Ohio passed legislation that preserves the state’s nuclear plants. Which is good since nuclear generates over 90% of the state’s clean energy, its 600 MW of wind notwithstanding.
The Ohio Senate passed its version of House Bill 6 19-12 last week, and the House voted 51-38 this week. Governor Mike DeWine signed the legislation a few hours later. As a result, the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants will remain in operation.
“Our goal all along has been to save the nuclear plants, save the jobs but also to keep the cost of energy down for the ratepayer," said Gov. DeWine.
Contrary to critics of this bill, regional grid operator PJM released a report in June concluding that keeping the Ohio nuclear plants running would reduce electricity costs by $95 million while reducing carbon emissions by 2.3 million tons. And most other measures also favor nuclear.
“The majority of Ohio’s clean energy will remain in operation thanks to legislation passed by the legislature. Ohio’s nuclear power plants do more than churn out 90 percent of the Buckeye state’s clean power, they support 4,300 jobs and contribute $30 million per year to roads, school and public services,” said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick.
“This decision echoes support we’ve seen in New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Connecticut and reaffirms the major role that nuclear’s carbon free energy has in lowering carbon emissions.”
In fact, the world’s top climate scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Tom Wigley, Dr. Ken Caldeira and Dr. Kerry Emanuel, have all urged world leaders and environmental campaigners to stop their unscientific and ideological attacks on nuclear energy and support its expansion.
But Ohio House Bill 6 also preserves the state’s coal plants. Including coal in the bill was a political necessity to pass, and will not have much of an impact in the future. Coal will continue to decline in the state as it has done steadily for the last 15 years, although it still provides half of the state’s electricity.
No one is going to build a new coal plant in Ohio ever.
On the other hand, natural gas has been skyrocketing for the last ten years and now provides a third of the state’s electricity, having captured all of the closed coal generation. Renewables have been climbing slightly but are still only at 3%, and nuclear has been flat at about 16%.
So it’s no wonder the oil and gas industry is not happy with this legislation. Natural gas producers were planning on taking over nuclear’s share of power generation, and to continue to replace coal, leading to about 70% natural gas in the state by 2040.
Gas considers nuclear to be its main competitor. Everywhere nuclear has closed, it’s been replaced by gas, not renewables, with a concomitant rise in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in electricity prices. U.S. carbon emissions rose in 2018 by over 60 million tons of CO2, so more carbon-rich gas is not the answer - if you care about climate change. If you don’t care, then millions of cubic feet more of gas every year is fine (?)
So it’s no surprise that the American Petroleum Institute, the oil lobby, “…is disappointed in the legislature for passing this corporate bailout for nuclear and coal-burning power plants.”
Said API Ohio Executive Director Chris Zeigler, “…LS Power has already said they will halt the development of a $500 million expansion of their natural gas power plant in Luckey, Ohio because of the subsidies, and there’s no telling how much additional investment our state will now miss out on because lawmakers decided to cater to corporations over constituents.”
Aww…now it might take a little longer for natural gas to completely dominate the state’s electricity generation.
As part of the compromise bill, utilities will now be required to get 8.5% of their electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2026 instead of the previous target of 12.5%. Again, this will not have much of an impact since renewables only produce 3% of the state’s electricity and their federal subsidies are still intact.
Besides, preserving nuclear will do much more for the environment and lowering emissions by delaying natural gas than additional wind could do in the same time period.
The new law changes the 5 MW law for wind projects to a 20 MW law for on-site wind, making clear to Jereme Kent, CEO of One Energy, “that wind projects constructed to power a single customer at a single location are not regulated by the Ohio Power Siting Board unless the projects are 20 MW or more in size…ensuring that industrial and manufacturing plants in Ohio working to self-generate their own electricity on-site “…will no longer be limited by unrealistic regulations.”
The legislation also freezes annual increases in energy efficiency standards at the end of 2020. Utilities won’t have to operate programs that help customers reduce their energy use. Consumer advocates say the cuts to energy efficiency programs are especially harmful because their savings exceed their costs. This was a dumb addition to the law since net savings were $5.1 billion from 2009 to 2017. With this level of savings, it’s not certain utilities will stop these programs at all.
Of course, all of these are reversible. You can add back renewable targets. You can always build more gas, and we will. But when nuclear closes, it’s forever.
The oil and gas industry is looking to sponsor a statewide referendum in the 2020 legislative elections to overturn HB6 and get their fossil fuel back on track to control the state’s energy in the foreseeable future.
