New nuclear power reactors need time
Promising small modular projects, right now, are more costly and produce more radioactive waste
To split the atom or not to split, that is the question.
If J. Robert Oppenheimer felt that creating an atomic bomb was necessary to stop fascism, then shouldn’t the world embrace nuclear power plants to slow climate change?
No current technology generates more electricity without greenhouse gas emissions than a nuclear reactor, but that’s only the beginning of the conversation about an unfairly maligned yet dangerous form of energy.
Texans need to think long and hard about all energy options after the summer of 2023, the Earth’s hottest in recorded history. We also need to resolve feelings about new nukes ahead of Dow building a small, modular nuclear reactor in Seadrift, perhaps the first of many to dot the Texas countryside.
The most attractive quality of nuclear power is its compact size and reliability. The two facilities operating in Texas, the South Texas Project near Matagorda and Comanche Peak southwest of Dallas, produce about 5,000 megawatts almost year-round. About 10 percent of the state’s annual electricity needs are met with four nuclear reactors in two locations.
Nuclear power plants have an excellent track record, and because they don’t produce air pollution, they have an extremely low impact on human health, unlike coal and natural gas plants. In the history of civil nuclear energy, only the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 resulted in fatalities, with 46 confirmed deaths, possibly more.
Yet U.S. nuclear power plants have failed economically. Twentieth-century plants, like the ones in Texas and the newly completed Vogtle plant in Georgia, can cost two or three times more than the original estimates, making their lifetime cost of electricity uncompetitive with coal, natural gas, wind or solar sources.
An MIT study found that tweaking reactor designs for site-specific needs makes new plants more expensive. Once the Vogtle plant’s last two reactors begin generating electricity in 2024, no company has plans to build another oldschool nuclear power plant in the United States.
Nuclear power advocates say the trick is to simplify reactor designs by making them smaller and modular, hence the acronym SMR. Lots of companies want to build SMRs in the name of stopping climate change.
Dow contracted with Maryland-based X-Energy Reactor Co. to install an SMR at a
4,700-acre facility outside Seadrift, on San Antonio Bay about 70 miles north of Corpus Christi. Dow manufactures 4 billion pounds of chemicals and materials there a year.
“The project is expected to reduce the Seadrift site’s emissions by approximately 440,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent a year,” a press release said.
X-Energy has developed a unique fuel pellet for a proprietary advanced reactor using Department of Energy funds. The company claims its design is meltdown-proof and only requires a 400-yard safety zone.
The base model produces 80 megawatts of electricity and four can be linked to produce enough power for 64,000 homes. Proponents claim simplified reactors will make nuclear power competitive again. But independent estimates still put the all-in costs at double the price for wind and solar. Even offshore wind power is cheaper.
Wind and solar energy were once two or three times as expensive as coal and natural gas, but after 20 years of development, they’re cheaper. The price of an SMR also will go down, if there are enough orders to create an economy of scale for reactors made in a factory and then shipped around the world.
While the engineering and economic challenges are easily overcome, the tougher nut is the political opposition to splitting atoms and creating radioactive waste.
The United States generates 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel every year, which because of uranium’s density, is relatively compact. More than 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel is stored at 70 reactor sites because after 70 years of debate, Americans still cannot agree on where to dispose of it.
The most likely repository is in Andrews County, near the New Mexico border, after a federal judge blocked a lawsuit brought by environmental groups.
Scientists at Stanford University and the University of British Columbia studied several SMR designs and determined they would probably produce more waste, not less, than traditional reactors. There also is a possibility the waste will be more radioactive.
The most basic and unanswered question is where will the dangerous material go for 10,000 years? It’s a question we must answer to keep our existing reactors operating, let alone start building new ones.
Addressing climate change requires an all-of-the-above strategy where all forms of energy compete to provide reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity. New nuclear may hold many answers, but for now, there are too many questions the industry must address first.