NRG President – Thad Hill – explains his company's atomic choice
On Saturday, 6 October, statesman.com published a commentary by Thad Hill, President of NRG Energy Inc. The title of the commentary is Nuclear power is the way of the future. It is a solid, logical case for building large new nuclear plants in Texas. Here is a sample quote:
We are proud of our project and that Texans will be the first to enjoy the benefits of the nuclear renaissance, and here’s why:
Clean power: Nuclear energy produces no emissions or greenhouse gases, which we believe contribute to climate change. When compared with a traditional fossil-fuel plant, the new units will avoid emitting 18 million tons of CO2 each year.
Safe, proven technology: Though the United States stopped building nuclear plants decades ago, safe and reliable nuclear technology has continued to be developed and constructed in many countries, primarily Japan and France. We are using the same technology used to build multiple plants on time and on budget.
One of the frequent statements made by the anti-nuclear industry is that nuclear power has failed in the marketplace and that no one wants to invest in the technology anymore. As an investor, I like to look for a bit deeper information than that, so I went and found a graph of NRG’s stock performance over the past year.
NRG Energy Inc. common stock Oct 2006-Oct 2007
It seems to me that investors are reasonably pleased with the company’s plans and prospects for the future. I expect that they will become even more satisfied if Mr. Hill and his company’s project managers hit their targets of producing multiple plants on time and on budget.
