Do Not Let Nuclear Power Plants go too Fast

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 07/16/15

Susan Tierney opines that she never thought she would be writing this sentence - It would be penny unwise and pound foolish to allow safely operating nuclear power plants to retire too soon. This statement constitutes a big turnaround for her. She started her professional career at a time when scores of new nuclear power plants were under development. That was eons ago, when there were promises of power too cheap to meter and realities of huge cost overruns and local protests. As a graduate student, she studied these controversies. As a state utility regulator in the 1980s, she grilled nuclear plant owners about those cost overruns and whether consumers should have to pay for them. She watched as less than half of the roughly 250 nuclear units originally proposed eventually went into commercial operation. The rest were cancelled or otherwise did not go forward, primarily because of Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl. She was not a fan of nuclear power. Fast forward to 2015 - 99 nuclear units are still in operation in the U.S. Most have approval to operate for several more decades. A fifth of U.S. electricity comes from these plants. In the wholesale competitive power markets in parts of the eastern U.S., where merchant nuclear units are owned by non-utility companies, nuclear units provide a third of the power supply. Their operations help to keep electricity prices lower than they would otherwise be. They routinely generate power at levels of output far exceeding other types of power plants. They provide almost two-thirds of zero-carbon electricity. So what is the problem? Some of the best-performing nuclear units are financially distressed. Many have not been able to cover their costs in recent years, largely due to competition from low natural gas prices and flat electricity demand. We need to make sure that our wholesale power markets compensate nuclear power plants for their provision of carbon-free electricity.