Could New Nuclear Technologies Help Nebraska Utilities Reduce Carbon Emissions? – Longview News-Journal

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

Representatives of the Nebraska Public Power District and the Omaha Public Power District were among those attending an October seminar in Lincoln on “advanced” nuclear power, where advocates said new technologies will ensure that nuclear power is a player in America’s energy future.

“The next generation of advanced nuclear technology is something we’re following pretty closely,” said Tom Kent, president and CEO of NPPD, which operates one of the 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 — is going to be part of reducing carbon emissions, Kent said.

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

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Tim Uehling, a senior director in the decommissioning of the Fort Calhoun facility, said that if the new technologies prove to be commercially viable, they could become options to help the Omaha-based power district achieve its goal of a net-zero carbon footprint by 2050.

Last week, NPPD’s board also adopted a goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Some environmental groups are urging caution about what they consider unproven technologies, calling them “PowerPoint” reactors. They point out that none of the new-generation plants have been built and that it will be a decade or more before it’s known if they are commercially practical and affordable.

Edwin Lyman, an expert on nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, is not optimistic that the new, smaller reactors will be feasible.

“These plants face many hurdles to commercial deployment,” Lyman said. “Cost is probably the biggest problem, as even operating reactors are having trouble competing with other electricity sources such as renewables.”

But their development is gaining momentum because of the support and financial backing of people such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who bills it as a way to combat climate change. There are also efforts underway by a group of Nebraskans, including the wife of a state senator, to promote the new technologies.

That group organized the October seminar, the Nebraska Advanced Nuclear Forum. It drew 170 people, including Gov. Pete Ricketts and several state senators. The forum was a follow-up to the passage of a bill last spring that allows nuclear energy projects to qualify for tax credits under the state’s new economic development law, the ImagiNE Act.

The purpose of the daylong forum was to educate and to dispel concerns associated with nuclear power, such as meltdowns or partial meltdowns at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Ukraine and, most recently, the Fukushima power station in Japan, which was hit by a tsunami in 2011.

There also has been controversy over how and where to dispose of spent fuel and low-level radioactive waste. Nebraska had to pay a $146 million court judgment after it refused to license a proposed low-level radioactive waste repository in Boyd County.

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But advocates maintain that a new generation of nuclear power plants will be different and, because of the way they are cooled, will be much safer.

Jan Bostelman, a chemical and nuclear engineer whose husband, Bruce, is a state senator, said the “passive” design of the new reactors relies on gravity, instead of mechanical pumps, to circulate coolant. Thus, she said, a meltdown can’t be caused by a power outage that shuts down the cooling pumps.

Gates’ company, TerraPower, would use liquid sodium instead of water to cool its plants. TerraPower recently announced that it would build its first reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, where a coal-fired power plant is to be shut down. The $4 billion project will get half of its funding from a U.S. Department of Energy grant. Once completed, which is anticipated in 2028, it would be operated by Rocky Mountain Power, a division of Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s PacifiCorp.

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

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

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

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

“I would very much encourage people to do research on this and not to hold onto old myths, especially related to waste,” she said.

Ricketts, when he spoke at the nuclear power forum, said it is “unacceptable” for the state to endure another round of rolling blackouts, like those seen during the extreme cold snap in February.

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

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

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education, a nonprofit that says it provides “undistorted” information about nuclear energy, wrote an open letter to Gates in August, saying that liquid sodium-cooled reactors have a 70-year history of failure.

In Nebraska, the new incentives for nuclear energy passed on a 47-0 vote. Advocates point out that the state gets about 24% of its total electricity from NPPD’s Cooper Nuclear Station, which provides about 600 jobs.

Bostelman said the new nuclear technologies provide an economic opportunity for the state because they would provide high-paying jobs in rural areas. She teaches a class at Southeast Community College on working in the nuclear power industry, and Bostelman said many of her students want to remain in the state.

Advocates acknowledge that they have a job ahead to improve the public perception of nuclear energy, but at least a couple of polls indicate that support for it is rising and that younger people are more receptive to it than older generations.

Kent, the CEO of NPPD, said that his district will have to decide fairly soon whether to seek an extension to operate its nuclear plant past 2035 or look for other ways to generate electricity. He said that NPPD has talked with three advanced nuclear power vendors and that the utility will need a mix of “base load” power sources to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

Waiting several years to see if the new nuclear technologies are proven isn’t a concern, Kent said.

“In utility terms, having something available by the end of the decade is pretty quick,” he said.