Online news website Vox analyzed the climate plan of President Obama, with some input from UT’s Steve Skutnik on the vital topic of nuclear power.
Skutnik, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at UT, has studied the plan and how it relates to that particular power source.
While a main focus on the plan is reducing carbon emissions, part of the plan involves reducing overall costs, which in turn places nuclear plants as potential areas to be cut, despite the fact that they have zero carbon emissions.
“States were basically given no incentive to look at extending these assets,” Skutnik told the site. “EPA essentially said [in its rule], ‘Well, we can’t predict which plants will close, so we won’t deal with that.’ I was surprised by that.”
The full article can be read at Vox