While Winter Storm Elliott disrupted the holiday season for many people, nuclear energy powered through, keeping trees lit, cookies baking, and families warm.
Elliott was a cross-country storm occurring late December that transformed into a bomb cyclone affecting the eastern two-thirds of the U.S.—yet another example of how reliability ultimately comes down to how our systems respond to worst-case scenarios.
According to the National Weather Service, on December 23 almost 75 percent of the American population was under a winter weather warning or advisory. Temperatures plummeted with record lows and record drops in some regions. In Denver, for example, temperatures dropped by 70 degrees in less than 18 hours as Arctic winds blasted the Midwest. In the area of the country served by PJM, a regional transmission operator serving the grid from New Jersey to Illinois, there was a record-breaking plunge of 29 degrees over 12 hours.
This extremely frigid weather put the country’s energy system under significant strain. According to poweroutage.us, 1.6 million people were without power on Christmas Eve. PJM issued a call to consumers to conserve electricity amid forced outages affecting over 23 percent of PJM’s energy capacity—all during a time of unprecedented peak holiday electricity use.
Gas-fired generation accounted for 70 percent of these unplanned outages, and coal for 17 percent—but nuclear energy stayed on the grid, saving the day. It provides over 30 percent of PJM’s annual electricity, and the 31 reactors in operation produced more than 96 percent of their potential during the storm, continuing to deliver reliable, affordable, carbon-free electricity.
Although the words “historic” and “once-in-a-generation” were often used in stories about Winter Storm Elliott, it is clear that extreme weather events are becoming the new normal, due in part to a changing climate.
As the nation was hit with a dangerous storm in winter 2020, the U.S. nuclear fleet operated at a 95 percent capacity factor. No other carbon-free source offers greater reliability—and efficiency—than the existing U.S. nuclear fleet.
When discussing reliability, Bill Gates said energy systems need “sources of energy that aren’t weather dependent that are green like nuclear.” Not only is nuclear reliable, it is also carbon-free, saving the atmosphere from 470 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year that would otherwise come from fossil fuels. That’s the same as taking nearly 100 million passenger vehicles off the road.
Combine these festive findings with the reliability necessary to meet electricity demand during the holiday season, and it is clear that nuclear is the gift that keeps on giving!
