LLAW’s All Things Nuclear #763, Friday, (09/27/2024)
LLAW’s All Things Nuclear #763, Friday, (09/27/2024)
“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, arrives to speak about the tax code and manufacturing at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center on Tuesday in Savannah, Georgia. Evan Vucci/AP
LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Friday, (09/27/2024)
This article plainly points out that we humans have a made a huge mess of managing energy over the years, and that the situation is only going to get worse — especially if Trump, who operates solely on the a thoughtless ‘spur of the moment’ dimly lit path with no thought about the repercussions of taking the wrong way at every junction or even ignoring a critical emergency ‘detour’ sign.
The energy policy he will demand to use at his disposal is apparent and likely illegal. It will be based on a wartime-level exercise of presidential authority, which will only increase the surging difficulty and world-wide confusion of energy production, source, and use, which has recently become the most controversial and difficult issue for cooperative existence on planet Earth. Nuclear everything, including war and power generation, has become the vital issue, and those very serious related problems are not going to be resolved anytime soon. ~llaw
Because the 2024 election is only a few extremely nervous days away, I highly recommend this article sponsored by Politico . . .
What would a Trump 2.0 ‘energy emergency’ look like? History offers clues.
By Peter Behr | 09/27/2024 07:23 AM EDT
An expansive reading of Trump’s recent statements on energy implies a wartime-level exercise of presidential authority.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, arrives to speak about the tax code and manufacturing at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center on Tuesday in Savannah, Georgia. Evan Vucci/AP
Officials under then-President Donald Trump had an idea for how to stop America’s aging coal and nuclear plants from closing: Call the closures a threat to national security.
Under the 2018 plan, the Department of Energy would declare an “emergency” and use existing authority to order utilities to buy two years’ worth of power from coal and nuclear generators most at risk of shutting down.
Marked “Privileged & Confidential,” the memo dated May 29 set up a planned meeting a few days later inside the National Security Council.
The White House confirmed that Trump wanted the policy. But when the memo leaked, it hit like a ton of bricks. Free market Republicans saw the rescue plan for dozens of older, smaller, money-losing coal plants as just the kind of heavy-handed federal intrusion they stood against. Trump’s policy would put White House executive authority behind coal-burners in competition with cheaper power from natural gas and cleaner sources such as solar and wind energy.
The policy met with objections from staff inside the White House and Trump finally abandoned it, sources said at the time.
Six years later, Trump the candidate — vowing to reverse parts of President Joe Biden’s largest-ever federal investment in clean energy — is again reviving the idea of declaring an “energy emergency” and using a second Trump presidency to expand fossil fuel power generation. This time, it’s to keep up with the competition.
“We will build new power plants,” he said during a stop in Savannah, Georgia, this week. “China is already building plants, electric plants, and we have a problem because we have things called environmental impact statements and various things that you have to go through. I will get them approved so fast.”
In various forms under negotiation on Capitol Hill, speedier permits for energy projects already have bipartisan support. But the prospect that Trump would take an approach similar to his plan in 2018 to intervene directly in the workings of the nation’s complex system of electricity markets is raising new questions.
Starting early this summer, the Trump campaign locked onto rising electricity prices as a problem to pin on Biden’s economic policy. He promised to cut energy costs in half inside of a year from taking office. And he’s promising to do so as Silicon Valley’s cloud computing giants and U.S. industrial growth demand more power from the grid.
In New York City this month, Trump applied the national emergency idea to oil and gas production. It is time to “drill, baby, drill” to exploit the “liquid gold” of the nation’s hydrocarbon deposits, Trump declared, as he mocked Democrats’ warnings about the planet-warming carbon emissions from coal, oil and natural gas.
Under Biden, money and policies have tilted markets toward making plans for a more dramatic shift to clean energy. Coal accounts for just about 16 percent of U.S. generation today. Natural gas is now the dominant source of electricity, and solar power and battery storage are growing rapidly.
For oil’s part, the United States is producing record volumes, even as auto companies pump billions of dollars into electric vehicle technology that would make Americans less dependent on the fuel.
‘We will build new power plants’
No U.S. president has said that “we will build new power plants” in the way Trump did since Franklin Roosevelt pushed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act through Congress in 1933 to bring economic development and flood control to blighted counties in southern Appalachia during the Great Depression.
Trump’s campaign staff did not reply to requests for details about the former president’s plans, beginning with whether “we” means Republicans in Washington, the power industry, the American people, or Trump himself.
Coupled with his pledges to open the taps further on U.S. gas and oil production and create new tax subsidies for manufacturers to build on public land (potentially powered with new streams of natural gas), an expansive reading of Trump’s brief statement implies .
Could Trump do it with a win Nov. 5 and the backing of new majorities in the House and Senate that he led to victory?
In theory, he would have to get GOP leaders to suspend the filibuster rule, create new laws to build power plants on public lands and subsidize gas-fired generation, and gut clean air rules and other environmental protections.
The electricity from Trump’s new power plants would most likely require thousands of miles of new high-voltage lines across state lines that now are watchfully guarded by governors.
“It would be the most aggressive building program [on] energy since TVA,” said Mike McKenna, a veteran Washington energy lobbyist who was a deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs in the Trump White House.
Trump would have to activate an aggressive use of federal eminent domain to override state objections to building new power lines and gas pipelines, rewrite the Federal Power Act and challenge nearly a century of complex regulatory rulings tested by judges all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I’m not sure of the details, but it fits right in with his approach to economic development — lower taxes, less regulation, more and less expensive energy,” McKenna said. “Given the data center demand, we are going to need more power plants and pipelines.”
Nearly half of the states, mostly run by Democratic governors, support federal action to dramatically shrink power plant greenhouse gas emissions in the next two decades. Some of the goals are written into statutes. Trump’s vision would surely doom effective federal action against extreme weather catastrophes from a hotter planet, according to scientific consensus.
Today, nearly all of the largest utilities in the Edison Electric Institute have long-term climate action goals.
TVA never lived up to the hopes of Roosevelt and progressives for public power that would create a “yardstick” for fair and competitive electricity prices in response to the power of huge U.S. utility holding companies, historians agree. But it was an enormous act of governmental authority that was furiously opposed by conservative Republicans and the power industry, led by utility executive Wendell Willkie, who became FDR’s 1940 presidential opponent.
The full exercise of presidential power over the electric power, gas, coal and oil sectors did not come into Roosevelt’s control until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, launching the U.S. into World War II.
Short of war, however, the law still gives the president executive authority to intervene in the energy economy under other scenarios.
Action on ‘Day 1’
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, is no stranger to the politics of presidential emergency declarations.
Climate hawks in Congress and environmental groups that helped elect Biden and Harris in 2020 have pushed for a “climate emergency” declaration. Nothing like it has ever been tried. But in theory it would open up powers to slash oil exports, or boost factory orders for clean energy technology or direct more zero-carbon energy production.
“I have continuously preached the need for a climate emergency; I tried to get Biden to do it on Day 1; I‘d love for Kamala to do it on Day 1,” Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley said. “But I don’t think that’s what she’s focused on right now.”
Biden and Harris have made no suggestion they think an emergency declaration to address climate change is on the table.
The only public clues to where Trump stands on the question of emergency authority go back to his presidency.
Trump took office in 2017 promising to help out “my coal miners” as thanks to voters in Pennsylvania and parts of the Midwest and mountain states. After meeting with a coal and a utility executive shortly after his inauguration, Trump reportedly gave orders that a senior White House official should “do whatever these two want,” according to the late Robert Murray, who was chief executive of Murray Energy Corp.
“The Trump administration’s efforts to bail out aging and uncompetitive baseload plants, particularly those powered by coal, began almost immediately,” noted Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, and Sharon Jacobs, a Berkeley School of Law professor, in a 2019 paper.
The first attempt was a request from former Energy Secretary Rick Perry to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to tilt power markets toward coal. When the commission with appointees from both parties unanimously opposed the secretary’s idea, Perry’s policy staff looked to executive authority.
The 2018 memo to Trump and his national security team said emergency powers could be invoked under section 202(c) of the 1935 Federal Power Act. Congress strengthened the authority in 2015.
The section grants broad powers to order the production or delivery of power “to serve the public interest” if electricity shortages are deemed an emergency by the secretary of Energy. Under those conditions, power plants can run at maximum capacity and out of compliance with pollution limits.
The first use of the authority came in 1941, when the government ordered Florida Power & Light to keep power plants running as a massive military and industrial buildup began six months before the Pearl Harbor attack, according to an analysis by Harvard Law School graduate Benjamin Rolsma, scheduled for publication in the Connecticut Law Review.
The authority has been used sparingly since the end of the war. During Biden’s presidency, DOE authorized grid operators to max out generation as heat ravaged California and as extreme weather conditions shut down power plants in the eastern U.S. and in Texas.
‘Keeps me up at night’
A Trump victory in November could write a new chapter for the authority.
“Section 202(c) explicitly mentions wartime emergencies, but its limits are unclear,” said Travis Fisher, an economist at the Cato Institute and a former DOE official who helped develop Trump administration policies on electricity.
The Trump administration’s DOE policy memo from 2018 argued that DOE authority was designed “not merely to react to actual disasters, but to act in a preventative manner.”
“The statute provides that the DOE could, upon its own motion, with or without notice, determine an emergency exists based on energy shortages or other causes,” Fisher told POLITICO’s E&E News. “The idea that the DOE could invoke 202(c) and create a new national energy policy out of an alleged emergency keeps me up at night.”
Fisher said struggling nuclear plants might be best positioned to lobby Congress or the administration for more support.
“A blanket 202(c) order — premised on either a climate or national security emergency — could keep every existing nuclear reactor operating. I strongly disagree with using 202(c) in that fashion, but I could imagine either party doing it,” Fisher said.
Rolsma described a different scenario: “Section 202(c)’s role is set to expand,” Rolsma wrote. “Climate change and the ongoing energy transition, by disrupting the way the electrical grid has historically operated, will ratchet up the pressure” for its use.
Because the electric grid will rely on coal and gas for years to come, the emergency authority could also get a new life if Harris wins. Biden’s EPA has adopted the Federal Power Act section as a safety valve that could keep some fossil plants open to assure grid reliability while others are forced to capture and dispose of their carbon emissions or shut down.
Along with its repeated warning about a shrinking electric power reserve supply, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), the interstate grid’s security monitor, has urged that the 202(c) authority be used to keep particular fossil plants running when essential to keep the lights on.
“The big question is, are you going to use this tool surgically or try to pursue it more broadly?” said Devin Hartman, director of energy and environmental policy at the libertarian R Street Institute.
“The more this strays from the underlying identification of reliability needs, the more suspect it will be legally,” he said, “and the worst type of policy it will be. So you really have to contain and use these things sparingly.”
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
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Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in this evening’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Friday, (09/27/2024)
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Conversation with the NATO Secretary General at the Council on Foreign Relations, 26-Sep.
NATO
And NATO Allies and the United States and also all the nuclear powers, France and the United Kingdom have delivered weapons to Ukraine before the full ...
Fear, hope among mixed reactions as Three Mile Island plans to restart | 90.5 WESA
90.5 WESA
Care about the environment? Sign up for our newsletter and we'll send you Pittsburgh's top news, every weekday morning. · 'Nuclear is not the answer'.
Nuclear Power
NEWS
Plans For Nuclear Power Expansion | Sept. 26, 2024 | News 19 at 5 p.m. - YouTube
YouTube
A bill moving through Congress could lead to a new future for the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant Site in Jackson County. News 19 is North Alabama's News ...
America's coal communities could help the U.S. triple nuclear power - CNBC
CNBC
Power plant restarts like Three Mile Island represent only a fraction of the nuclear energy the U.S. needs in the coming decades, ...
Chinese officials cover up sinking of country's newest nuclear-powered submarine tied to a pier
Fox News
A senior U.S. Defense official said it was no surprise China covered up that its first nuclear-powered Zhou-class submarine sank while attached to ...
Chinese nuclear-powered submarine sank this year, US official says | Reuters - Reuters
Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
What would a Trump 2.0 'energy emergency' look like? History offers clues. - E&E News
E&E News
Officials under then-President Donald Trump had an idea for how to stop America's aging coal and nuclear plants from closing: Call the closures a ...
Is NuScale Power a Millionaire Maker? - The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
Small modular reactors are an exciting technological advancement in nuclear power generation that could change how we use nuclear energy. SMRs can ...
Nuclear War
NEWS
Putin draws a nuclear red line for the West | Reuters
Reuters
President Vladimir Putin has drawn a "red line" for the United States and its allies by signalling that Moscow will consider responding with ...
Putin draws a nuclear red line for the West - USA Today
USA Today
... nuclear war,'" said Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet and Russian diplomat. Bahram Ghiassee, a London-based nuclear analyst at the Henry Jackson ...
More Empty Threats? Putin Amends Nuclear Doctrine | UACRISIS.ORG
uacrisis.org
Matt Wickham UCMC Analyst Putin has called for amendments to Russia's nuclear doctrine, again stoking fear in the West of an all out nuclear war, ...
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Putin Has Redrawn His Nuclear Red Line. How Will NATO Respond? - Newsweek
Newsweek
During a televised meeting of Russia's Security Council, Putin said an attack that poses a critical threat to the sovereignty of Russia could be ...
Putin revises his nuclear doctrine, but have his red lines shifted? - CNN
CNN
Moscow has been making not-so-veiled nuclear threats throughout its war in Ukraine. Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images. The bottom line for changes to ...
Putin will keep escalating his nuclear blackmail until it stops working - Atlantic Council
Atlantic Council
Report launch | Russia's war on Ukraine: Moscow's pressure points and US strategic opportunities · Crisis Management Defense Policy Disinformation
Yellowstone Caldera
NEWS
Here's how officials put safety first when building roads and bridges in Yellowstone National Park
Idaho Capital Sun
Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles is a weekly column written by scientists and collaborators of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. SUPPORT NEWS ...
Search continues for a missing Minnesota native in Yellowstone National Park | State News
KXRA
Tags. Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem · Yellowstone Caldera · Yellowstone National Park · Yellowstone Falls · Outline Of Yellowstone National Park ...
Lack of food -- not money -- drives poaching in East African national parks, study finds
ScienceDaily
Yellowstone Caldera. Story Source: Materials provided by Penn State. Original written by Aaron Wagner. Note: Content may be edited for style and ...
IAEA Weekly News
27 September 2024
Read the top news and updates published on IAEA.org this week.
27 September 2024
IAEA Director General at UN Summit of the Future and General Assembly
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi attended the UN Summit of the Future with world leaders in New York this week and addressed its Plenary meeting. The Summit adopted a “Pact for the Future” designed to improve the present and build a better future. Read more →
26 September 2024
IAEA Assistance Helps Liberia Avert Radiological Emergency
Liberia has moved to fast track its accession to nuclear safety treaties, after IAEA experts helped prevent a radiological incident from shutting down the country’s main hospital. Read more →
24 September 2024
IAEA, Honduras and Japan join forces to strengthen Cancer Care Access through Rays of Hope
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Government of Honduras and the Government of Japan have joined forces to expand radiotherapy services and improve cancer care in the Republic of Honduras under the IAEA’s flagship Rays of Hope initiative. Read more →
24 September 2024
IAEA Profile: Fuelling Success – Gloria Kwong’s Path to Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation
“I want to contribute to narrowing the energy equity gap to ensure more people can access affordable, sustainable and clean energy,” says Gloria Kwong reflecting on her work at the IAEA. Read more →
23 September 2024
IAEA Board of Governors Elects New Chairperson for 2024-2025
The IAEA Board of Governors elected Ambassador Philbert Abaka Johnson as the Chairperson of the IAEA’s Board of Governors for 2024–2025. Read more →