The 'nuclear renaissance:' What went wrong?
CNN's Drew Griffin tours the first U.S. nuclear plant constructed in decades.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Cheap natural gas, Fukushima and no carbon limits hurt promised "nuclear renaissance"
- Five U.S. reactors are being built, but others are shutting down or being canceled
- The nuclear industry "got hit between the eyes," former NRC commissioner says
Dominguez is one of
nearly 600 people still working at the two-reactor plant, down from a
work force of more than 1,500 when the plant was still running -- "all
solid, middle-class jobs," he said.
"A lot of them have
already moved on," Dominguez said. They've gone to work for other U.S.
nuclear plants, for conventionally fueled plants or other arms of the
electrical power industry, he said. And a few have gone to work
overseas, where other countries are building new nuclear plants.
"Three or four of our
guys, maybe five, went to work in Abu Dhabi," said Dominguez, who's also
the business manager for Local 246 of the Utility Workers Union of
America. "Another one went to South Korea."
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Not long ago, nuclear
energy seemed poised to start a much-touted renaissance in the United
States. Buoyed by forecasts of increased demand, utilities were gearing
up to start building the first new reactors since the 1970s. Concerns
about the emissions from carbon-rich fossil fuels blamed for global
warming started to offset public fears about safety that had lingered
since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.
But since then, the
industry has seen a dramatic reversal of fortune. And while some
environmentalists, like those featured in the CNN Films' documentary "Pandora's Promise," now argue that nuclear power is needed to head off climate change, the market has become a hostile place.
"The industry got hit
between the eyes by a number of things happening at once," said Peter
Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member.
Five new reactors are
currently being built, in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. But in
the past year, utilities have permanently shut down four others and plan
to take a fifth out of service next year. At least two other planned
projects have been shelved.
The projected increases
in electric demand didn't materialize, tamped down by the steep
recession of 2007-2009 and increasing efficiencies and conservation
measures, Bradford said. Then, a revolution in drilling techniques
produced a boom in cheap natural gas.
And during the recession, long-debated efforts to limit carbon emissions through a "cap-and-trade" system
failed to make it through Congress. The Environmental Protection Agency
forecast that cap-and-trade would have led utilities to produce more
nuclear plants, which produce large amounts of power without releasing
carbon dioxide.
"Looking back as sort of
an armchair quarterback, it really turns out the nuclear industry
needed some kind of cap-and-trade or strong carbon regulation to get
back off the ground," said David Solan, director of the Energy Policy
Institute at Idaho's Boise State University.
Then in 2011, the
historic Japanese earthquake and tsunami triggered the worst nuclear
accident since the Soviet Union's Chernobyl disaster in 1986, bringing
safety issues back into the spotlight.
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Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan melted down after
the tsunami swamped the plant and knocked out its emergency power
systems. Though no fatalities have been blamed on the accident, the
resulting contamination displaced more than 100,000 people, and the
cleanup and damages have left Japan's largest utility on life support.
Solan called it a "body blow" to the American nuclear establishment,
following the gas revolution and the failure of government attempts to
impose a price on carbon emissions.
"Fracking," the use of
hydraulic fracturing to break open underground rock formations that hold
natural gas, has driven the cost of that fuel sharply downward.
Gas-fired power plants are far faster and cheaper to build than nuclear
plants, which can take a decade and cost billions of dollars to get up
and running. And while gas isn't carbon-free, it puts out about half the
carbon emissions of coal. The shift toward selling electricity on
regional grids, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, has pitted
nuclear-generated power directly against gas -- and nuclear is losing,
Solan said.
"From a generation standpoint, it's really hard for them to make money in those markets," he said.
David Crane, the head of the utility conglomerate NRG, predicted in April that
natural gas would wipe out both coal and nuclear power. NRG had sought
to build two new reactors in south Texas but abandoned the project in
2011, citing high costs and the "extraordinary challenges" facing the
industry after Fukushima Daiichi.
"I don't necessarily
think at least the second of those is a good thing," Crane said. "But I
think it's inevitable outside of government intervention, which I don't
think is going to happen."
In Vermont, the
single-reactor Vermont Yankee plant will close in 2014 after its owner,
Entergy, decided in August that it was no longer "financially viable."
Dominion Power shut down its Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin in May, a
decision it said was "based purely on economics." Duke Energy announced
in February that it would write off its Crystal River plant in Florida,
which had been idled since 2009 for repairs to its concrete containment
building.
And San Onofre had been offline for more than a year when its owner, Southern California Edison, announced in June that it wouldn't reopen.
The plant shut down in 2012 after a gas leak revealed problems in its
massive new steam generators, which had just been replaced at a cost of
nearly $700 million. SCE said the "continuing uncertainty" over the
plant's future "was not good for our customers, our investors, or the
need to plan for our region's long-term electricity needs."
Bradford, the former NRC
member, said utilities have been unable to draw investors for new
plants, forcing them to rely on loan guarantees from the federal
government -- and on customers in states like Georgia and Florida, which
have allowed regulated public utilities to charge them for plants still
under construction.
"The fundamental problem
was the renaissance was always economically unsound," Bradford said.
"There was never a point in time at which private investors were
prepared to back new nuclear. There were just too many things that could
go wrong."
And while the
zero-carbon promise of nuclear power may be appealing, the billions it
would take to build a nuclear plant could better be spent to develop
renewable energy sources like wind and solar, boost conservation efforts
and improve fuel efficiency for motor vehicles, he said.
"The problem with using
nuclear as an answer to climate change is it's so much more expensive
than other potential answers," Bradford said. "It's like building
palaces to solve a housing shortage, or using caviar to solve world
hunger."
Dominguez said his
co-workers aren't likely to have trouble finding jobs -- "There's a lot
of skills that are transferable," he told CNN. But he also calls himself
"a climate change guy," and said most of the 2,200 megawatts of
electricity that San Onofre used to produce will now be replaced by
carbon-emitting fossil fuel plants rather than renewable.
"The only greenhouse
gases that San Onofre created was the smokers up on the top of the deck,
when they would get together and smoke," he said.
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