Antinuclear

If an electricity market is going to be economically sustainable for investors and consumers, it must be truly competitive, says Mohl, in a phone interview. To that end, he says that fuels that cost more have entered the market and that they are receiving state-sanctioned, long-term contracts. Existing merchant generators that sell their power at market prices, conversely, are unable to compete…..

“Our projected revenues were significantly lower than the projected costs,” says Mohl, in reference to Vermont Yankee that will officially close this year. “We could no longer make significant investments.”…

Mohl says that Entergy has no plans to build any more nuclear facilities, noting that the construction costs are exorbitant.

Others with merchant nuclear units include Exelon EXC +2.18% Corp.NextEra Energy NEE +0.47% and PSEG Corp. Exelon has been vocal about ending the production tax credit given to wind energy, saying that it creates market inequities. In return, Exelon has been lambasted for pushing nuclear loan guarantees.

Five nuclear units, including Entergy’s, have announced closures in the last year. Duke Energy and Southern California Edison closed their Florida and Southern California facilities, respectively, because of persistent technical issues. Meanwhile, Dominion Resources has closed its Wisconsin unit and Exelon will shut down a New Jersey plant because neither one is able to compete with natural gas.

Beside the current closures and uprate cancelations, of which there are nine, 38 reactors in 23 states are also at risk of early retirements, with 12 of those facing the greatest risk of being shutdown, says Mark Cooper, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. …

also says that says that Exelon’s Clinton in Illinois, Entergy’s Indian Point in New York, TVA’s Brown Ferry in Alabama and FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse in Ohio may go. He is, further, skeptical of the nuclear energy expansions of Southern Company and Scana Corp., saying that ratepayers will either have to eat what has already been spent or shell out millions more for what he says is an uneconomical power source.

“With little chance that the cost of new reactors will become competitive with low carbon alternatives in the time frame relevant for old reactor retirement decisions, we need to start preparing now for more early retirements or the threats of such retirements,” says Cooper…..http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2014/02/06/nuclear-energy-operators-say-market-stacked-against-them/