Commentary: U.S. nuclear plants safe, reliable and clean

So much attention is focused on the Supreme Court Obamacare ruling that another recent D.C.-area court decision has passed with little notice, even though it will have a major impact on U.S. energy production and global warming emissions.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled last week that the Environmental Protection Agency was "unambiguously correct" in using existing federal law to address carbon based global warming.

Plaintiffs were contesting 2009 EPA rulings that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide "reasonably may be anticipated to endanger public health." The agency followed 2009 with the "tailpipe rule" in May 2010 setting limits on CO2 gas emissions from cars and light trucks.

Then on July 6, 2011, the EPA finalized a rule, known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, that requires states to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that cross state lines.

Challenges to these regulations were denied by the Court of Appeals panel, and the EPA is now free to implement its new restrictions on carbon emissions from all new fossil fuel burning power plants with a capacity exceeding 25 megawatts. These plants may not emit more than 1,000 pounds of CO2 per MW hour of power produced.

New natural gas power plants meet this standard; new coal plants emit nearly twice the CO2 amount in the EPA rule. Nuclear plants emit no CO2.

The EPA notes that it is technically possible for coal plants to meet the standard by capturing and storing the carbon from the plants flue gas. But this is expensive and impractical, and there is no successful coal plant doing this anywhere in the world.

Coal’s share of electric power fuel is already declining. Restrictions on coal’s other harmful emissions such as mercury and sulfur (acid rain) are causing a shift to natural gas which lacks those elements and produces less CO2. From a 50 percent share of the U.S. electric power market five years ago, coal supplied 42 percent in 2011 and is below 40 percent in the first quarter of 2012. A rise in natural gas use from 20 percent to more than 25 percent at our electric utilities is making up the difference, with help from intermittent wind and solar power which have risen from 1 to 3 or 4 percent of U.S. electric energy supply.

Fossil fuel hydrocarbons like coal and natural gas produce CO2 when burned as their carbon atoms unite with oxygen and make CO2. Coal is nearly all carbon so it makes a lot of CO2. The methane in natural gas has the formula CH4, so it has a lower carbon content. Some of its energy comes from hydrogen uniting with oxygen and making water vapor, which is why natural gas produces half the CO2 of coal per unit of energy.

Currently low natural gas prices are also nearly equal to coal’s low price, so the trend to more natural gas for electricity will continue as the new court decision will allow the EPA to restrict coal use. There is a concern among utilities that with this increased demand, natural gas prices could rise to three or four times current levels as they did a few years earlier.

One answer for this is nuclear power, which has lower and stable fuel costs than coal or gas, and which already supplies 20 percent of our electric energy. Nuclear plants emit only water vapor. New nuclear plants like the Westinghouse AP1000 cost about $5 billion to build in the U.S., but they last for at least 60 years and produce 8 billion to 9 billion kwh/year. This makes the construction cost less than a penny per kwh over the life of the plant.

The AP1000 is popular in China, which is building them for less than $3 billion with a construction time of 50 months.

In the U.S. for all of 2011, the nuclear industry reached record levels for industrial safety, placing it among the safest industries in U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics rankings. Overall, the 104 reactors ran at 91.4 percent of capacity, with nearly all of the down time being the planned halt every 20-22 months for refueling and maintenance.

Unit 2 at Prairie Island recently operated continuously for the 20-plus months between planned shutdowns, providing the reliable base load power needed by the electric grid.

The events at Fukushima have caused the old fears of nuclear accidents and radiation to rise. But while the Japanese tsunami is responsible for more than 22,000 deaths, there have been no injuries or deaths in Japan from radiation as a result of the incident.

It is clear that coal burning will continue to decline for electric power generation, and that clean and reliable nuclear energy is the likely long-term answer for base-load electric power generation.

Rolf Westgard is a professional member of Geological Society of America and the American Nuclear Society.

Tags: opinion, commmentaries