Energy strategy, EPA carbon rule may benefit nuclear

摘要

Continuing what seems to be a coordinated series of actions to confront the causes and effects of climate change, the Obama administration followed the April release of its National Climate Assessment (NN, June 2014, p. 35) with its "all-of-the-above" energy strategy in May, and in June, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. By inference, at least, both of these developments could be beneficial to the nuclear power enterprise in the United States, although there are no new actions proposed in the strategy, and the mandated reduction in CO_2 emissions would be phased in over the next several years. If there are power reactors now in operation that are in imminent danger of closure because of declining profitability, their fates may not be affected by state-by-state emission limits that likely won't take effect until the next decade.