Going nuclear on nuclear

I have a bit of a secret for you. If you find a room full of your tree-hugger friends getting a little too chummy with indignation over the recent reports of fracking-related media, or reveling in the environmental benefits of their new electric cars, you can break up that harmony by walking over and uttering one simple sentence...

"So you all have to love nuclear energy because of the reduced climate impact, eh?"

No issue sends environmental advocates to their corners more than the nuclear issue. On one hand, you have those screaming for climate impact reductions who think we have to use and maybe even expand nuclear to produce nearly carbon-free electricity. On the other, you have those who fear the safety of increased reliance on nuclear energy, and the continued risk of mining a limited resource. Like most issues related to energy, both camps are right environmentally and technologically speaking. The interesting thing is, economically speaking, the pro-nuclear camp is the one that is wrong.

The current technology for generating electricity from nuclear energy operates between 25% and 33% efficiency, not including the energy to mine and transport the fissile material to the generating plant. At the same time, among all the conventional fuel options, nuclear requires the largest number of people per unit of output. Despite these high labor costs, nuclear remains a moderately competitive because of low fuel costs. With a limited number of countries that have nuclear technology operating only 500 plants worldwide, demand for fuel remains constant and prices do not fluctuate greatly.

The most significant cost elements in nuclear power plants come from the capital-related expenditures associated with building, renovating, and decommissioning plants. Power plants have a 40-year life cycle after which they must receive an extension on their license to operate (which they will again have to do every 20 years going forward). At this time, they must meet all regulatory requirements. This requires a significant investment. As plant operators approach this milestone, they have a decision to make: invest in the plant upgrade or shut down the plant. This decision is entirely an economic one, and several operators have made the decision not to invest.

Several factors contribute to the economic downfall of nuclear. First, as mentioned previously, it has a high capital investment requirement - the most of any electricity generating source except solar, and that has changed drastically over the past several years. Second, natural gas mining through fracking has altered the course of projected electricity costs. Utilities and generators made huge investments in natural gas plants starting at the end of the last century, and that market now drives the cost of electricity. (This has also caused the shuttering of coal plants as they cannot keep up with the investments at the current historic low prices for electricity.) Third, due to significant drops in the rate of increasing electrical demand, we have historically high capacity factors in our electricity generating fleet. Capacity factor measures how much peak delivery capacity we have relative to the peak demand from the grid. Operators of the grid like to maintain at least 15% capacity factor, and we sit now at 22%. We can lose generating capacity and still have a cushion for unforeseen conditions.

Many advocates for nuclear fear that dropping our nuclear capacity will threaten future stability in the electricity market and could cause us to move sharply back to coal in the future. This concern has merit if you consider coal and nuclear to be the only options. Recent developments in solar technology and increases in production capacity have dropped the price of solar PV to a point where it nears grid parity with all forms of generation. If this trend continues (and with room to grow and improve, there is no reason to think it will not), it is just as likely that solar replaces nuclear. Even more economically feasible, new wind development already beats all other forms of electricity generation for cost effectiveness. We have only begun to tap both of these sources.

Even more importantly, we are a nation of waste and excess. We currently use twice as much energy per person as the rest of the developed world to deliver at best the same quality of life. Opportunities abound to reduce the amount of energy we consume, and more importantly for this discussion, the peak demand for that energy. Investing in real, permanent demand reduction costs less than investing in refurbishing nuclear plants - and certainly far less than investing in a new one. The other benefit is that we can realize these demand reductions in one or two years as opposed to the ten years it would take to install a new nuclear plant, and at about the same time horizon it would take to repair one. We can easily replace nuclear (and coal for that matter) with demand and consumption reductions and not change our quality of life one bit.

The nuclear plants we currently operate need to live out their useful life, and then retire. We should prioritize the decommissioning of those that sit in fault areas so that we avoid the consequences that Japan felt after the Fukushima disaster, and plan regionally to adjust capacity. We also must develop technologies that render the waste products from these plants inert. The case against nuclear does not have to include the fear of the nuclear waste, but we must consider the mitigation of that waste a priority going forward. We cannot leave a 10,000 year legacy of potential life-threatening material, and must include the cost of that mitigation in the analysis. For the coming decades, even if we eliminated nuclear power today, our country would pay billions of dollars to protect us from the consequences.

The modern environmental movement is not a one-trick pony focused on carbon. We can reduce carbon and address a more sustainable, renewable energy future without nuclear. It not only makes ecological sense to do so, but also economic sense.