February 19, 2009

900 U.S. Reactors by 2035?

By Gail Reitenbach

Getting from 104 to 900

The U.S. currently has 104 operating nuclear power plants. Why would it need almost an order of magnitude more units in roughly a quarter century?

Anghaie displayed a chart that showed a steep drop in the number of remaining reactors as 2035 nears, so he started with 104 that are needed to replace the current fleet as relicensing options expire. Then he added 300 reactors to replace “old coal plants” and 500 “to meet environmental obligations.” Total: 904.

This calculation hinges on a few large assumptions. First, it assumes that the U.S. will commit to dramatically lowering greenhouse gas emissions and will drive that reduction at least in part by eliminating coal-fired generation—or at least any coal-fired generation that doesn’t use carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, which, Anghaie noted, does not yet exist at utility scale (though his figures seem to suggest that CCS won’t be online by 2035 either).

The second assumption is that other low-carbon technologies, such as renewables, will not win the battle for financial and policy support. Renewable generating technologies, he claimed, are not technically ready, can’t provide the needed capacity, and have a larger footprint compared with nuclear power.

Then there’s the unanswered question of where all the nuclear engineers will come from to operate those 900 reactors.

As for the costs of generation, Anghaie claimed that nuclear power is already cost competitive, especially if environmental costs are internalized.

Even if one rejects some—or all—of Anghaie’s premises, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the U.S. is making no measurable progress toward replacing those plants that will reach the end of their economic operating life by 2035.

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