Remember the nuclear renaissance: well, it's over

Rerun from 2017

Back in the days before Netflix, broadband even video-cassette recorders, if you wanted to watch TV, you had a choice of a handful of broadcast channels (when I was growing up in Canberra, there were two). Unsurprisingly, most people wanted something new, and for most of the year, that’s what we got. But over Christmas, the ratings surveys took a break, and the TV networks gave us repeat broadcasts of old shows (reruns). Radio is still mostly like this. But now TV is much more like books: you can watch new shows when they come out, but you can also wait as long as you like. Some books go out of print, and some old TV shows are hard to find, but the starting assumption is that you can see anything you want, if you look hard enough.

Much the same is true of what is published on the Internet. Thanks to things like the Wayback machine, very little is lost forever. But, you can’t look for it if you don’t know what is there. And, from the viewpoint of writers like me, the daily avalanche of new material means that most of what I write is obscured from view.

Now that I am using Substack, I’m going to try to attract some attention to old, but still relevant stuff. On my current work plan, I will only produce one or two new posts per week, so I plan to fill the gap with reruns. I’d appreciate comments on how often, if at all, people would like to see this.

I’m starting with a piece from 2017, originally published in Inside Story which is relevant to the announcement that lots of countries plan to triple their nuclear generating capacity by 2050. This is a recycling of commitments made at the beginning of the century, notably in the US, so it’s a good topic for a rerun.’

---

Remember the nuclear renaissance: well, it's over

(Inside story, 4 August 2017)

Monday’s announcement that construction of the Virgil C Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina is to be halted/scaled back marks as good a day as any to declare the end of the “nuclear renaissance” in the United States.  Launched by George W. Bush in 2002 with the "Nuclear Power 2010 Program”, the supposed renaissance ran way over time and over budget.

This pattern was exemplified by the history of the VC Summer project. The project was launched in 2008, with an estimated cost of $9.8 billion. The two Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors were expected to go online in 2017 and 2018. A series of delays and contractual disputes saw the costs blow out to more than $14 billion and the estimated completion date deferred to the 2020s.

Last gasp: Barack Obama’s secretary of energy, Steven Chu, during a February 2012 visit to the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, a week after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a third and fourth reactor at the site. David Goldman/AP Photo

The final blow claim when Westinghouse, the firm responsible for construction as well as design, was forced into bankruptcy by its owner Toshiba, which is itself threatened with bankruptcy because of Westinghouse’s losses. To get out of the VC Summer project, Toshiba offered the owners, SCANA and Santee Cooper, an unconditional payment of $2.2 billion. Rather than use the funds to finish the project, SCANA and Santee Cooper have decided to cut their losses and move on.

The Westinghouse bankruptcy has also threatened the only other nuclear reactors currently under construction in the US, at the Vogtle plant in Georgia. The owners, Southern nuclear, have taken over the project from Westinghouse, and are pushing on, at least for the moment.

Whether or not the Vogtle project is ultimately completed, it is clear that the US nuclear renaissance is over. The dozens of proposals put forward in the early 2000s have either been abandoned, or put on hold indefinitely. Almost certainly, there will never be another conventional nuclear power plant built in the US.

None of the usual excuses for the failure of nuclear power apply here. The project had the benefit of tax subsidies and a favorable regulatory environment. Environmentalists may have been unenthusiastic about the nuclear revival, but, with their attention now focused on coal, they did not campaign against it with any vigor. The only significant protests against the VC Summer plant came from electricity consumers angry at having to pay for a project they correctly believed was not needed and might never be built. 

The big enemy was simple economics.  While the cost of gas has fallen, and that of solar photovoltaics has plummeted, the cost of building nuclear power plants has increased steadily. Meanwhile, concerns about the variability of renewable electricity supplies have abated. A combination of larger and more sophisticated electricity grids, innovative pricing and advances in storage have made it much easier to manage variability. This has put an end to the perceived need for the ‘baseload’ constant supply provided by coal or nuclear plants.

The one remaining hope for nuclear power is the idea of small nuclear reactor, constructed in large numbers in a factory and shipped to the sites where they are assembled to create a power plant. The leading contender to develop this idea is the Nuscale Small Modular Reactor, currently under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The SMR has plenty of promise. But it is still in the early prototype stage, and there is no guarantee that the promised cost reductions will be sufficient to make it competitiv with renewables. Even if everything goes to plan, the SMR won’t be deployed at the necessary scale to make a difference until the 2030s at the earliest.

In terms of electricity supply, every country is different, but all are subject to common trends. Some countries, like Germany, have hastened the end of nuclear power, by shutting down plants that still have years of life left. Others, like the UK, have done their best to keep the nuclear dream alive. Almost everywhere, however, the dream of safe, cheap nuclear power has proved unattainable.

The one historical success story, still told and retold by nuclear power advocates, is that of France in the 1970s. From a standing start, France built 58 nuclear reactors, and secured its energy independence for decades. Sadly, the success has not continued. The only reactor currently under construction, at Flamanville, is far behind schedule and way over budget, just like its US counterparts.

The reasons for the French success and subsequent failure, are still being debated. Almost certainly, a strong centralised state, with a clear commitment to a nuclear strategy, and willingness provide low-cost finance for high risk projects, played a critical role. As these conditions changed, construction costs rose steadily.

The only country where anything like these conditions exist today is China. With 21 plants under construction and more planned, China is the last remaining hope for a nuclear renaissance. But even here, the prospects are limited. While nuclear plans have been scaled back over time, investment in solar PV has soared. Moreover, given the variability of Chinese construction standards, the risk of a nuclear accident, which would derail the program once and for all, cannot be ignored.

The dream of the nuclear renaissance dies hard. Despite decades of evidence to the contrary, the idea that nuclear fission offers a cheap, safe and reliable source of electricity, obstructed only by the irrational fears of environmentalists remains strong. But the shareholders of Toshiba, Westinghouse and SCANA, and the electricity consumers of South Carolina have learned, like others before them, that this idea is a costly illusion.