By Robert Mullin

LA QUINTA, Calif. — The future of U.S. nuclear energy policy was the subject of a spirited Oxford-style debate at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners conference last week.

The resolution under debate: Retaining all U.S. nuclear capacity is essential to maintaining reliable, cost-effective, environmentally responsible service.

The event kicked off with an audience poll showing 48 respondents in favor of the resolution, six opposed and three neutral.

“Perfectly mirroring the population at large,” joked Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposes construction of new nuclear plants.

Cavanagh then addressed the audience, largely consisting of state utility commissioners.

“I’m going to point out to you that you’ve been rejecting that resolution with your feet for the last 40 years,” he said. “You’ve been right to do it, and you should continue to do it.”

Retaining all nuclear capacity is just one of many options available for ensuring a low-emission, cost-effective, reliable supply of power, Cavanagh contended.

“The nuclear option should compete with other low-carbon options and not be declared the winner in advance,” he said.

Cavanagh’s opponent was Michael Shellenberger, president of the pro-nuclear, climate change advocacy group Environmental Progress, who said the loss of nuclear power impedes decarbonization by increasing the role of coal and gas-fired generation.

Checkered History

Cavanagh reviewed the history of nuclear power development in the Pacific Northwest — specifically the Washington Public Power Supply System debacle in the early 1980s. WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion in bonds after more than $20 billion was spent to construct plants eventually deemed unnecessary for the region.

Since U.S. nuclear output peaked in 1990, the inflation-adjusted price of electricity has only fallen — as have emissions and consumption, Cavanagh said. There are 99 reactors online today, versus 112 then.

And the reactors still in service are getting old — averaging 36 years.

“Life extension past 40 is certainly possible, but it often requires significant investment and refurbishment,” Cavanagh said. “Energy efficiency projects are meanwhile continuing, and wind and solar are putting pressure on giant baseload units as they gain market share.”

While Cavanagh didn’t advocate for full-scale nuclear retirements, he said the financial viability of U.S. nuclear plants should be examined on a case-by-case basis.

One example of a plant requiring retirement, he said, is California’s Diablo Canyon, whose relicensing would have required Pacific Gas and Electric to invest 10 cents/kWh in refurbishments.

“That almost certainly puts the plant out of the money in the zero-carbon inventory we’re trying to build,” Cavanagh said. “A plant of that cost, that size, that inflexibility … becomes a liability, not an asset, in the continuing energy transition.”

‘Pre-Emptive’ Retirements

Shellenberger countered that the “pre-emptive” retirement of nuclear plants has resulted in a decline in clean energy’s share of total global output, despite the increase in renewable resources.

In California, power plant emissions have declined less than the national average since 2000, with that effect being especially pronounced since the passage of state climate legislation in 2006, Shellenberger said.

“People don’t like nuclear very much — they’re afraid of it,” Shellenberger said. “It’s a little bit more popular than coal, but I don’t think people fear coal in the same way as nuclear. They don’t think that they’re going to have to evacuate or that they’re going to get cancer” from a coal plant.

This belief persists despite the fact that a study published by the British medical journal The Lancet showed that nuclear is the safest way to generate power, Shellenberger said. “There’s really no debate about nuclear safety among people who study public health,” he said.

Shellenberger said that nuclear’s unpopularity translates into solar getting 140 times more in subsidies than nuclear generation, according to a 2013 U.S. Energy Information Administration report. Wind gets 17 times as much.

“I used to think that maybe environmentalists were naive in thinking that you can power the world on solar or wind,” Shellenberger said. “They’re not. When you actually read the documents, every time, they are pushing fossil fuel plants instead of nuclear because [Cavanagh] and the NRDC and Sierra Club know full well that you can’t power hospitals and cities and societies on intermittent sources of power that generate electricity just 20 or 30% of the time.”

Energy Efficiency not a Resource?

Shellenberger also derided claims that energy efficiency programs can be considered a resource and that they are responsible for flat electricity consumption in California in recent decades.

“Why didn’t it go up like the rest of the country?” Shellenberger asked. “Because we lost all of our manufacturing jobs due to high electricity prices and because we don’t need as much heating and cooling.”

Shellenberger “is painting a pretty dour picture of the global power sector, and in some ways he’s right,” Cavanagh responded. “And I’m here to cheer him up.”

Cavanagh said two things can change dramatically for the sector.

“One is just how fast these small-scale, fast-acquisition resources [such as solar and wind] can grow, and how quickly they can change a picture — national and international — that looks relatively dour right now,” Cavanagh said. “And the other is the contribution of energy efficiency, which [Shellenberger] says is not a resource.”

On the subject of subsidies, Cavanagh said, “When a nuclear power proponent complains about renewable energy subsidies, I have to say I feel like I’m being lectured on temperance from a barstool.”

Shellenberger countered that nuclear power received about 10 years of subsidies. On the question of speed of scalability, he pointed to a recent report appearing in the journal Science that showed that the fastest increases in the growth of carbon-free electricity have occurred during the scale-up of national nuclear programs.

“When you take [a nuclear power plant] offline, you’re giving a lease on life, not just to natural gas, but to coal,” Shellenberger said.

The debate concluded with a second audience poll on the original resolution. The result this time: 66 in favor and 22 against — a 75% majority for the pro-nuclear side, down from 84% at the beginning of the session.

Based on Oxford rules, Cavanagh could claim a debate win. But the argument over nuclear energy’s role will undoubtedly persist.