SMRs

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is preparing to oversee a restart of a shuttered nuclear power plant for the first time — the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. Other reactors have successfully restarted after stretches of inactivity but Palisades was in the process of being decommissioned and no longer has its operating license, so it faces a complicated — and unprecedented — path forward, helped in large part by a $1.52 billion conditional loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss what it will take to restart the Palisades plant, which could provide carbon-free electricity for 800,000 homes. 

Many may have nits to pick with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — some may not like one or both at all — but it would be hard to argue with the view that they provide generous financial support for the production of clean hydrogen and the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2). And now, with a clearer understanding of the tax credits that will be available going forward, companies active in the clean hydrogen and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) spaces are scrambling to advance large-scale projects that would benefit from the federal government’s largesse. That includes blue methanol plants, which produce a super-low-carbon version of the petrochemical intermediate and shipping fuel by capturing and sequestering most of the CO2 that is generated during production. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the blue methanol projects taking shape along the Gulf Coast.