“I just don’t think we can get to a climate solution without nuclear power,” said Maria Korsnick, Nuclear Energy Institute president and chief executive officer, to a packed room at a Nov. 28 Washington Post “Energy 202 Live” event.
Korsnick cited a wave of recent reports from the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change, The Nature Conservancy, Union of Concerned Scientists and Google. They show that “we absolutely need nuclear power as part of the solution,” she said. “Not only does it have no release of carbon, but it's no release of other air pollutant emissions."
Korsnick participated in a panel discussion on the future of energy across several sectors, with Abigail Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), and Hal Quinn, president and CEO of the National Mining Association. The event was sponsored by Exelon Corp.
“The U.S. nuclear industry operates its fleet the best in the world and has maintained an average capacity factor of over 90 percent over the past 15 years,” Korsnick said.
You don’t get that way by being lucky, you get that way by being really, really good.
But she cautioned that well-run nuclear plants across America are in danger of closing early, because markets do not value the attributes that nuclear energy brings to the marketplace, such as reliability, resilience and emission-free generation.
A growing number of groups concerned about the climate effects of closing nuclear plants are now calling for measures to keep them running.
When you close [nuclear] plants, emissions increase. That’s been proven time and time again.
While measures such as zero-emission credits have helped keep some nuclear plants going, she noted that all the action is at the state level and it’s “a patchwork quilt of solutions … a more elegant solution would be a national one.”
SEIA’s Hopper said she welcomed a conversation about the reliability, resilience and emission-free aspects of generating sources as well as about valuing all their attributes.
An earlier panel at the Energy 202 event comprising executives Kathleen Barron, Melissa Lavinson and Anne Pramaggiore from Exelon also noted the importance of good policy to enable companies like theirs to use their technology to its greatest potential.
“Technology leads, but policy rules,” said Pramaggiore, senior executive vice president and CEO of Exelon Utilities. “We have the technology, but we need to work on the policies that will allow us to play a greater role in powering a cleaner, brighter future.”
The Exelon representatives noted that growing interest in electric vehicles, grid resilience and clean power procurement by major corporations are positive signs for the future.
“I have never been more optimistic than I am now," said Barron, senior vice president of government and regulatory affairs and public policy at Exelon. "The idea of decarbonizing the energy sector has caught on."
Watch the full video from the Energy 202 event.
