With oil prices tanking—or tanked—a petroleum war underway between Saudi Arabia and Russia, and the world economy already lethargic from a heavy dose of Covid-19, one wonders why nuclear power, faded to near-invisible since Fukushima, would have any place in the national conversation. What’s the point?
But in his March 10 piece, Politico’s Gavin Bade raises the issue as relevant, and asserts that Senator Bernie Sanders, likely the only Democrat contender for the presidential nod to former VP Joe Biden, may be less opposed to nuclear energy than his critics say, and in fact less than Sanders himself has implied. Bade noted that “…campaign aides privately acknowledge that he (Sanders) may lack the tools to bring an end to nuclear power within the next decade, despite his expressed intent to “phase out” nuclear power and his declaration that nuclear and CCS are “false solutions.” As Seth Myers would say, “really??”
Yes, really. While utility-scale wind and solar resources grow monthly, increasingly backed by large-scale storage dispatchable to the grid, Sanders’ vow—if elected—to secure 100 percent of U.S. electricity from renewable sources by 2030 still seems either far-fetched, or downright impossible. Even New York’s Andrew Cuomo, arguably the most aggressive state governor pushing green development, admits that his own renewable goals may be a bridge too far, given the glacial pace of siting and permitting, to say nothing of financing hurdles as well as the challenges and costs of interconnecting to the bulk power system. And at the same time, the Trump administration is still talking about “clean coal” and subsidizing fossil generation in loving terms, despite some failed end-runs around FERC for proposed rulemaking to do just that.
So where does that leave nuclear, if it’s relevant at all? And is it a genuine issue between Joe and Bernie that voters will consider, if even slightly and momentarily? Probably not, when healthcare, social security, affordable education, a vast and growing wealth imbalance, and now the containment of a worldwide viral contagion tearing apart Trump’s “fabulous economy” top the marquee.
For his part, former VP Biden’s platform officially endorses a “clean new deal,” but not one that remotely resembles AOC’s. His calls for a 100% clean U.S. energy economy and net-zero carbon emissions. By 2050. Twenty years later than Bernie’s goal.
Biden’s energy and climate platform also targets sources beyond the tempting and facile power generation sector—such as transportation—and includes initiatives such as using renewables to produce carbon-free hydrogen; decarbonizing industrial heat used to make steel and chemicals; and decarbonizing the food and agriculture sectors. But it also specifically intends to “identify the future of nuclear energy” and specifically encourages “small modular nuclear reactors (that are) half the construction cost of today’s (utility-scale) reactors.”
These small modular reactors (SMRs), despite their promise of efficiency, safety, vastly lower cost, and much faster permitting, are almost unknown outside the power generation industry. But if Joe Biden gets elected, they might indeed have a future not only in his energy plan but in the renaissance of nuclear power in the United States—where the average age of nuke plants is about 40 years. Although the Watts Bar Nuclear Unit 2 in Tennessee came online in 2016, it was the first new reactor in 20 years.
In fact, as noted in a recent issue of POWER Magazine, a study around the feasibility of decarbonizing the Pacific Northwest Deep determined that it could be “achieved at “manageable” costs by 2045…only if utility agency Energy Northwest secures zero-emitting firm capacity, such as by relicensing Columbia Generating Station—the sole nuclear plant in the region—and building small modular reactors.”
As Joe Biden widens his delegate lead this evening on “Super Tuesday 2,” his presidential prospects look increasingly brighter. But it remains to be seen whether new nuclear, SMRs or otherwise, will play a role in a Biden, Sanders, or Trump II administration. Nonetheless, it seems apparent that SMRs should be looked at as more than an esoteric curiosity if we’re to have a chance to defeat global warming and climate change.