Going Nuclear
This holiday season, many in the energy community are hoping for a gift from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Approval of a reactor design and two nuclear facilities for the first time in a generation. We’re awaiting a sign that our long-anticipated nuclear renaissance is ready to begin.
According to Chairman Jaczko, the NRC is expected to vote on the AP1000 reactor, and two new nuclear reactors in Georgia and South Carolina that would use the design, by the end of this year or early next. If they vote in approval, new sources of reliable, zero emissions baseload power may come online. But NRC approval is not the only prerequisite for resurgence in nuclear power. There are several remaining obstacles to address, here are three big ones.
Lessons from the Licensing Process. The NRC has a new three-step process for reactor approval. (1) Design certification for a standard reactor design, (2) Early Site Permits for a generic reactor at a specific site, and (3) a Combined Construction and Operating License for a specific reactor at a specific site that can guarantee progress through commercial operation of the facility. Despite positive signs from the NRC, a facility has yet to make it all the way through this licensing process. First, the at least one new nuclear facility must make it all the way through this process to completion. Second, we need to analyze this process, determine if it works, fix faults, and speed up the process in a way that gives more certainty to industry and the electric power sector.
Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage. To say that our spent nuclear fuel program failed is an understatement. Indeed, the Administration’s drive to close out Yucca Mountain may stop this nascent nuclear renaissance in its tracks. The Department of Energy was directed to start accepting fuel for long-term geologic storage at Yucca Mountain by 1998. Despite $16 billion sunk into the facility, spent nuclear fuel remains on-site at nuclear facilities across the country. To support new nuclear construction, we need, at the very minimum, solutions to provide operators some certainty for the end of their fuel cycle. In the near term, this may be some arrangement of on-site and consolidated storage; in the long term, geologic storage is absolutely imperative, and Yucca Mountain remains the most likely solution.
Capital. DOE’s loan guarantee program provided $18.5 billion for nuclear power, with $8.33 billion going to the facility pending approval at Vogtle, in Georgia. Even with these guarantees, it’s clear the nuclear industry will have a hard time building up new facilities without convincing investors that they’re no more risky than other energy investments. This is made more difficult by moves in the investment sector to factor higher costs of business and greater operating risks into a more negative view for the construction of new nuclear facilities. Though the federal government should not be responsible for raising capital in support of new nuclear construction, it should take strides to diminishing uncertainty and risk surrounding the licensing and construction process and the handling of spent nuclear fuel.
Still, overcoming these obstacles to the financing and construction of nuclear facilities and the treatment of waste may not be enough. When we began discussing resurgence in nuclear power a decade ago, domestic development of natural gas was expected to fall behind demand, leaving us dependent upon imports of liquefied natural gas. With new developments in natural gas production, this trend is flipped. Shale gas has remarkable potential to transform our generation portfolio, and cheap natural gas may further delay the start of the next nuclear age.
