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Nuclear - the renewable with power

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By JACK OHANIAN

Special to the Tribune

Published: July 19, 2009

Cooler heads are prevailing in the debate about the future of nuclear energy. In energy policy circles, there is a growing sense that the climate challenge has fundamentally improved the prospects for nuclear energy in the United States.

Although no new plants are under construction and insufficient progress has been made on the waste issue, nuclear energy is now part of the dialogue on energy policy. Bill Reilly, chairman emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund and former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said recently that clean-energy legislation probably will not pass in the Senate without support for nuclear energy.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee recently approved clean-energy legislation that recognizes the significant role that nuclear energy plays as the nation's single, largest source of low-carbon electricity. The measure also calls for the federal government to fulfill its obligation to manage spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste.

Although it was difficult to understand the administration's justification for ending the Yucca Mountain project, where nuclear waste was to be disposed, its decision in no way halts the progress of nuclear energy. Within five years, nearly every nuclear plant in this country will have dry-cask storage for spent fuel, enabling utilities to move the spent fuel from storage pools to the concrete-and-steel casks. The casks are within the plants' security perimeter. As an interim solution, the casks are safe, capable of holding the spent fuel for several hundred years if necessary. But a permanent repository needs to be built, at the same time recycling technology is implemented to significantly reduce the volume of waste that needs to go into the repository.

In other words, nuclear energy's challenges remain the same, but climate change concerns have significantly improved its prospects.

Seventeen utilities have filed applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build 26 plants, including two north of Crystal River in Levy County. And it is a good thing this is happening because we are going to need more nuclear-generated electricity despite all the conversation you hear about alternative energy taking up the slack and replacing "base-load" power plants.

Although electricity consumption has leveled off as a result of the economic crisis, the need for electricity is expected to rebound after the economy gets back on track. In the future, we will be looking at a different energy market. A decline in electricity reserve margins is likely, and Florida, for example, could become vulnerable to power shortages. In order to avoid that scenario and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, we need to move forward with the construction of nuclear plants, along with solar energy and improvements in energy efficiency.

If we hope to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to acceptable levels, we will need to build 50 to 100 nuclear plants in the United States by midcentury.

Meeting this challenge will require action by Congress on three fronts. First, nuclear energy needs to be included in a renewable energy standard that is part of carbon cap-and-trade legislation.

This standard would require states to obtain 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2021. Not to include nuclear energy - the source of nearly 75 percent of the nation's carbon-free energy - in this standard would be absurd.

Second, increase government loan guarantees to help reduce the cost of interest on private loans for nuclear plant construction.

Seventeen utilities are seeking $122 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy, but only $18.5 billion is available to build nuclear plants. That is enough for four or five new plants at most.

And third, establish a clean energy bank to provide an assured source of funding for advanced energy technologies, including nuclear energy. The existing loan guarantee program is critically important, but it is too limited in scope. And because loan guarantees are subject to extensions and annual appropriations by Congress, and have been allowed to lapse in the past, they lack the certainty that medium- to long-term debt financing requires. A clean energy bank, on the other hand, would facilitate the flow of private capital into nuclear projects that are on the drawing board today.

There is no other sustainable option for reducing the risk of climate change. We have the technology, the know-how and the ingenuity. What we need is the political will to make sure nuclear energy plays a central role in the battle against global warming.

Jack Ohanian is professor emeritus of nuclear and radiological engineering at the University of Florida.

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