Nuclear energy is indispensable to a carbon-free economy, and that fact is fast becoming more obvious to everybody. That’s what government officials, utility executives and the heads of companies developing new reactors told hundreds of participants at the Nuclear Energy Institute’s annual Nuclear Energy Assembly.
The Biden administration has set a carbon dioxide goal of “Net zero emissions” —that is, capturing as much as is released— by 2035 for the utility industry and 2050 for the economy as a whole.
Xcel Energy was a pioneer in 2018 when it set a goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050, and Ben Fowke, the chairman and CEO, said that the company could add wind and solar, long-duration storage and other technologies. But reaching zero “can’t be done with existing technologies.” It will take new carbon-free technologies, he said, including those that are “dispatchable,” meaning that they can be dialed up and down as needed, like advanced nuclear.
“In my mind, the future of nuclear has never been brighter,’’ he said.
Energy Northwest, in Washington state, has plans to operate four copies of a reactor under development by X-energy. These high efficiency models using inert gas, and uranium fuel embedded in thousands of “pebbles,” each about the size of a tennis ball, each a robust mini-containment structure.
Brad Sawatzke, the CEO, said that there was very strong local support, and that people in the past who have been opponents of nuclear energy, “while maybe not running to embrace nuclear, at least understand it’s necessary to manage carbon and the environment.”
“People are seeing the importance of the role we’re going to play in decarbonizing,’’ he said.
And Lynn Good, the chairwoman, president and CEO of Duke Energy, said that when government officials in the states her company serves talked about cutting carbon emissions, “advanced nuclear becomes a part of that conversation pretty quickly.”
Duke, like Xcel and other nuclear utilities, is seeking license renewal for its existing fleet and exploring new reactors.
New Nuclear’s Bright Future
“At the federal level, nuclear plays a really key role going forward in the Biden administration’s efforts to reach its decarbonization goals,” said Christopher T. Hanson, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
He pointed out that last month Gina McCarthy, the White House climate advisor, “even gave a shout out to new reactor technologies as being really critical to meeting our clean energy goals going forward.”
Hanson said that his agency is a regulator, not a promoter, but he said that the NRC was working hard to regulate new technologies in an efficient, transparent way, focusing regulatory efforts for the current fleet on rules and procedures that were actually significant to safety.
Among the NRC’s jobs is regulating the modernization of the existing fleet, where new technologies are being introduced to keep these valuable assets running for additional decades.
And the future is ever closer. Clay Sell, the CEO of X-energy, pointed to projects in Washington state and Wyoming, saying, “In our judgment, the future of the advanced reactor is finally here.”
