A bulldozer moves coal that will be burned to generate electricity at American Electric Power’s coal-fired power plant in Winfield, West Virginia.
Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
One of the nation’s top nuclear officials said this week that the plan to restart Three Mile Island is a step forward for nuclear power, but the US needs to deploy new plants to keep up with demand. electricity is increasing.
Mike Goff, acting assistant secretary of the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, said the US needs to at least triple its nuclear fleet to keep up with demand, cut carbon dioxide emissions and ensure national energy security.
The US currently possesses the world’s largest nuclear fleet in total 94 reactors in operation total about 100 gigawatts of electricity. This fleet provides more than 18% of the country’s goods electricity consumption in 2023.
Goff told CNBC in an interview that the US needs an additional 200 gigawatts of nuclear power. This is roughly equivalent to building 200 new plants, based on the US fleet’s current average reactor size of about 1 gigawatt.
“It was a huge undertaking,” Goff said. The US led a global coalition that December officially committed to achieve this goal by 2050. Financial institutions include Goldman Sachs and Bank of America confirm target at a climate conference in New York City this week.
Constellation energyRestart plan Three Mile Island Goff said reaching 2028 is a step in the right direction. He said the factory operates safely and efficiently and only closed in 2019 for economic reasons.
The reactor that Constellation plans to reopen, Unit 1, is not the reactor that partially melted down in 1979.
Microsoft will buy electricity from the plant to power its data centers. Goff said the advent of large data centers consuming up to a gigawatt of electricity has only increased the need for new reactors.
“A lot of data centers come in and say they need clean, stable power, 24/7,” Goff said. “Nuclear is clearly the perfect match for that,” he said.
However, he said, restarting reactors in the US would provide only a small fraction of the nuclear power needed. According to Goff, only a handful of shuttered plants are potential candidates for restart.
“It’s not a big number,” Goff said of the possibility of a restart. “We also need to really move forward with the deployment of factories,” he said.
From coal to nuclear
Coal communities across the United States could provide the runway to build a large number of new nuclear plants. Utilities in many parts of the United States are phasing out coal as part of the clean energy transition, creating a Supply gap in some areas because the new generation is not being built fast enough.
According to a report, recently closed coal plants, those scheduled to be shut down, and currently operating plants with no known closure date are estimated to be able to provide space until 174 gigawatts of new nuclear power across 36 states. Department of Energy The study was published earlier this month.
Coal plants already have transmission lines in place, Goff said, allowing reactors at those sites to avoid the time-consuming process of arranging new grid connections. The plants also have people with experience in the energy industry who could transfer to work at nuclear facilities, he said.
“We can actually reduce costs significantly by building a coal plant,” Goff said. “We were able to reduce costs by 30% compared to just going to a new location.”
Cost overruns and long lead times are major obstacles to building new nuclear plants. The expansion of Vogtle factory in Georgia For example, with two new reactors, it cost more than $30 billion and took about 7 years longer than expected.
According to DOE research, expansion of operating nuclear plants and construction at decommissioned sites in the US could pave the way for new reactors with a capacity of up to 95 gigawatts. Between coal and nuclear sites, the US likely has enough space for up to 269 gigawatts of additional nuclear power.
Potential capacity will depend on whether smaller, advanced reactors are built at the site or larger reactors with gigawatt capacities or more.
According to DOE research, more electricity could be generated if smaller reactors were deployed on a large scale because there is space for more power. However, some of these smaller advanced designs remain It will be many years before it is commercialized.
However, according to Goff, growing electricity demand from data centers, manufacturing and the electrification of the economy could also create a catalyst for building larger plants. For example, restarting Three Mile Island would bring in just under a gigawatt of power to meet Microsoft’s needs.
“Increased power demand will lead to a push for more gigawatt-sized reactors,” he said.
A reboot is likely to ensure a green light
Goff said that while restarting reactors is not an effective solution, consolidating and maintaining the existing fleet is important. The United States went through a decades-long period in which reactors were shut down because they could not compete with abundant and cheap natural gas.
However, the economy is changing with tax support from the Disinflation Reduction Act and nuclear is increasingly valued for its carbon-free properties, Goff said.
“One of the economic problems, especially in unregulated utilities, is that clean, baseload electricity is not necessarily valuable,” he said. “There is a growing recognition of the need for a clean, rugged and reliable baseload for nuclear.”
Constellation’s decision to reboot Three Mile Island follows in the footsteps of Constellation Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan. The private owner, Holtec International, plans to restart the Palisades in 2025. The two restarts are both subject to review and approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“They are an independent agency, but I hope if the safety case is made, they will approve it,” Goff said of those potential reboots.
“Obviously Constellation has operated the Three Mile Island plant for many years and has a very large fleet of reactors that they have operated safely and efficiently,” he said. “They will continue to have extensive expertise in moving those plants to continue safe operations.”
But finding more plants to restart could be difficult, said Doug True, nuclear director at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
“It’s getting harder and harder,” True previously told CNBC. “A lot of these plants have already begun the process of shutting down, and the facilities are not well laid out in a way that is intended to restart in any way.”
