Last updated on 2023-03-27
Our conversations about the Deep-sixed Borehole Field Test and nuclear waste have led eager reader, commenter, and nuclear physicist Dr. Robert McTaggart likes sending me articles about nuclear power. Today he directs my attention to a new in-depth series from USA Today on the impact of nuclear power plants and their closures on small towns in the U.S.
In Vernon, Vermont, population 2,200, nuclear power meant jobs and tax revenues:
When it opened in 1972, Vermont Yankee was in the vanguard of the age of nuclear power generation, offering unimaginable job prospects for small-town folks and decades’ worth of flush budgets for Vernon. For years, Vernon was listed among Vermont’s “gold” towns, on a par with money-making ski meccas like Stowe to the north.
But in 2013, Vermont Yankee’s owner, Louisiana-based Entergy, announced that it would close its single-unit reactor by the end of 2014.
The announcement, while not unexpected, forced Vernon into some difficult decisions as Vermont Yankee employees started putting homes up for sale, taking with them six-figure incomes that fed the local economy for decades. The town’s $2 million budget would need to be cut in half [Thomas Zambito, “Nuclear Plant Shutdowns a Crisis for Small Towns Across the USA,” USA Today, 2017.07.12].
Vermont Yankee employed 550 people and pumped $500 million into the regional economy in 2014. Vermont Yankee and other nuclear power plants are suffering the same fate as coal-fired plants: cheap natural gas is killing their business case. Consider Duke Energy’s replacement of its Crystal River Nuclear Plant with a natural gas plant in Florida:
Duke Energy is building a $1.5 billion natural gas plant at the site that is 40 percent done and scheduled to open next year. But it’s expected to replace just a fraction of the jobs — about 50 to 75 — than the more labor-intensive nuclear facility provided.
“A natural gas plant is just easier to operate,” said Ted Kury, the director of energy studies at the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center. “During your overnight and weekend shifts, you really just have folks in the control room. As long as the gas is flowing in the burners, you’re all set” [Zambito, 2017.07.12].
I’d like to put Dr. McTaggart’s nuclear engineers to work in South Dakota, since our state can use all the science and high-wage jobs it can get. But it seems the cost of building and running nuclear plants compared to natural gas plants makes an investment in nuclear power here unlikely. Besides, Congresswoman Kristi Noem wouldn’t even support a science experiment to test technology for nuclear waste disposal; her position on the Deep Borehole suggests she’d go nuclear if someone proposed building a full-scale nuclear project in South Dakota. Funny that Big Oil money can get Rep. Noem to speak untruths in favor of an oil pipeline, but the big money in nuclear power can’t sway her from sounding like Greenpeace.
Even if we never build another nuclear fission plant, we still have over 76,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel sitting around in Vermont and 34 other states. We have to secure that waste somewhere. In the meantime, some members of Congress have proposed compensating places like Vernon for storing nuclear waste while we wait to figure out a permanent disposal solution, but that means spending money, and Kristi Noem will never go for that.
But how about a bold breakfast brainstorm? Perhaps South Dakota should invest in a Future Energy Research Park (FERP—sounds great!). Put up a facility where Dr. McTaggart and his students can design and build small modular reactors (which South Korea is building on budget and on time in Dubai) and other advanced nuclear energy technology. Assemble researchers to work on fusion reactors and get us back on track to put fusion power on the grid by 2050. Designate divisions of FERP to work on wind, solar, geothermal, virtual particle turbines, and whatever other 22nd-century power production technology we can dream up. And in every division, assign a team to work exclusively on waste disposal and other environmental externalities.
Maybe we never build another nuclear plant in South Dakota. But maybe we could enjoy the economic benefits of modern energy research by reconfiguring one of our university campuses into the Future Energy Research Park.
Thanks Cory!
FERP is a pretty good acronym (are you sure you are not a particle physicist? See all the experiments like DUNE for Homestake).
For South Dakota, SMRs would make sense to boost renewables w/o the carbon from nat gas, stand-alone 24-7 off-the-grid power for military bases, or process heat for industry.
A FERP would likely support the quality assurance and the engineering design to make clean energy technologies work better and support domestic manufacturing. You don’t need to have a nuclear power plant or anything radioactive nearby to support a nexus for clean energy technology and access the global market that would support more high-paying jobs.
I would throw in research for NASA too.
If you want to reduce the dose to astronauts for the travel to Mars (let alone the Moon), you have to get there quicker. Less time in space, less dose. So nuclear thermal propulsion or other fusion-based designs would be necessary. Radiation shielding and detectors would also have a crossover with nuclear tech.
Fission power for NASA has also been in the news to power bases for humans. Solar won’t cut it when you are far away from the sun and it is much colder.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/07/nasa-will-test-simple-nuclear-power-system-which-will-be-in-the-1-to-10-kilowatt-power-range.html
Additive manufacturing is also needed for NASA, aerospace in general, and clean energy.
I’m not a fan. South Dakota could be the Saudi Arabia of wind and solar power. That’s where money should be invested, not in trying to revive a dying industry that deserves a quick death.
Wind and solar sources of electrical power are already available and have the benefit of being easily built out. Wind and solar have no need for a new alphabet agency, no need for waste isolation, no need for international agencies and a vast nuclear safety bureaucracy, no need for a security apparatus to guarantee that would-be terrorists could not divert the technology or any constituent parts for bombs, dirty or clean.
I’d like to put all those engineers to work, too, but putting their efforts into nuclear power generation is like training people to make buggy whips. There are lots of things for engineers to do, but continuing down the dead-end path of nuclear power generation is a mistake.
We are not prepared to recycle those wastes from wind/solar/batteries (with the exception of lead-acid batteries). We also are heavily reliant on rare earths from China. If that supply is cut off, a lot of the battery tech and wind energy becomes a LOT harder to do.
But rest easy Donald, I doubt anyone is going to say “No more renewables until their waste issues are solved.” But isolation for the chemicals that occur in the solar/wind/battery industries is not far-fetched at all.
Solar, wind, and nuclear could work together to strengthen each other’s weaknesses and avoid carbon. An energy center would facilitate cross-cutting kinds of applications.
Well, there you have a good research and engineering program. Figuring out hew to recycle solar technology or to make it more efficient is a much better use of research dollars.
Glad to add NASA research. South Dakota needs a spaceport!
Donald, could we let the market solve? Open FERP, offer Ph.D.s in all the new energy fields, let Dr. McTaggart offer classes, too, and see what the grad students sign up for?
(On acronyms, Rob, don’t forget: my transcript includes a four-credit course on Relativity with Edwin F. Taylor. I can’t build a particle accelerator or a starship, but I understand the freaky things that happen when you operate them. I am also great at naming stuff. Ask my daughter. :-D )
For such a center to be viable long-term, you need several different streams of revenue. The funding for different areas waxes and wanes (both private and public), but a diverse portfolio works. If several energy areas can use similar infrastructure and expertise, then that works too.
Environmental applications (such as recycling or sustainability research, or even assessment/planning) can and should be included in that. So yes, we agree on that.
We should not assume that commercial energy storage will work…and that is simply assuming the status quo on our abilities in storage but with a lot more solar and wind than today. If you can redirect electricity at the generator (i.e. from gas, coal, hydro, or nuclear) away from the grid to something else when wind and solar are strong, then you don’t have to mess with energy storage and you avoid the wear and tear on the other power plant. But that “something else” is what needs more development.
By the way….a spaceport is a perfect place to “launch” a candidacy for public office.
You ever wonder why nuclear power plants were built in rural areas near small towns. Any guesses? Hint: it wasn’t to provide rural economic development. Another hint: google “national sacrifice area.”
Look at a map of the United States for the nuclear power plant locations. Most of them are in the East, where the water and the population happen to be. Reactors are water-cooled, and people use a lot of electricity (surprise!).
Now ask yourself why the baseload plants that are not in large cities are actually in proximity of a large population. That is where the paying customers are, you reduce transmission losses, and that town is where it got approved. So there is a mix of politics, economics, and the conservation of energy at work (people demand energy, and the utility does what is necessary to provide it).
Why not ask the big cities why they aren’t putting wind towers next to the apartment buildings or covering their limited green spaces with solar panels? Because if you don’t want to know the answer…don’t ask.
Now there is a problem with placing the FERP in South Dakota—it’s tough to expand the research project into large-scale power-generating projects right close by since we aren’t right next to the big power users. But could FERP be the grit that accretes the pearl? Could a cluster of new-energy researchers draw more businesses and manufacturers who could justify investment in new power plants which would virtuously cycle to drawing more businesses?
The small reactors are not as limited as the bigger ones. Some will not have to be water-cooled, and some will just remain off the grid to produce heat, not electricity (so fewer grid issues). And the ability to load-follow will be useful with more wind/solar on the grid. That is where a lot of the future growth will be.
The lesson of Westinghouse isn’t that we shouldn’t be building nuclear power plants. It’s that we need a robust domestic supply chain, continued experience in executing a power plant build, and a regulatory infrastructure that enhances quality assurance and timely builds to reduce costs.
And if folks like my friend Donald could get over the hump about nuclear, a lot of the heat and power we need to deal with the recycling and waste issues of wind and solar could be delivered by nuclear. Dealing with the wastes is important, and that should be done without emitting carbon. Likewise, we could find uses for wind/solar to help nuclear, and present solutions to better use intermittent energy when it occurs.
For energy, FERP could be a one-stop shop for critical infrastructure and knowledge. Then that build-up that Cory talks about can occur.
French President Macron’s Nuclear Dilemma
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/07/16/french-president-macrons-nuclear-dilemma/
The promise to reduce France’s nuclear output from 75% to 50% has been delayed over concerns regarding natural gas.
France would have to burn more natural gas, as everybody else does that replaces nuclear. This means they could become more beholden to Russia. I surmise this is why the French have been meeting with Trump despite his plans to withdraw from the climate accord…probably about liquefied natural gas exports.
It also means they and the rest of Europe would generate more carbon when they want to reduce it. Today with nuclear, only 7% of French electricity comes from fossil fuels, and its neighbors have an easier time of reaching carbon targets due to their import of French electricity.
They are also dealing with their waste. They reprocess and are on-track for permanent disposal. The material will be clay, which is almost as good as salt for such tasks.
Yucca Mountain still makes the most sense in order to make nuke power any kind of reality. Without that, there is no there there. Rick Good Hair Perry has put some millions into getting that depository back in the game.
Yucca would work, but I think they will have to lift the cap on how much they can put there. Volcanic tuff is behind clay and salt according to the author of that article, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do some engineering to make things better.
Sweden is backfilling its repository with clay, so something similar could be done at Yucca. But that makes it harder to go back and retrieve the waste for reprocessing (which means you need to mine more uranium). The French are reprocessing first to reduce both the radioactivity and the volume that requires permanent isolation. We currently have issues with reprocessing for making MOX fuel and burning up the plutonium from Russian warheads.
It wouldn’t surprise me if nuclear issues came up during their meeting.
Those Frenchy folks again! Damn, you would think that they take stuff seriously over there.
…and the last thing we want is Europe more beholden to Russia.