Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Uranium is not fed directly into nuclear reactors after being mined. It must be converted into a powder called yellowcake first. Then it is converted into uranium hexafluoride gas. The gas is enriched and the converted into a solid form of uranium which is then processed into pellets of fuel. The pellets are inserted into long thin rods which are inserted into fuel assemblies.
The domestic nuclear industry is very excited and supportive of the DoE initiative to support the industry. While it is happy that the DoE is trying to do something to help their bottom line, they are not especially enthusiastic about the play being put forward by Brouillette.
The first real problem for the U.S. nuclear industry is that fact that no utility in the U.S. has any interest in ordering the construction of a new nuclear power plant. That investment is just too great a risk. If they need any evidence of this, utilities only have to look at the problems that have plagued the construction of Vogtle Units 3 and 4 nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia by Southern Company. The project is over budget, behind schedule and has even had to deal with the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, its nuclear supplier.
The utility industry applauds the courage shown by Southern Company and its perseverance in going forward with the Vogtle project but that will not translate into any interest in building new nuclear power reactors. It is just not possible for nuclear power to compete with cheap natural gas, wind and solar energy. The U.S. energy portfolio contains plenty of better investments.
The second major real problem for the U.S. nuclear power industry is the premature closure of well-performing, existing civilian nuclear power plants. Thirteen plants have been scheduled to close including Vermont Yankee and Pilgrim in New England. Currently operating nuclear power plants have a smaller carbon footprint than the natural gas plants that are replacing them but a bigger carbon footprint than wind, solar and hydropower sources.
Nuclear power plants could be replaced with wind turbines. At an estimated generation capacity of up to three megawatts per turbine, to replace a one gigawatt two hundred megawatt nuclear power reactor would require four hundred wind turbines. At an average cost of two billion dollars per megawatt, the replacement for a nuclear power plant would be about even. And the wind plant would not need fuel or waste disposal or much staffing. Individual turbines could fail and be swapped out with hardly any impact on output. If an important component of a nuclear power plant fails, you lose the entire output. As far as battery storage goes, Tesla put in a major battery backup for the grid in a city in Australia. It cost sixty million dollars and in one year save forty million dollars. Obviously, head to head nuclear can be replaced more cheaply by wind power. While the loss of operating nuclear power plants would be a blow to the nuclear industry, I don’t believe that is would really be a problem for the U.S. energy supply.
All in all, the decline of the U.S. nuclear industry seems likely to continue in spite of DoE attempts to revitalize it with a uranium stockpile.