Everyone in Ohio will now get the privilege of bailing out noncompetitive nuclear and coal plants, even if they don’t use power from either of the companies that operate those plants. On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed new legislation that adds fees to every single resident’s electric bills in order to bail out nuclear plants operated by FirstEnergy Solutions and coal plants operated Ohio Valley Electric Corporation.
And, as an extra-special bonus, the same legislation will end programs supporting increased efficiency along with those that promote wind and solar power. In fact, the legislation is being sold to Ohio consumers as a savings, because the $170 million in payoffs to failing plants is hidden behind the “savings” generated by failing to take any steps to improve the money-losing system.
It gets better. Getting enough money out of the system to cover up the cost of these old, expensive, and never profitable plants is considered vital enough that the legislation will actually phase out Ohio’s efforts to increase the use of renewable energy and energy-efficient approaches. The state currently has requirements that some percentage of electricity be generated through renewable energy. Those requirements were to reach 12% of electricity by 2027. Instead, those standards are also being phased out. By 2026, they are gone completely.
According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Republicans have pitched the bill as “saving jobs” by keeping the two nuclear plants in business. That’s even though the nuclear plants, which have never operated at a profit, are massively more expensive to operate than creating the equivalent amount of power from either wind or solar, and even though replacing the plants would actually create more jobs. Not just more jobs, but jobs in industries that are growing, and for which there is wide demand. That’s not something that can be said about the position of nuclear plant operator.
It’s not just the nuclear plants that are operating on government largess. A fee that supports a pair of aging coal plants was already on the electric bills of many in Ohio. Now the whole state will join in—even though the cost of simply operating those plants is greater than the cost of replacing them completely with clean energy.