An Atomic Catch 22: Climate Change and the Decline of America's Nuclear Fleet

We are in an election year. Along with everything else that is at stake, this election may very well be the election that determines if the American nuclear industry lives or dies. The current administration has repeatedly expressed support for the nuclear industry, increasing spending on reactor research and development and attempting to change rules in the Department of Energy to return nuclear energy to market parity. Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee, also supports increased reactor research and development, but is silent on the future of current American reactors.

Such silence is understandable. Many Americans have lived through multiple nuclear accidents, including Chernobyl in 1986Fukushima in 2011, and, of course, Three Mile Island. In addition to the potential for such large-scale operation accidents, there is the environmental cost of uranium mining and the dangerous state of American nuclear waste storage. The fact remains, however, that given nuclear’s role as a reliable source of zero-carbon baseload power, the decline of American nuclear power may not be something we can afford just yet. The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), a global climate change policy research consortium, has selected decarbonizing electricity as one of the three main pillars necessary to fight climate change. In order to do so, the DDPP anticipates that the amount of energy generated from nuclear sources will have to grow, not shrink—a daunting prospect, given that existing American reactors are all projected to retire by the 2050s and new reactor construction is prohibitively expensive.

Confronted with the conundrum of no longer profitable nuclear plants, ambitious environmental goals, and the grid’s inherent need for reliable baseload power, governments have implemented many differing policies. Some, like Vermont, have simply allowed their nuclear plants to close, although carbon emissions rose after the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant shut down and was replaced by natural gas plants as a source of baseload power. Others, like New York and Illinois, have offered “zero-emissions credits” as a subsidy to keep their nuclear plants open, in recognition of nuclear’s contributions to both states’ climate goals. At the federal level, policies in support of nuclear energy have focused on subsidies for new reactor construction and research and development into new types of nuclear technology, such as smaller and more cost-effective reactors. It is unclear, however, how effective current federal policy is, given that companies have been bankrupted by the cost of building new reactors and new reactor technology may not be deployable in time to make a meaningful impact on the climate crisis.

If research from the DDPP the National Resources Defense Council, and the U.N. is correct, nuclear power has a critical role to play to decarbonizing electricity generation in the fight against climate change. If nuclear power is to have a viable future in the U.S., however, it will have to contend with several factors. First and foremost is the lack of profitability of current reactors, for which direct subsidies are likely the most effective remedy, since they can be implemented immediately and operate within existing physical and market infrastructure. The second critical issue is the dismal state of American nuclear storage, which was highlighted in 2017, whenan explosion caused by kitty litter shut down the country’s largest nuclear storage facility. For an idea as to what a successful nuclear-inclusive future might look like, one need look no further than France, which generates over 70 percent of its energy from nuclear plants and recycles nuclear fuel. This recycling practice was banned by the U.S. over security concerns in 1977, but is practiced at some level in Britain, Japan, India, and Russia. One could easily see some of the millions of dollars the U.S. currently directs into subsidizing new light-water reactor construction, which increasingly looks like a losing proposition, redirected into funding a fuel recycling pilot project. Some combination of these policies could serve as a bridge solution until new reactor technology is market-deployable.

However the United States chooses to deal with the numerous challenges around nuclear power, one thing is clear: the challenge of fighting climate change is far greater, and letting the nuclear industry continue its decline will make meeting that challenge much harder.

Eric Scheuch is a junior in Columbia College, studying political science and sustainable development.This article is published courtesy of Earth Institute, Columbia University.