Want to Save America's Nuclear Plants? Stop Being a Hater

With the latest round of nuclear plant closing announcements in Illinois and California, there will be seven more nuclear power plants closing by 2019. There has been a lot of pleading by the Nuclear advocacy movement to save these plants. The latest proposal was from Ed Kee from the Nuclear Economics Consulting Group. His proposal was then contorted by Robert Bryce, to insinuate that we are in a nuclear vs. wind/solar situation.  I can certainly agree that losing 40 billion kWhs of low carbon electricity (~1% of total US electricity consumption) while trying to save the planet from Climate Change seems like a dumb move.  We should also acknowledge that the existing electricity marketplace is outdated and does not serve the nuclear industry well. At the same time, mandatory renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and drastic cost reductions have put Solar/Wind Power on track to deliver almost the same 40 billion kWhs in new generating capacity in 2016 alone and will continue to match this feat every year for the next few decades. Needless to say, the constant barrage of anti-renewables rhetoric and analysis from the amateur nuclear advocates makes it unlikely to bring nuclear and renewable energy into the same coalition. But that is exactly what is needed. Solar/Wind need nuclear holdouts to continue their march, and the nuclear industry needs friends that know how to lobby effectively for low carbon electricity sources across multiple States.  

A few perspectives in random order follows:

The Federal Government has long played an important role in supporting Nuclear Power. In fact, without important support around subsidies, insurance loan guarantees, waste disposal, and R&D it would be impossible to build a new Nuclear plant today. However, when putting together the Clean Power Plan, the Federal Government forgot to provide adequate incentives to keep existing Nuclear plants open -- preferring instead to structure the entire program around "new" electricity generation sources. For its part, the Edison Electric Institute working on behalf of the nation's electric utility companies is no where to be found here. Bill Gates and other investors in next generate nuclear technologies are choosing to pilot their technologies outside of the USA and so have very little incentive to fund a US advocacy effort. Lastly the President could reverse an executive order that prevents reprocessing of spent fuel rods. The UK and France recycle their nuclear waste and no incidence of weaponizing stolen nuclear material has resulted.

At the State level, many States are adding ambitious new clean energy targets. As recently as October 2015, the State of California increased their clean energy standard to 50% by 2030. The Clean Power Plan had already been presented and the San Onofre Nuclear Power plant had already been slated to close. I am sure that the recent Diablo Canyon announcement was already being contemplated. However, neither the utility owners of nuclear plants nor the nuclear advocates writing passionate pleas today put forward a credible argument to include these nuclear power plants within the clean energy standard. Opinion editorials like this one from Jessica Lovering are easier to write than implement with lawmakers. Same goes for Illinois. The Environmental Law and Policy Center has been trying to unlock wind and solar regulations there for over five years. They have been offering a deal with Exelon, but it was only last month when Exelon realized it could not save its plants without unlocking wind and solar development in the State that it decided to move forward with a broader clean energy coalition. The coalition ran out of time this month, but will try again during the fall legislative session.

Going back to Ed Kee, he has determined that federal subsidies will be needed for at least 17 nuclear power plants -- this is mostly due to lower wholesale prices today due to low natural gas prices. He is calling for the Government to step in a bailout them out.

At the same time, PR wizards like Michael Shellenberger regularly write articles in the New York Times and even holds sit-ins at Greenpeace USA's HQ in San Francisco. He is has been one of the most vocal critics of environmental groups that have been anti-Nuclear. 

While environmental leaders certainly get things wrong at times, this policy position is being driven from their grassroots members -- Shellenberger has no intention to meet and personally influence the almost 20% of Americans who give to Environmental causes each year.  In fact, Friends of the Earth was created because initially the Sierra Club didn't take a sufficiently anti-Nuclear point of view. Further, outside of Vermont Yankee, there is little evidence that profitable nuclear plants are being shut down by environmental muckrakers. In almost every instance, the proposed nuclear plant shutdowns are being blamed on a perception that they will not be profitable to run in the future vs. low cost natural gas.

To provide some context, while Nuclear plants can produce more or less electricity to follow load, their sweet spot is really to run flat out all of the time. Due to maintenance and other ramp up issues, the nuclear industry averaged just 60% uptime in the 1980s. After 30 years they are now consistently in the 90% range -- but costs to operate the plants have doubled in the past ten years. Further, it was excess power from nuclear plants that led to the first storage boom -- the construction of many pumped hydro storage facilities to accommodate nuclear overproduction. 

So what can be done to save these important nuclear plants:

1) Stop blaming environmental groups because they can't save the nuclear plants -- their members won't let them. Focus instead on partnering with clean energy trade associations that can help make the pro-active policy case for Nuclear power. There are powerful arguments to keep these plants open and it is about time that the Nuclear industry actually hire folks to do the work on the ground instead of just hiring Carol Browner and Christine Todd Whitman to give nice interviews.

2) Work with the Citizens Climate Lobby and others and pass a price on carbon. The nuclear industry could play a big role in getting this done. The trouble is that the nuclear industry doesn't really exist to promote nuclear power. They are really just "utility owners of nuclear power plants" who also own coal and gas plants so they are conflicted. Also renewable energy would also benefit from carbon pricing which could depress wholesale prices even further.

3) Expand the existing RPS standards to add existing nuclear within a Low Carbon Portfolio Standard. This is an interesting idea, but the utility owners of nuclear plants would like for this to be a zero-sum game -- have existing reactors take up existing credits to crowd out renewable competitors. The trouble is, utility companies like Exelon no longer have the votes to get their way. In order to save their nuclear plants they have to promise to grow wind/solar further -- a big reversal from their anti-renewables rhetoric from the past few years.  

4) Ask Independent System Operators to stop opposing higher capacity payments to nuclear power and other low carbon solutions. I think it is obvious that consumers don't benefit from just subsidizing plants without making the low carbon case. 

5) Ed Kee's call for more Federal subsidies. Former EPA head Carol Browner is lobbying the democrats and the Secretary of Energy just led a conference on this theme, touted by Scientific American. Using Exelon's $800m on their two Nuclear plants over the last five years, the cost of keeping the 17 at risk plants could exceed a few billion dollars per year. A manageable amount of money, if only there was someone lobbying to ask for it.

Keeping existing nuclear plants open should be a national priority. But relying on the utility owners of 17 at risk plants is simply foolish. In order to keep these plants open you need a coalition and there is no better one than the won that is currently winning -- solar/wind. The nuclear advocates have to bite their tongue and stop with the negative attacks. They have to raise money and find new clean energy champions -- ones that can help expand existing RPS standards to include existing nuclear and more solar/wind. Lastly, there has to be a positive story around new nuclear power. That means that Bill Gates and others have to convince the American public that the bad news stories of nuclear cost overruns have a happy ending from his and others' investments in next generation nuclear power. The solar and wind industries have proven that incentives and mandates can be passed in the name of climate change. This influence could be extended to nuclear power as well, if only there was an industry asking for it.