Needing a Balanced Mix of Grid-Power of Energy Resources - 2021

Nuclear Power Industry

Interviews with Kotek of NEI and with Bill Gates underscore power-grid needs in Texas and elsewhere. John Kotek, NEI Vice President of Policy Development and Public Affairs joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the situation in Texas with hundreds of thousands still without power.

BILL GATES: You'll need three things to maintain reliability while driving renewables over 80%. One is more transmission. So we have an open source model we're gonna show that if Texas had had slightly more interconnection, they wouldn't have had a problem. The second is energy storage. It's still hard to store these amounts of energy. And finally, sources of energy that aren't weather-dependent but are green, like nuclear. And so those three will be an important part of the zero-emission electricity system.

ZACK GUZMAN: That was Bill Gates, of course, speaking to our editor-in-chief Andy Serwer about some of the power struggles we've seen as of late. It sparked a lot of questions, particularly down in Texas, about what the shape of America's energy future should look like, including the role that nuclear energy should be playing in that. And I'm excited to chat that exact thing right now in our Rebuilding America focus here in infrastructure week. Joining us now to discuss it is John Kotek, NEI Vice President of Policy Development and Public Affairs, alongside Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi.

And John, we'll just kick things off because, you know, it's been a pretty interesting way to start learning about the need to invest in infrastructure here in the United States. But when it comes to what role nuclear energy should be playing in that, what do you make of how it fits into, I guess, the portfolio of options we should have at our disposal?

JOHN KOTEK: Yeah, I think the situation in Texas has really underscored the importance of having a balanced mix. And as we strive to decarbonize the grid, we're gonna need to take advantage of the positive attributes and compensate for some of the shortcomings of all energy resources. And when you think about nuclear, the fact that you've got 18 to 24 months of fuel supply, you know, in the reactor at any given time means that those facilities can run when maybe other energy resources are interrupted by things like extreme weather or other circumstances.

If you sort of draw the lens back from Texas this week and you look at the whole country, which has been plunged into a deep freeze, you know, nuclear has been running at greater than 95% average capacity factor over that period of time, you know, far and away the most resilient, reliable resource we've had during this period of severe cold.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, John. Increasingly, it does feel like nuclear is part of the conversation when you talk about the larger goal of getting to net zero by 2050. But there are concerns about the safety element, not necessarily about the plants but our ability to safely dispose of the nuclear waste, the spent fuel rods. What kind of progress has been made on that front, and what safeguards do we have in place compared to, say, 10 years ago?

JOHN KOTEK: You know, one of the things that we've learned over the 60-plus years of running these facilities commercially is actually storing the facility safe-- storing the fuel safely on site over decades is not technically challenging to do. We do it all the time. You know, the fuel itself is within metal tubes. Those go into steel canisters. After they've cooled down for a while, they go into concrete over packs. You put those on guarded pads at sites. While it's not an ideal solution, it's certainly, from a temporary standpoint, safe for both the workers and for the public. And when you think about the benefit that you derive from the generation of nuclear energy and the production of that spent fuel, I mean, just the two new reactors that are being built, at Vogtle in Georgia, for example, the Department of Energy estimates that over an 80-year lifetime, those two reactors would keep about 800 million metric tons of carbon out of the atmosphere. So when you're focused on decarbonization, really, nuclear has a huge role to play alongside increasing shares of wind, solar, and storage to get to a clean grid.

BRIAN SOZZI: John, do you think the Biden administration is a friend to the nuclear power industry? And then what have you seen from the Biden administration's proposals on infrastructure that would give you an indication that maybe he's a friend or maybe he's a foe?

JOHN KOTEK: You know, so I do believe that the Biden administration is supportive of nuclear. If you look at the statements that came out during the campaign, for example, you saw a lot of recognition of both existing nuclear and a next generation of nuclear technology as having an important role to play in decarbonizing the grid. I actually worked in the Federal Energy department the last couple of years of the Obama administration. So I know a lot of the people that are coming back, and I know they understand the role that nuclear can play going forward.

I think as we see the Biden policies take shape, I think you're gonna see a focus on both preserving the existing nuclear generation we have-- a lot of folks don't realize that nuclear represents about 20% of US electricity and is more than half of our carbon-free generation in the United States. So I think they'll focus on keeping existing plants running, and then they'll focus on creating a pathway for a next generation of nuclear technology.

There were a lot of investments, again, going back to my time in the Obama administration, where programs got started to work alongside innovators like Bill Gates and others to bring a next generation of nuclear technology to market that really builds on what we've learned over the last 60 years and comes up with a new set of designs that can be built faster and operated at lower cost and contribute to decarbonizing the grid both affordably and reliably.

BRIAN SOZZI: On nuclear, how would-- how would President Biden be different than President Obama?

JOHN KOTEK: I think what's happened over the last five years is that the focus on carbon and climate has just intensified. And so where, I think, you know, five years ago, for example, if you looked at the contribution that the US intended to make under the Paris Agreement, it was a certain level-- 26% to 28% reduction-- I think you can expect to see President Biden go in with a much more ambitious target for our next in DC.

That will underscore the role of both today's nuclear and the next generation of nuclear and, I think, will lead to some proposals for pretty significant investments in demonstrating new nuclear technology but also in building up the grid and in bringing other clean resources to the grid.

AKIKO FUJITA: John Kotek, NEI Vice President of Policy Development and Public Affairs. It's good to talk to you today, and our thanks to Brian Sozzi as well.