Will Nuclear Power Recover in a Greenhouse?

Growing concerns about greenhouse warming have led to discussions about ways to reduce the production of carbon dioxide (CO2), the cause of about 50 percent of predicted global warming. Since the major source of man-made CO2 is burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity, the first place to look for reductions in the United States is in the utility industry. Almost three-quarters of U.S. electricity generation comes from burning fossil fuels, 57 percent from coal alone. Although nuclear power is the source of almost 18 percent of U.S. electricity, nuclear power has been written off as an option for future generation of power, and no new plants have been ordered in the United States since 1978. Growing concerns about climate change, driven by the greenhouse effect, have led to a reconsideration of the options for generating electricity. Discussions have begun within the United States as to whether nuclear power should be—the various terms give some sense of the speaker's previous position—resurrected, restored, rediscovered, or revisited.

In addressing options that may affect electricity generation, it is important to note that the United States is becoming increasingly dependent upon electricity. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) studies show a correlation between gross national product and use of electricity, and as the population grows so probably will the demand for electricity (or its equivalent). Although per-capita use of energy has declined since the oil shocks of the 1970s (by -8.5 percent from 1973 to 1987), per-capita use of electricity has steadily increased (by +19.0 percent from 1973 to 1987). While it is only the potential greenhouse effect, not a demand for electricity, that is driving a reexamination of nuclear power, nevertheless of the four options currently available to meet new demands for electricity, one includes nuclear power.

First, however, a look at demand options. These include load management—for example, shifting peak demand to off-peak hours; improving the efficiency of existing electricity uses, which include household appliances such as light bulbs and refrigerators, commercial applications, and industrial equipment; and direct conservation, that is, directly using less energy. Several of these options are the equivalent of new generation capacity, since they lead to satisfying needs with less electricity. Demand options are being explored aggressively by all major U.S. utilities. It is rare today for a utility not to have some type of conservation load management program. It is also rare that a utility commission in examining proposals for rate increases does not insist on examining the conservation or load management programs that the utility has in place or intends to propose.

The second option to meet increased demand is to burn more coal, oil, and gas. However, use of fossil fuels results in two problems: acid rain and the greenhouse effect. Acid rain has been associated with sulfur and nitrogen oxides produced in coal-burning, and is the subject of heated debates between the United States and Canada, and, within the United States, between northeastern and midwestern states. Several bills have been introduced in Congress to impose more stringent emission restrictions on utilities and industries. Solutions to the acid rain problem will increase the cost of fossil-fuel generated electricity, but are unlikely to create any interest in nuclear power. However, the greenhouse effect has led to a rethinking of generating sources. Table 1 shows the relative contributions to CO2 production from a variety of sources of electricity.

The greenhouse effect has changed a major parameter in the anti-nuclear equation. Environmentalists are becoming concerned that there may be an urgent need to replace coal plants. Gas produces only 60 percent as much CO2 as coal, but is substantially worse than nuclear power. So there is a cautious and begrudging reexamination of nuclear power beginning in the environmental community. The greenhouse phenomenon is real and its consequences may be disastrous. However, nuclear power has its own problems. Its demise in the United States was caused by interdependent factors: a drop in demand for electricity, spiraling costs, management and operating problems, and public opposition—including concerns about safety, costs, waste disposal, and nuclear proliferation. A brief review of the status of U.S. nuclear power may suggest ways to prevent future mistakes.

Demand

The 1973 oil embargo halted the growth of nuclear power. The resultant raising of public consciousness about energy use and the benefits of energy conservation accelerated a decline in electricity growth that had already caused doubts about the need for so many large plants. Lack of demand led to many cancellations of planned nuclear power plants and to a slowdown in the construction of nuclear plants.

Both actions have been costly. The rate of adding new capacity for U.S. utilities, which had averaged 20 gigawatts per year through the 1970s and the mid-1980s, now appears to be dropping to less than 5 gigawatts per year for the rest of the century. The slowdown has applied also to coal plants, with no new plants begun during the 1983-87 period. Although the summer of 1988 was particularly hot in the United States and 63 utilities hit new summer output peaks, forecasts for the remaining part of the century still call for lower consumption than in the growth years of the 1960s, and growth rates still are uncertain for the rest of the century.

Costs

Capital costs of new nuclear power plants are appalling. In 1988, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report on nuclear power plant construction stated that in current dollars per kilowatt the average cost of such construction in 1986 was more than $2,400 for fifteen plants, and that the average cost in 1987 was more than $4,000 for seven plants. In addition to being costly, U.S. plants take a long time to build. The average construction time for plants that came on line between 1981 and 1987 in the United States was 134 months, compared with 53 months in Japan, 72 in France, and 105 in West Germany. Even when plants are completed, prudency reviews often force utility stockholders to absorb costs that have ranged from several hundred million to more than one billion dollars.

Construction time and costs are not the only economic problems that nuclear power plants have had in the United States. Nuclear power plants are so-called base load plants—that is, the owner relies on the plant running at full power continuously to provide the base of the utility's generating capacity.

Unfortunately, U.S. plants do not compare well with those in other countries in the amount of time they are in service. The more time a plant spends out of service, the more costly is the electricity produced when the plant is running, since the costs of the downtime must be recovered from electricity sales.

Management

I believe that the principal problem nuclear power has had in the United States is the incompetence of some utility management. In this area, however, there are signs of change.

In response to the Three Mile Island accident reviews, in 1979 the industry established the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), whose goal was to move utilities beyond the floor of operating standards set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). INPO aimed at setting standards that would capture the best of industry practice, and also at self-policing within the industry. Thereafter self-policing perhaps was happening, but it certainly was not obvious from the outside.

In 1986, however, the Utility Nuclear Power Oversight Committee produced a remarkable report, "Leadership in Achieving Operational Excellence: The Challenge for all Nuclear Utilities," by Lelan F. Sillin, Jr., Marcus A. Rowden, and Eugene P. Wilkinson. The report evaluated the nuclear industry and provided insightful comments and interesting recommendations. Although employing relatively mild statements (particularly compared to statements by industry critics over the previous decades), the report marked the first time that a major utility committee had publicly criticized the industry.

Public opposition

Although energy has not been a major issue in U.S. public policy debates during the past few years and no nuclear power plants have been ordered since the late 1970s, public opposition to nuclear power has nevertheless continued to rise, even if that opinion is not strongly held. These characteristics can be seen in the results of two sets of polls. The first set asked respondents whether they believed more nuclear power plants should be built in the United States. These national polls, conducted by ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and the Harris organization, put the same basic question, using slightly different wording. In these polls, opposition to nuclear power rose steadily from 19 percent of the respondents in 1975 to 78 percent in mid-1986. Public opposition to nuclear power also has risen in Japan, Sweden, Italy, and West Germany, and now is even seen in the Soviet Union.

The second set of polls was done on behalf of the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness (USCEA), a nuclear industry group. These polls indicate that the public may not be as strongly opposed to nuclear power as previously thought. While it must be recognized that the public has not recently been concerned about energy issues, some USCEA polling results reflect a public that may be receptive to additional uses of nuclear power. Perhaps the best description of the public's attitude would be cautious skepticism.

Nuclear waste disposal

Nuclear waste is a problem not unlike that of nuclear power plants in that questions of safety lead localities to oppose siting of facilities. The U.S. government has struggled (as have the governments of almost all countries using nuclear power) for more than a decade to find a location for permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste, the final product of used nuclear fuel. After years of frustration, Congress designated a site in Nevada as the chosen location. This has not led to a quick solution, since state officials have mounted an aggressive campaign against the choice, and the state leader of opposition to the site, Governor Richard H. Bryan, has recently been elected to the U.S. Senate.

Neither nuclear waste nor the greenhouse effect are solely U.S. problems; if nuclear power is to be advocated to mitigate the greenhouse effect, because it is the lesser of the two evils, perhaps an international solution to waste disposal might be possible.

During the problem years of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the nuclear industry defended the designs of plants in use and developed relatively minor improvements. Occasionally someone would suggest that the megawatt plants, which were upgrades of 1960s designs, might be obsolete and that an international market might exist for plants of substantially changed design. The nuclear industry gave little visible support to these suggestions. However, in the last few years there have been signs of interest in developing designs for smaller, cheaper, and probably safer reactors. Some of these reactors would use coolants other than light water.

The Electric Power Research Institute has been working on designs for advanced light-water reactors. Industry is also working on new designs. In comparison with an earlier 600-megawatt plant, a Westinghouse conceptual design for a new 600-megawatt plant calls for 60 per-cent fewer valves, 50 percent fewer large pumps, 60 percent less pipe, and 80 percent fewer control cables. The cost goal for this design is $1,300 per kilowatt, excluding inflation and interest charges.

Under the best of circumstances, however, three years would be required to complete the plant design for a new reactor, perform analytic and experimental tests to verify plant characteristics, and obtain the necessary regulatory approval before construction could begin. The plant would take at least four years to build, and a few years to test. Not before these steps were completed could a plant be built for a utility. Thus a newly designed plant could not be introduced to a utility system before about the year 2004. Consequently, if government and industry are to produce a new type of reactor that would make a significant contribution to electricity generation before 2010, they must act soon.

Recommendations

If nuclear power is to make a comeback in the United States, if only to mitigate greenhouse warming, a number of changes are needed. Requiring replacement or accelerated retirement of fossil-fuel generating plants could resolve the lack of demand for more capacity. Reduction of costs will require better reactor designs and substantially improved management. A change in public attitudes will require a perceived need for nuclear plants, a perception that new designs would be safer, and that improved management has made present plants economical as well as safe. Such changes will require action by the public, the government, and industry.

The general public must be willing to consider nuclear power as a realistic option. The public must shift from opposition to new nuclear plants to questioning agreement on coal use among these three major users, in a fashion analogous to the agreement reached among the nuclear weapons states for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty whether new plants are acceptable. Groups previously opposed to nuclear power must take the position that nuclear power may be acceptable. I do not believe it realistic to expect these groups to say nuclear power is acceptable, because that could be taken as accepting the current plants and operators; but these groups should be willing to publicly state that nuclear power may be acceptable if problems with current plants are corrected.