential threat of climate change was,” said Kibby. “So as a friend of mine says, ‘You’ve just got to do the work.'”

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Solar and wind industry faces up to $7 billion tax hike under Trump’s big bill, trade group says

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Solar and wind industry faces up to  billion tax hike under Trump's big bill, trade group says

Witthaya Prasongsin | Moment | Getty Images

Senate Republicans are threatening to hike taxes on clean energy projects and abruptly phase out credits that have supported the industry’s expansion in the latest version of President Donald Trump‘s big spending bill.

The measures, if enacted, would jeopardize hundreds of thousands of construction jobs, hurt the electric grid, and potentially raise electricity prices for consumers, trade groups warn.

The Senate GOP released a draft of the massive domestic spending bill over the weekend that imposes a new tax on renewable energy projects if they source components from foreign entities of concern, which basically means China. The bill also phases out the two most important tax credits for wind and solar power projects that enter service after 2027.

Republicans are racing to pass Trump’s domestic spending legislation by a self-imposed Friday deadline. The Senate is voting Monday on amendments to the latest version of the bill.

The tax on wind and solar projects surprised the renewable energy industry and feels punitive, said John Hensley, senior vice president for market analysis at the American Clean Power Association. It would increase the industry’s burden by an estimated $4 billion to $7 billion, he said.

“At the end of the day, it’s a new tax in a package that is designed to reduce the tax burden of companies across the American economy,” Hensley said. The tax hits any wind and solar project that enters service after 2027 and exceeds certain thresholds for how many components are sourced from China.

This combined with the abrupt elimination of the investment tax credit and electricity production tax credit after 2027 threatens to eliminate 300 gigawatts of wind and solar projects over the next 10 years, which is equivalent to about $450 billion worth of infrastructure investment, Hensley said.

“It is going to take a huge chunk of the development pipeline and either eliminate it completely or certainly push it down the road,” Hensley said. This will increase electricity prices for consumers and potentially strain the electric grid, he said.

The construction industry has warned that nearly 2 million jobs in the building trades are at risk if the energy tax credits are terminated and other measures in budget bill are implemented. Those credits have supported a boom in clean power installations and clean technology manufacturing.

“If enacted, this stands to be the biggest job-killing bill in the history of this country,” said Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, in a statement. “Simply put, it is the equivalent of terminating more than 1,000 Keystone XL pipeline projects.”

The Senate legislation is moving toward a “worst case outcome for solar and wind,” Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco told clients in a Sunday note.

Shares of NextEra Energy, the largest renewable developer in the U.S., fell 2%. Solar stocks Array Technologies fell 8%, Enphase lost nearly 2% and Nextracker tumbled 5%.

Trump’s former advisor Elon Musk slammed the Senate legislation over the weekend.

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country,” The Tesla CEO posted on X. “Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”

Catch up on the latest energy news from CNBC Pro:

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Nissan is in crisis mode as job cuts begin and suppliers are caught in the crosshairs

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Nissan is in crisis mode as job cuts begin and suppliers are caught in the crosshairs

Is Nissan raising the red flag? Nissan is cutting about 15% of its workforce and is now asking suppliers for more time to make payments.

Nissan starts job cuts, asks supplier to delay payments

As part of its recovery plan, Nissan announced in May that it plans to cut 20,000 jobs, or around 15% of its global workforce. It’s also closing several factories to free up cash and reduce costs.

Nissan said it will begin talks with employees at its Sunderland plant in the UK this week about voluntary retirement opportunities. The company is aiming to lay off around 250 workers.

The Sunderland plant is the largest employer in the city with around 6,000 workers and is critical piece to Nissan’s comeback. Nissan will build its next-gen electric vehicles at the facility, including the new LEAF, Juke, and Qashqai.

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According to several emails and company documents (via Reuters), Nissan is also working with its suppliers to for more time to make payments.

Nissan-delays-supplier-payments
The new Nissan LEAF (Source: Nissan)

“They could choose to be paid immediately or opt for a later payment,” Nissan said. The company explained in a statement to Reuters that it had incentivized some of its suppliers in Europe and the UK to accept more flexible payment terms, at no extra cost.

The emails show that the move would free up cash for the first quarter (April to June), similar to its request before the end of the financial year.

Nissan-delays-supplier-payments
Nissan N7 electric sedan (Source: Dongfeng Nissan)

One employee said in an email to co-workers that Nissan was asking suppliers “again” to delay payments. The emails, viewed by Reuters, were exchanged between Nissan workers in Europe and the United Kingdom.

Nissan is taking immediate action as part of its recovery plan, aiming to turn things around, the company said in a statement.

Nissan-Micra-EV
The new Nissan Micra EV (Source: Nissan)

“While we are taking these actions, we aim for sufficient liquidity to weather the costs of the turnaround actions and redeem bond maturities,” the company said.

Nissan didn’t comment on the internal discussions, but the emails did reveal it gave suppliers two options. They could either delay payments at a higher interest rate, or HSBC would make the payment, and Nissan would repay the bank with interest.

Nissan-delays-supplier-payments
Nissan’s upcoming lineup for the US, including the new LEAF EV and “Adventure Focused” SUV (Source: Nissan)

The company had 2.2 trillion yen ($15.2 billion) in cash and equivalents at the end of March, but it has around 700 billion yen ($4.9 billion) in debt that’s due later this year.

As part of Re:Nissan, the Japanese automaker’s recovery plan, Nissan looks to cut costs by 250 billion yen. By fiscal year 2026, it plans to return to profitability.

Electrek’s Take

With an aging vehicle lineup and a wave of new low-cost rivals from China, like BYD, Nissan is quickly falling behind.

Nissan is launching several new electric and hybrid vehicles over the next few years, including the next-gen LEAF, which is expected to help boost sales.

In China, the world’s largest EV market, Nissan’s first dedicated electric sedan, the N7, is off to a hot start with over 20,000 orders in 50 days.

The N7 will play a role in Nissan’s recovery efforts as it plans to export it to overseas markets. It will be one of nine new energy vehicles, including EVs and PHEVs, that Nissan plans to launch in China.

Can Nissan turn things around? Or will it continue falling behind the pack? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Elon Musk said to bet on Tesla delivering Robotaxi in June, yet those who did just lost big

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Elon Musk said to bet on Tesla delivering Robotaxi in June, yet those who did just lost big

Elon Musk said just a few weeks ago that betting on Tesla delivering its promised Robotaxi in June is a “money-making opportunity,” and yet, those who listened to him just lost big.

A fan of Musk lost $50,000 betting on Tesla Robotaxi.

With the rise in prediction markets, you can bet on virtually everything these days.

Sites like Polymarket have about a dozen prediction markets related to Tesla, where anyone can bet on events such as Tesla delivering its robotaxi service.

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There have been a couple of specific markets about that, and Musk directly commented on one titled “Will Tesla launch a driverless Robotaxi service before July?:

Less than two weeks ago, the market gave Tesla only a 14% chance of launching the service, and Musk called it a “money-making opportunity.”

At the time, less than $500,000 was traded on this market, but Musk made it way more popular.

Now, over $7 million has been traded on this market, and while Tesla claims to have launched its Robotaxi service on June 22nd, the market currently gives Tesla less than 1% chance today, with less than a day left in June.

Each prediction market has clear “resolution” rules and Musk evidently didn’t read them before suggesting there was money to be made betting “yes”:

This market will resolve to “Yes” if Tesla publicly launches a fully driverless taxi service by June 30, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, it will resolve to “No.”

Any service that allows a member of the general public to summon and ride in a Tesla vehicle operating without any human—onboard or remote—actively controlling the vehicle will count. A human may be present in the vehicle or monitoring remotely for emergency intervention, but they must not be physically positioned to take control (for example, no safety driver in the driver’s seat) and must not actively steer, brake, accelerate, or otherwise drive the car under normal operation.

A program that is restricted to Tesla employees, invite-only testers, closed-beta participants, factory self-delivery features, or the mere release of Full Self-Driving software for private owner-drivers will not qualify. Regulatory permits or approvals, press demonstrations, and prototype unveilings without live public ridership likewise will not count toward resolution.

This market’s resolution source will be a consensus of credible reporting.

There are a few things in the resolution that disqualify what Tesla launched on June 22nd. First off, there’s a human inside the vehicle ready to take control with their finger on a kill switch. We have already seen interventions from the in-car Tesla supervisor, who are still very much necessary.

Secondly, the resolution requires a launch that is not restricted to an invite-only basis, which is currently the case.

The level of remote operations could also prove challenging to confirm, and it is part of the resolution.

Electrek found someone who lost $50,000 following Musk’s “money-making opportunity”:

Someone else has lost $28,000 and is now betting another $27,000 that Tesla will achieve this by the end of July.

Currently, Polymarket‘s odds only put a 21% chance of Tesla delivering on the service based on the previously mentioned resolution before August:

There’s another market predicting if “Tesla launches unsupervised full self-driving (FSD) by the end of 2025” that has arguably an even more restrictive resolution, and it currently gives it a 59% chance of happening:

With Polymarket, users are not really “betting” on an outcome, but they are trying to beat the current odds by buying shares in “yes” or “no”, which they can sell to other users before the end of the timeline.

Electrek’s Take

It’s quite amusing that Musk was so confident people would believe in his Robotaxi that he didn’t bother to investigate what other people think an actual robotaxi service would entail, like in the Polymarket resolution.

Historically speaking, you are way better off betting against whatever timeline Musk claims about self-driving. He has been consistently wrong about it for a decade now.

Polymarket even has a market about Tesla launching unsupervised self-driving in California this year. I threw some money in that one because California has much stricter regulations when it comes to self-driving, and it requires a lot of testing before being deployed, as described in the resolution.

I doubt Tesla can go through that this year, but it’s not impossible.

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