A supporter of nuclear power has second thoughts
Can Nuclear Power Stay Relevant in a World Filled with Renewables? https://www.powermag.com/can-nuclear-power-stay-relevant-in-a-world-filled-with-renewables/ by Aaron Larson —Aaron Larson is POWER’s executive editor. 1 Nov 21, I have long been a supporter of nuclear power. I’ll admit I’m biased, having spent 13 years in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power program and having worked for several more years in the commercial nuclear industry at the Quad Cities station. Even so, when I step back and look critically at nuclear technology, I find it to be a sound form of power generation.
I’m obviously not the only person who believes in it. Several advocacy groups tout the benefits nuclear reactors provide. The Nuclear Innovation Alliance, for example, says the world needs the “economic, flexible, secure, zero-carbon energy” that nuclear power offers, suggesting it can be scaled up “rapidly to expand energy access while halting climate change.” The truth is, however, many nuclear plants are not so “economic” and few things happen “rapidly” in the nuclear industry
Financial Challenges and Construction Delays
It’s no secret that nuclear power plants have been struggling in competitive markets. Until recently, Exelon, which operates the largest fleet of commercial reactors in the U.S. (including the plant I previously worked at), was on the verge of retiring its Byron and Dresden facilities because they were “uneconomic.”
The company claimed that “despite being among the most efficient and reliable units in the nation’s nuclear fleet,” Byron and Dresden faced “revenue shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars because of declining energy prices and market rules that allow fossil fuel plants to underbid clean resources in the PJM capacity auction.”
Byron and Dresden were ultimately saved when legislation was passed by Illinois lawmakers in September. The state’s new energy bill will reportedly give Exelon $694 million in incentives to keep the plants open. Similar subsidies have been necessary to keep nuclear plants viable elsewhere, including in Ohio and New York.
When it comes to speed of deployment, there are countless examples of delayed nuclear power projects all over the world. For my purposes, I’ll focus on the only project currently in progress in the U.S., that is, the Vogtle expansion in Georgia. Southern Nuclear (a subsidiary of Southern Company) filed for an early site permit application for Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in August 2006. The Georgia Public Service Commission approved construction of the two AP1000 reactors in March 2009. Southern Company notified The Shaw Group and Westinghouse Electric Co. to proceed fully on their engineering, procurement, and construction contract in mid-April 2009.
Original plans called for Vogtle Unit 3 to be operational in 2016 and Unit 4 to enter service in 2017, but that didn’t happen. The project has had countless delays, and costs have ballooned. In a July 29-issued press release, Georgia Power, the Southern Company subsidiary that will own 45.7% of the two new units along with Oglethorpe Power Corp. (30%), Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (22.7%), and Dalton Utilities (1.6%), said it was projecting a Unit 3 in-service date in the second quarter of 2022 and a Unit 4 in-service date in the first quarter of 2023, but even that timeline may be optimistic. In Oglethorpe’s investor briefing issued on Aug. 26, the company said its revised budget “assumes in-service dates of June 2022 and June 2023 for Unit 3 and Unit 4, respectively.”
And speaking of budgets, Georgia Power’s capital cost forecast for the project was also revised in July, pegging its share of the project at $9.2 billion. If you do the math, that works out to more than $20.1 billion in total project costs, which is 40% higher than the $14.3 billion projected in August 2008.
Progress on SMRs Has Been Equally Slow
Some nuclear power proponents feel small modular reactors (SMRs) could provide a boost to the industry. The concept has been around for decades. I remember hearing about pebble-bed small modular reactors when I was still in the Navy back in the 1990s. The idea of building moduals in a factory-type setting and shipping them to a site for final assembly seems forward-thinking. The process could be more like an assembly line, saving time and money.
Yet, for all the hype, we still haven’t seen an SMR approved and constructed in the U.S. NuScale Power is perhaps the furthest along in the process. so I’ll focus on what it has accomplished.
POWER has been reporting on NuScale’s design since at least early 2013. The company began developing its reactor in 2000 under a Department of Energy–funded research program, and began pre-application discussions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2008. It took until September 2020 for the NRC to finally issue a Standard Design Approval for the NuScale SMR.
While NuScale has signed several agreements with companies and countries interested in exploring SMR deployment, no one has signed on the dotted line to build one. Furthermore, it’s highly debatable whether SMR costs will be competitive with other available clean-energy options.
Insurmountable Obstacles?
A grim picture was painted for the future of nuclear power during a media event on Sept. 29 to roll out the “World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021,” a Mycle Schneider Consulting project that provides an overview of nuclear power plant data including information on operation, production, and construction. One of the takeaways from the presentation was: “Nuclear is irrelevant in today’s electricity capacity newbuild market.”
I asked the eight-member panel of presenters if the tide could be turned. M.V. Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia and a contributor to the report, told me in a direct message, “I don’t think this tide can turn. These problems are structural.” I hope he’s wrong, because I believe the world needs nuclear power to be a relevant piece of a carbon-free future.
Positive developments: rise in electric cars, ever cheaper renewables, moves towards energy efficiency
| The climate emergency is the biggest threat to civilisation we have ever faced. But there is good news: we already have every tool we need to beat it. The challenge is not identifying the solutions, but rolling them out with great speed. Some key sectors are already racing ahead, such as electric cars. They are already cheaper to own and run in many places – and when the purchase prices equal those of fossil-fueled vehicles in the next few years, a runaway tipping point will be reached. Electricity from renewables is now the cheapest form of power in most places, sometimes even cheaper than continuing to run existing coal plants. There’s a long way to go to meet the world’s huge energy demand, but the plummeting costs of batteries and other storage technologies bodes well. And many big companiesmare realising that a failure to invest will be far more expensive as the impacts of global heating destroy economies. Even some of the biggest polluters, such as cement and steel, have seen the green writing on the wall. Buildings are big emitters but the solution – improved energy efficiency – is simple to achieve and saves the occupants money, particularly with the cost of installing technology such as heat pumps expected to fall. Guardian 31st Oct 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/31/reasons-to-be-hopeful-the-climate-solutions-available-no |
New Study: Electricity would already be Cheaper today with a Full Supplyof 100% Renewables.
**Germany – renewables**
New Study: Electricity would already be Cheaper today with a Full Supply
of 100% Renewables. New short study by the Energy Watch Group (EWG) finds:
Electricity would already be cheaper today with a full supply of 100%
renewables.
In the coalition negotiations for the new German government,
both ambitious climate protection and the reduction of electricity prices
play a central role. The previous government still expects only 45%
renewables in the electricity mix by 2025.
A new short study by the Energy
Watch Group offers an answer to the rising energy costs: The study
calculates that a full supply with 100% renewables would already be
economically competitive today compared to the current energy system based
on coal, natural gas and nuclear. By 2025 at the latest, an energy system
based on 100% renewables would then be significantly cheaper than power
generation with fossil fuels.
Sonnenseite 28th Oct 2021
US military blazes trail for 100 per cent renewable energy economy
| US military blazes trail for 100 per cent renewable energy economy with carbon neutral synthetic fuel. Carbon neutral synthetic fuel whose production is powered by renewable energy is a practical way of long-term storage of renewable energy. But it is no surprise that the big energy corporations with their fossil fuel and nuclear power interests don’t advise Governments to support this – but when it can help the US military, well, it’s just chocks away chaps! The irony is that this system was researched in the UK only a few years ago at a pilot stage, and then – you’ve guessed it – completely ignored by the UK Government in favour of kooky ideas like small nuclear reactors and blue hydrogen – not to mention large nuclear power plant that take forever to be built incredible cost! 100% Renewables 31st Oct 2021 https://100percentrenewableuk.org/us-military-blazes-trail-for-100-per-cent-renewable-energy-economy-with-carbon-neutral-synthetic-fuel |
Portugal’s success in cutting greenhouse emissions through its offshore floating wind and solar plants
Portugal is the EU country that has been most successful at cutting
greenhouse gas emissions since 2005, partly through the use of floating
wind and solar plants located off its coast. Today, 65 percent of all the
electricity consumed in Portugal comes from renewable sources.
France24 30th Oct 2021
“The Australian way:” Morrison exposes Australia as climate laggard on world stage — RenewEconomy
Morrison took his climate plan to Glasgow and the world has seen it as a hollow gesture, with Fiji offering its own blueprint for Australia to follow. The post “The Australian way:” Morrison exposes Australia as climate laggard on world stage appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“The Australian way:” Morrison exposes Australia as climate laggard on world stage — RenewEconomy
Rooftop solar squashes grid demand to records lows in two states — RenewEconomy
Rooftop solar pushes minimum operational demand down to record lows in two states, and reaches 87 per cent of supply in South Australia. The post Rooftop solar squashes grid demand to records lows in two states appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Rooftop solar squashes grid demand to records lows in two states — RenewEconomy
Glasgow Diary: Australia named a ‘fossil of the day’ on first day of COP26 — RenewEconomy
Australia named ‘fossil of the day’, Boris Johnson compares climate change to ‘James Bond style doomsday device’ and Biden apologises for actions of Trump administration. The post Glasgow Diary: Australia named a ‘fossil of the day’ on first day of COP26 appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Glasgow Diary: Australia named a ‘fossil of the day’ on first day of COP26 — RenewEconomy
Australia now has nearly 1kW of solar per capita after smashing year of rooftop installs — RenewEconomy
Australia now has nearly 1kW of solar installed for every person in the country, thanks to a record year of rooftop installations. The post Australia now has nearly 1kW of solar per capita after smashing year of rooftop installs appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Australia now has nearly 1kW of solar per capita after smashing year of rooftop installs — RenewEconomy
Morrison fumbles in Rome, but his main game is to block progress at Glasgow — RenewEconomy
Morrison’s mishandling of major international relationships has come back to bite the PM, as Australia isolated on the eve of COP26. The post Morrison fumbles in Rome, but his main game is to block progress at Glasgow appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Morrison fumbles in Rome, but his main game is to block progress at Glasgow — RenewEconomy
November 1 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “COP26 Climate Talks Off To An Ominous Start After Weak G20 Leaders’ Meeting” • The G20 leaders’ meeting that just ended suggests that leaders are finally listening to the science, but they still lack the political unity to make the ambitious decisions required to meet the moment. For one thing, they failed to […]
November 1 Energy News — geoharvey
This week’s nuclear news – Australia
Well. it’s all about climate this week. Not much mention of reducing energy use, energy conservation etc – even though this would be the cheapest, quickest and most effective measure to slow down global heating.
My pick: top stories of the week : Too expensive, too slow: Even the baseload argument doesn’t work for nuclear. The push for nuclear power in space. Hidden agenda: Will COP26 let nuclear power in the door and, if so, why?
Another example of climate change damaging the nuclear industry –jellyfish increase clogging up cooling systems of reactors
AUSTRALIA.
CLIMATE. Farmers fear that Australian climate inaction could jeopardise future export potential Australia has a ‘suicidal’ climate policy, says former UN climate chief UK says Australia must do more to tackle climate change as G20 leaders gatherUK’s top climate adviser launches scathing attack on Australia on eve of Cop26 Angus Taylor refuses to detail cost to taxpayers of 2050 climate plan Honest Government Ad | COP26 Climate Summit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIyKmqEdgR4
NUCLEAR. Scott Morrison’s ‘net zero plan’ includes small nuclear reactors. Scott Morrison is impressed by Bill Gates – of course – it’s about small nuclear reactors solving climate change. Tony Abbott, (highly unpopular former PM) on the pro nuclear bandwagon.
Too expensive, too slow: Even the baseload argument doesn’t work for nuclear.
Submarines. $6000 a day to one US advisor to Australia on getting nuclear submarines. How much to the 3 new ones? Half-baked plan to build half of each nuclear submarine in Australia, and conflicts of interest in the planners. Australia looking at existing design to ‘accelerate’ delivery of nuclear-powered submarines. No likelihood of Australian jobs in nuclear submarine construction, nor in big Pacific vessel, Indonesia wants non-peaceful nuclear submarines to be subject to nuclear non-proliferation treaty (surprise, surprise, Australia doesn’t agree). France’s President Macron quite clear that Scott Morrison lied to him.
There must be a Conservation Plan before uranium mining operations are permitted at the fragile ecosystem of Mulga Rock, Western Australia. Australians should remember our past and continuing uranium/nuclear environmental disasters.
INTERNATIONAL
CLIMATE. World is failing to make changes needed to avoid climate breakdown, report finds. The myth of “newer, safer, less expensive” nuclear power to fix the climate. Hidden agenda: Will COP26 let nuclear power in the door and, if so, why?
‘We have left it too late’: COP26 unlikely to limit warming to 1.5C, scientists warn . UN warns world ‘way off track’ as greenhouse gases grow . The world is nowhere near to kicking its dirtiest habit. World heading for catastrophe without bolder climate plans, UN warns. 35 official events at Cop26 put on by polluting companies. If COP26 fails, it could mean mass migrations and food shortages – Boris Johnson. From the climate crisis to nuclear war and technological disruption: The future of security reassessed.‘Illusion’ of climate action by big emitters clouds outlook for COP26 talks Cop26 will be whitest and most privileged ever, warn campaigners ‘It’s the protests which are giving me hope’: activists descend on Glasgow
NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Even the mind of Dante could not imagine the inferno a nuclear war will plunge us in. Fear of ‘devastating’ nuclear war as world’s major powers enter a new arms race. A nuclear arms race is unavoidable without serious intervention.
IPPNW statement on how WHO could advance the planetary health imperative to eradicate nuclear weapons. Reinforcing security through prohibition of nuclear weapons. The untold story of the world’s biggest nuclear bomb.
Another example of climate change damaging the nuclear industry –jellyfish increase clogging up cooling systems of reactors
Correcting Alan Finkel’s nuclear fallacies.
Happy Birthday King Rupert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct2F6uvWhRw
Hidden agenda: Will COP26 let nuclear power in the door and, if so, why?
Hidden agenda — Beyond Nuclear International October 31, 2021 by beyondnuclearinternationa The unspoken argument for more nuclear power, By Linda Pentz Gunter
Not that the two things are unconnected. The civilian nuclear power industry is desperately scrambling to find a way into the COP climate solutions. It has rebranded itself as “zero-carbon”, which is a lie. And this lie goes unchallenged by our willing politicians who blithely repeat it. Are they really that lazy and stupid? Possibly not. Read on.
Nuclear power isn’t a climate solution of course. It can make no plausible financial case, compared with renewables and energy efficiency, nor can it deliver nearly enough electricity in time to stay the inexorable onrush of climate catastrophe. It is too slow, too expensive, too dangerous, hasn’t solved its lethal waste problem and presents a potentially disastrous security and proliferation risk.
New, small, fast reactors will make plutonium, essential to the nuclear weapons industry as Henry Sokolski and Victor Gilinsky of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center continue to point out. Some of these so-called micro-reactors would be used to power the military battlefield. The Tennessee Valley Authority is already using two of its civilian nuclear reactors to produce tritium, another key “ingredient” for nuclear weapons and a dangerous blurring of the military and civil nuclear lines.
So here we are again at another COP (Conference of the Parties). Well, some of us are in Glasgow, Scotland at the COP itself, and some of us, this writer included, are sitting at a distance, trying to feel hopeful.
But this is COP 26. That means there have already been 25 tries at dealing with the once impending and now upon us climate crisis. Twenty five rounds of “blah, blah, blah” as youth climate activist, Greta Thunberg, so aptly put it.
So if some of us do not feel the blush of optimism on our cheeks, we can be forgiven. I mean, even the Queen of England has had enough of the all-talk-and-no-action of our world leaders, who have been, by and large, thoroughly useless. Even, this time, absent. Some of them have been worse than that.
Not doing anything radical on climate at this stage is fundamentally a crime against humanity. And everything else living on Earth. It should be grounds for an appearance at the International Criminal Court. In the dock.
But what are the world’s greatest greenhouse gas emitters consumed with right now? Upgrading and expanding their nuclear weapons arsenals. Another crime against humanity. It’s as if they haven’t even noticed that our planet is already going quite rapidly to hell in a handbasket. They’d just like to hasten things along a bit by inflicting a nuclear armageddon on us as well.
Not that the two things are unconnected. The civilian nuclear power industry is desperately scrambling to find a way into the COP climate solutions. It has rebranded itself as “zero-carbon”, which is a lie. And this lie goes unchallenged by our willing politicians who blithely repeat it. Are they really that lazy and stupid? Possibly not. Read on.
Nuclear power isn’t a climate solution of course. It can make no plausible financial case, compared with renewables and energy efficiency, nor can it deliver nearly enough electricity in time to stay the inexorable onrush of climate catastrophe. It is too slow, too expensive, too dangerous, hasn’t solved its lethal waste problem and presents a potentially disastrous security and proliferation risk.
Nuclear power is so slow and expensive that it doesn’t even matter whether or not it is ‘low-carbon’ (let alone ‘zero-carbon’). As the economist, Amory Lovins, says, “ Being carbon-free does not establish climate-effectiveness.” If an energy source is too slow and too costly, it will “reduce and retard achievable climate protection,” no matter how ‘low-carbon’ it is.
New, small, fast reactors will make plutonium, essential to the nuclear weapons industry as Henry Sokolski and Victor Gilinsky of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center continue to point out. Some of these so-called micro-reactors would be used to power the military battlefield. The Tennessee Valley Authority is already using two of its civilian nuclear reactors to produce tritium, another key “ingredient” for nuclear weapons and a dangerous blurring of the military and civil nuclear lines.
Keeping existing reactors going, and building new ones, maintains the lifeline of personnel and know-how needed by the nuclear weapons sector. Dire warnings are being sounded in the halls of power about the threat to national security should the civil nuclear sector fade away.
This is more than a hypothesis. It is all spelled out in numerous documents from bodies such as The Atlantic Council to The Energy Futures Initiative. It has been well researched by two stellar academics at the University of Sussex in the UK — Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone. It’s just almost never talked about. Including by those of us in the anti-nuclear power movement, much to Stirling and Johnstone’s consternation.
But in a way it’s just glaringly obvious. As we in the anti-nuclear movement wrack our brains to understand why our perfectly empirical and compelling arguments against using nuclear power for climate fall perpetually on deaf ears, we are maybe missing the fact that the nuclear-is-essential-for-climate arguments we hear are just one big smokescreen.
At least, let’s hope so. Because the alternative means that our politicians really are that lazy and stupid, and also gullible, or in the pockets of the big polluters, whether nuclear or fossil fuel, or possibly all of the above. And if that’s the case, we must brace ourselves for more “blah, blah, blah” at COP 26 and a truly horrible outlook for present and future generations.
We are grateful, therefore, to our colleagues attending COP 26, who will be promoting— rather than tilting at —windmills as they make their case, one more time, that nuclear power has no place in, and in fact hinders, climate solutions.
And I hope they will also point out that expensive and obsolete nuclear power should never be promoted — under the false guise of a climate solution — as an excuse to perpetuate the nuclear weapons industry.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the International specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International.
Australia has a ‘suicidal’ climate policy, says former UN climate chief
Australia has a ‘suicidal’ climate policy, says former UN climate chiefChristina Figueres, an architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement, has hit out at Australia’s net zero commitment, labelling it “irresponsible” and “suicidal”.
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 