This spring marks the best start for America’s nuclear industry in decades. It started in April. This is the first time since then. 1990US increases nuclear capacity for second year in a row in June Congress has passed important legislation to accelerate the development of nuclear energy. The Republican national platform trumpeted nuclear power. Like Kamala Harris. explain Her economic agenda this fall Three of the world’s largest companies – Amazon, Google and Microsoft – have announced large investments in nuclear power plants. In November, the United States It’s out. The official goal is to massively expand nuclear capacity. “We have ambitious goals over the next 10 years,” said Michael Goff, acting assistant secretary of the Nuclear Energy Agency. Ministry of Energy and over the next decade, DOE aims to increase nuclear power approximately 60 times more in a quarter century than the nation built at any time.
It wasn’t that long ago, 15 years ago, maybe even five years ago. Imagining all this would be a huge stretch. For decades, the industry has been stagnant and fiercely opposed by environmentalists. But nuclear power, an abundant, reliable and emissions-free source of electricity, is a powerful tool in the fight against climate change. And now the federal government, major corporations, and a growing number of climate advocates are backing a nuclear power package. Projects that could transform America’s grid This is at least the country’s third attempt at doing so. It was the first push to install reactor fleets across the country that faced dramatic shutdowns in the 1980s and the so-called The nuclear “renaissance” of the late 2000s included a project that proposed dozens of nuclear machines. Reactor too fail To make it happen this time around, “the industry really has to deliver,” Goff said. The next few years may be the country’s last chance to secure nuclear rights.
America’s opposition to nuclear power runs deep. Some of the oldest and most influential environmental groups include: GreenpeaceSierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. have long opposed the consequences of nuclear weapons testing, and as an extensionEnvironmental risks of nuclear power plants Broad public attitudes turned against nuclear power when the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania suffered a meltdown in 1979. The official Democratic Party resist a new nuclear power plant the following year And after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, it was almost. three quarters Americans said They oppose building a nuclear plant within five miles of their homes.
Economic factors may have doomed nuclear buildup anyway. Energy companies built several nuclear power plants in the 1970s, and those plants still produce about one-fifth of U.S. electricity today. But soaring costs and endless construction delays Plus the demand for electricity is increasing. Eventually, new plants became unattractive as investments. The emergence of cheap natural gas in the 2000s has helped dampen nuclear growth ever since, according to economics expert Jessica Lovering. Nuclear and the executive director of the Good Energy Collective told me (the Great Recession also helped dampen plans for new facilities, she said).
The result was that from 1979 to 1988 there were 67 reactors. cancel– for More than three decadesThe country has added virtually no new nuclear capacity. The reactor made open Many years behind schedule Beginning in the 1960s, the number of nuclear engineering degrees awarded each year continued to increase. It peaked at about 1,500 in 1978. reduce to less than 400 by 2000.
But Americans slowly began studying nuclear engineering again when Kathryn Huff, who led the U.S. Nuclear Energy Agency for two years before joining Goff, earned her doctorate in 2013. More than 1,000 nuclear engineering degrees are awarded per year, a number that still remain It has remained relatively constant ever since. Huff now teaches nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois. Urbana-Champaign And she tells me that the motivation of her own generation and her students is clear: “The reason people are in nuclear now is the environment.”
Starting in the 2000s, greenhouse gas emissions and all their consequences for the world It has become a pressing concern for scientists. government official and even companies with an increasing number The link between commercial nuclear power and the Cold War and nuclear radiation has faded. More and more people are learning that this technology is safer than fossil fuels. or even wind powerMeasured by deaths per unit of energy produced. As more and more places in the United States begin generating renewable energy, Experts have found that a carbon-neutral grid running entirely on solar panels and wind turbines could impossibleor very expensive, Department of Energy EstimateFor example, each unit of energy from a renewable grid with nuclear power would cost 37 percent less than an off-grid grid, Huff told her students. “Understand how much we need carbon-free energy. And that’s what drove them towards nuclear power. And that’s what’s happening in the Democratic Party, too.”
During the past decade A growing number of scientists and advocacy organizations are beginning to rally around nuclear power. For example, the Clean Air Task Force concluded that nuclear power is a carbon-free, climate-independent energy source that “The most advanced and proven” group executive director, Armond Cohen, is a passionate entrepreneur. anti-nuclear activist In the 1980s—tell me In 2015, four of the world’s most influential climate scientists wrote editorial in The Guardian That’s called nuclear energy. ‘The only possible solution to climate change’ A 2018 United Nations special report found that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would require “Unprecedented changes” include in the world’s energy system that produces nuclear. It is a clean and abundant source of electricity that is scalable. Still more attractive
Support for nuclear power in the United States—particularly among climate advocates—is far from clear-cut. But compared to a few decades ago This support represents the changing times, Ted Nordhaus, an early nuclear energy supporter and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research center that promotes nuclear energy, told me in the 2020 party platform. Democrats have approved nuclear power for first time Since 1972, Bernie Sanders has been a longstanding opponent of nuclear power. But the Biden-Sanders Task Force The group, which was formed to unite the party’s moderate and extremist wings in 2020, has identified nuclear as a key technology in the fight against climate change. Federal efforts to create nuclear power have been conducted through Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. Republicans have long supported nuclear on the grounds of energy security and reliability. President Joe Joe’s Inflation Act Biden has included substantial incentives for the nuclear program. Billions of dollars Among corporate investments have gone to nuclear plants and business startups. Similar support exists in various states. This is because there is political diversity such as Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and New York.
Another factor has driven the nuclear industry. After quite a few decades flat Nationwide Energy Consumption The growth of AI and data centers has led to a surge in electricity demand, Goff said, as many companies operating large data centers have made substantial climate commitments. They therefore need a large source of carbon-free electricity. and view nuclear as the fastest and most reliable means of producing electricity. These big tech companies appear to be willing to pay higher than market rates to procure new sources of nuclear power. those and can take action “I can’t think of any precedent. It happens,” said Matt Bowen, a nuclear energy researcher at Columbia.
Still, it may be premature to talk of a nuclear “revival”—it would be more accurate to say that the industry is approaching a tipping point. to achieve ambitious nuclear goals Goff said the United States will likely need a mix of existing and more experimental reactors. The next several years will be crucial in demonstrating that America can build a large nuclear fleet. Two recently completed reactors This at a power plant in Georgia. It is a project that makes 2023 and 2024 the first consecutive years of additional nuclear capacity in decades. has made that plant the country’s largest single source of clean energy. But both are several years behind schedule.
Meanwhile, “advanced nuclear” projects have caught the attention of the federal government and technology companies. Their case must be proven. Lovering said these technologies are smaller and simpler than the large facilities of the past. This will reduce construction costs and time. But more advanced nuclear technology is the future the industry has promised for decades. And it has never made the leap to regular use in the United States. And the first commercial deployment will be expensive. (Increased efficiency and savings are likely to come with later iterations.) Experts I spoke with had mixed opinions on whether a Republican-controlled government would continue to provide loans and incentives. Is it taxable according to the initial project?
Perhaps the greatest risk is having too high expectations. Where politicians and technology companies hope to have abundant, cheap nuclear electricity within five years instead of 10 or 20 years, an industry with decades of setbacks and failures cannot deliver. Pay a lot more; If nuclear power is critical to reducing carbon emissions The climate can’t do that either. The door is open for nuclear power, Cohen told me. “The question is whether we can have an industry that can walk through it.”
