The Best Nuclear Energy News of 2013

Your list of the best nuclear news of the year, part 1, and in no particular order. All good news is number 1, right?

1. Pandora’s Promise – There has been a movement by environmentalists to support nuclear energy for some years because of its continued safety record, the inability of renewable energy sources to provide baseload energy and, most especially, the looming spectre of a climate change-driven catastrophe. Robert Stone’s movie Pandora’s Promise made this tectonic shift in attitude manifest for many people. Stone does a lot more than provide talking heads, however, dispelling myths, showing the anti-nuclear movement as driven more by fervor than rationality and facing fully the implications of the Fukushima Daiichi accident.

Still, what a great bunch of talking heads: Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas, Stewart Brand, Richard Rhodes and more. They all articulate their conversions on the road to nuclear energy with great intelligence and humor. For me, Lynas is the breakout star and his visit to Fukushima a highlight of the movie. Theatrically, it’s still working its way around the world, but in the U.S., you can buy it on iTunes if you’re so inclined!

Be sure to check out NNN’s unofficial guide to the movie, an invaluable resource.

2. Yucca Mountain redux – Though President Barack Obama shuttered the Yucca Mountain used fuel repository project in 2009, it never really seemed the last chapter of the story. Yucca Mountain as repository is inscribed into law – The Nuclear Waste Policy Act – and Congressional oversight committees never really bought into any proffered scientific rationale for stopping it. So the fact that the courts are not buying into it either is not surprising – not because its decision clears the way for an inadequate repository but because we can now find out how adequate Yucca Mountain would actually be.

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The states of Washington and South Carolina, Aiken County, S.C., state public utility regulators and others sought a court order to force the NRC to resume its review of the Department of Energy’s license application for the repository. NEI participated in the suit as a “friend of the court.”

In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the case held in abeyance to give Congress an opportunity to clarify its intent on funding the program and directed the parties to file status updates during this period. However, the court indicated that, given existing statutory language in the Nuclear Waste Act and the funds available to the NRC—approximately $11 million—it likely would order the license evaluation to continue unless the NRC resumed the process or Congress enacted legislation to either terminate it or clarify that no additional funds should be expended on licensing.

In August, the clock ran out.

“Since we issued that order more than a year ago … the [NRC] has not acted and Congress has not altered the legal landscape,” the court said in its Aug. 13 decision. “As things stand … the [NRC] is simply flouting the law.”

The NRC commissioners directed staff to reactivate the license review process. This does not mean in itself that the repository will pass muster or that Yucca Mountain will become the permanent repository. But it doesn’t mean it won’t, either. Look at it as a simple act of fairness and let the process play out to the end, whatever that may be.

[We’ll talk about the suspension of the nuclear waste fee separately – it’s related, of course, but important on its own account.]

3. New build – Five, count ‘em five, reactors are being built in the United States. Four of them are brand new: two each at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle and South Carolina’s V.C. Summer. The fifth, at Tennessee’s Watts Bar facility, was abandoned in 1985 but will now be completed. The important thing about these reactors in 2013 is that they are maintaining their schedules and budgets effectively, a key point for the industry and its regulator. If construction continues apace – and there’s no reason to believe it won’t – then it will show the effectiveness of the Combined Construction and Operating licensing process and the efficacy with which more generic designs – the Westinghouse AP1000 in the case of the four new reactors – can be erected.

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Earlier this year, construction at Vogtle reached a milestone when the 900-ton containment vessel bottom head was placed into the cradle in the reactor 3 nuclear island, the heaviest lift at the site to date.

Upcoming work at reactor 3 includes setting the cavity that will house the reactor vessel in the nuclear island.

At reactor 4, nuclear construction is about to begin; the basemat concrete pour will take place soon.

Next steps for construction at the Summer site include setting the first containment vessel ring and the auxiliary building module for reactor 2 and construction of the containment vessel bottom head support module at reactor 3.

Obviously, the real news will be the generation of electricity. Watts Bar should be first in 2015, with the Vogtle and Summer reactors online beginning in 2017. Sometimes, anti-nuclear advocates complain that getting new reactors on line takes too long. But 2015? 2017? They’ll be here before you know it.

Next up (probably): the nuclear waste fee, the waste confidence rule (a lot went on in the used fuel category in 2013) and small reactors. If there are issues you would like to see included, leave a comment.

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The Clear Case for CWIP – A Rebuttal to Mark Cooper’s Analysis on “Advanced Cost Recovery”

Uprate at St. Lucie impossible without CWIP.

Two nuclear critics, Peter Bradford and Mark Cooper, recently published a report (pdf) explaining how “advanced cost recovery” for nuclear plants in Florida and South Carolina “creates another nuclear fiasco.” Cooper’s main argument seems to be that Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) shifts to ratepayers all of the risks of building nuclear plants. This is either a deliberate distortion or a misunderstanding of how the cost recovery mechanism works.

How “advanced cost recovery” (aka CWIP) works

When a utility builds any type of project, it uses a mix of debt and equity to pay for the construction. The debt comes from banks and other investors and, of course, the utility must pay interest to use the debt. The equity comes from the utility’s shareholders and also requires a return for its use. The CWIP financing mechanism, which is also allowed by the federal government for interstate transmission projects, allows a company building a project to include the interest on debt and a return on investor’s equity (known as carrying costs) in its electric rates while the project is under construction.

SCANA’s latest filing to the South Carolina’s public utility commission (pdf), Appendix 3 (page 27) explains how CWIP works for the two-reactor expansion at its Summer station. These carrying costs are classified in accounting and electric-utility parlance as “allowance for funds used during construction” (AFUDC). When CWIP is allowed, AFUDC is basically what the power company adds to its rates, and collects from the ratepayers during construction. The AFUDC in SCANA’s case is $238 million.

What’s also shown on page 27 is the yearly and cumulative amount of cash flow SCANA needs to build the two reactors. This is currently $5.5 billion and is funded by debt and equity. Cooper neglects to explain that SCANA’s customers are paying only about five percent of the construction costs of the projects (the AFUDC rate) during construction, while the owners and investors are contributing 95 percent.

Cooper also neglects to explain another significant feature of CWIP. Because the interest on debt and return on equity are being paid each year, these carrying costs are not accumulating as they would in the absence of CWIP, to be recovered when the plant begins operation. Because these costs, like all debt, compound over time, the quicker they are paid, the less they build up. When ratepayers pay these carrying costs while the plants are under construction, customers will save substantial sums over the life of the units. From Georgia Power:

“Approximately $0.5 billion of these customer benefits are associated with the inclusion of CWIP in rate base.” – p. 36 from Vogtle’s 8th Construction Monitoring Report (pdf)

From SCANA:

“Paying financing costs while construction is ongoing, as opposed to waiting until the project has been completed, will lower the cost of the new units by about $1 billion. We estimate this reduction will save our customers approximately $4 billion in electric rates over the life of the new units.” – SCANA Press Release

Peter Bradford asserted that these cost savings are false and the plants will cost customers more money in the end, but (typically) failed to provide any explanation of or factual support for these statements. A total of ten states – and the federal government – allow CWIP today because the legislators and public service commissions in these states know that such a cost recovery mechanism saves money for its customers.

“Ratepayers are on the hook”

Cooper’s paper claims that “ratepayers are on the hook” and taking all the risk of building a nuclear plant because of CWIP. Apparently, Cooper does not understand how utilities build and recover the costs of power plants in regulated states.

In regulated states, when a power plant is completed, the utility requests approval from the Public Service Commission to place the cost of construction in its rate base, which means that the utility begins charging its electric customers for the construction costs. State public service commissions analyze the costs to determine if they were spent “prudently.” If the PSC deems the costs to have been prudent, then they can be passed on to ratepayers. This occurs with or without CWIP.

When CWIP is allowed, public service commissions exercise even greater oversight and cost control. Costs are audited, reviewed and subject to a prudence determination by the PSC, typically on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. The utility must also demonstrate the economic viability of the project before it even begins construction. 

Cooper and his fellow anti-nuclear critics contend that CWIP allows utilities to collect costs without having to build the plant. Cooper’s paper claims that they can get halfway through the project, cancel it, and then collect the incurred costs of construction from ratepayers without having to pay anything. This is of course an erroneous view of how states govern projects.

Cooper’s paper cites an Iowa Utility Board analysis to make its case against CWIP. Last year, the Iowa legislature debated a bill that would allow CWIP which may have provided MidAmerican Energy the opportunity to build a nuclear plant in the state. The Iowa House passed the bill but the Senate didn’t act on it. There was much discussion about the issue and MidAmerican provided a short explanation of the bill (pdf). The explanation clearly states that the utility does not have the unilateral ability to cancel a project. State public service commissions must approve both the decision to build a plant, the decision to cancel one, and how much utilities can collect in rates based on the prudency of spending.

Cooper’s paper claims that CWIP puts all the risk on ratepayers. CWIP actually lowers the risks to ratepayers because it makes the projects more affordable to build, increasing the chance of successfully completing the project.

Most Economical

The five reactors under construction in the Southeast U.S. (Summer 2&3, Vogtle 3&4, and Watts Bar 2) are being built because they’re the most economical projects for those utilities. Cooper’s paper claims that there are many more economical alternatives than those plants. The utilities and state regulators in that region disagree.

Renewable resources in the Southeast are thin and natural gas plants (despite today’s low costs) are still not cheaper than the nuclear plants in the long-run. Utilities are also looking to diversify away from coal, and improved efficiency only gets a utility so far before new capacity is needed. Here’s what Georgia Power says on page 45 (pdf):

“The weighted average expected value of the relative savings for completion of the [Vogtle] Facility as compared to the gas-fired [combined cycle] alternative is $4.0 billion ….”

Paying it Forward

CWIP provides clear cost benefits for customers when building capital-intensive projects like nuclear plants. The two nuclear critics in this case simply do not like nuclear power and continue to misinform and skew the debate about the benefits of CWIP. Here’s their paper’s foregone conclusion on page viii:

“Nuclear power is inherently uneconomic because it relies on a catastrophically dangerous resource that is vulnerable to human frailties and the vicissitudes of Mother Nature.”

When one begins with such a conclusion, it’s easy to guess the rest of the paper.

Many generating plants and transmission lines operating today – not to mention the interstate highways, hundreds of bridges, and dams – have largely been paid for by customers who are no longer on the system. All customers benefit today from cost-effective capital that was deployed years ago. CWIP is not new and, as shown above, allows customers the benefit of lower electricity costs from a reliable, affordable, emission-free source of power that can last 60 to 80 to 100 years. Very few, if any, other technologies can provide such benefits.

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Guest Post: Nuclear Energy’s Value Proposition Still Strong, Will Reassert Itself in Next Decade

J. Scott Peterson

The following guest post was written by J. Scott Peterson, NEI's senior vice president, communications.

NEW YORK CITY—Despite challenging electricity markets and natural gas prices at a 13-year low, industry leaders are confident in the long-term prospects for nuclear energy and its contributions to the electricity mix and U.S. economic growth.

On average, America’s 104 commercial reactors are the most efficient power producers on the grid—operating at 86 percent capacity factor. Capacity factor is a measure of efficiency, with a 100-percent rating equaling full power production 24/7, 365 days. Absent reactors in California, Florida and Nebraska that have been closed virtually all year for extended maintenance, the capacity factor at the other 100 reactors was just shy of 90 percent.

“We continue to invest in these facilities to preserve their asset value,” NEI President and CEO Marv Fertel told nearly 200 financial analysts and journalists at the Institute’s annual briefing in New York. “We want them in position to operate beyond 40 years—perhaps more than 60 years—and to incorporate new upgrades to maintain the highest possible level of safety.”

Depressed natural gas prices, which set electricity prices in many markets, and flat electricity demand are putting near-term pressure on some nuclear energy facilities in deregulated markets. But Fertel and industry leaders are focusing on nuclear energy’s role providing fuel diversity in the electric sector for the longer-term and the value chain of nuclear energy that extends beyond low-cost, reliable power production.

“Our plans must be flexible to adapt to high- and low-price markets and must balance short- and long-term views,” Entergy Corp. CEO Leo Denault told analysts Feb. 8. He added that Entergy, which operates 12 reactors, would continue to advocate for markets that value nuclear energy’s added value: “a source of clean energy with effectively zero emissions, grid reliability…fuel diversity, and jobs and other contributions to the regional economy.”

Fertel echoed Denault’s value chain for nuclear energy on Thursday. “Low-carbon, baseload electricity is a crucial element of sustainable development and it is why many nations are building or planning to build more nuclear energy facilities. The value proposition for nuclear energy is still strong and will reassert itself as we move beyond the near term.”

Recognition of this value chain is growing among policymakers, environmental leaders and consumers. Eighty-one percent of U.S. adults in a Feb. 8-10 survey by Bisconti Research/GfK said nuclear energy is important to America’s electricity mix.

That value chain includes:

• Production of large quantities of electricity around the clock—nearly 770 billion kilowatt-hours in 2012;

• Job creation, including thousands of jobs at new reactor projects in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee and a doubling of uranium enrichment production in New Mexico;

• Providing clean air compliance, including the prevention of controlled emissions under the Clean Air Act and reducing the carbon compliance burden that would otherwise fall on natural gas and coal-fired power plant;

• Providing voltage support to the grid;

• Providing forward power price stability, particularly for large industrial users of electricity;

• Contributing to fuel and technology diversity that is one of the foundations of America’s reliable and resilient electric sector.

“We continue to believe that our [nuclear] assets are some of the lowest-cost, most dispatchable baseload assets,” Exelon CEO Christopher Crane told The Chicago Tribune on Feb. 8.

Nuclear energy facilities are increasingly important for fuel diversity as natural gas use for electricity generation grows. In Florida, where more than 60 percent of electricity is produced by burning natural gas, Florida Power and Light recently completed uprates totaling 490 megawatts at its Turkey Point and St. Lucie reactors. Based on the FPL’s latest projected price of fuel and other factors, this investment is projected to save customers $3.8 billion on fossil fuel costs that otherwise would have been used over their operating lifetime.

“This value proposition will become increasingly self-evident and will drive a bright long-term future for nuclear energy,” said Fertel.

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V.C. Summer: “A major contributor to the local economy.”

Some happy news is always a good way to kick off the weekend.

Fairfield County officials gathered at the county treasurer’s office Jan. 15 to meet with representatives of the V.C. Summer Nuclear Plant – and receive a check for $23.4 million.

If my local nuclear facility wanted to hand me a few million dollars, that would be a-ok, but this actually speaks to one of the major benefits of having a power plant in the neighborhood.

“We are very pleased that V.C. Summer Nuclear Station continues to be a major contributor to the local economy through property taxes that support schools, roads, and critical public services for the residents of Fairfield County,” said Dan Gatlin, vice president of Nuclear Operations at V.C. Summer.

The article doesn’t say, but I wager Summer is one of the larger employers in Fairfield County, so it has value beyond paying property taxes. And beyond property taxes and employment opportunities, Summer also provides a economic root system for all kinds of offshoot businesses in Fairfield and neighboring South Carolina counties – and I don’t just mean nuclear parts manufacturing. Think eateries and office supplies and businesses that cater to a larger, more diverse population.

Fairfield County Superintendent of Schools J.R. Green was on hand for the ceremony since a large portion of the tax dollars — $12,878,000 — funds education in the county. Just over $20,000 is allocated to the towns of Ridgeway and Winnsboro, combined. Just over $7.7 million goes into the county general fund. Other funding supports the county EMS, fire department and county library.

That $20,000 for two towns could use a little more explanation – seems stingy – but it may be that the county handles most of the general needs for those towns. And if the country improves its infrastructure with increased property taxes, it improves its appeal to other companies that might want to come out their way and set up shop. That nuclear power facility is a good in itself, but it also helps the human ecosystem of an area.

The story skirts around it a bit, but the financial and employment opportunities are only going to get better, as SCANA builds two more reactors at Summer (Nuclear Street has some nice pictures of the construction). That’s a lot of building employment up front and then staffing afterward. So Fairfield County did well in 2012 – but that’s nothing compared to the rest of this decade and beyond.

We’ve made this argument before about nuclear energy plants – that they can represent economic bonanzas for their communities – but it’s really nice to see this demonstrated in a local newspaper – in this case, the Herald Independent, which covers the whole county.

When people want to change direction in energy policy – say, from coal to wind or away from nuclear energy – they do it without thinking of the actual human consequence. But there is consequence – and in a place like Fairfield County, but really anywhere, it would be severe.

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The State of Play

Harvard professor David Ropeik takes a look at radiation and the concept of risk and find a number of linkages that inculcate a fear of radiation beyond the actual risk from it.

Particularly among baby boomers, our nuclear fears are rooted in existential Cold War worries about nuclear weapons, which transitioned into fear of nuclear fallout from weapons testing , which transitioned into environmental concerns. Beyond that stigmatizing past, nuclear radiation bears many of the psychological characteristics that research has found make any risk scarier.

We're more afraid of risks imposed on us than those we choose, which is why medical radiation is accepted but nuclear power radiation isn't.

A sign of a good article is that it is not afraid to tread into uncomfortable areas.

The more pain and suffering they cause, the more afraid we are of risks, and nuclear radiation is associated with cancer, even though studies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have firmly established that this form of radiation is a much weaker carcinogen than most people realize. The high doses and prolonged exposures from those explosions raised the cancer death toll among survivors who were within two miles of the explosions by only about half of 1%, according to the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which coordinates the now 65-year-long epidemiological study of these survivors.

It is fear of radiation that put advocates all over the American airwaves after the Fukushima accident to talk about an imminent radiological apocalypse. Actual risk can be far outstripped by perceived risk – and  exploited accordingly.

Admittedly, Ropeik goes further than I think the subject can sustain. For example:

On top of those "risk perception factors," nuclear energy is associated with industry and capitalism and institutions of economic and political power that some feel are responsible for an unfair society, one in which a few have most of the control and the rest are stuck lower on an economic and social class hierarchy too rigid to give everyone a fair shot.

Really? Polls have shown that the nearer one lives to a nuclear facility, the more one likes it – because it is an economic engine in the area – and because plant workers in the neighborhood act as de factor advocates, helping to get actual and perceived risk into balance. On several levels, a nuclear energy plant is like a factory – it provides jobs to workers and an economic boon to its county and state.

(It’s not unusual for social studies academics to explore a topic via the perils and pitfalls of capitalism, and such a perspective can be useful. This time, though, Ropeik applies a fairly standard critique of industrial endeavor where it really doesn’t fit – The China Syndrome tried the same approach, blaming the faults of that movie’s fictional nuclear facility on rapacious owners.)

Quibbles aside, the overall point is solid and Ropeik states it exceptionally well. Well worth the read.

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Interesting if very dated video from the Atoms for Peace era. It’s 1952 and Fred MacMurray is your host. Father James Keller, who wraps things up in the last section, is well spoken but seems to have been brought aboard to provide extra spiritual ballast. Even when it makes you cringe a bit, the history is the history:

Yes, it’s true. We never get tired of showing the Vogtle plant in Georgia -  clearing land or pouring cement or whatever the workers are up to - It’s been a long time coming.

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The Summer Breeze: V.C. Summer 2 and 3 Approved

South Carolina Gas and Electric received its combined construction and operating license (COL) from the NRC for two new reactors at its V.C. Summer facility. Let’s let them tell you about it:

South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, principal subsidiary of SCANA Corporation , and Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility, have received approval for combined construction and operating licenses (COLs) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for two new nuclear units at V. C. Summer Station in Jenkinsville, S.C.

“Receiving approval of our licenses to construct and operate units 2 and 3 at V.C. Summer is a significant event for our company and marks the culmination of an intense review by the NRC,” said Kevin Marsh, chairman and CEO of SCANA. “We look forward to building these two new nuclear units to enhance our ability to meet the energy needs of our customers.”

Lonnie Carter, president and CEO of Santee Cooper, said, “These new nuclear units are a critical component of Santee Cooper’s long-term plan to diversify our generation mix. Access to reliable and low-cost electricity will be key to job creation and economic development opportunities as we continue rebuilding our state’s economy and position South Carolina for the future.”

About 1,000 workers are currently engaged in early-site preparation work at the V.C. Summer construction site. The project will peak at about 3,000 construction craft workers over the course of three to four years. The two units, each with a capacity of 1,117 megawatts, will then add 600 to 800 permanent jobs when they start generating electricity.

Full steam ahead! We’ll look at some of the news and editorial comment about this next week.

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Gov. Jerry Brown of California may or may not be able to navigate the unusual world of his state’s politics – we certainly hope he can – but in his first term (1975-1983) or his second one (beginning last year), he has always been reliably straightforward in describing his thinking, yet he always sounds fantastically mellow for a chief executive. Let’s count it as a virtue, whether one agrees with his policies or not.

So were we were quite interested to see what he had to say about  energy. He didn’t disappoint.

Every Governor usually inherits a mess,” said Brown.  “I’m open, I’m curious, I like to try new things. So if we didn’t try something before [in terms of renewable energy], maybe we can try it now. And stuff we haven’t done, that’s what we gotta do.”

Well, that’s renewables. Fine.

“Just looking at stuff, sh*t happens,” said Brown. “Nuclear’s got issues, but it’s good for greenhouse gases, it’s pretty reliable. Our plant at Diablo Canyon is going at 98 percent reliability, which is a lot higher than it was 30 years ago.”

I’m not sure I’d put exactly like that, but true enough. Diablo Canyon is one of California’s two operating nuclear facilities. San Onofre is the other.

We poked around to see if Brown said more about nuclear – he’s been at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference this week - but really just snips and bits. Here’s one:

MR. THOMSON: How have your views on nuclear changed? Would you describe yourself as pronuclear now?

GOV. BROWN: Certainly I'm more skeptical of everything, even of my own ideas.

Nuclear's got issues, but it's good for greenhouse gases. It's pretty reliable. So, I'm open to it. I want to make stuff work. I want to deal with stuff. And you've got to try many paths, because a lot of them don't work.

I'd definitely say nuclear is a serious technology that serious people have to think about, and I certainly would include myself in that group.

This is a striking change. Brown ran in 1979 on an explicitly anti-nuclear platform (it was soon after the accident at Three Mile Island).

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I found this comment about fracking to be non-responsive, but pure Brown:

I called up one of our leading oil companies and said, "What's the story on fracking?" This was a week ago. He said, "Well, it's not as bad as the environmentalists say and it's not as safe as the oil companies say." I said, "Well, could I get a briefing on it?" He said, "Yeah." So sometime in the next two or three weeks I'm going to be able to answer your question better.

So, let’s see what he thinks in three weeks.

The view at Summer. This is actually from about a year ago. It’s probably not quite so pit-like now.

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Summer Imminent; Nuclear Gallups Forward

Mark your calendars:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is poised to award Scana Corp. (SCG) a license to build two reactors in South Carolina, the second such action after a three-decade drought.

The NRC will vote March 30 on the Cayce, South Carolina- based company’s proposal to build two units at its existing Virgil C. Summer plant, about 26 miles (42 kilometers) northwest of Columbia, the agency said today on its website.

This seemed likely to happen after the approval for two reactors at Vogtle in Georgia last month, but that didn’t happen. And even in this instance, the NRC calendar marks this event as tentative. So we’ll see.

These affirmation hearings take place after all issues have been advanced. This one is scheduled for 1:25 pm and will probably be done by 1:30. It’s basically a quick okay.

Bloomberg adds this detail:

The reactors may be among the last built in the U.S. this decade, as a glut of cheap natural gas has discouraged companies from investing in nuclear energy and other forms of generation.

So yes, something in the punch bowl does smell bad. There are a bunch of companies with license applications In the hopper, so we’ll see how this dour little prediction works out.

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Okay, Here’s the question from Gallup.

Overall, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity for the U.S.?

The answer in 1994, was 57 percent (combined favor). Closely after the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, this withered to, well, 57 percent. Today it is – 57 percent. Now after the accident, some of the uncommitted vote moved to oppose territory. So nuclear energy wasn’t losing friends but it wasn’t winning them either. This is a bit of a problem, as strong opposers are as tough to dislodge from their position as strong partisans. So it isn’t all good news.

But it’s mostly good news. There’s more summary at the link.

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In an otherwise sour article in the New York Times, economist Nancy Fobre lets the mask slip just a little, especially in light of the Gallup survey:

Yet the industry has proved remarkably successful at garnering public support in the United States, ranging from public insurance against accident liability to loan guarantees.

Even this isn’t altogether fair, but the admission that nuclear energy has garnered “public support” is more than you’ll usually see from an anti-nuclear advocate. Crediting that support to the nuclear industry is probably something NEI should show its board of directors, but we shouldn’t underestimate the power of the facilities themselves.

People who live around them tend to like them even better than the general public. Not only are they literal powerhouses, but they are economic powerhouses, too, and do a lot of good for their communities.

I know Fobre likely means public financial support, but it’s been pretty good at plain old public support, too.

From Gallup. Click to enlarge.

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