Springfield News Leader: Nuclear is Missouri’s energy future
It’s increasingly doubtful Missouri will be able to shift away from heavy reliance on coal in the production of electricity — not because of any lack of will on the part of Missourians, but a flaw in the state’s renewable energy standard.
The downside of the renewable standard — which was adopted in 2008 to spur the use of energy sources like wind and solar power — is that it omits nuclear power, the nation’s leading source of zero-carbon energy.
That’s a serious problem, because in order to meet Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed federal standards for reducing greenhouse gases, Missouri would need to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by more than one-fifth by 2030. In the long run, limiting carbon dioxide emissions to safe and acceptable levels without nuclear power would be next to impossible.
We need to be concerned about this, regardless of whether we support or oppose nuclear power development.
There is no immediate crisis, but in the years ahead, relying on sources like wind and solar is more than wishful thinking. It could result in very unreliable electricity.
Without technology for large-scale energy storage, we cannot replace coal with solar and wind in providing base-load power around the clock, regardless of weather conditions. Nuclear can.
For all their promise, solar and wind have a fundamental flaw: They are unpredictable and often fail to produce electricity when it is most needed. They are not reliable enough to ensure supplies for an electric grid that must provide power on demand, when needed.
As more and more states are learning, the use of solar and wind have made the electrical grid more fragile, because of the intermittency. Last month, Ohio voted to roll back its renewable electricity standard, freezing the phasing-in of power that utilities are required to buy from renewable energy sources.
Today, renewable energy sources account for less than 3 percent of Missouri’s electricity generation, and most of that comes from conventional hydropower and wind. Only a tiny amount of power comes from solar energy.
By contrast, the Callaway nuclear plant produces nearly 10 percent of Missouri’s electricity, preventing the annual emission of 23,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, which forms acid rain, 5,549 tons of smog-producing nitrogen oxides and ore than 9.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The reality is that during the past decade the U.S. fleet of around 100 nuclear plants produced electricity about 90 percent of the time, compared to 70 percent of time for a coal plant, 60 percent for a combined-cycle gas plant and 30-40 percent for wind and even less for solar.
We would be foolish to turn our back on nuclear power. Our nuclear plants are recognized as among the best in the world. They are safe, efficient and reliable. And no other nation surpasses us in the regulation of nuclear power.
Interestingly, the two countries that have made the most progress in reducing carbon emissions, France and Sweden, have done so largely by supporting nuclear and hydropower.
Here in the U.S., there is an ample supply of nuclear fuel, and it is not dependent on overseas suppliers.
If Missouri is to prepare itself for a low-carbon energy future, the time to start moving ahead with improvements in the portfolio electricity standard is now. Otherwise, we will be trying to meet our energy needs without the substantial economic and environmental benefits of nuclear technology.
