WASHINGTON, DC, June 2, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today unveiled the first rules to limit carbon emissions from power plants nationwide as a major component of efforts to combat the threat of global climate change. Under the proposed EPA rule, the federal government will issue guidelines for cutting emissions while leaving it to each state to develop its own plan to meet the guidelines. Following is a statement from Richard Myers, the Nuclear Energy Institute's vice president for policy development, planning and supplier programs.
"For more than half the states in America, nuclear power plants are their largest source of carbon-free electricity. For many, it is their dominant source of zero-carbon power. So there's no question that any serious effort to reduce carbon emissions must acknowledge the need to maintain and expand the use of nuclear energy. We are pleased to see that the proposed rule recognizes nuclear energy's attributes.
"For any strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, one thing is abundantly clear for every state in the nation: with nuclear energy it is feasible to meet the administration's goals, and without it there is no chance at all.
"The strength of the U.S. electric system is diversity of fuels and technologies. Nuclear energy provides many valuable attributes to America's electricity supply, including the fact that nuclear energy accounts for 63 percent of all carbon-free sources of electricity during production and is the only baseload source operating more than 90 percent of the time."
The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry's policy organization. This news release and additional information about nuclear energy are available at www.nei.org.