The nuclear power industry talks more often with the Hillary Clinton campaign than with the campaign for the Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, said the head of the industry’s lead trade group on Thursday.
It’s an issue of familiarity over substance when it comes to the frequency of discussions being higher on the Democratic side versus Trump, says Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
“We are definitely engaging in discussions with key members on both party sides,” Fertel said. “More so with the Clinton campaign because we happen to know more people that are engaged with them, right now, than the Trump campaign.”
But outside the individual campaigns, Fertel says they are engaged equally with both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee. He says their outreach will only intensify in the coming weeks and months.
“But our intent is to certainly be active with both the national parties and the national campaigns and be very active during the transition period no matter who wins,” he said. “So, we are, we will be and it will probably get more intense.”
Fertel discussed his talks with the parties on a call with reporters Thursday to discuss the road ahead for the nuclear industry, which he said feels the federal government is not moving fast enough to address a number of key market issues that are making it harder for the industry to compete.
He gave the president credit for setting a goal with Canada and Mexico this week to achieve 50 percent clean energy for North America by 2025.
Fertel believes the effort is laudable, but warned that it won’t be achieved if federal and state policies force more nuclear power plants to close.
He doesn’t believe that wind energy and solar, which the administration is betting on to achieve the goal, will get the country and its partners to the goal without other forms of electricity.
“One of the big things” to consider when moving to more renewables is reliability, and the possibility of going dark when the weather changes, he said. “We don’t shut down … when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing,” he said.
Fertel also explained that federal tax subsidies for wind and solar are distorting the electricity markets that the federal government oversees, and making it tougher for nuclear plants to compete by forcing them to operate at a loss in some cases.
“One of the policy challenges is to get the attributes of nuclear [energy] valued properly in the market,” he said. But “we don’t see the state or federal system acting fast enough.”
He said allowing nuclear power plants to shutdown will only mean they will be replaced by more expensive and less reliable forms of power.
