Nuke Projects Near Collapse May Get $9 Billion Bailout (including foreign-owned corporation)

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If this doesn't tell you who's in charge in multinational corporate-owned Amerika, nothing will. :puke: Our deficit small-government hawks have their hands in till for their corporate friends in the nuke industry including a foreign-owned corporation. :grr: Please write your senators to stop this. www.nirs.org Website has link to letter for your senators. www.nirs.org

Think what $9 billion would do for AMERICAN clean energy projects and AMERICAN jobs.

SEN HUTCHISON THREATENS NEW ATTEMPT TO GIVE $9 BILLION IN NEW NUKE LOANS AS TOP PROJECTS TEETER TOWARD COLLAPSE

YOUR ACTIONS NOW CAN STOP THEM AGAIN!

July 30, 2010

One thing you can say about the nuclear power industry: they just don't give up when it comes to trying to get their hands on taxpayer money!

Less than 10 days ago, the Senate rejected a House-passed emergency supplemental funding bill that included $9 Billion in new loans for nuclear reactor construction. Now, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison R-Texas) is trying to attach that $9 Billion to any bill that might get through the Senate. She offered it to a bill to assist small businesses (never mind that no nuclear utility qualifies as a small business), but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to let this amendment (and dozens of others) take up valuable Senate floor time.

Now we have growing concern that Sen. Hutchison, or another of the nuclear industry's supporters, may try to attach it to Senator Reid's modest energy bill, which is expected to be considered on the floor of the Senate next week and which currently contains no support for nuclear power. Please write your Senators here and tell them to oppose adding any nuclear subsidies to this energy bill--or any other bill.

But if you want more background, read on:

There are two projects high on the Department of Energy's "short list" for nuclear loans: UniStar Nuclear's Calvert Cliffs-3 in Maryland and NRG's South Texas two-unit reactor proposal. Both are in serious trouble.

On Wednesday, one UniStar partner, Maryland's Constellation Energy, said it needs a loan guarantee by the end of summer or it might end the project; while the other partner, Electricite de France, yesterday took a $1 Billion+ write-off of its investment in UniStar and Constellation. These developments come on top of growing concern among both U.S. and French nuclear regulators over serious safety deficiencies in the Areva EPR reactor design chosen for the project.

NRG's South Texas project has been in trouble for many months. Its main partner, the City of San Antonio, essentially dropped out of the project. Only partially taking up their planned investment is a group that is primarily the Japanese company Toshiba. NRG also has warned it needs a loan guarantee quickly or it will give up.

The Department of Energy is under intense pressure to approve at least one of these projects. But which one? It--and the nuclear industry's backers in Congress, would prefer that both be approved. Right now, the Department of Energy has $10 Billion to give out in nuclear loans--not nearly enough to support both of these projects. But $9 Billion more of your taxpayer dollars would do the trick.

Why U.S. taxpayers should support giant foreign corporations (Electricite de France is the world's largest electric utility, for example), especially ones that already have written off their investments in these projects or will simply drop out if the taxpayers don't pick up their tab now, is beyond us. Neither project even has a license to build a new reactor, and neither will have one for at least two more years. Make no mistake: these nuclear loans are taxpayer bailouts for nuclear power projects that cannot and will not succeed on their own. Not because companies like Electricite de France and Toshiba can't afford to build nuclear reactors, but because they don't want to use their own money to do so. They want us to take their risks.

Please write your Senators now and tell them to oppose any more nuclear loans. And please send your friends, relatives and colleagues to this link so they can express their opinions too: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3831

And please help us pay the costs of this ongoing campaign here. We're starting to see real progress; help us keep it up!

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
[e-mail]
www.nirs.org

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1. kick - nuke Barons have tons of money to pass around plus

hired thugs that cause problems for anti nukers

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2. I thought French nukes were "so great"- but this French corp needs a bailout, along with Toshiba?

What gives? :shrug:

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