This Coal Power Subsidy Proposal Is Nuts

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-10-02/rick-perry-s-coal-power-subsidy-proposal-is-nuts

Energy Secretary Rick Perry has hit upon a strategy to prevent blackouts and, coincidentally, subsidize struggling nuclear and coal-fired power plants. It's the squirrel strategy.

Perry sent a letter last week to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, directing it to come up with a rule that would change how electricity gets priced in America's unregulated wholesale power markets. Specifically, the Department of Energy wants plants that can store 90 days' worth of fuel onsite to be offered extra market compensation -- an effective subsidy.

Ostensibly, this is to reward those plants for their resiliency. Like giant squirrels, their stockpiles would help them power through disruptions to fuel supply (the letter cites the Polar Vortex of early 2014 as an example of this in action).

It just so happens that the only plants doing this to any degree are those using uranium or coal. Natural gas-fired plants rely on pipelines, and renewable sources rely mostly on the weather or the flow of water.