Connecticut People: Now is the Time to Support Millstone

Millstone Power Station
photo from NEI  Nuclear Notes

Support This Bill. Right now.

Right now.  Today, or maybe tomorrow

If you live in Connecticut: Write your legislator!

Over the next two weeks, the Connecticut legislature will consider SB 106.  This bill will provide financial relief for Millstone Power Station, which produces enough power for two million homes.  The same bill will also encourage Connecticut's fuel cell industry.

Dominion has a good website about supporting Millstone.  Specifically, you can click the Take Action link, and be taken directly to a site where you can write to your legislator.  If you live in Connecticut, use the link, right now.

If you live in New England but not in Connecticut, read NEI's post With Nuclear Plants Closing, Fears Grow for Stability of the New England's Electric Grid. Be prepared to defend your local nuclear plant.

More about the Connecticut bill

Well, it's complicated.  While other bills (such as New York State's Zero Emissions Credits) mandate clean energy payments for zero-emission power plants, Connecticut SB 106 just allows Millstone to bid into certain types of auctions under the same circumstances as other zero-emission plants.

Under this bill, Millstone will be allowed to present proposals to supply energy, and those proposals will be reviewed by the Office of the Consumer Counsel, the Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection, and the Attorney General. (Among others...later these proposals must also reviewed be by the state Public Utilities Regulating Authority.) There are no guarantees for Millstone written into this bill.

Frankly, I think you have to be some kind of Connecticut-power specialist to figure out this bill in its entirety.  Here is a link to the SB 106, as it exists now: An Act Concerning the Diversity of Baseload Energy Supplies in the State and Achieving Connecticut's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Mandated Levels.

I have tried to read it, but I came to only one conclusion.  Everything is optional.  This bill does not mandate that Millstone (or any low-emissions source) will be paid any particular amount for their power.  It has many statements such as:

(The Office of Consumer Counsel and the Attorney General)... Shall evaluate project proposals received in response to any solicitation issued pursuant to subsection (a) of this section based on whether such proposal is in the best interest of ratepayers and whether the benefits of such proposal outweigh the costs to ratepayers, based on the following: (A) The delivered prices of such sources compared to the forecasted price of energy, as determined by the commissioner or his or her designee....

This bill levels the playing field. It allows Millstone to bid, along with other low-emissions suppliers.

Naturally, allowing Millstone to bid has infuriated many companies.  This is why you should write your legislator, right now, if you live in Connecticut.

Who are the Opponents?

There is plenty of opposition. Basically, the fossil industry is opposing this bill.

In February, Luther Turmelle wrote about this proposed legislation in  the New Haven Register:  2 Connecticut energy bills aim to help Millstone owner, spur fuel cell use.   His article described the opposition, which includes Calpine, Dynegy, NRG Energy, and the Electric Power Supply Association.  In other words, the opposition includes  the fossil power plants in Connecticut.  These companies and associations represent the plants that do not meet the low-emissions criteria set by Connecticut for energy proposals to be submitted under this bill.

The Time is Now

The problem is that it is spring, and state legislatures either pass bills before adjourning, or...the bills don't pass.  For the sake of the environment, we want this bill to pass.

Time is short. Write your legislator!

Mostly about Vermont Yankee: The Boston Meeting on the future New England Energy Mix

Looking forward to Nuclear Going Forward

On June 24, in Boston, Bloomberg BNA and Nuclear Matters co-sponsored an event about the future of nuclear,  Nuclear Going Forward.  The two organizations are holding a series of these joint events.  The June meeting was A Chain Reaction: The Role of Nuclear Energy in New England's Energy Mix.

The June meeting had an absolutely stellar line-up of speakers, including nuclear plant owners and nuclear start-up companies.  In this meeting, nuclear energy (current and future) was not compartmentalized, but rather presented as a whole. And the conference focused on New England!  I was delighted to go to it.

I wrote about my plan to attend the meeting in this blogpost, and you can see the videos of the meeting at the Nuclear Going Forward website.

Vermont Yankee and Nuclear Going Forward.

There were three main sections to the meeting.  I will discuss only the second section: a panel focused on existing power plants.

The panel started with extensive discussion about Vermont Yankee (video below). Topics included the reasons for Vermont Yankee shutting down, the consequences of Vermont Yankee shutting down, and the risk factors for other plants in the Northeast. Many of the statements made on this panel will be familiar to readers of this blog.  However, there were some factors that were new to me.

What is a "single plant? I knew that single, stand-alone plants are more vulnerable to being shut down. However,  I didn't remember that Millstone 2 and 3 have different vendors. They do not have the economies of "sharing" (operators, training, etc.) that most dual-unit plants can  boast.   They are more vulnerable than other dual-unit plants because their labor costs are higher.  It would be a disaster for the New England grid if these plants closed.

Do capacity payments help? I had been heartened to see that the forward capacity auction has been yielding higher prices.  That fact, coupled with grid-level "pay for performance," seemed to favor nuclear plants.  However, Mohl of Entergy pointed out that nuclear plants run with a very high capacity factors.  Most of their revenue comes from kWh produced, and only a  small part of their revenues are capacity-type payments (capacity and pay-for-performance).  Nuclear plants receive 15-20% of their revenue through the capacity auctions.  Plants that run a small percentage of the time get much higher percentages of their revenue from the capacity auctions.  In other words, increased prices at the capacity auctions don't help nuclear plants all that much.

Laughing all the way to the bank? During the Polar Vortex, prices on the grid soared and merchant plants gathered a lot of revenue.  All businessmen like extra revenue. Still,  Mohl of Entergy pointed out that this kind of volatility of energy prices is not good for anyone.  Businesses that can't predict their costs will begin to leave the area.  Consumers will have less to spend in the area as their utility bills take up more of their income.  The result can be a downturn. General economic downturns aren't good for consumers or for energy producers.  In other words, during the polar vortex, merchant plants weren't really laughing all the way to the bank.

Forward with Nuclear Going Forward

Nuclear energy is good for

• reliability (of course), 
• economic sustainability (prices are low and not volatile), and 
• environmental sustainability (no carbon, no acid gases, small quantity of mined material compared to fossil fuels of all kinds).  

The general consensus of the meeting, however, is that unless the grid begins to value these benefits, nuclear may have a rocky future.

Endnotes: 

About the meeting as a whole

You can see videos of the entire meeting at this link: http://nuclear-going-forward.bna.com

The first section of the meeting was an interview with John Kotek of DOE about DOE's funding for nuclear-based research.

The second section was a panel discussion about current plants.  The panelists were:
Judd Gregg, former Senator from New Hampshire, now with Nuclear Matters
William Mohl, President, Entergy Wholesale Commodities;
Daniel Weekley, VP, Corporate Affairs, Dominion Resources
(This blog post covered this section of the conference.)

The third section was a panel which included executives from forward-looking nuclear companies, such as LightBridge and NuScale.

Chris Gadomski (Lead Analyst, Nuclear) from Bloomberg New Energy Finance was the moderator for all sections.  As you can see in the videos, Gadomski asked excellent questions. He kept the meeting interesting and (miracle!) on schedule.

Attending Nuclear Going Forward

It was difficult to get to the meeting.  Appearing at 8:30 a.m. for a meeting in an expensive hotel in Boston's Back Bay is do-able if:

• you live in Boston and know the T
• you have the money to stay overnight in Boston, preferably at an expensive hotel in Boston's Back Bay.  

Neither was true for me.  I left my driveway in Vermont at 5:17 a.m. for what Google describes as a two-hour-and-ten-minute drive if there was only light traffic. I arrived at the meeting room at 9:05.  (Breakfast was over and the first session was starting.) Yeah, traffic was bad.  I wasn't the only one who was late.

Once I got there, it was worth it.  However, the choice of time and place did make me wonder. What audience were the meeting planners hoping to attract?  Why was the meeting set up in this difficult manner?

Rod Adams and Nuclear Going Forward

Rod Adams was also at the meeting, and his blog post about the meeting is here.  He has some interesting observations, including illuminating conversations with panelists.  There are over twenty comments on his post, and I encourage you to read both his post and the comments.

Specific Power Sources in Vermont: VTEP Report

Vermont Energy Partnership releases overview of Vermont electricity, lists specific power sources

MONTPELIER - A publication released today by the Vermont Energy Partnership (VTEP), “Vermont Electricity at a Glance," examines Vermont's electricity portfolio. The publication includes the rates charged by each Vermont utility, the type of generation and amount of power supplied in megawatt-hours, the amount of renewable power, and (in most cases) the specific power generators and/or contracts.

“Vermont Electricity at a Glance” also portrays Vermont’s statewide increase in power rates in comparison with neighboring states. In 2012, Vermont’s electricity rates rose five percent while rates stayed level or fell in New York or all other New England states (except Rhode Island, also five percent).  To view the publication, please click here.



The Vermont Energy Partnership (http://www.vtep.org) is a diverse group of more than 90 business, labor, and community leaders committed to finding clean, safe, affordable and reliable electricity solutions for Vermont.

--------------------------

Guy Page

The note above is a press release from the Vermont Energy Partnership: it was sent by Guy Page, who has frequent guest posts on this site, such as Transitioning to Renewable Power: What It Might Look Like.

This new VTEP overview report contains the facts and figures on Vermont's electricity supply right now.

Some highlights:

• Vermont's electricity retail electricity price rose from 14 cents to 15 cents per kWh, while most other states retail prices fell (Rhode Island's price also rose). 
• Vermont used 1.8 million MWh of "system power" (bought from the New England grid) in 2012, while they used only 0.8 million MWh of "system power" in  2011. In 2011, Vermont Yankee contracts were in place.
• Since Vermont classifies large hydro as renewable, Vermont electricity supply is slightly more than 50% renewable.  This includes the power from Hydro Quebec.
• Green Mountain Power bought approximately 0.3 million MWh from a combination of  Millstone and NextEra (Seabrook) nuclear plants .  These purchases were  separate from GMP's purchases of "system power"  from the grid, which also included these plants. 

This VTEP report is well worth studying!

For example, I note that if you add the nuclear plant purchases to the new "system power" purchases, you get 1.3 million MWh.  Vermont used to purchase approximately 2.0 million MWh from Vermont Yankee.  I urge you to read the report and draw your own conclusions about renewables, Vermont Yankee, and the new expanded role of "system power" in Vermont.