Nuclear power has gotten a bad reputation, thanks to high-profile accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and most recently Fukushima. However, both environmentalists and energy investors have begun to notice that nuclear power has certain advantages that both renewables (solar and wind) and fossil fuel plants lack.
Nuclear power generates electricity 24/7. Solar power only generates electricity when the sun is up and the weather is not inclement. Wind power only generates electricity when the wind blows.
Nuclear power plants do not emit greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. They do create nuclear waste that has to be dealt with, and efforts to store nuclear waste have proven to be difficult and controversial. However, the technology exists to recycle nuclear waste to create more fuel for nuclear power plants, thus alleviating the need to store the stuff. China, Japan, and a number of European countries already use such recycling technology.
Nuclear power has attracted the attention of Texas state elected officials, regulators, and even environmentalists. The strain of extreme weather, such as the heat waves during the summer of 2023 and the cold snap that took place recently in January, that caused problems for the Texas electric grid has concentrated quite a few minds.
Texans remember with dread the winter apocalypse of February 2021 that shut down power, killed people, and caused untold property damage. No one wants a repeat. Increasingly, Texans see nuclear power as part of a solution to ensure that such an event never happens again.
To expand nuclear power in Texas, the state has formed the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group. Several entities have joined the group, including some from academia, the power industry, and even oil and gas companies. The group’s mandate is to provide a report to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) by Dec. 1, 2024, on how to proceed with building advanced nuclear reactors within the state.
The characteristics of an advanced nuclear reactor are defined thus in Section 2002 of the state’s 2020 Energy Policy Act:
- additional inherent safety features
- lower waste yields
- improved fuel and material performance
- increased tolerance to loss of fuel cooling
- enhanced reliability or improved resilience
- increased proliferation resistance
- increased thermal efficiency
- reduced consumption of cooling water and other environmental impacts
- the ability to integrate into electric applications and nonelectric applications
- modular sizes to allow for deployment that corresponds with the demand for electricity or process heat
- operational flexibility to respond to changes in demand for electricity or process heat and to complement integration with intermittent renewable energy or energy storage or a fusion reactor
The Working Group will focus on which nuclear designs not only fit this definition but also Texas’s energy needs.
One other question that the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group will have to answer is how to bring nuclear power plants online in a reasonable amount of time and cost. While regulation and environmental litigation do not help, the World Nuclear Organization noted that though nuclear power plants take less money to operate than other forms of generating power, they are horrendously expensive to build. They also take a long time to build — five years or more compared to two years for a natural gas-fired plant.
Clearly, if nuclear power is to be a solution to providing reliable electricity in Texas, not to mention American energy dominance, some means must be found to lower the cost and shrink the construction time.
To that end, the Dow Corporation has announced the construction of a small modular nuclear reactor at its facility in Seadrift, located on the Gulf of Mexico. The nuclear plant will provide power for Dow’s manufacturing facility and will generate 420 megawatts of electricity. Pending a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the power plant will begin construction in 2026, with a scheduled completion at the end of the decade.
Dow may be on to something. Make the nuclear power plants smaller, therefore less costly and quicker to build. This approach may be the way forward for a nuclear renaissance.
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Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.
