Inside NIRMA Magazine Summer 2018 - FINAL

Quarter of U.S.
Nuclear Fleet at
Risk for Closure
Lawmakers pass pro-Yucca
Mountain bill
Over a quarter of US nuclear fleet
not covering costs: BNEF
DOE Congress Recognize Nuclear’s
Clean Uses Beyond Electricity
More than a quarter of U.S. nuclear
power plants do not earn enough
revenue to cover operating costs,
according to a report published by
Bloomberg New Energy Finance
(BNEF) on May 15.
The at-risk nuclear sites represent a
total generation capacity of 32.5 GW,
BNEF analysts Nicholas Steckler and
Chris Gadomski, said in their report.
The total revenue gap for these
projects is estimated at around $1.3
billion per year, the analysts said.
Nuclear operators face continuing
pressure from low wholesale electricity
prices, driven by low gas prices and
rising renewable energy capacity.
Last month, the U.S. state of New
Jersey passed bills which provide
nuclear power generators with price
support and sets a target of 50%
renewable energy by 2030. New
Jersey's nuclear subsidies follow on
from similar support mechanisms
introduced in the states of New York
and Illinois.
Nuclear operators have already
announced plans to close 11 GW of
nuclear power capacity by 2025,
according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA).
The EIA predicts additional unplanned
retirements will reduce total U.S.
nuclear generating capacity from 99
GW in 2017 to 79 GW by 2050, in its
latest reference case scenario.
Article reprinted with permission of
Nuclear Energy Insider.
Read full article here.
Last week the federal government
took great strides—both
internationally and here at home—
to recognize and promote nuclear
energy’s most promising attributes
of emission-free electricity
generation, reliability and resiliency.
Nearly every country in the world is
currently engaged in efforts to
reduce their carbon emissions while
growing their economies. Currently,
449 reactors in 30 countries provide
34 percent of the world’s clean
electricity—that figure is 56 percent
in the United States. However,
many discussions about increasing
the use of clean energy continue to
exclude nuclear from consideration.
At a clean energy ministerial-level
meeting in Denmark, U.S. Deputy
Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette
joined Canada and Japan in
launching a global initiative that will
start to redress that imbalance.
The Nuclear Innovation: Clean
Energy (NICE) Future initiative’s
mission is to highlight the value of
nuclear energy as a clean, reliable
and resilient energy source. Other
countries participating in the
initiative include Russia, South
Africa, the United Arab Emirates
and the United Kingdom, and more
than a dozen countries have
expressed interest in joining.
NICE “will make sure nuclear has a
seat at the table during discussions
about innovation and advanced clean
energy systems of the future,”
Brouillette said at the meeting.
As Secretary Perry has stated, we don’t
have to choose between boosting our economy
or protecting our environment. We can
achieve both.
— Dan Brouillette, U.S. Deputy
Secretary of Energy
The initiative promotes the use of
innovative nuclear systems that will
play a critical role in worldwide
decarbonization. These can be
applied to electric and nonelectric
uses, such as desalination, industrial
process heat, systems that integrate
baseload nuclear and variable
renewable sources, flexible electricity
grids, hydrogen production and
energy storage. The initiative also will
focus on the development of small
modular reactors and advanced
reactors.
“Nuclear power is finally being
sufficiently recognized as the
workhorse of the global clean energy
sector,” said ClearPath Foundation
Executive Director Rich Powell, who
attended the meeting.
Article reprinted with permission of
Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Read
full article here.
Inside NIRMA NIRMA.org Summer 2018 25