"President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday finalized approval of $1.1 billion to help keep California’s last operating nuclear power plant running. "
Because renewable energy sources are too expensive?
“…probably a huge help…”
No, not much actually.
According to California Energy Commission 2021 data (https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/2021-total-system-electric-generation), nuclear accounted for only 9.3% of total generated for the state. Solar and wind each beat that. All we have to do is reduce usage by 10% and we can finally decommission a facility that’s producing deadly radiation waste - that sits near a fault line.
Last operating nuclear power plant.
Which means this one plant provies 9.3% of the state’s power generation. It’s entirely reasonable to think that cutting that power generation without having other sources to replace it with would be a “bad idea,” especially considering how Enron royally fucked California by playing games with power.
Given that the average Californian household uses around 7200kWh a year a single facility providing 9% of the state’s energy needs or 2.89 million homes isn’t that bad…
For a 1.2 billion dollars investment, that is about 415 dollars per household to keep it running for 5 years more.
Not saying that new nuclear generators are the best way since we have better alternatives, but you can’t knock the benefits that nuclear energy has given us. If we were to reduce energy use by 10% today wouldn’t we want to burn that much less natural gas and that little share of coal first if we cared about health impact? This buys us more time to have renewables displace the most harmful of generation methods.
If it’s such a good investment, why aren’t the power companies making it? Why does the US government have to pour money into their profit-making venture?
It’s about the term of investment, since these massive projects take decades and most private investment can’t afford to think that far in the long term.
If it was all about profit-making, coal, oil and gas get you way better return on investment than renewables (25% compared to 5-6%), even if in the long term it is harmful (increased healthcare spending treating cancer and environmental damage), and an unsustainable model.
As for why the US government needs to pay the private sector to do a job it could just do itself? Well that’s for Americans to answer, but what I see is a lot of waving hands around nebulous “efficiencies”.
Because public opinion is against nuclear plants because people think that the current generation of plants have the same safety issues as gen 1 and 2 did.