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An Environment of Change: Part 5
Nuclear: A New, Clear Option
Note to readers: The fifth part of our ongoing series continues breaking down each element of the EPRI “prism” strategy. This one is on nuclear energy.
The need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions positions nuclear energy for a comeback
by Jennifer Taylor
After the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, safety concerns and skyrocketing construction costs, coupled with public fear and uncertainty, left the nuclear industry largely ignored. But concern over how the United States can generate large amounts of baseload power without increasing carbon dioxide emissions, combined with streamlined construction methods and enhanced safety features, has positioned nuclear power for a comeback.
 Next to coal, nuclear power plants are the primary generation source that can produce large amounts of reliable baseload electricity. Even better, nuclear reactors can help curb emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, blamed for contributing to global warming — they only release clean water vapor into the atmosphere.
In 2007, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a non-profit utility-sponsored organization whose members include electric co-ops, released a study showing how electric utilities could help reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2030 by taking aggressive steps in seven principal areas. One includes increasing nuclear power up to 25 percent of market share.
Expanding the existing plants
Currently, nuclear power provides 19 percent of the nation’s power supply, behind coal at 49 percent and natural gas at 22 percent. For electric co-ops, 15 percent of all power requirements are supplied by nuclear units, compared to 62 percent from coal, 11 percent from renewables (mostly large hydro), 10 percent natural gas, and 2 percent diesel fuel.
“The country already has 100,000 megawatts of nuclear power capacity,” said Tom TerBush, EPRI manager of nuclear market strategy. “We project adding 24,000 megawatts of new nuclear by 2020 [roughly 12 two-unit plants] and then 4,000 megawatts a year after that to reach a total of 64,000 megawatts by 2030 — an achievable, but ambitious goal.”
The new plants will include significant safety improvements over the boiling water and pressurized water reactors used today. “For starters, they won’t rely on active components like coolant pumps, fans, chillers, or diesel generators to shut things down in an emergency,” said John Holt, NRECA senior principal for generation and fuel. “To reduce human error, the plants will feature more passive systems that can open and close valves automatically using gravity or water flow to cool reactor cores, multiple backup power systems, and digital control rooms. And they will incorporate enhanced post-9/11 security measures, including hardened concrete exteriors that can better withstand the shock of events such as an airplane strike.”
To keep work on the fast track, most new nuclear plants will rely on modular construction with large parts, such as the reactor vessel, made in other countries like Japan. By using standardized design and modular construction, nuclear plant contractors like General Electric claim they can construct an entire facility from the ground up in approximately 36 months.
However, since it can take up to 10 years to site and build a nuclear plant, the nation has already fallen behind meeting that timetable.
Nuclear power’s contribution also depends on the continued safe and reliable performance of existing plants. Most of the nation’s 104 reactors were licensed during the 1960s and 1970s, with roughly half having had their licenses extended from 40 to 60 years, and the remaining filing extension applications with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Discussions are also underway with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NRC for additional 20-year extensions. “We believe that with sufficient maintenance, refurbishment, and upgrades, today’s nuclear power plants could operate quite safely for many more decades,” said Dave Modeen, EPRI vice president of the nuclear power sector.
Additionally, the NRC expects to receive up to 29 applications from utilities to build new nuclear power plants in 20 states, chiefly in the South. Applications for the streamlined combined construction and operating licenses — the first in three decades — have just started rolling in.
Costs and storage
The nation’s nuclear plants in 2007 produced electricity for an average of 1.72 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh), according to the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute. That compares with 2.37 cents per kwh for coal and 6.75 cents per kwh for natural gas-fired plants.
“Unlike fossil fuels, like coal and natural gas, a rise in uranium prices to power nuclear facilities has only a minimal effect on the price of electricity,” Holt noted. “And uranium is a natural resource in plentiful supply.” Nonetheless, construction costs for all types of power generation have risen significantly, and nuclear will be no exception.
To expand nuclear power generation, a long-term strategy for storing nuclear waste, such as spent uranium fuel bundles, must also be put in place. Nearly 60,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste sit at 126 “temporary” sites — commercial nuclear power plants, defense installations, and national laboratories — in 39 states, all of it in aboveground cooling pools or dry casks.
“These on-site facilities were designed to handle nuclear material only for a short time,” said NRECA CEO Glenn English. “For nuclear power to stay viable, electric co-ops believe that permanent storage is necessary.”
In 1982, Congress passed the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which called on DOE to develop a central, deep-mined, and geologic nuclear waste storage repository. The law was amended five years later to focus all repository studies on Yucca Mountain, Nev., a remote spot located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas near former nuclear warhead testing grounds.
The legislation effectively required DOE to begin accepting nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain by Jan. 31, 1998, with 77,000 tons eventually planned for entombment in underground tunnels. But countless problems, such as ongoing lawsuits and political resistance by Nevada officials as well as inadequate congressional appropriations, have sidetracked the project.
Today, Yucca Mountain remains in a state of limbo — even as DOE contractors continue to drill tunnels and conduct scientific tests. Electric co-op consumers who receive electricity from nuclear power plants have already paid $700 million (through a one-tenth of 1 cent per kwh fee) to build the Yucca Mountain storage facility.
Jennifer Taylor writes on consumer and cooperative affairs for NRECA.
Planning and Paying for Nuclear Waste
by Scott Gates
Nuclear power accounts for 15 percent of electric cooperative power supply. It is always available, solidly reliable, and emits no carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for contributing to climate change.
But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. With all of the perks of nuclear power comes a major headache: what to do with high-level radioactive waste.
Nuclear waste, in one form or another, gets generated at almost every step of the process of turning uranium ore into a safe, reliable fuel for electricity. When something is “radioactive,” it constantly emits unseen waves at a molecular level, the result of atoms actually decaying and shedding particles. In many cases this decay occurs naturally – a chunk of uranium ore, an unassuming chalky yellow rock, is naturally radioactive.
Radiation isn’t always a bad thing, but too much of it can damage living cells. And in the case of waste from nuclear power plants, its untapped potential energy poses a national security risk as it can be used as an ingredient in weapons manufacturing. This makes nuclear waste particularly tricky to dispose of safely and securely.
In 1982, a fund was established by Congress to develop a national repository for storing the nation’s nuclear waste, such as spent uranium fuel bundles, from commercial nuclear power plants, defense installations, and national laboratories. Consumers who receive electricity from nuclear power plants pay a one-tenth of 1 cent fee on every kwh used. The fund’s balance now stands at about $30 billion, with $9.5 billion having been spent on research and development of a permanent storage facility. Of that, more than $700 million has come directly from electric cooperative consumers.
 After decades of planning, a site for the repository was approved by President Bush in 2002. Yucca Mountain, Nev., about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was selected out of nine potential sites and has been authorized to hold 77,000 metric tons of waste. The Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit utility-sponsored organization whose members include electric co-ops, found the site capable of holding between 286,000 and 628,000 metric tons if need be.
The storage site has yet to open, and the U.S. Department of Energy has estimated it won’t until at least 2021. In the meantime, waste must be stored “temporarily” on-site in aboveground cooling pools or dry casks at nuclear reactors, which can be costly for plant owners. Dairyland Power Cooperative, a generation and transmission co-op based in La Crosse, Wis., has been storing fuel at a now-closed nuclear power plant since the early 1970s waiting for Yucca Mountain to open.
“It currently costs our consumer-members $5.5 million a year for security, maintenance, and monitoring of this site,” says Deb Mirasola, Dairyland Power manager of corporate communications. Nuclear waste remains a costly problem, and for electric co-ops like Dairyland Power, the solution can’t come soon enough.
Sources: Electric Power Research Institute, U.S. Department of Energy, Dairyland Power Cooperative, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
Scott Gates writes on technology and energy efficiency for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the Arlington, Va.-based service arm of the nation’s 900-plus consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives.
Go to “An Environment of Change” contents page
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 6/19/2008
Number of Views: 2820
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