Mark Chediak and Catherine Traywick reported that President-elect advisers are looking at ways in which the U.S. government could help nuclear power generators being forced out of the electricity market by cheaper natural gas and renewable resources. In a document obtained by Bloomberg, Trump's transition team asked the Energy Department how it can help keep nuclear reactors "operating as part of the national infrastructure" and what it could do to prevent the shutdown of plants. Advisers also asked the agency whether there were statutory restrictions in resuming work on Yucca Mountain, a proposed federal depository for nuclear waste in Nevada that was abandoned by the Obama administration.
The list of questions to the Energy Department offers one of the clearest indications yet of the potential plans for aiding the battered nuclear power generators. Five of the country nuclear plants have closed in the past five years, based on Energy Department data, and more are set to shut as cheaper supplies from gas-fired plants, wind and solar squeeze their profits. The Energy Department could "just directly offer power purchase contracts to some of these plants," Julien DuMoulin-Smith, a New York-based analyst for UBS Group AG, said Friday by phone. "That's a last resort. It is not necessarily likely but it is something they are looking at. They are very interested in keeping the commercial portfolio available."
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