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Wind and solar decommissioning costs are trivial. That’s yet another reason why nuclear is dead, but pretending it’s not.
Smaller, cheaper reactor aims to revive nuclear industry, but design problems raise safety concerns //
Engineers at NuScale Power believe they can revive the moribund U.S. nuclear industry by thinking small. Spun out of Oregon State University in 2007, the company is striving to win approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the design of a new factory-built, modular fission reactor meant to be smaller, safer, and cheaper than the gigawatt behemoths operating today. But even as that 4-year process culminates, reviewers have unearthed design problems, including one that critics say undermines NuScale’s claim that in an emergency, its small modular reactor (SMR) would shut itself down without operator intervention. //
Normally, convection circulates water—laced with boron to tune the nuclear reaction—through the core of NuScale’s reactor (left). If the reactor overheats, it shuts down and valves release steam into the containment vessel, where it conducts heat to a surrounding pool and condenses (center). The water flows back into the core, keeping it safely submerged (right). But the condensed water can be low in boron, and reviewers worried it could cause the reactor to spring back to life.
There Is Not Enough Time for Nuclear Innovation to Save the Planet
By Allison Macfarlane //
Nuclear reactors worldwide are aging and, for the most part, are not being replaced as they are shut down. In 2019, for instance, six reactors started operations and 13 units were shut down. The average age of the world’s 408 operating reactors in 2020 was 31 years, with 81 of them over the age of 41 years. //
For all these reasons, nuclear energy cannot be a near- or perhaps even medium-term silver bullet for climate change. Given how many economic, technical, and logistical hurdles stand in the way of building safer, more efficient, and cost-competitive reactors, nuclear energy will not be able to replace other forms of power generation quickly enough to achieve the levels of emission reduction necessary to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
Innovations in reactor designs and nuclear fuels are still worthy of significant research and government support. Despite its limitations, nuclear power still has some potential to reduce carbon emissions—and that is a good thing. But rather than placing unfounded faith in the ability of nuclear power to save the planet, we need to focus on the real threat: the changing climate. And we need strong government support of noncarbon-emitting energy technologies that are ready to be deployed today, not ten or 20 years from now, because we have run out of time. We cannot wait a minute longer.
We may be on the brink of a new paradigm for nuclear power, a group of nuclear specialists suggested recently in The Bridge, the journal of the National Academy of Engineering. Much as large, expensive, and centralized computers gave way to the widely distributed PCs of today, a new generation of relatively tiny and inexpensive factory-built reactors, designed for autonomous plug-and-play operation similar to plugging in an oversized battery, is on the horizon, they say.
These proposed systems could provide heat for industrial processes or electricity for a military base or a neighborhood, run unattended for five to 10 years, and then be trucked back to the factory for refurbishment. The authors—Jacopo Buongiorno, MIT's TEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering; Robert Frida, a founder of GenH; Steven Aumeier of the Idaho National Laboratory; and Kevin Chilton, retired commander of the U.S. Strategic Command—have dubbed these small power plants "nuclear batteries."
The project features a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost the system’s power output to 500MW during peak power demand. TerraPower said last year that the plants would cost about $1bn.
Late last year the US energy department awarded TerraPower $80m in initial funding to demonstrate Natrium technology, and the department has committed additional funding in coming years subject to congressional appropriations.
According to a new IAEA report, they haven’t been able to access data that monitors Iran’s nuclear program since late February, not just with the surveillance cameras but also it has “not had access to the data from its online enrichment monitors and electronic seals, or had access to the measurement recordings registered by its installed measurement devices” since Feb. 23.
The IAEA had 2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment that provided for electronic information to be communicated to inspectors. They also had automated measuring devices that generated data. Now that access has been cut off.
That’s not all.
The IAEA is also saying that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is around 16 times the limit laid down in the 2015 nuclear deal.
On top of that, Iran refuses to explain traces of uranium found at several undeclared sites to the IAEA.
NuScale Power and Washington State’s Grant County Public Utility District on May 26 announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to evaluate the deployment of NuScale’s small modular reactor (SMR) technology in Central Washington State.
Under the MOU, the two parties will work together to support Grant PUD’s due diligence process in evaluating reliable, carbon-free energy solutions. “The deployment of NuScale’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-approved design will support meeting the demands of Grant PUD’s customers and the desired commercial operation timeline with acceptable and affordable cost certainty,” NuScale and Grant PUD said in a news release.
“This flexibility also allows for seamless integration with intermittent sources of power utilizing exceptional load following capabilities. These qualities align well with Grant PUD’s long-term objective of providing its customers with reliable, carbon-free energy and are a driving force in the initiation of the due diligence process in order to investigate the applicability of the NuScale technology in Central Washington,” NuScale and Grant PUD said.
In April, Grant PUD with Energy Northwest and X-energy signed a MOU for the development of an advanced nuclear reactor demonstration project.
The partners agreed to collaborate and share resources to evaluate the goal of siting, building, and operating an X-energy Xe-100 SMR plant at an existing Energy Northwest site north of Richland, Wash. The plant would have four 80-MW units and is scheduled to begin construction in 2024 and come online in 2027.
NuScale’s power plant design is scalable in 77 megawatts electric (MWe) increments up to 924 MWe. Modules can be added incrementally as regional load demands increase.
The claim that U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are maintained on “hair-trigger alert” has persisted despite multiple senior military leaders having discredited that falsehood.
One such accusant is President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the Department of Defense’s assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, Deborah Rosenblum. She has stated that U.S. and Russian ICBMs are “in a hair-trigger mode, leaving no time for either president to make a considered decision, if he or she thought the nation was under attack: No time to gather data, no time to figure out if it’s a spoof, no time to discover mistakes.” //
An ICBM is not like a loaded gun lying on the table with the safety off and a finger on the trigger. Nor is there a “big red button” waiting to be pressed.
To use an analogy coined by Richard, by the logic of “hair trigger,” our cars are on hair-trigger alert, too, waiting in the driveway ready to go. But you don’t see cars driving around accidentally. And cars only require three steps to go—turning on the engine, putting it into drive, and hitting to gas.
It’s been just over a decade since the fourth most powerful earthquake of the modern era triggered a tsunami that struck Fukushima on the eastern coastline of Japan, causing thousands of deaths and leaving hundreds of thousands unable to return home. That tsunami was also responsible for the world’s worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster.
When the 14-metre wave flooded the Fukushima Daiichi plant, it shut down emergency generators, triggering a series of heat-induced meltdowns. Now, the Japanese government’s decision to allow the release of more than one million tonnes of radioactive water from the plant into the ocean has divided opinion. //
But since the tsunami hit in 2011, authorities have used more than a million tonnes of water to try and cool the plant’s disabled reactors, which are still hot thanks to the long-term release of energy from the nuclear power source. All that radioactive water – which is more contaminated than standard waste water – has to go somewhere. The decision to release it into the oceans is – some would argue – the most pragmatic long-term solution. //
The process of filtering and diluting the huge amounts of water to meet safety standards will take a few years to complete. Then, we’d usually expect the water to be released gradually in small volumes through coastal pipelines. That way, any potential effects of releasing the radioactive waste will be minimised. However, the fact is that we don’t know exactly what those effects will be on marine – or human – life, given the sheer volume of water set to be released from the Fukushima plant.
Our own research has shown that a number of marine species could have their DNA damaged through extended exposure to radionuclides in seawater. It’s important to note that our conclusions are mostly drawn from studies in the lab, rather than in the real world; when a nuclear accident takes place, human safety takes priority and biological assessment often takes place decades after the original event.
Iran’s hard-line parliament in December approved a bill that would suspend part of UN inspections of its nuclear facilities if European signatories did not provide relief from oil and banking sanctions by February.
The IAEA struck a three-month deal with Iran to have it hold the surveillance images, with Tehran threatening to delete them afterward if no deal had been reached.
It’s not clear now if they’ve deleted those three months’ worth of images. But, it means the IAEA has no ability to assess what Iran has been doing. Imagine the temerity to play around IAEA like this.
So, the normal reaction one should have to this is that they’ve been playing these games, one should not bend over for them — because they haven’t acted in accordance with the deal, to begin with.
Iran has already shot far past the maximum allowable uranium enrichment levels defined in the Obama-era deal. They’re now up in the range of 63 percent enrichment using their new IR-4 centrifuges and have announced that they will soon be installing their IR-9 centrifuges which are allegedly far faster and more efficient. This puts them only a few steps away from being able to make a bomb.
Why would you continue to lift sanctions, given these games? But, unfortunately, that’s exactly what Biden is doing.
The environmental battle has always been a game of political ping pong. Republicans take office and open up the energy sector. Democrats take office and restrict it. Back and forth, election after election. The battle has always been painted as “socialist hippies” versus “greedy capitalist pigs” and even though the subject is much more nuanced, our media knows nothing of nuance these days. //
The truth is that the best compromise for meeting our energy and environmental needs is nuclear energy. It is clean, efficient, and extraordinarily safe in its most modern iterations. France has learned the value of nuclear energy and leads the way in clean energy production. It seems unthinkable that America is still arguing about solar panels when we have access to an energy source that could meet the demands of both those dirty hippies and capitalist pigs.
Entergy Corporation's Indian Point unit 3 will be shut down tomorrow after nearly 60 years of nuclear power generation at the site in New York state. The closure will bring to an end a world record-breaking run for the pressurised water reactor (PWR). //
Entergy announced in 2017 that it would shut down both operating PWRs at the Indian Point Energy Center, citing factors that include sustained low current and projected wholesale energy prices that have reduced revenues. Unit 2 was shut down as scheduled on 30 April 2020.
"Indian Point has been operated and maintained at the highest levels of reliability, safety and security for many years, and unit 3 has been online continuously since April 9, 2019 - setting a new world record for continuous days of operation," Entergy Chief Nuclear Officer Chris Bakken said. "Indian Point's enduring legacy will be the thousands of men and women who operated the plant safely, reliably, and securely, while helping to power New York City and the lower Hudson Valley for nearly 60 years. We owe those who serve now, along with those who came before them, a debt of gratitude."
Unit 3's final uninterrupted operating run of 751 days since its last refuelling, in April 2019, is a new world record for commercial light water reactors. The 1041 MWe unit earlier this month passed the previous record of 739 continuous days set in 2006 by Exelon's LaSalle unit 1. //
In the 20 years under Entergy's ownership, combined gross generation from units 2 and 3 averaged around 17 million MWh per year - up from 10 million MWh per year previously. Entergy described the plant as a "workhorse" for the southeastern New York electrical grid, generating some 25% of the power consumed annually in New York City and the lower Hudson Valley.
New York State in 2016 adopted legislation explicitly recognising the zero-carbon contribution of nuclear power plants and protecting the continued operation of the Nine Mile Point, RE Ginna and James A Fitzpatrick plants, which are located in the "upstate" region. The state had, however, opposed Entergy's application to renew Indian Point's operating licences and the plant, which is located 24 miles (39 kilometres) from New York City, was not included in the legislation.
On Friday, August 30th, the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York state shut down.
In a state that has pledged to obtain 70% of it’s power from renewables, you’d imagine that the loss of over ten percent of the state’s power, and 81% of the clean energy in the downstate, would be mourned. You’d imagine that the imminent opening of more natural gas plants, and more fossil fuel emissions pouring into the atmosphere—just as what happened the last time New York closed a nuclear plant—would be seen as a great shame, exacerbating the impact of climate change. You’d imagine that the loss of thousands of good jobs would be seen as a mistake. //
The Natural Resources Defense Council—who pride themselves as “Earth’s Best Defense”—published a piece celebrating the closure of the plant. Riverkeeper, another environmentalist group, did the same, making it the centerpiece of one of their campaigns. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, someone who clearly, regardless of what you think about her policies, cares for the environment, was in favor of the shutdown as well.
Let’s be clear. Shutting down Indian Point wipes out more zero-emissions energy then is produced each year by every solar panel and wind turbine. Combined. And this was celebrated by those who purportedly want more clean energy. //
We’re already approaching the end of this atomic era. The average age of the American nuclear reactor is almost forty years old, and only a single reactor–Watts Bar 2, part of the Tennessee Valley Authority–has been built since 1996. This isn’t from a lack of desire. People clearly want clean, zero-emissions energy. Rather, the regulatory burden placed upon new nuclear reactor construction, both at the state and federal levels, make new nuclear reactor construction nigh-impossible.
Nuclear energy, just like every other form of science, is always advancing. The United States, however, due to regulatory restrictions, refuses to adopt new scientific advancements—or, for that matter, older ones. Nations like France recycle and reuse their nuclear waste. The United States takes its nuclear waste and sticks it in a hole. It took American regulatory authorities almost five years to approve a small modular reactors project, a program that nearly collapsed last year, after the regulatory process drove up the cost.
Without significant reforms to the regulatory process, nuclear power in the United States will vanish, for good–and the liberal environmental activists cheering its death will only be helping the climate catastrophe they so fear.
hoser68
Elizabeth Blackstock
5/09/21 5:43pm
Hydrogen can work great and be extremely green. You just have to be a bit blue about how to make it.
Nuclear power plants will break apart water molecules and generate hydrogen without using any extra fuel. It isn’t using electricity to break the molecule, but the radiation from the fission reaction. It is actually a problem in power plants that if they run too hot, they make too much hydrogen and that can cause an issue (that’s what happened at Fukashima when it lost cooling). If a nuclear plant is reconfigured to intentionally produce hydrogen, it can produce as much hydrogen as if 50% of the plants electricity was focused on making it the traditional way and only loose something like 3% of the actual electrical output (all of that just to pump the hydrogen to a higher pressure).
If you design a plant from the start to make hydrogen, you can actually make around 5% more electrical power and those massive amounts of hydrogen, all without using any more fuel.
So, in other words.. it will never happen in North America or Europe.
In a notable, dedicated effort by a major U.S. utility to boost the development of an advanced reactor technology, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Kairos Power, developer of a novel fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature nuclear reactor, on May 6 said they will team to demonstrate Kairos’ Hermes test reactor at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
As part of their agreement, TVA will provide engineering, operations, and licensing support to help California-based Kairos Power deploy its “low-power” demonstration reactor. According to Kairos, Hermes is a 50-MWth test reactor that will integrate the Kairos Power Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactor (KP-FHR) as part of a cost- and risk-reduction–focused development pathway that ultimately envisions commercial deployment of a 140-MWe “KP-X” plant.
Jason
February 16, 2020 at 10:48 pm
I don't know what nuclear plants you are talking about, but I know for a fact the nuclear plant I work at Operates at $21-22 per megawatt. That is significantly less than the $100 per megawatt this article claims. Also, it appears the figures provided for solar and wind include federal subsidies into the prices being so low. Subtract those subsidies and solar and wind become far less attractive.
As far as safety, the US commercial nuclear industry, historically, is one of the heaviest regulated and safest, especially post Three Mile Island. Compare commercial nuclear with oil, gas, coal, etc... And how frequent minners get stuck in mines, refineries and oil rigs catch fire, gas lines explode etc etc. You never see that in the US commercial nuclear industry. I work in the industry and nuclear reactors are extremly safe. There are numerous safety systems and backup systems and back ups to the back ups to the back ups in commercial nuclear plants. Chernobyl was a flawed Soviet design mixed with unnecessary and harmful government interfierience which lead to the worst commercial nuclear disaster in world history. Chernobyl doesn't belong in the same conversation as Three Mile Island and Fukushima. TMI is what it is and as bad as it was there are no deaths nor adverse health conditions attributed to TMI. The commercial nuclear industry learned immensly from TMI and the US commercial nuclear industry is much much safer today because of it. As for Fukushima, this is a complex issue that primarily resulted from a poor choice of lacation and the selection of a BWR reactor design vs the inherently safer PWR design that you see in the overwhelming majority of the reactors in the US. Had Fukushima been a PWR like the reactors at the plant I work at it wouldn't have been an issue. A PWR has gravity dropped control rods that immediatly stop the reaction and eliminates 90% of the heat inside the reactor. The remaining 10% is decay heat which would have been controlled with numerous systems including passive accumulators, but in a worse case scenario like Fukushima in which all off site and onsite power was lost (ie they lost the grid and their onsite emergency diesel generators), a PWR design would have utilized natural circulation (thermodynamic principle in which warm water rises from the reactor to the higher elevated steam generators and cooler water flows from the steam generators to the lower elevated reactor) the secondary loop of the steam generators would then bleed off steam to drive a steam driven Terry Turbine Aux Feedwater pump which would pump large tanks of demineralized water into the inlet of the steam generator which cools the primary loop via convective heat transfer (ie shell and tube heat exchanger... The steam generators ) the shell side is the feedwater side which is clean thus excess steam not needed to run the terry turbine is vented through steam dumps and relief valves. The primary side is reactor grade water and the investory is never lost it remains in the primary loop inside containment and is continually cooled via the secondary feedwater loop. This design would have allowed a PWR to survive a Fukushima level disaster where a BWR could not. As bas as Fukushima was it was nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl nor say a Deep Water Horizon or other frequent oil and gas disasters, nevertheless; the industry learned from Fukushima and made changes which in turns made the industry safer. One thing common in commercial nuclear power is they learn from any mistakes that have occured and make changes to prevent the saem issues from arising again. This is done via the NRC regulations as well as Industry Leader revomendations throughout the industry (ie INPO and WANO). Often people have the impression that Homer Simpson is running your local nuclear reactor, but this couldn't be further from the truth. In addition to the federal government, INPO and WANO the workers operating reactors are some of the smartest and best people on the planet. The large majority of nuclear operators in the US are former Navy nuke workers from submarines or carrriers, or are well educated, college degreed individuals with backgrounds in physics or engineering. So there are many many factors that keep nuclear plants safe. Thats why you don't hear about accidents occuring anywhere near the rate you do in oil and gas and there are smart individuals in those indistries as well.
The last thing ill mention is this. If you took the average american and you took all the electricity they would consume in their entire lifetime, and say it was all from nuclear power, the waste that would have accumulated could fot inside a 12oz pop can. That's it! This tid bit of info even suprised me, but nuclear is not wasteful it is not chemical burning of coal or gas, nor does it require large quantities of rare earth metal batteries or PV cells. According to Lawrence Berkley Lab, the fission of 1 g of uranium or plutonium per day liberates about 1 MW. This is the energy equivalent of 3 tons of coal or about 600 gallons of fuel oil per day, which when burned produces approximately 1/4 tonne of carbon dioxide. Now the US doesn't use Plutonium in our reactors largely because i dont think we are allowed to per Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1979 , but if we could nuclear reactors make plutonium as a result of U238 neutron absoption. This fact makes nuclear fuel recyclable, but we can not reprocess it so it sits in fuel pools and decays away until we can put it in dry cask storage that we keep onsite. I can walk right up to a dry cask full of old fuel, take my dosimeter right up to it and register 0.0 mR/hr. These dry casks are concrete and/or lead lined and were supposed to eventually be stored inside Yucca Mountain (a projected site paid entirely by the commercial nuclear industry and not the tax payers) , but the last administration killed that, so until we find a permanent location waste will be an issue in 50-100 years or so, but Yucca or a Yucca mountain like location would solve this problem. The good news is the funds are already secured for the long term storage all that really needs done is the beaurocratic process to take place. Remember a pop can size amount of waste per person in their entire lifetime on nuclear alone. Think about how many tons and tons of solar pannels that would take that laste what maybe 10 years at best.
I'm not knocking solar or wind they are an important part, but if you want to get serious about climate change you can't do it without nuclear power it is pound for pound the most effective energy source we have. And, if we only funded it 1/10th of what solar and wind get in subsidies i'd imagine we could fix the few flaws the commercial nuclear industry has. My appologies for all the typos im sure this is riddled with them.
Jason
February 18, 2020 at 3:09 pm
The 10% decay heat I presented above is a little high. That 10% would be a very very conservative amount factoring begining of core life and rounding up for a conservatism. The real numbers are closer to 6-7% and even as low as 1-2% toward the end of core life. By enlarge the commercial nuclear industry in the US has gotten more predictable, more reliable, safer and more cost effective in the last 10-15 years or so. With funding towards advancing nuclear power the industry could explore Thorium reactors which you theoretically can press a button and walk away without any decay heat kr radiological concerns, or could look towards producing Hydrogen in conjuction with electricity which can be used to fuel H2 automobile cells. Really there are a vast array of things nuclear power can do, but we are not even scratching the surface.
David Campbell
March 6, 2021 at 9:09 am
The article claims the nuclear industry needs to solve these things and aren't. This is patently false.
Molten salts as opposed to pressurized water solves the melt down problem. High thermal load following tanks rather than piles solves this issue entirely. Safety is inherent in all the new designs being developped.
The waste problem will be solved by reactor designs that will use existing waste as fuel. The fuel waste thing will be eliminated for good.
Costs will plummet with these new designs. Given theres no huge risks of meltdowns or explosions there will not be a need for huge concrete containment domes and other expenses. The reactors will be small modular designs meant to be built in a factory and shipped to location, not permanent constructions with cost overruns. Most of these new startups are targetting being cheaper than coal.
Commentators from Greenpeace to the World Bank agree that climate change is an emergency, threatening civilization and life on our planet. Any solution must involve the control of greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels and switching to alternative technologies that do not impair the human habitat while providing the energy we require to function as a species.
This sobering reality has led some prominent observers to re-embrace nuclear energy. Advocates declare it clean, efficient, economical, and safe. In actuality it is none of these. It is expensive and poses grave dangers to our physical and psychological well-being. According to the US Energy Information Agency, the average nuclear power generating cost is about $100 per megawatt-hour. Compare this with $50 per megawatt-hour for solar and $30 to $40 per megawatt-hour for onshore wind. The financial group Lazard recently said that renewable energy costs are now “at or below the marginal cost of conventional generation”—that is, fossil fuels—and much lower than nuclear.
After 58 years operating off the Hudson River in Buchanan, New York, the final nuclear unit at Indian Point closes on Friday at 11 p.m.
Some environmentalists celebrated the closure, arguing the plant’s proximity to New York City makes it unsafe and that climate change can be tackled without this atomic brand of carbon-free electricity source. But its closure has sinister immediate implications: climate change-causing fossil fuels will likely replace that nuclear energy in the near term.
Already, gas-fired generators powered 40% of the state’s power last year, up from 36% the year prior, as a result of Unit 2’s closure, the NY Times reported. That will continue until more renewable projects and energy efficiency measures can get up and running.
“I don’t see a near-future approach that doesn’t require burning fossil fuel,” said Alexander Couzis, the interim dean of the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York. “We can’t keep doing business as usual, and then having Indian Point shutting down and at the same time complaining that we’re burning too much hydrocarbon. I mean, something has to give.” //
Both units contributed about 13% of the state’s power in 2019, and about 29% of the state’s electricity is currently derived from nuclear energy. The state’s grid manager, New York Independent System Operator, determined in 2017 that three fossil fuel-reliant plants would be needed to meet energy demands once the nuclear plant shutters. Indian Point’s final reactor provided 1 gigawatt to the electricity grid, which Entergy says was enough to support 750,000 to 1 million homes in the New York City and Westchester area.
And while those fears are certainly founded — Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile all spent a significant amount of time in the news — they can also illustrate how safe the power source is. While Chernobyl had and still has a massive effect on the terrain and a reported fatality count of 40 people, almost all of the damage was due to a denial of the problem and a lack of accountability. This is proven by the Fukushima Daichii disaster — a disaster on par with Chernobyl — that was handled as it should be. As a result, there were no deaths or increase in miscarriages, stillbirths or physical and mental disorders in babies born after the accident according to the World Health Organization. The Three Mile Incident serves to further solidify this point — a total nuclear disaster occurred with no deaths, no increase in miscarriages, stillbirths or physical and mental disorders in babies, and a relatively short clean-up time. As a point of fact, nuclear energy has the lowest number of deaths per terawatt hour of energy production at 0.01 due to accidents.
Nuclear power is the one of only two renewable energy sources capable of matching the energy demand created by the industrial civilizations of today. To match the energy output of a single modern reactor, it would take approximately 400 miles of the most modern wind turbines — nearly the distance from Chicago to Pittsburgh. That’s not to say that wind, solar, and biofuels power will have no place in the future — the technology behind those sources of energy is constantly evolving. However, they simply cannot shoulder our current energy burden. On the other hand, nuclear energy is already shouldering one-fifth of the total energy burden in the United States and nearly 11% of world electricity according to the World Nuclear Association. The only renewable energy source to provide more is hydroelectric energy — whose dams can cause ecosystem flooding and affect the reproduction of endangered species.
We must start relying on nuclear energy now — it is our only way to safely and effectively handle the climate crisis with the time we have left. //
New Jersey extends $300 million in nuclear subsidies for Salem County reactors
by Andrew Maykuth, Posted: April 27, 2021 - 5:05 PM
New Jersey extends $300 million in nuclear subsidies for Salem County reactors
JOHN COSTELLO / FILE PHOTO
PSEG operates the Salem Nuclear Power Plant in South Jersey.
New Jersey on Tuesday renewed subsidies of about $300 million a year for the state’s three nuclear power reactors at Salem and Hope Creek, the source of 90% of the state’s carbon-free electricity.
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved the subsidies, called Zero Emission Certificates, for three years for the Hope Creek Generating Station and the twin-unit Salem Nuclear Power Plant, located in Lower Alloways Township on Delaware Bay. The giant reactors supply New Jersey with about 37.5% of its power, including about 90% of its electricity produced without greenhouse gas emissions. //
The subsidies add about 0.4 cents to the price of a kilowatt hour of electricity, or about $2.60 a month for a typical residential customer that uses 650 kWh. That’s about 2% of a typical residential customer’s $123.44 monthly bill from Public Service Electric & Gas, the state’s largest utility and an affiliate of the majority owner of the nuclear plants. //
Several states, including Illinois, New York and Connecticut, have provided subsidies to keep nuclear plants operating, though Pennsylvania in 2019 declined to award support for atomic power, leading Exelon to permanently shut down Three Mile Island Unit 1.