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Two distinct and unrelated stories this week convinced me it was a good moment to look at nuclear power in the US.
Those developments, which might give anyone pause about the future of nuclear power, are counteracted by other headlines.
The opening of a new nuclear plant in Georgia, for example, will bring carbon emission-free energy at exactly the time worldwide temperature records drive home the reality of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
Germany made the decision to decommission all of its nuclear plants after disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. The last nuclear reactor there was taken offline earlier this year, a decision some might have regretted after Germany’s access to Russian natural gas was threatened by the war in Ukraine.
Next door, France is the worldwide nuclear leader. Most of its electricity is generated by nuclear power.
Russia, while it has been ostracized from the world economy in almost every way since its invasion of Ukraine, remains a major player in nuclear power. It enriches and sells uranium through its state-controlled nuclear energy company, Rosatom, which builds and operates plants around the world, according to a March report from CNN’s Clare Sebastian that explains why the West has largely left Russia’s nuclear power industry alone.
But it is China that is moving the quickest toward nuclear power production, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
As of 2022, about 18% of US electricity is generated by nuclear power, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Most large US nuclear reactors are old – averaging 40 years or more.
In addition to the Georgia reactor coming online, a new reactor began operating in Tennessee in 2016. But otherwise, the US nuclear power portfolio is old, and much of it is in need of improvement.
For an idea of the money and corruption that can revolve around energy production, look at the sentencing last week of Ohio’s former House Speaker Larry Householder to 20 years in prison for his involvement in a bribery scheme meant to get the utility company FirstEnergy Corp. a billion-dollar taxpayer bailout for two nuclear plants.
The bipartisan infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021 included a $6 billion program to provide grants to nuclear reactor owners or operators and stave off closing them.
More than a dozen reactors have closed early in the US over the past decade, according to the Department of Energy. At least one reactor, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, will be kept open after a more than $1 billion grant.
Nuclear power – and how aggressively the US and other countries should be pursuing it – is a topic that splits scientists as well.
I talked to one nuclear expert who said the US should be slow and methodical about nuclear power and another who argued there are multiple, public misperceptions about nuclear power that should be corrected.
The more circumspect voice is Rodney Ewing, a Stanford University professor and expert on nuclear waste who was chairman of a federal review of nuclear waste procedures. I was put in touch with him by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which aims to “reduce man-made threats to our existence.”
Despite his decades spent focused on nuclear issues, he said something I found remarkable:
“I don’t have yet, although I’ve tried for years, a well-formed position for or against nuclear energy,” Ewing said.
“Too often in the enthusiasm for nuclear energy, a carbon-free source of energy – and in the present situation of the issue of climate change, really a very important existential crisis – it’s easy to say, well, we’ll solve the problems later.”
He said the issues with nuclear energy – from the potential for disaster to the issue of how to store nuclear waste – should be compared with the potential for renewable alternatives like solar and wind energy.
The University of Illinois energy professor, David Ruzic – who has a lively YouTube channel, “Illinois EnergyProf,” with multiple videos meant to dispel concerns about nuclear energy – has a much more positive view of nuclear energy’s future.
Illinois, by the way, generates more nuclear power than any other state. Lawmakers there recently voted to lift a moratorium on new reactor construction that was in place until the federal government can develop a technology for disposing of nuclear waste. That new policy must still be signed by the state’s governor.
Ruzic argues nuclear waste takes up such little space it should simply be encased in yards of solid concrete and kept at the site of nuclear reactors. The concrete, he argued, can be repaired every 70 years or so as it degrades.
“Over the 60 years we’ve been doing this commercially, we have learned so much about how to do it extremely safely and very well,” Ruzic said, arguing that the new plant in Georgia would not be affected by an earthquake and tidal wave in the way that Fukushima was, because the new reactor in Georgia is cooled by air in case of an emergency.
He argued that even in Fukushima, it’s important to note that there were no deaths associated with the radiation due to the failure of the plant, although many thousands were evacuated.
Any concern you can find to raise about nuclear power, Ruzic has a ready answer. He said no one should worry about the radioactive water Japan plans to release into the ocean from Fukushima because there is a level of radioactivity in everything already.
“You are adding something trivial and inconsequential, which will be diluted even more,” Ruzic said.
Even the Russia-Ukraine standoff over the Zaporizhzhia plant does not concern Ruzic; the biggest threat he sees, assuming it is not targeted by bunker-busting bombs, is that the plant ceases making electricity – not that it could turn into another Chernobyl.
“It’s really unfortunate that it’s in the middle of a war zone. But it’s also really unfortunate that chemical plants or coal plants or other plants are in the middle of a war zone as well,” he argued.
Both professors brought up the push toward small, modular nuclear technology for which there are numerous companies speculating there will be a major market. That market could grow exponentially if the government decides to put a tax on carbon emissions to account for the harm they cause.
Ewing argued there is not a clear US national energy strategy, and that means numerous state and federal agencies and private companies are searching, often at odds with each other, for something new. The expense and difficulty of developing nuclear technology will be a roadblock. The new Georgia plant took more than a decade to build and came in over budget.
Ruzic said that after the initial capital expenditure, the relative low cost of fuel for nuclear plants makes them a good, long-term investment.
When I came back to Ewing about his comment that he has no clear preference for or against nuclear energy, he said the broad question overlooks too much.
“The nuclear landscape is, from a technical and social point of view, complicated enough that broad general positions really don’t serve us very well,” he said.
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