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The Atoms For Peace bus, a mobile exhibit about nuclear power operated for a time by the Atomic Energy Commission. (Corbis via Getty Images.)
Seventy-one years ago, while President Eisenhower was vacationing in Colorado, the Soviets tested their first thermonuclear device. It failed as a true fusion weapon, but the 400 kilotons of energy it released (roughly 25 times more than was released over Hiroshima) rattled Washington. More important, it spurred the formulation of one of America’s most curious endeavors: Atoms for Peace and its policy that spread dangerous nuclear technology world-wide.
This program’s continued endurance is difficult to understand. Its historical genesis, though, is clear enough. Early in 1953, J. Robert Oppenheimer briefed Eisenhower on the findings of a classified nuclear disarmament advisory panel Truman had asked Oppenheimer to chair. The panel’s findings were grim: Within a few short years, the Soviets would have enough nuclear weapons to knock out one hundred of America’s largest cities in a surprise attack. The United States might retaliate by destroying Moscow but America itself would be in ruins. The bottom line: Unless Russia capped its nuclear buildup, America and Russia would be able to land deadly strikes against one another but be unable to survive or thrive. Compounding the problem was that Moscow might not understand this. Oppenheimer urged Eisenhower to clarify the threat publicly.
What ensued was a close-hold assignment—“Operation Candor”—a speechwriting project, chaired by psychological policy advisor C.D. Jackson to produce the seemingly impossible: a presidential address that would explain the emerging nuclear threat without frightening America. Months of feckless drafting efforts followed. Then, on August 12, 1953, the Russians detonated Joe-4, a massive weapon that brought the “critical date”—when Russia might knock out the United States—even closer.
The test made headline news. It also catalyzed an idea Eisenhower had already been mulling to pit the good atom of nuclear power against the evil atom of war. Why not ask the Russians to make joint fissile material contributions with the United States to fuel peaceful nuclear power projects globally. The idea here would be to goad Moscow into contributing so much of its military fissile material to an international atomic bank for civilian projects so as to keep it from ever acquiring a nuclear arsenal large enough to knock out America. Such a program, Eisenhower explained, might achieve the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament “by the back door”—i.e. without the intrusive on-site inspections that the Soviets had already rejected.
Eisenhower liked his idea. Nuclear experts, though, were skeptical. Lewis Strauss, Eisenhower’s top nuclear official, doubted the proposed fissile contributions would ever be large enough to matter. J. Robert Oppenheimer also was doubtful, dismissing the program’s connection to disarmament as sentimental and illusory.
Over time, the truth turned out to be much harsher. No joint U.S.-Soviet fissile contributions were ever made. Instead, Soviet and American nuclear weapons deployments ramped up exponentially. Worse, countries piggybacked off of the “peaceful” nuclear projects the program promoted to create nuclear weapons efforts of their own. France, Russia, the UK, and India (a major beneficiary of the Atoms for Peace program) used their “peaceful,” dual-use nuclear power plants to make bombs. South Africa, Iraq, Sweden, Italy, Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil and Argentina all attempted to do so. Today, experts fear China, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, and Japan might do the same.
Have those unforeseen consequences put an end to Eisenhower’s fanciful program? No. In fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which the Atoms for Peace program helped create, actually built a version of Eisenhower’s proposed fissile bank in Kazakhstan to assure nuclear fuel supplies to countries hungering after nuclear fuel.
Then there is the U.S.-Russian “megatons to megawatts” nuclear fuel downblending program, launched in 1993. It converted 500 tons of weapons-grade Russian uranium to low enriched uranium to fuel U.S. power reactors. These numbers are impressive but after twenty years of operation, the program failed to limit Russia’s or China’s continued nuclear ramp-up. Nonetheless, the megawatts program, like the Kazakhstan fissile bank, is still cast as a practical option to promote nuclear weapons restraint.
Why is unclear.
Even more curious is the persistent popularity of Atoms for Peace’s promotion of nuclear power. In 1954, Eisenhower’s Atomic Energy Commission chairman insisted nuclear electricity would be “too cheap to meter.” The prospect of limitless, “free” electricity continues to mesmerize governments and the public. Yet, after decades of massive government subsidies, nuclear power still only constitutes 10 percent of the world’s electrical generation and this percentage is expected to plateau or decline by 2050. As for its cost, nuclear reactors—small, large, modular or not—are now the most expensive way to generate electricity.
Additional problems have emerged. In the Middle East, Israel, Iraq, Iran, and the United States have all targeted nuclear reactors as part of their military operations on more than a dozen occasions. Since 2022, Putin has attacked Ukraine’s research and power reactors repeatedly. Meanwhile, Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, and Israel have all threatened to target their neighbors’ nuclear plants. If they do, the environmental, military, and diplomatic effects of a major radiological release from nuclear plants in war zones could be huge.
Undeterred, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea all want to build and operate additional nuclear power plants. They insist nuclear power is necessary to bolster their energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. None, however, has clarified how they might prevent these plants from being seized militarily or becoming targets.
What explains this?
One possibility is inertia. For decades, governments have invested significant capital into civilian nuclear projects, creating a multitude of vested interests eager to keep the money flowing. Electrical utility systems in many countries are owned and operated by national authorities that can ignore or muffle negative market signals. In the United States, many utilities’ spending on expensive nuclear construction projects are rewarded with higher utility rates, whether the project is the best economical choice or not. Once a major reactor project runs over-budget in regulated jurisdictions, these costs are not necessarily “prohibitive” as long as the project enjoys political support.
What, though, explains such backing? Frequently, contractors and public officials warn against “losing” the costs already sunk in an expensive nuclear project as a way of justifying the completion of plants that are decades behind schedule and billions over budget. This, however, fails to explain why states launch such projects even when they’ve been flagged as being financially dubious from the outset.
A deeper set of explanations is needed.
A worrisome possibility is that countries lacking nuclear arms view building and operating reactors as an amiable way to develop a nuclear weapons option. “Peaceful” nuclear plants, after all, can serve as bomb starter kits. This certainly explains Saddam Hussein’s construction of Osirak and its supporting facilities, as well as Syria’s construction of its reactor. It also explains Sweden’s original heavy water reactor project, Israel’s construction of Dimona, and Iran’s extensive nuclear activities. Taiwan’s and South Korea’s early nuclear weapons ambitions, as well as those of Argentina, France, Italy, Algeria, Brazil, India, Pakistan, and South Africa were also all fueled by first standing up a “peaceful” nuclear reactor. Exploiting civilian nuclear projects to develop bomb options might soon contribute to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt’s nuclear programs.
The nuclear weapons potential of nuclear plants also produces a halo effect for small and large reactor sales to medium and developing nations. China and Russia, on the one hand, and the United States, South Korea, and France, on the other, are now competing for nuclear power markets in Eastern Europe, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. For nuclear suppliers, securing nuclear deals in these regions is not only about establishing or maintaining a geopolitical-economic foothold, but about sustaining their own economically-fragile domestic nuclear vendors.
Meanwhile, most nuclear client states find the energy security rationale for nuclear power appealing—so much so that they are willing to commit to projects that put them into serious debt. They also give lip service to limiting greenhouse gas emissions, even though nuclear power’s current contribution to countering climate change is marginal and a distraction from more viable renewable energy solutions.
All these claims skim over an underlying explanation—that promoting “peaceful” nuclear power never was or is much of an end in itself, but instead is only sustainable as a support to some grander goal. When Eisenhower first proposed Atoms for Peace, his main objective was to somehow reduce the public’s fear of nuclear war by presenting as an alternative a peaceful, prosperous nuclear future. Eisenhower proposed nuclear power’s development even though he and his advisors suspected nuclear energy might not be economically viable for a decade or more.
This did not matter. Eisenhower wanted to have a more positive vision guide his policies than the impending threat of a Russian nuclear knock out blow. He proposed Atoms for Peace to offer hope against this fear.
Was there ever a real, clear fix against the threat of nuclear war? Did the Atoms for Peace program address the most likely nuclear threat that could defeat the United States? Was the program’s hope of drawing down stockpiles and production of nuclear fissile material all that sound? No.
Again, it did not matter. America and the world needed to believe that the most powerful nuclear-armed state—the United States—had both a clear desire and a plan to skirt Armageddon. By fully committing to an ambitious (albeit questionable) program of peaceful nuclear development, Eisenhower convinced the world and himself just how dedicated he and America were to security and economic development. It helped that, early on, few had a clear idea of what nuclear deterrence or developing nuclear power actually required.
In subsequent decades, America’s organizing principles changed but the use of peaceful nuclear energy to achieve them persisted. In the 1960s, the Great Society’ commitment to eliminating poverty and making the “deserts bloom” embraced the Atomic Energy Commission’s fantastic vision of bringing a thousand reactors (both fast and thermal) online by the year 2000.
Today, nuclear power boosters pitch nuclear power in an effort to help America become energy-independent. They insist net zero is impossible without nuclear energy. As such, the uncertain costs of small, advanced modular reactors and the poor financial performance of the large ones are no longer relevant: Achieving energy security and stopping global warming are “existential” imperatives whose ultimate value cannot be fully internalized in any compelling, quantitative fashion. When it comes to saving America and the world, money no longer is much of an object. Nor are the technical, safety, environmental and military concerns these projects raise.
What might change this?
One possibility is the emergence of economically-distributed electrical supply systems. The further development of affordable electrical storage batteries, improved switching and monitoring technologies, and advanced distribution and transmission systems should make this possible. Such systems might even render nuclear or non-nuclear baseload generators unnecessary. The growing vulnerability of electrical supply systems and of nuclear plants to cyber and physical attacks might catalyze these developments. On the other hand, vested industry interests and local regulatory and bureaucratic inertia could easily slow them.
Another possibility is that a major reactor accident or attack on a nuclear plant could produce a major radiological release that might catalyze support for developing safer, cheaper, non-nuclear power alternatives.
A similar but more worrisome negative incentive might happen if “peaceful” nuclear plants and know-how are ever exploited to make bombs. If states made weapons from such plants and fired them, it would cast a pall over “peaceful” nuclear energy. It also would increase demand for tougher nuclear controls, which could detect possible military nuclear diversions early enough to prevent bombs from being built. Such tighter controls, in turn, would necessarily restrict nuclear fuel making and the operation of the most proliferation-prone of reactor types.
Unfortunately, the last half century suggests that demand for such exacting inspections is hardly high. However, it can be generated. In 1974, India’s “peaceful” nuclear test, which used plutonium produced in a “peaceful” nuclear reactor, prompted a serious tightening of the nuclear rules. Perhaps another “peaceful” test by another non-weapons state might result in the same consequences. Until then, though, support for Atoms for Peace and its mixed results are likely to persist.
Henry Sokolski is Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future. He served as Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the George H.W. Bush Administration.
As then, so now: low-income, already disproportionately polluted, and/or Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities are being targeted for nuke waste dumps. These sessions are entirely scripted, with no voices of resistance allowed. But it's still important for us to watch-dog what they are up to, to nip this environmental injustice in the bud!
Investigative journalist Roger Rapoport has published an article in The Progressive Magazine entitled "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Antiques Roadshow: As new U.S. nuclear construction grinds to a halt, one company aims to restart a Michigan reactor that violated fifty codes—in just one year." Rapoport is also host of the podcast "The Nuclear Reactor Next Door," focused on the Palisades zombie atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shore (pictured). There are currently eight episodes, four featuring Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist Kevin Kamps, who has watch-dogged Palisades for 32 years. Other guests include Palisades Park Country Club residents Bruce and Karen Davis, epidemiologist Joe Mangano, climate expert Dr. Mark Jacobson, and former Entergy Palisades senior engineer Alan Blind.
WHAT AROSE AT ZAPORIZHZHIA? Fire at cooling tower extinguished
It could have been an accident. Or deliberate. Ukraine started it. Or Russia did. There was no radiation release. It will be virtually impossible to unravel any of these assertions in the coming weeks. The only comfort is that a fire in one of the two cooling towers at the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, located in Ukraine but occupied by Russian forces, is out. The precise function of these cooling towers is also unclear as they are not attached to the six reactor buildings. The IAEA says “The cooling towers are separate and removed from the shutdown reactors and spent fuel pools. The towers’ function is to release heat through evaporation to cool down machinery, equipment, or air inside a building.”
Radioactive water leaks reported at Japan's crippled Fukushima power plant
TOKYO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- About 25 tons of radioactive water have leaked within the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the plant's operator has reported, a week after the latest round of ocean discharge started.
The nuclear-contaminated water, which leaked from a surge tank connected to the Unit 2 reactor building, was meant to be contained in a tank receiving overflow from the spent nuclear fuel pool, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
Accumulating on the first basement level of the reactor building, the leaked water led to a rise in the level of contaminated water already present in the area, TEPCO introduced on Tuesday, confirming that the contaminated water had not escaped outside the reactor building.
Photo taken on March 6, 2023 shows abandoned houses in Futabacho, Futabagun of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. (Xinhua/Zhang Xiaoyu)
The leak was first identified last Friday, when a decrease in the water level of the surge tank was detected, according to TEPCO, which upon further investigation discovered water flowing into a drain in a room on the third floor of the reactor building.
The company plans to use a remotely operated robot to measure radiation levels in the room by Friday and further pinpoint the exact location and cause of the leak. The cooling pump for the pool has been temporarily shut down as part of the investigation.
Hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear plant suffered core meltdowns that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.
The plant has been generating a massive amount of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down nuclear fuel in reactor buildings. The contaminated water is now being stored in tanks at the nuclear plant.
People protest against the Japanese government's plan to discharge nuclear-contaminated water into the sea in Fukushima, Japan, June 20, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhang Xiaoyu)
Despite furious opposition both at home and abroad, the ocean discharge of the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water began in August 2023, and the eighth round of ocean discharge started last week.
In fiscal 2024, TEPCO plans to discharge a total of 54,600 tons of the contaminated water in seven rounds, which contains approximately 14 trillion becquerels of tritium.
Amid raging credibility and safety concerns among the Japanese public following a series of accidents at the crippled plant, TEPCO and the Japanese government have been frequently challenged for mishandling the contaminated water.
US wind and solar on track to overtake coal this year By Benjamin Storrow | 08/13/2024 06:33 AM EDT
The two renewable resources together have produced more power than coal through July — a first for the United States.
Wind and solar generated more power than coal through the first seven months of the year, federal data shows, in a first for renewable resources.
The milestone had been long expected due to a steady stream of coal plant retirements and the rapid growth of wind and solar. Last year, wind and solar outpaced coal through May before the fossil fuel eventually overtook the pair when power demand surged in the summer.
But the most recent statistics showed why wind and solar are on track in 2024 to exceed coal generation for an entire calendar year — with the renewable resources maintaining their lead through the heat of July. Coal generation usually declines in the spring months, due to falling power demand and seasonal plant maintenance, and picks up when electricity demand rises in the summer.
Renewables’ growth has been driven by a surge in solar production over the last year. The 118 terawatt-hours generated by utility-scale solar facilities through the end of July represented a 36 percent increase from the same time period last year, according to preliminary U.S. Energy Information Administration figures. Wind production was 275 TWh, up 8 percent over 2023 levels. Renewables’ combined production of 393 TWh outpaced coal generation of 388 TWh.
“I think it is an important milestone,” said Ric O’Connell, who leads GridLab, a clean electricity consulting firm. “I think you’re seeing a solar surge and a coal decline and hence the lines are crossing.”
EIA previously reported that renewable generation eclipsed coal in 2020 and 2022 and then repeated the feat in 2023. But those figures notably included other resources such as hydropower. Now wind and solar are posed to overtake coal on their own. The pair accounted for 16 percent of U.S. power generation through July, slightly more than coal’s share of the power generation market.
The development comes at a time when the reliability of the electric grid is in the spotlight amid increasing power demand due to the growth of artificial intelligence, data centers, and more frequent and severe heat waves — which drive up air conditioning use. EIA statistics show electricity demand through the first seven months of the year was up 4 percent to 2,436 TWh through the end of July.
The growth in demand has been a boon for power generators. Nuclear generation was 459 TWh through July, a 3 percent increase helped by two new reactors in Georgia coming online within the last year. Hydro was up a slight 1 percent to 159 TWh. Gas has been particularly important for supplying additional demand, increasing 5 percent over 2023 levels to 987 TWh.
Mark Repsher, an analyst who tracks the power industry at PA Consulting Group, said the figures point to larger challenges facing the power grid. Additional power plants that can be turned on at the flip of a switch will be needed to meet demand, he said. The question is whether it will come from natural gas or zero-carbon resources, such as nuclear or geothermal.
“Renewables will continue to be a huge part of the industry, but I think there will be an inflection point where the incremental value of an additional megawatt-hour from renewables will be less than some other alternatives,” he said.
Others were less sure. The rapid growth of wind, solar and batteries in Texas shows that renewables can be built quickly and stabilize the electric grid, said O’Connell. The state is “sailing through a crazy summer” thanks to record wind, solar and battery output, he said.
Coal may yet hold off wind and solar with a strong five months to close 2024. But renewables are likely to overtake the former king of the power sector sooner rather than later.
The last coal plant built in the continental United States came online in 2013. American coal capacity then declined 38 percent over the following decade.
Renewables, meanwhile, are booming. The U.S. installed almost 12 gigawatts of new solar capacity through June, meaning 2024 already ranks as the third best year for U.S. solar installations with six more months to go. Another 25 GW is planned to come online this year, according to EIA. Wind added 2.5 GW through June and is expected to install another 4.5 GW by the end of the year.
One piece of positive news for the coal industry is that plant retirements are on track to hit their lowest level in 13 years. EIA projects 3.2 GW of coal capacity will close this year, the lowest annual retirement figure since 2011 and down from the 9.5 GW of coal capacity shut down last year.
AI game changer hits the grid By Peter Behr | 08/13/2024 06:44 AM EDT
Northern Virginia is ground zero for digital data centers as Dominion Electric is squeezing all it can from its high-voltage lines.
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Virginia — High up along a string of transmission towers leading into northern Virginia’s immense cluster of digital data centers, line crews are doing one of the scariest jobs in the energy world.
Specially trained technicians have been unhooking live, uninsulated high-voltage lines that are crackling with 230,000 deadly volts of electricity. They’re replacing them with advanced cables that boost power delivery by 50 percent.
You wouldn’t do it this way unless you had to, says Matthew Gardner, vice president for transmission for Dominion Electric, the state’s largest utility, which owns and operates the lines.
Dominion says it has to.
Here, on the outskirts of Dulles International Airport, the largest collection of data centers in the United States is drawing power from Dominion’s lines. The eruption of generative artificial intelligence traffic and expectations for more are sending electricity use soaring.
Dominion chose the rare “hot line” replacement. It simply couldn’t shut down existing power lines that feed 24/7 demand for power from the growing hub of data centers. “It’s absolutely essential that these projects are completed to serve the future growth that’s coming our way,” Gardner said in an interview.
It took Dominion 115 years from its founding to reach its current level of power delivery. “The pace of growth is so rapid, driven by data centers, that we’re on pace to double our system load in the next 15 years,” Gardner said.
Here and at other data center clusters around the U.S., a grid industry struggling with a historic shift from fossil fuel generation to renewable energy is suddenly facing predictions of unprecedented demand because of this next phase of America’s digital economy, with no overall game plan to go on.
At the moment, the U.S. grid industry has slipped well off pace to meet President Joe Biden’s zero-carbon generation goals, required to lessen the risk of catastrophic climate events. The 2024 presidential race stands as a referendum on climate policy, given the scale of federal spending on clean energy under Biden. The AI-driven need for energy poses a new barrier to cutting carbon emissions if utilities rely primarily on gas- and coal-fired generation to meet the demand, according to recent studies.
Arshad Mansoor, chief executive of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), said utilities, grid planners, data center operators and their customers should be working together to develop clean energy.
In a report to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm’s energy advisory board, EPRI urged the nation to “transition to carbon-free electricity sources for data center operations and low carbon technologies for backup power.”
Data center vs. climate change?
Meeting power needs without losing the fight against global warming has suddenly changed the planning and politics for the U.S grid.
To illustrate digital technology’s ravenous appetite for power, EPRI noted that simple searches today on a laptop browser consume about one-third of a watt of electricity. But advanced AI technology and high-powered computing are training software algorithms to create answers from vast data files, with skyrocketing increases in power needs.
A complex generative AI question over ChatGPT today would require 3 watts, 10 times the simple search amount, EPRI’s report concluded. A Google search with similar generative AI capability could require 9 watts, it added.
Depending on how fast AI expands, data center electricity demands could mushroom from about 4 percent of U.S. grid output to over 9 percent in just six years, EPRI said.
“Nobody has a good understanding of how generative AI will impact every aspect of the society,” Mansoor said in an interview. “And so anything we say now, most likely will be wrong in six months,” he added.
Energy & Environmental Economics (E3), a San Francisco energy research firm, gathered 13 analyses of how much electricity output may have to grow to keep up with data center expansion, under different assumptions.
The projections range from 20,000 megawatts to 100,000 MW of new capacity by 2030. There are plenty of unknowns, including just how “smart” generative AI becomes, how much efficiency can be built into AI chips and whether a strained electric grid can actually deliver the power data centers require.
“There’s still a ton of uncertainty,” particularly concerning the highest forecasts, said E3 senior partner Kushal Patel, a report co-author. “It’s probably not going to be more certain in the future,” he added.
If some utilities wind up overbuilding infrastructure to serve data centers, consumers could be stuck with higher costs, warned Moody’s Investors Service in a recent research report.
The 100,000 MW figure is roughly comparable to duplicating the generation capacity of the entire 94 U.S. nuclear reactors in six years.
While the impact is unmeasured, growth is coming because the potential profits from AI applications has created a sprint for the lead among hyperscale internet cloud infrastructure companies, led by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple and TikTok, said Phill Lawson-Shanks, chief innovation officer at Aligned Data Centers, a Texas-based data center builder.
“I hesitate to use that term, but there’s almost an arms race,” he said.
“They are saying, ‘OK, I have no idea how much, but I know I need power,’” EPRI’s Mansoor said. “’I need to build as much as I can.’”
The cost of new power
E3 pointed to the health care industry to describe the potential scale of artificial intelligence power demand.
There are roughly 32,000 radiologists in the U.S. with a midrange annual wage of $354,000, the firm estimated. If AI could learn to accurately analyze X-ray, ultrasound and MRI images, and replace just 10 percent of those radiologists, the revenue from that substitution could be more than $1 billion a year, according to E3 researchers.
That would pay for a lot of energy-hungry supercomputers.
With long lead times to connect wind and solar to the power grid and a split between the two political parties on federal transmission policy, the quickest source of new power for data centers is from gas-fired generation, E3 noted.
Officials in North Dakota see prospects for a booming data center business — based on discussions with major technology companies — as an opportunity to use some of the natural gas coming off the region’s prolific oil fields. North Dakota Department of Commerce Commissioner Josh Teigen says state officials are looking for ways to develop more gas-fired generation to power data centers and sell surplus electricity to the grid.
Grid operators and utilities are postponing some fossil fuel plant retirements citing threats to electricity reliability. “These rollbacks clash with the customers’ environmental goals and investments, and they threaten state and utility emission reduction targets,” E3 analysts said.
According to E3, delaying the retirement of a typical 1,000-MW coal power plant for a single year, for example, puts 3.8 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. That would offset the carbon-saving effects of 3,000 MW of utility-scale solar installations, E3 calculated.
What can be done?
As an immediate step, utilities need to make greater use of advanced transmission cables and “grid enhancing technologies” like dynamic line rating sensors that tell grid operators when more power can be moved without overheating cables, Gardner said.
EPRI analysts suggested data center operators could sync AI operations to times of the day or night when renewable power is most plentiful. Or large AI customers could help finance pilot installations of advanced 24/7 carbon-free power sources.
At its July 30 meeting, the advisory board to the secretary of Energy urged utilities, regulators, and data center users and builders to work together to speed up development of wind, solar and batteries. Longer-term technologies include small modular reactors (SMRs), long-term grid batteries, hydrogen hubs, fuel cells and underground storage of fossil plant carbon emissions.
Andy Bochman, senior grid strategist for the Idaho National Laboratory, emphasized small nuclear reactors.
“Coal and gas plants can then be replaced by similar-sized SMR installations on a one-to-one basis,” Bochman said. “This must be complemented by expanding wind and solar and storage on microgrids as quickly as possible.”
“As an industry, we will be forced to look at self-generation until the grid can catch up,” said Lawton-Shanks of Aligned Data Centers.
The hyperscale operators have huge financial resources, EPRI’s Mansoor said. They can partner with utilities to build pilot generation plants at data centers that could remove some of the financial risk of backing emerging technology like hydrogen or carbon capture.
“We can have 10 SMRs and 10 carbon capture and storage projects working by 2030,” Mansoor said.
There could be 10 carbon capture and storage installations at natural gas and coal plants, he continued.
Will the big data center users invest? “They’re talking,” Mansoor said.
Pollution, politics, and one family’s battle to end the nuclear poisoning of their community
Saturday August 17th 2024, 1PM ET
Join us for an in-person presentation with the Myers family of New York’s Allegany County, whose “Dump the Dump” campaign challenged nuclear waste pollution and made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Don’t miss your chance to hear their inspiring story and interact with prominent changemakers from our nation’s history!
Nebraska Public Power District’s Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Nebraska. (Courtesy of NPPD)
LINCOLN — The Nebraska Public Power District has identified 16 possible locations that could be candidates to expand Nebraska’s nuclear footprint and energy capabilities.
The Nebraska Department of Economic Development along with NPPD announced Thursday the next phase of a feasibility study that will eventually narrow down its shortlist to two to four sites for emerging nuclear technology: small modular reactors, or SMRs.
Compared to NPPD’s Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, SMRs take up less physical space and have been championed as augmenting existing power sources.
The 16 sites that will move on to the next phase of the feasibility study are located near the following cities: Beatrice, Brownville, Fremont, Grand Island, Hallam, Hastings, Holdrege, Kearney, Lexington,
Nebraska City, Norfolk, Plattsmouth, Rushville, Sutherland, Valentine and Wauneta.
“We’re excited to help lay the groundwork for the potential future of this technology in Nebraska,” Department of Economic Development Director K.C. Belitz said in a statement. “Electrical generation is key to growing Nebraska’s economy and this study is the first step in creating a tremendous economic impact for any community where it’s located.”
The Legislature first appropriated $1 million of federal funds through the American Rescue Plan Act for the study in 2022 seeking to identify appropriate places to expand nuclear power.
The second study phase will be a more in-depth technical analysis, including criteria from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and engagement with the local communities. Local support will be an important factor, according to a news release.
State Sen. Tom Brewer of north-central Nebraska is chair of a select legislative committee tasked last year with examining the feasibility of constructing and operating SMRs in Nebraska. At an October hearing, lawmakers were told the work could begin without more legislation. NPPD is one of 21 utilities licensed to operate a nuclear plant, and there are 94 reactors licensed to operate in the United States, a news release states. “Nuclear energy has played a vital role in safely and reliably powering Nebraska for more than 50 years,” NPPD President and CEO Tom Kent said in a news release. “NPPD and many other utilities are closely following the progress of these next generation nuclear technologies.”
Shortlist of Nebraska communities for small modular nuclear reactors
Sixteen Nebraska communities are on a shortlist for expanding nuclear production in the Cornhusker State. An ongoing feasibility study will soon narrow the list to two to four sites, near the following communities.
CONSTELLATION ENERGY IS RENAMED CONSTIPATION ENERGY
BECAUSE OF ALL THE NUCLEAR WASTE ON THE ISLAND
In referring to the demonstration planned for Monday, August 12th at 11 a.m., Gene Stilp said, “Like a vampire that will not die, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant is being prepared to once again rise from the grave and terrify the citizens of Pennsylvania. It is time to drive a final stake through this vampire before it has time to exist again.”
Stilp continued,”All of the high level nuclear waste generated from Unit One is still there in filled “Used Fuel Pools” and subject to attack. Constellation Energy has so much nuclear waste there that we have renamed them CONSTIPATION ENERGY.”
Three Mile Island has two units. Three Mile Island Unit Two brought on line in 1978, had the worst nuclear accident in American history forty-five years ago in 1979 and is dead for all time although the final cleanup is still not done.
Three Mile Island Unit One which was brought on line in 1974, was closed in 2019 because it could not sell its power profitably. It was off-line for six years from 1979 until1985 because Pennsylvania Citizens fought to keep Unit One shut. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Pennsylvania State regulators did not listen to Central Pennsylvania citizens even though the surrounding counties voted overwhelmingly to keep it shut.
Now after five years of being closed, the enablers, Constellation Energy, Pennsylvania politicians and the whole nuclear industry, want to reopen the beast in order to serve the needs of the “artificial intelligence” power demand not the citizens. Another prime example of technological tyranny.
Apparently everything has been progressing in the dark, but after many months events are coming into the scrutiny of the light of day. And the vampire enablers do not like that. Constellation Energy has been reviewing the hardware at Unit One and assessing the viability of a plan to reopen it. The Pennsylvania governor and legislators are trying to provide money to make it happen. Federal funding is abundantly available as the effort progresses.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Pennsylvania State regulators will do everything in their power to make the reopening possible.
Gene Stilp said, ”The only thing that stands in the way are the dedicated citizens of Central Pennsylvania. The anti-nuclear group Three Mile Island Alert has always been in the forefront. The Middletown Mothers have held steadfast for decades. No Nukes Pennsylvania is being revived. This first citizen demonstration has been scheduled for Monday,August 12 at 11 a.m at North Gate of Three Mile Island, the traditional location. The battle is on. This TMI vampire will not live again.”
This has already been a summer of climate-fueled chaos. We’ve been scorched by heat waves, watched millions of acres burned in wildfires, and seen communities devastated by multiple hurricanes - Some friends in Texas were hit with a second hurricane before their power came back on from the first storm. Even this week Tropical Storm Debby is drenching Florida towns still recovering from storms Idalia and Ian.
As temperatures soar to dangerous highs, and severe storms and fires knock out our electricity, local utilities are raising rates to unaffordable, record-setting heights, and plowing the proceeds into new and bigger fossil fuel power plants, pipelines and more. Millions of vulnerable families are struggling to keep the power on while utility companies profit off the climate crisis.1
Across the United States, for-profit utilities are making decisions based on grabbing power and profits, looking to maximize their earnings instead of speeding the shift Beyond Extreme Energy to safe, affordable, reliable and clean energy.
In 2020, more than 1 in 4 U.S. households reported difficulty paying their energy bills or kept their homes at an unsafe temperature because of energy cost concerns.2 Meanwhile, shareholders make bigger profits than ever.
