Nuclear bill got gobs of attention – and will mean nothing. Transmission bill will have results but has been mostly ignored.
by Allen Best
Matters of little consequence often get major time and attention. And vice versa. Two energy bills in the Colorado Legislature this year, one about nuclear energy and the second about electrical transmission, illustrate this.
The first bill, HB25-1040, which is now law, declared that nuclear energy is clean. It proclaims that utilities can meet clean-energy targets with nuclear. It also allows private projects access to financing restricted to clean energy development.
The bill sailed through the Legislature. Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law March 31. For believers, those who want to believe that nuclear energy will be THE answer, it was a big win.
To what effect? Likely none. Forget about nuclear waste and safety concerns. Cost of energy from new nuclear plans remains exorbitant.
Some of this was sorted through in a four-hour committee hearing in March. Chuck Kutscher was among several dozen individuals given two-minute slots to testify. He deserved more time. A nuclear engineer by training, he subsequently moved into renewables, retiring from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory several years ago.
At a later meeting in Jefferson County, Kutscher explained why he expects nuclear energy to play no role in Colorado’s energy transition. It comes down to cost.
“I like to give credit where credit is due. And the fact is that nuclear power in this country has saved a heck of a lot of carbon dioxide and air pollution emissions,” he said. “Nuclear provides almost half of U.S. carbon-free electricity, which is pretty impressive.”
As for costs, Kutscher cited two metrics courtesy of Lazard, a financial company that monitors electrical generation. The cost of building new nuclear plants comes in at $8,000 to $13,000 per kilowatt of generating capacity. Solar comes in at $1,400, wind at $2,000.
A broader metric, the levelized cost, includes capital, fuel and operating costs over the life of an energy plant. “The longer a plant runs, the lower its life-cycle costs, because it’s producing more energy,” Kutscher explained. By this measure, nuclear still comes up short: 18 cents a kilowatt-hour compared to solar and wind for 5 and 6 cents.
Might costs drop with a new generation of small modular reactors? SMRs can generate 300 megawatts or less. One was planned in the West, but in 2023 the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems pulled out of its contract with NuScale – because of cost.
If nuclear costs make it a non-starter in Colorado, can renewables deliver us to an emission-free electrical system? The sun vanishes daily, and sometimes winds on our eastern plains die down, even for days. Kutscher sees possible solutions in improving storage technologies and expanded transmission. Transmission can enable electricity to be shared across multiple time zones and weather systems.
Even moving electricity around Colorado more efficiently has value. The second bill, SB24-127, proposes to do that. It would require investor-owned utilities to investigate tools called advanced transmission technologies. They will enable more use from existing transmission lines and associated infrastructure.
Larry Milosevich, a Lafayette resident, decided six years ago to devote himself to fewer pursuits. He says he chose the role of advanced technologies for transmission because of its oversized impact. The transmission system developed during the last century has many inefficiencies.
“I would love to see advanced transmission technologies get a little more light,” he says. Why hasn’t it happened? “It doesn’t have sex appeal.”
This bill will not solve all problems. “You need a lot of arrows in your quiver to get there. And it’s not one technology that’s going to save the day,” says Leah Rubin Shen, managing director of Advanced Energy United, an industry association that advocates for technologies and policies that advance decarbonization.
More transmission will still be needed. Approvals take time. Using these tools can more rapidly expand capacity at lower cost. “We characterize it as a no-regrets solution,” says Rubin Shen.
State Sen. Cleave Simpson, a Republican from Alamosa, was the primary author of the bill. “We can increase the capacity and resilience of our infrastructure without having to undertake expensive, large-scale construction projects,” he told committee members at a March meeting.
The committee that day heard from fewer than a dozen witnesses. It passed an amended bill and moved on within 45 minutes. Several weeks before same committee heard nuclear testimony for hours.
In a later interview, Simpson described the bill, slimmed greatly in ambition from its original iteration, as “maybe a tiny step forward, but a doable one.”
Unlike nuclear, not THE answer, but a doable one.
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Alan,
It’s disappointing that you used an unrelated bill to take another cheap shot at nuclear power.
Have you ever met anyone who thinks nuclear power is the answer to our energy future?
Fortunately, most of the state has moved on past your fossilized anti-nuclear stance.
Correction: THE answer was spell-checked to the answer,
Thanks.
Xcel did a pilot project with “Linevision” that employed sensors to allow more current through some lines when the weather was windy or cool. I’m not sure what happened with that, though Linevision tech is being deployed nationally and internationally.
A number of international examples are used to hype nukes:
China: The biggie. But 5-10x more solar and wind than nuclear being added each year. The planned nuclear plants are all by the SE seacoast, which has extreme population density and cheap cooling water.
Finland: Yes they completed a nuke a few years ago after many delays, but at sort of reasonable cost. It’s by the Baltic and uses that water directly for cooling which lowers the cost of construction and operation. The Korean construction company was accused of using underpaid, poorly treated, Polish labor. (Probably not the idea for Pueblo!) Going forward in the next decade they are focused on expanding wind which is just below nuclear now, adding solar, even at 60N, and lots of heat pumps and heat storage, including seasonal.
UAE: Similar story but with Persian Gulf cooling water and Pakistani indentured labor. They are moving on from that, not with more nukes but with a mere 5.2 GWdc solar-battery project. https://www.power-technology.com/news/uae-24-7-solar-pv-battery-storage
Spain: Still committed to closing their five nukes and replacing their generation with sun, wind and storage.
Germany: Renewables have offset power production from their retired nukes and fossil generation is decreasing again. Power prices are dropping as less gas is used.
UK: Costs for Hinkley nuke under construction are now pushing $18,000/kW, despite help from France. Offshore wind is headed below $3000/kW with new wind projects near 45% load factor, after some curtailment. To reduce that curtailment, https://www.linevisioninc.com/news/how-dynamic-line-ratings-accelerate-renewable-energy-integration
France: Who knows? The one truly great nuke fleet in the world. Adding solar and offshore wind right now.
France, UK, China and the US are nuclear weapons countries and have poured trillions of dollars into R&D on all things atomic. Remember Rocky Flats. We see NREL, but far more $s go to a vast nuclear establishment from MIT to Stanford, from ORNL to PNNL. Twenty universities with research reactors.
Energy storage R&D and deployment is going gangbusters worldwide. With it, “intermittent” renewables aren’t so intermittent anymore.
“Nuf said?”
Any ‘new ‘ nuclear has a long way to go: lower cost, long time, and waste issues. Unfortunately, the nuclear industry continually sells false hope—–follow the money.