Loan Guarantees and Bennett's Amendment

I earlier mentioned the stimulus package; now, I've got some better understanding.

First, some background. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 established a federal loan guarantee program to facilitate deployment of clean technologies, which include renewables, transmission, and advanced coal- and nuclear-based generation. Companies who take a loan pay a subsidy cost, which is essentially the expected long-term liability the government would face. Typically, this is on the order of 1o% of the face value. The loan program is "scored" at just 1% of the loan face value--which means only 1% of the face value is appropriated.

The current stimulus legislation aims to appropriate $8 billion (House) to $10 billion (Senate). However, in its current form, this legislation would appropriate the subsidy cost, again, roughly 10% of the face value. That means, e.g., the Senate's version would allow provide roughly $100 in available loans.

Senator Bennett [R-UT] has proposed an amendment that would put $1 billion of the Senate's package into the current loan guarantee program. This $1 billion, with the 1% score, would allow for an additional $100 billion under the current program.

Obviously, this could be of paramount importance for financing new nuclear generation. Contact your Senators and let them know your opinion!

Stimulus + Energy Loan Guarantees = ?

I've gotten two emails about an upcoming Senate Appropriations Committee vote on the economic stimulus package and an amendment by Senator Bennett (R-UT) to provide $100 billion in loan guarantees for renewable (and supposedly nuclear) energy. Another student of nuclear must also have gotten this news.

I can't be sure, but the amendment would seem to modify the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, the fancy name for a Senate version of the stimulus plan.

Anybody know more than I do?

I was browsing the standard nuclear journals today and found in NS&E a paper on the French fission product experiments, which has been heavily analyzed at ORNL over the past couple years. It will be interesting to learn more about these experiments and how new analysis techniques I'm trying to develop could be used on their data in burnup credit analyses.

Last night I baked bagels (myself) for the first time. Let me say first that they are superb, and second, that molasses works well as a malt extract substitute in small quantities. Tonight, we host a largely nuclear-grad gathering for a "veggie-mex" dinner...