Some 2020 Dems warm up to nuclear
Clean-energy option finds unlikely support
WASHINGTON – Nuclear energy could be making a comeback thanks to ... Democrats?
Several candidates vying for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 are promoting or have shown openness to expanding “next generation” nuclear power as part of the arsenal of options to aggressively address the effects of climate change.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Rep. John Delaney, D-Md.; and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. are backing expansion of modern nuclear energy that would have to meet tougher safety standards. Several other White House candidates, including former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper; Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio; and Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
D-Mass., have signaled they are open to the idea of nuclear power but have not pushed it as part of their agendas.
Even the Green New Deal, New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez’s sweeping social justice proposal to combat climate change, doesn’t rule out nuclear power expansion despite a draft recommendation initially calling for the decommissioning of all of the nation’s nuclear reactors within a decade.
It seems a strange turn for a party that not long ago fiercely opposed the industry. But the call for rapid decarbonization of the atmosphere to remedy a warming planet means nuclear power is at least getting a second look.
“It’s a pragmatic position,” said Sam Ori, executive director at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. “I’m not surprised that there’s a set of national policymakers who are taking progressive positions on dealing with climate change and including nuclear in that.”
The support for nuclear power isn’t often loud or well-laid-out publicly. Instead, it’s sold in more subtle language as part of an “all of the above” strategy.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has made his presidential campaign chiefly about solving climate change, said he is focusing “first and foremost” on expanding renewable alternatives such as wind and solar, improved efficiency, a smarter power grid and energy storage technologies.
But “we should continue to explore next-generation advanced nuclear technologies,” the governor said in a statement provided to USA TODAY.
Not every candidate seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 is a fan, mirroring a similar divide in the environmental community.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a leading candidate for the nomination, opposes renewing existing licenses because “the toxic waste byproducts of nuclear plants are not worth the risks of the technology’s benefit.” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii., are among those who oppose including nuclear technology on the clean energy menu.
Nuclear power, generated by 98 commercial reactors at 60 plants scattered across 30 states, provides nearly 20% of the nation’s electricity, according to government figures. That makes nuclear the largest single supplier of carbon-free energy in the U.S.
Yet economic factors, mainly from the production of cheap natural gas and increasingly affordable renewable sources, are slowly driving nuclear power out of business. In addition, diminished demand has hurt profitability, as have rising costs to operate the plants, analysts say.
President Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic whose administration has championed fossil fuels such as oil and coal, signed legislation in 2018 to expand the nuclear industry.
Only one new nuclear power plant has come online in the United States since 2010: The Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Two more reactors are under construction in Georgia, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But six reactors at five plants have been mothballed since 2013, seven others at five more plants are slated to retire over the next seven years, and another five reactors at four more plants are expected to close in the next few years if they do not receive new financial support, according to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Safety remains a major concern as well, 40 years after Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 suffered a partial meltdown in what remains the nation’s worst commercial nuclear accident. The threat of a terrorist attack and the potential damage from a major hurricane (nuclear plants sit on or near bodies of water) have added to the angst. And there’s the question of finding a permanent repository for nuclear waste, a question that has bedeviled for years.
Ori, the University of Chicago analyst, said the center-left – which advocates considering nuclear energy – remains a powerful voice in the Democratic Party.
“But that doesn’t mean eventually that this policy isn’t going to run into the strong resistance to nuclear from the farther left of the party and from the dominant voices in the climate policy movement,” he said. “Eventually those things are going to collide.”