I have blogged in the past about cheap natural gas and declining electricity demand making nuclear power reactors less economical. Past recipient of many tax breaks, loan guarantees, guaranteed electricity prices and subsidies, now nuclear power is facing the prospect of having to compete with other sources of energy on a more level playing field. One of the unique aspects of nuclear energy is the fact that if the owners of a nuclear power plant in the United States cannot show that it is making a profit and cannot find someone who wants to buy the power plant, it can have the operating license pulled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This would mean that the nuclear power plant in question would have to be shut down and decommissioned. About half of the one hundred nuclear power plants in the U.S. are directly competing with cheaper fossil fuels. As might be expected, owners of nuclear power plants are hard at work trying to find a way to stay in business.
Exelon Corporation has already had to close a nuclear power plant in New Jersey because it was not able to compete in the open energy market. Exelon has been a harsh critic of government support for other energy sources such as renewables. They apparently had no problem with government support when it helped the nuclear industry. Exelon is also complaining about the "regulatory burden" that it says is adding up to five percent to its operating costs per year. If all nuclear power plants were adhering scrupulously to all NRC regulations, the U.S. citizens and environment would be much safer. Hard to be sympathetic when failure to follow correct procedures could threaten the lives of millions of people near a nuclear power plant.
Exelon and other nuclear power plant owners are trying to get states to give them assistance in the form of price guarantees that may be higher than the market price for power or special consideration as a low carbon power source. While they complain about subsidies and quotas for renewable energy because of its low carbon footprint, they are actively seeking the same sort of government assistance for nuclear power. Without government help, the nuclear industry says that it will have to close more nuclear power plants because they can't compete in the energy market place.
Many environmentalists who once opposed nuclear power are now supporting it as a low carbon energy source. Unfortunately, they are not considering all the different carbon sources in the entire nuclear fuel cycle as well as the carbon dioxide emitted in the construction of nuclear power plants and the transportation of equipment, materials and fuel. Even if you ignore the carbon issues and the lack of permanent nuclear waste depositories, the time needed to license and construct nuclear reactors is too long for nuclear power to help much with the climate crisis. We have to act in the next ten years to avoid disaster and the world simply cannot build and operate enough nuclear reactors to make much impact on the global supply of energy in that time. Renewables are getting cheaper every day and they do not have all of the baggage of nuclear power.
