Nuclear Energy Means Climate Action Delay: O’Donnell and Winfield
Susan O’Donnell and Mark Winfield, https://www.theenergymix.com/nuclear-energy-means-climate-action-delay-odonnell-and-winfield/ 16 Apr 25
What is the best way for utilities to delay the transition from fossil fuels? Propose to build nuclear reactors.
Electricity utilities wanting to “decarbonize” have several options for replacing the fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) plants on their grids: aim to increase energy efficiency and productivity; add new renewable energy and storage resources; consider adding carbon capture and storage (CCS); or propose to build new nuclear reactors.
By objective measures, building new nuclear power plants will cost more, take longer to deploy, and introduce catastrophic accident risks—relative to improving energy productivity, expanding renewables with energy storage, and developing distributed energy resources. CCS suffers from limits of appropriate geology, reduced plant efficiency, and high costs.
However, if the goal is to keep fossil fuel-fired plants operating as long as possible, promising to build more nuclear energy has definite appeal.
Reactor design, planning, and build times are notoriously long—usually measured in decades—with well-established patterns of significant “unexpected” delays. Delaying while waiting for the promised new nuclear builds or reactor refurbishments maintains the status quo, effectively kicking actual climate action well down the road.
The two Canadian provinces with operating nuclear power reactors, Ontario and New Brunswick, provide case studies in this strategy. Both provinces are investing in significant new fossil gas generating infrastructure while waiting for new reactor designs to be developed and then built.
In Ontario, greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector have already risen dramatically as fossil gas plants are run to replace out-of-service nuclear reactors, and the province proposes to add more gas-fired generating capacity to its system. After a nearly decade-long hiatus, it only recently proposed a feeble reengagement with renewable energy. New nuclear reactor builds at Darlington, Bruce, and now Wesleyville, with timelines stretching well into the 2030s and 40s, remain the centrepiece of its energy (and supposed) climate strategy.
New Brunswick’s NB Power plans to add 600 MW of new nuclear power at its Point Lepreau nuclear site on the Bay of Fundy. Calls to build renewables instead have been rebuffed. In 2018, the province invited two nuclear start-up companies to set up in Saint John and apply for federal funding. Despite generous support from federal and provincial taxpayers, the companies have been unable to attract matching private funds. The NB Power CEO recently said she is “unsure” if the ARC-100, the reactor design promoted in 2018 as the closest to commercialization, will be ready by “the late 2030s.”
Meanwhile, the government recently announced support for building a large fossil gas plant, the biggest power project in the province in more than a decade.
The reality is that the new nuclear reactors being pushed by proponents are largely “PowerPoint reactors”—unproven and unbuilt designs. The BWRX-300 reactor that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is proposing for its Darlington site, for example, lacks a fully-developed design, including key elements like safety systems. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) still gave OPG a licence to build it, while the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still reviewing the design and asking for more information.
Recent analyses from the U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority also suggest the cost of the reactors will be far higher than OPG has claimed, and the timeline to construction and completion by 2030 seems less and less likely.
The new Monark design for a CANDU reactor that AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC Lavalin) is proposing for the Bruce Power nuclear site is even further behind the BWRX-300 in development. According to the CNSC, the Monark is at a “familiarization and planning” stage, with no date set for even the first, preliminary stage of the design review.
The Monark’s main competitor is the AP-1000 reactor by Westinghouse. In 2002, the company submitted the AP-1000 design for formal review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Two reactors came online in 2023 and 2024 at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, more than two decades later and twice the original timeline. Prior to the Vogtle project, the last reactor to come online in the U.S. took more than five decades from the start of construction to supplying power to the grid.
The final cost of the recent Vogtle project, at US$36.8 billion, was more than twice the original budget. If the same cost profile is applied to Ontario’s nuclear expansion projects, the total bill to Ontario electricity ratepayers and taxpayers could exceed $350 billion.
Promising to build more nuclear power is a political path to climate action delay and a distraction from a sustainable and decarbonized energy system transition. There is a reason why the International Energy Agency predicts that despite new nuclear reactor builds, nuclear energy will provide only eight percent of electricity supplies globally by 2050. In the meantime, while renewables development continues to accelerate globally, Canadian utilities, detoured by nuclear and CCS ambitions, double down on fossil gas and drift further and further behind in the global energy revolution.
Dr. Susan O’Donnell is adjunct research professor and lead investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Dr. Mark Winfield is a professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University in Toronto, and co-chair of the faculty’s Sustainable Energy Initiative.
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Victorian Liberal leader distances state party from Peter Dutton’s nuclear proposal: ‘Our focus is gas’
Brad Battin says he had a conversation with the federal opposition leader about the ‘language’ he would use about plans to build a nuclear reactor in eastern Victoria
Benita Kolovos Victorian state correspondent, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/15/victorian-liberal-leader-brad-battin-distances-state-party-from-peter-dutton-nuclear-proposal
The Victorian opposition leader says he discussed the language he would use to distance the state party from the federal Coalition’s campaign to build a nuclear reactor in the Latrobe Valley, telling Peter Dutton “it’s your campaign”.
The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley east of Melbourne is one of seven proposed sites for the federal Coalition’s proposal to build nuclear reactors, the centrepiece energy policy the federal Liberal leader will be taking to the 3 May poll.
But in his first interview with Guardian Australia since becoming the state Liberal leader in December, Brad Battin was clear to separate his team from the proposal, saying: “Our focus is gas, let the feds get on with what they’ve got to get on with.”
He confirmed he had not spoken to anyone in the federal Coalition about its two-and-a-half-year consultation plan for each proposed nuclear site, with the issue “barely raised” at all on the campaign trail.
However, Battin said a conversation had taken place with Dutton and his office about how he would handle questions on the policy.
“I’ve had the conversation with Dutton and his office around what my language is going to be, which is basically saying, ‘We’re happy to have a conversation at the right time. But for us, it’s your campaign at the moment. Our priority, our focus, is on gas,’” he said.
Battin said the federal Coalition would need state parliament to overturn Victoria’s Nuclear Activities (Prohibitions) Act of 1983, which bans the construction and operation of nuclear facilities in the state. Asked if he would be happy with that law being overturned, he said: “I’ll let you know on 4 May.”
Without the support of state parliament, Battin said a Dutton government would face a “difficult process” under section 109 of the constitution, which allows federal law to override state law in the case of conflict.
At his campaign launch on Sunday, Dutton vowed that Australia would become a “nuclear-powered nation” under the Coalition if elected. He said nuclear energy would reduce the need for “sprawling solar and windfarms or laying down 28,000km of transmission lines”.
Battin, however, said most Victorians wanted cheaper energy but “don’t know what the answer to that is yet”.
He said that as existing gas fields in Victoria’s Gippsland and Otway basins continue to deplete, the state should prioritise expanding onshore gas exploration instead.
The comments mark a shift in tone for Battin, who has spent months sticking to a carefully worded position that the Victorian Coalition was open to an “adult conversation” about the policy. He has also repeatedly refused to provide a personal view on nuclear energy.
How climate change could disrupt the construction and operations of US nuclear submarines
By Allie Maloney | April 14, 2025 https://thebulletin.org/2025/04/how-climate-change-could-disrupt-the-construction-and-operations-of-us-nuclear-submarines/ Allie Maloney is the Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow with the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. Maloney holds two bachelor’s degrees in international affairs and political science from the University of Georgia. Previously, she was a Richard B. Russell Security Leadership Fellow at the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security.
The US Defense Department is currently in the midst of a multi-decade-long nuclear modernization effort that includes replacing all the nuclear submarines making up the sea leg of the US nuclear triad. The nuclear-armed and -powered submarines—which hold over half of deployed US nuclear warheads—are known for their “survivability,” thereby providing the United States with second-strike capability even after a surprise attack.
But climate change could make the US submarine force inoperable over the coming decades.
Rising sea levels and extreme weather events increasingly threaten the submarine force’s infrastructure, which is mainly located in at-risk flood areas. This vulnerability reveals the precarious state of nuclear weapons—which the Defense Department considers the “backbone of America’s national security”—to the threat of climate change.
Threat multiplier. The Navy plans to spend $130 billion on procuring new Columbia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) over the next two decades to replace the current Ohio-class fleet. The delivery of the lead boat—the USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826)—has already been delayed by 12 to 16 months due to insufficient work instructions, low material availability, and disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now only about halfway through construction. According to the Government Accountability Office, budget overruns are five to six times higher than estimates by the Navy and General Dynamics Electric Boat, the submarine’s building company. As the Pentagon spends more and more on modernizing its nuclear submarines, natural disasters are likely to disrupt supply chains and damage nuclear facilities, sinking costs further.
In recent years, the Defense Department has started to acknowledge climate change as a “threat multiplier”—albeit slowly. Acknowledging the billions of dollars climate change could cost the Navy in the future, the Pentagon now incorporates inclement weather disasters and other climate effects into military planning and base structures. However, during the first Trump administration, the Navy quietly ended the climate change task force put in place by the Obama administration, which taught naval leaders how to adapt to rising sea levels. As the new Trump administration wipes all mention of climate change and other environmental measures from federal agency websites, climate-related measures may also be halted despite being critical for the viability of naval missions.
Most of the naval construction and operations infrastructure for the United States’ ballistic missile submarines are located on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Due to sea level rise and increased inclement weather attributed to climate change, these facilities are becoming more vulnerable to flooding. The intensity and number of hurricanes in the North Atlantic region have increased since the 1980s and will continue to do so as ocean temperatures keep rising, further threatening coastal areas. These incidents are highly costly and disruptive to operations. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the Defense Department has 1,700 coastal military installations that could be impacted by sea level rise. In 2018, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida suffered $4.7 billion in damages from Hurricane Michael.
Infrastructure at risk.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Self-induced vulnerability. The Navy’s Final Environmental Assessment for the Columbia class submarines estimated that homeporting at Kings Bay, Georgia, would result in emissions of 998 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is equivalent to 1,108,593 pounds of coal burned and the amount of carbon sequestered by 1,001 acres of US forests in one year. General Dynamic’s greenhouse gas emissions for 2023 were around 713,874 metric tons—over 700 times higher. While it had committed to reducing GHG emissions in 2019, the company’s emissions have increased since taking on several Pentagon contracts related to nuclear modernization.
The geophysical threats the nuclear deterrent faces show just how precarious these weapons are. As the United States builds new ships for national security, it also contributes to the sinking of its bases. A nuclear weapon buildup is vulnerable to changing environments and cannot save the United States from the looming threat of climate change.
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