{"id":4990,"date":"2013-08-02T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4990"},"modified":"2013-08-02T02:48:25","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T06:48:25","slug":"edf-exits-nuclear-focuses-on-solar-and-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/edf-exits-nuclear-focuses-on-solar-and-wind.html","title":{"rendered":"EDF exits nuclear, focuses on solar and wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nEDF is moving to solar and wind, despite its excuse of shale gas for leaving\r\nthe U.S. nuclear market.\r\nEDF already has almost twice as much solar and wind in the U.S., 2.3 gigawatts, as\r\n\r\nthe 1.2 gigawatts Southern Company plans by 2016<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nMaybe this means\r\n\r\nCalvert Cliffs is finally dead<\/a>\r\nmaybe along with \r\n\r\nNRC’s attempt to change foreign ownership rules to accomodate EDF<\/a>.\r\nEDF is the operator of France’s fleet of nuclear reactors,\r\nincluding\r\ncaught-on-fire Cattenom<\/a>\r\nand many others\r\n\r\nthat drain over-hot water into French rivers in the summer<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nReuters in Climate Spectator 31 July 2013\r\n\r\nEDF exits US nuclear, focuses on renewables<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFrench utility EDF, the world’s biggest operator of nuclear plants,\r\nis pulling out of nuclear energy in the United States, bowing to the\r\nrealities of a market that has been transformed by cheap shale gas.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSeveral nuclear reactors in the US have been closed or are being\r\nshuttered as utilities baulk at the big investments needed to extend\r\ntheir lifetimes now that nuclear power has been so decisively\r\nundercut by electricity generated from shale gas.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“The spectacular fall of the price of gas in the US, which was\r\nunimaginable a few years ago, has made this form of energy ultra\r\ncompetitive vis a vis all other forms of energy,” EDF Chief\r\nExecutive Henri Proglio told a news conference.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nEDF agreed with its partner Exelon on an exit from their\r\nConstellation Energy Nuclear Group (CENG) joint venture, which\r\noperates five nuclear plants in the United States with a total\r\ncapacity of 3.9 gigawatts.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe French utility said it had agreed a put option that allows EDF\r\nto sell CENG to Exelon at the fair value of its stake between\r\nJanuary 2016 and June 2022. EDF will also receive an exceptional\r\ndividend from CENG of $400 million, it said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Circumstances for the development of nuclear in the US are not\r\nfavourable at the moment,” Proglio said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nInternational Energy Agency analyst Dennis Volk said CENG’s eastern\r\nUS power plants were located in some of the most competitive power\r\nmarkets in the country, with high price competition, growing wind\r\ncapacity and cheap gas.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“It is simply not easy to invest in nuclear and recover your money\r\nthere,” Volk said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nFocus on renewables in US\r\n<\/strong>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nProglio said EDF would now focus on renewable energy in the United\r\nStates. EDF employs 860 people in US solar and wind, and since 2010\r\nits generating capacity has doubled to 2.3 gigawatts. It manages\r\nanother 7 gigawatts for other companies.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDF is moving to solar and wind, despite its excuse of shale gas for leaving the U.S. nuclear market. EDF already has almost twice as much solar and wind in the U.S., 2.3 gigawatts, as the 1.2 gigawatts Southern Company plans by 2016. Maybe this means Calvert Cliffs is finally dead maybe along with NRC’s […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,6124,104,23,24,36],"tags":[8704,1750,8701,8702,12,7,562,8737,8713,970,8714,108,6,8716],"class_list":["post-4990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-economy","tag-edf","tag-georgia","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear","tag-renewable-energy","tag-shale-gas","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1iu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4990"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4993,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4990\/revisions\/4993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}