Slashdot: White House Eyes Subsidies for Nuclear Plants To Help Meet Climate Targets

White House Eyes Subsidies for Nuclear Plants To Help Meet Climate Targets
Published on May 05, 2021 at 12:05PM
The White House has signaled privately to lawmakers and stakeholders in recent weeks that it supports taxpayer subsidies to keep existing nuclear facilities from closing, bending to the reality that it needs these plants to meet U.S. climate goals, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. From the report: The new subsidies, in the form of “production tax credits,” would likely be swept into President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar legislative effort to invest in the nation’s infrastructure and jobs, the sources said. Wind and solar power producers already get these tax rebates based on levels of energy they generate. Biden wants the U.S. power industry to be emissions free by 2035. He is also asking Congress to extend or create tax credits aimed at wind, solar and battery manufacturing as part of his $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan. The United States has more than 90 nuclear reactors, the most in the world, and the business is the country’s top source of emissions-free power generation.