I have blogged in the past about the battle between the nuclear industry and the renewable energy sector. For many years, nuclear enjoyed a protected status as an energy source. Billions of dollars allocated for loans and grants and long-term contracts guaranteed a fixed price for electricity generated by nuclear power, even if cheaper electricity was available. Renewable alternatives were constantly criticized because they could not compete in the open market and it was said that it would be impossible to scale up renewable sources to provide a significant portion of the electricity demand.
Recently a variety of independent financial analysts have concluded that there is an economic revolution coming in the electricity sector. They predict that during the next decade a combination of conservation, increased efficiency, renewable energy sources and inexpensive natural gas will meet the demand for new sources of electricity. The current "baseload" model will be rendered obsolete by the changes, they say. It is possible that in the next couple of decades, we might see the amount of energy provided by renewables rise to forty percent of the total electricity consumed in the United States.
The nuclear utilities in the United States know they face a serious existential threat. They are spending a great deal of money on lobbying law makers to provide special support and pricing for their electricity. The U.S. fleet of reactors is aging past original licenses and the nuclear utilities are requesting license extensions. Unfortunately, some of the old reactors are just too expensive to repair and upgrade so they are being permanently closed.
Some pundits and politicians say that all approaches to energy generation are needed and that nuclear energy should be pursued along with renewables. Unfortunately, nuclear electricity generation and renewables electricity generation require fundamentally different infrastructure. Nuclear reactors are major inflexible baseload generators that work best with the one-way system of power generation and distribution that currently exists. Renewables on the other hand will require a smart grid that can handle a two-way flow of electricity. The consumers and the generators are both widely distributed in a renewables infrastructures. The U.S. electric grid is deteriorating and is badly in need of repair and upgrading. The grid will have to be improved but it will have to be either centralized or distributed, favoring nuclear power or renewable power.
Two major players in the U.S. nuclear industry, Exelon and Entergy, have chosen to attack renewable energy on the basis that the production tax credit for wind is unfair This is especially ironic in view the fact that nuclear power has been the "recipient of ten times as much subsidy as renewables on a life cycle basis and continues to receive massive subsidies in the form of socialized the cost of liability insurances and waste management, underfunded decommissioning, inadequately compensated water use, federal loan guarantee and production tax credits for new reactors, continuing R&D funding for small modular reactor technology, and advanced cost recovery for nuclear investment in a number of states."
The nuclear industry is fighting to retard or abolish "economic dispatch, net metering, bidding efficiency as a resource, and demand response" all of which favor a renewables infrastructure. The nuclear industry is working to be defined as a renewable source to get tax credits.
Subsidies given to the renewables industry have resulted in great and rapid innovation. Many different systems can be tried with much less cost and long term commitment which yields a much better return on investment than investing in nuclear power. Even without subsidies, renewables are now able to compete directly in the free market for electrical generation. Nuclear power is just not a good bet for the future.
Diagram of a "smart grid":
