Could new nuclear technologies help Nebraska utilities reduce carbon emissions? |

By Carmen Lillard On Dec 19, 2021

Nebraska’s two largest utilities are carefully watching the development of a new generation of smaller, simpler and supposedly safer nuclear reactors to see how they might fit into plans for more carbon-free electricity.

Representatives from the Nebraska Public Circuit and Omaha Public Circuit attended a seminar in Lincoln in October on “advanced” nuclear power where proponents said new technologies will ensure nuclear power is a player in America’s energy future.

“We are closely following the next generation of advanced nuclear technology,” said Tom Kent, President and CEO of NPPD, which operates one of 55 nuclear power plants in the United States.

Nuclear power – either extending the life of existing reactors or using new generation “micro” and “modular” reactors – will be part of reducing carbon emissions, Kent said.

At OPPD, which shut down its Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in 2016, an official said the new nuclear technologies were “fascinating”.

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Tim Uehling, a senior director on the Fort Calhoun plant shutdown, said that if the new technologies prove economically viable, they could become options to help the Omaha-based energy district, its net zero goal Carbon footprint to reach 2050.

The board of the NPPD adopted this goal last week.

Some environmental groups urge caution with what they believe to be unproven technologies and call them “PowerPoint” reactors. They indicate that none of the new generation plants have been built and that it will be a decade or more before it is known whether they are commercially viable and affordable.

Edwin Lyman, an expert on nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, is not optimistic that the new, smaller reactors are feasible.

“These facilities face many hurdles to commercial use,” said Lyman. “Cost is probably the biggest problem as even operational reactors have difficulty competing with other sources of electricity such as renewable energy.”

But its development is picking up pace as it supports and sponsors people like Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who calls it a means of combating climate change. A group of Nebraskans, including the wife of a state senator, is also trying to promote the new technologies.

This group organized the October seminar, the Nebraska Advanced Nuclear Forum. It drew 170 people including Governor Pete Ricketts and several state senators. The forum was a continuation of the passing of a bill last spring that would allow nuclear power projects to qualify for tax credits under the state’s new business promotion law, the ImagiNE Act.

The one-day forum served to clarify and dispel concerns related to nuclear energy, such as core meltdown or partial meltdown on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Ukraine and, most recently, the disaster-struck Fukushima power plant in Japan, a tsunami in 2011.

There was also controversy about how and where spent fuel and low level radioactive waste should be disposed of. Nebraska had to pay a $ 146 million court ruling after denying permission for a proposed low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Boyd County.

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However, proponents claim that a new generation of nuclear power plants will be different and, because of their cooling, much safer.

Jan Bostelman, a chemical and nuclear engineer whose husband Bruce is a state senator, said the “passive” design of the new reactors relied on gravity instead of mechanical pumps to circulate the coolant. A core meltdown cannot be caused by a power failure that switches off the cooling pumps.

Gates’ company TerraPower would use liquid sodium instead of water to cool its facilities. TerraPower recently announced that it is building its first reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, where a coal-fired power station will be shut down. The $ 4 billion project receives half of its funding from a US Department of Energy grant. Upon completion, expected in 2028, it will be operated by Rocky Mountain Power, a division of PacifiCorp of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

The Department of Energy has also invested $ 400 million to help build a “small modular reactor” power plant in Idaho designed by NuScale Power of Oregon. The test facility is expected to be completed by 2029.

Bostelman said that some new generation reactors are small enough to fit on the back of a truck, and that the small modular reactors could be stacked together or added later to make a power station as small or large as needed. The smaller size and simpler design would require less water, she said, so they could be in desert climates.

What about trash? Bostelman said some of the new power plants use spent nuclear fuel. And despite a decades-long struggle that ultimately undid plans for a national high-level radioactive waste repository in Nevada, there have been no nuclear waste incidents in the United States, she said.

The new technologies are the result of 60 years of research and are a “huge improvement” over the reactors currently in use, said Bostelman.

“I would really encourage people to do their research and not cling to old myths, especially regarding garbage,” she said.

Ricketts, speaking at the Nuclear Power Forum, said it was “unacceptable” for the state to suffer another round of blackouts such as those seen during the extreme cold snap in February.

The nation, according to the governor, needs a power source that works around the clock and is “reliable, affordable and sustainable”. Nuclear power, he said, should be part of an energy strategy that is “all of the above”.

Doubters, including the Sierra Club, doubt whether the new technologies are really better and whether federal money should be spent on other alternatives.

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, a nonprofit that claims to provide “unbiased” information about nuclear energy, wrote an open letter to Gates in August saying that liquid sodium-cooled reactors have been down for 70 years.

In Nebraska, the new incentives for nuclear power were passed in the legislature by 47 votes to 0. Proponents point out that the state gets about 24% of its total electricity from the NPPD’s Cooper nuclear power plant, which provides about 600 jobs.

Bostelman said the new nuclear technologies offer the state an economic opportunity because they would create high-paying jobs in rural areas. She teaches a course on working in the nuclear power industry at Southeast Community College, and Bostelman said many of her students wanted to stay in the state.

Proponents admit that it has a role to play in raising public awareness of nuclear energy, but at least some surveys suggest that support is increasing and that younger people are more receptive to it than older generations.

Kent, the CEO of NPPD, said his district will have to decide pretty soon whether to look to expand to operate its nuclear power plant beyond 2035 or to look for other ways to generate electricity. He said that NPPD had spoken to three advanced nuclear power suppliers and that the utility needed a mix of “base load” power sources to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

It is not a problem to wait several years to see if the new nuclear technologies have proven themselves, Kent said.

When the air is below zero, a lone blue jay perches on a branch in Holmes Lake Park on Tuesday.

FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star