U.S. nuclear energy: Making progress states ANS President Jim Lake
"The total nuclear generation in the U.S. has increased from less than 300 billion kWhr in 1980 to 730 billion kWhr today," stated ANS President James Lake when he addressed the "Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology 2000". The meeting was held in Bonn, Germany, May 23-25, 2000.
Nuclear Energy in the U.S.A.
James A. Lake, PhD
President-Elect
American Nuclear Society
Presented at the
Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology 2000
Jahrestagung Kerntechnik 2000
May 23-25, 2000
Bonn, Germany
James A. Lake, PhD
President-Elect
American Nuclear Society
Presented at the
Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology 2000
Jahrestagung Kerntechnik 2000
May 23-25, 2000
Bonn, Germany
Performance of Nuclear Energy in the U.S.A.
103 nuclear power plants generated 20% of U.S. electricity in 1999. Although no new nuclear power plant orders have been placed in the U.S. since the early 1970s, the electricity generation from nuclear power has risen on average 8% per year for the past 20 years. 40 plants have been completed since 1980, the last of which was Watts Bar 1 in 1996. U.S. industry raised the plant capacity factor (88% in 1999) and the power output such that total nuclear generation has increased from less than 300 billion kWhr in 1980 to 730 billion kWhr today.
At the same time that nuclear plant output has increased, so to has safety performance. Safety indicators include unplanned automatic shutdowns (2/3 of the U.S. plants had zero in 1998), industrial safety performance (the nuclear industry has an accident rate less than 1/10 of all U.S. industries), and radiation exposure to plant workers (down 80% from 1980 values).
The early predictions of economic doom for nuclear-generated electricity in a competitive, deregulated U.S. market have been proven wrong. In 1999, the average non-capital cost of nuclear-generated electricity was about 2 cents/kWhr. This is approximately equal to coal (which faces considerable economic uncertainty in the future associated with emissions reduction requirements), and substantially lower than natural gas (at about 3.5 cents/kWhr and rising as both natural gas prices and gas turbine capital costs increase).
In 1998, the business aspect of nuclear power was very good in the U.S.; 7 of the top 10 investor-owned utilities, ranked by profit, were nuclear utilities. The improved economic environment for nuclear power in the U.S. has created a desire for acquisition of nuclear assets that began in 1998 with the purchase of the Three Mile Island I plant by a joint venture between Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO Energy) and British Energy, called AmerGen, then the major merger of PECO Energy and Unicom (Commonwealth Edison) creating a company with 20% of the U.S. nuclear generating capacity, and most recently, the competitive bidding between Entergy and Dominion to purchase the Fitzpatrick and Indian Point 3 plants for nearly $1B in the highly valued New York electricity market. This same consolidation is occurring in the worldwide nuclear plant vendor market (the BNFL/Westinghouse/ABB-Combustion Engineering merger for example), and in the nuclear fuel supply markets. This market consolidation, and the strong business interest in U.S. nuclear assets, is a positive indication of the economic health of the U.S. nuclear industry.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is revising the way in which it regulates the operations of nuclear power plants, toward a performance-based, system that uses risk-prioritized criteria. The new regulatory inspection and oversight process is being tested by 9 plants with scheduled implementation in 2000. This new process has the potential to remove undue regulatory and economic burden. In 1998, the Baltimore Gas & Electric Calvert Cliffs plant and the Duke Power Oconee plant, were submitted to the NRC for 20-year license extensions. NRC granted the license extension to Calvert Cliffs on March 23, 2000, and NRC staff have recently recommended approval of Oconee. The efficient processing of these license extensions in less than 2 years has encouraged another 30 plants to submit applications. Industry and NRC estimate that 80% of the U.S. plants will receive license extensions, 10% will operate to the expiration of their current 40-year license, and no more than 10% will experience difficulties with their unique plant configuration or with local economic conditions that make it uneconomical to operate the plant to its full 40-year lifetime.
The recent 20th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island prompted several organizations to conduct surveys of the attitudes of the American public toward nuclear power. In an MSNBC poll (www.msnbc.com), more than 80% of the respondents agreed that nuclear energy is safe, and 86% think new plants should be licensed. In comprehensive polling conducted for the Nuclear Energy Institute by Bisconti Research, Inc., stable, long term support for nuclear energy was demonstrated by 2:1 margins, especially among college graduates who are registered to vote and who continue to see nuclear energy and solar as the "fuels of the future". This rather substantial margin of support, however, is fragile as only 10-15% of responses strongly support or strongly oppose nuclear energy, leaving a large, more weakly pronuclear, group who are not very knowledgeable about energy in general and nuclear in particular. Retaining the support of this large, silent majority depends on continued safe operations of nuclear power plants and growing the perceived economic and environmental benefits (particularly low cost and low emissions).
There is a growing awareness and dialog in the U.S. about the appropriate role of various energy sources in light of the growing body of scientific evidence related to health effects of particulate and gaseous emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, and the potential climate effects from rising CO2 emissions. Because nuclear energy does not emit any combustion byproducts, it avoided the emissions of more than 82 million tons of SO2, 37 million tons of NOx (acid rain contributors), and nearly 2.8 billion tons of Carbon between 1973 and 1997. Nuclear plants in operation in the U.S. today are continuing to avoid the emissions of more than 150 million tons of Carbon annually, about the amount that the U.S. is currently above the reference 1990 emission targets (not including reductions specified in the Koyoto Protocol). Between 1973 and 1998, nuclear energy was responsible for 90% of the savings in electric utility CO2 emissions. Since 1990, nearly half of the voluntary CO2 reduction contributions in the U.S. are attributable to just the increases in nuclear plant output. Environmental quality is an increasingly important part of U.S. energy policy, and continued operation of nuclear plants, improvement in the capacity of these plants, and perhaps construction of new nuclear power plants will be an important element in future U.S. plans if we are to balance our economic growth needs with our environmental stewardship responsibilities.
The U.S. Congress created a timetable for development and implementation of a long-term solution for spent fuel and other high level nuclear wastes in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. That solution is a deep geological repository built in an unpopulated desert area. The Act also established the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for the repository, interim spent fuel storage, and transportation of spent fuel to the repository. To date, U.S. electricity consumers have paid almost $16B into the Fund, but the repository is at least 12 years behind schedule and no site has yet been selected for interim spent fuel storage. The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2000 (S1287), that would have provided for "early" (2006) waste acceptance at the U.S. repository at Yucca Mountain Nevada, was vetoed by President Clinton on April 25th, partly because the Act required the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resolve their differences over responsibility for radiation protection standards for the repository. In the meantime, spent fuel is safely stored at the reactor sites awaiting final resolution of the political and legal logjam that may have to be resolved by the next Administration.
The Nuclear Energy Paradigm Has Changed
The circumstances affecting the economic, regulatory, operations, safety and environmental performance of nuclear power in the United States have changed rather dramatically in the past 2 or 3 years. These changes allow for a very positive vision for the future of nuclear power in the U.S., both for continued operation of existing plants (many with licenses extended to 60 years), and even for new construction. This vision depends on successful solutions to 5 major challenges facing nuclear power in the future: nuclear power must remain economically competitive, the public must remain confident in its safety, nuclear wastes must be managed (particularly the back-end fuel cycle issues), the proliferation potential of the commercial nuclear power fuel cycle must be minimized, and we must assure a sustainable manpower supply for the future and preserve the critical nuclear technology infrastructure.
The foremost challenge for nuclear power in the U.S. is an economic one. Nuclear power must continue to improve its competitive economic position in an increasingly deregulated electricity market. Whereas the current economic parameters for operation of existing nuclear plants is very good, that is not the case for new nuclear plants with high capital cost of $1500-$2000/kW and long construction and commissioning times, that do not compete well with natural gas plant capital costs of $400-$500/kW. New reactor technology may be required to meet the capital cost requirements in the 21st century, and new approaches to "manufacturing" and rapid field deployment of nuclear plants can play a pivotal role in reducing the capital cost of nuclear to future competitive levels.
Continued safe operation of nuclear power plants around the world is essential to retaining public confidence and support. Although current light water reactor technology is very safe, the challenge becomes more complex as nuclear power begins to be deployed in countries with less sophisticated technical support infrastructures and different safety and work cultures. Future directions are to produce next generation reactor technology with more "inherent" (natural) safety characteristics that replace more complicated engineered safety systems and decouple safety performance from operations and maintenance activities.
The logjam in the efforts to close the nuclear waste disposition issue in the U.S., whether it involves opening a permanent or interim waste storage facility, can be resolved when we have the political will, leadership, and consensus to do so. In the meantime, the industry must continue to safely store spent fuel on the plant site. The Government is also exploring alternate fuel cycle options, and the technical and economic options to "transmute" the long-lived nuclear wastes using accelerators or reactors.
As nuclear power becomes more widely deployed worldwide, it is incumbent upon all of the nuclear supplier nations to continually improve the proliferation resistance of the technology.
Government, industry and university leadership is necessary to help assure that a sustainable manpower supply is retained, and that the critical technical infrastructure existing at National Laboratories, universities, and industry are preserved.
U.S. Government Actions in Response to These Challenges
Although much of the future viability of nuclear energy in the U.S. rests with the private sector, the U.S. Government retains a strong interest in, and responsibility for, nuclear technology. First, the U.S. wishes to retain its strong ties internationally with nuclear energy and nuclear technology in order to exercise technical leadership and influence to assure that nuclear energy is deployed safely and without risk of nuclear materials proliferation. Second, the U.S. Government conducts substantial nuclear operations itself as part of its defense and environmental management mission responsibilities, and it therefore needs to maintain strong technical competencies and capabilities for its own needs. Third, it is the responsibility of the Government to ensure that viable energy options are preserved for the Nation to address future energy security and/or environmental quality needs.
The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) is supporting a portfolio of new R&D programs designed to respond to the challenges facing nuclear energy. These include:
- The Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI), funded at $22.5M in 2000, is supporting approximately 50 peer-reviewed projects conducted by teams of university, laboratory, and industrial researchers. These projects are exploring new reactor designs with higher efficiency, lower cost (perhaps smaller size), improved proliferation-resistance, and improved safety performance; new technologies for storage and disposal of nuclear wastes; advanced, high burnup nuclear fuels; and basic science (materials, thermal hydraulics, instrumentation and control, etc.).
- Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization (NEPO) is a cooperative program with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), funded at $5M each in 2000, that is developing technology for light water reactors to improve the ability of the industry to operate the plants for extended lifetimes, and to increase the power output.
- The Accelerator Transmutation of Waste (ATW) program is funded at $9M in 2000, and is focused on the identification of key R&D issues for an accelerator-based system to transmute long-lived actinide elements to shorter-lived fission products to facilitate geologic disposal.
- University support programs are funded at $12M in 2000, with $5M devoted to nuclear engineering education research grants.
Finally, the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology is building the foundations for the development of very advanced nuclear energy technology for the so-called fourth generation of nuclear power. Generation IV is envisioned to be highly innovative reactor technology that can be substantially cheaper and faster to build and deploy, simpler, more economical and safer to operate, produce smaller volumes of nuclear waste and spent fuel, and provide more proliferation resistant features for 21st century worldwide deployment. The U.S. is not yet committed to a particular technical approach, but is trying to assemble the broad resources of the R&D establishment at laboratories and universities, industry, and the international community to design, develop, test, and ultimately select and deploy the fourth generation reactor technology.
Conclusion and Implications for the Future of Nuclear Energy in the U.S.A.
The economic, operations, and safety performance of nuclear power in the U.S. is currently very good. This enables us to envision a future for nuclear power that is very bright so long as we can continue to respond to the economic, safety, nuclear waste, proliferation-resistance, and infrastructure challenges.
