Renewables and natural gas may be putting some nuclear
out of business, but it is mostly the natural gas that is
taking its place.
Last week, the
Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in
Nebraska became the fifth nuclear power station
to shut down in the last five years.
Fort
Calhoun was the smallest nuclear plant in the
U.S., with less than 500 megawatts. The
generation from
Fort Calhoun will likely be replaced by wind and
natural gas, according to data from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration. However,
Nebraska
is a coal-heavy state, and like some other states with
recently shuttered nuclear plants, coal could also fill some
of the energy void.
Low-cost renewables and natural gas are putting some
nuclear plants out of business, but it is the latter that is
most often replacing the offline nuclear capacity. Wind,
solar and energy efficiency do play a role in making up for
the lost nuclear power generation, but EIA data shows it is
natural gas, and in some cases coal, that is largely making
up the difference.
The closure of
Vermont Yankee was perhaps the exception,
with additional generation coming from electricity imports
in Canada,
which is primarily hydro.
California has called for the San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station
to be replaced in part by a mix of renewable energy,
efficiency measures, demand response and energy storage.
Although the utilities are investing in batteries, demand
response and renewables, most of the replacement capacity in
the year after the closure consisted of natural gas.
The decision on what can replace nuclear is a precarious
issue in some states. In
New York, for instance, the governor has mandated
that upstate nuclear plants stay open using new subsidies to
help the state meet its goal of 50 percent electricity by
2030, while at the same time calling for the downstate
Indian Point nuclear power plant to close. The
deal for subsidies for nuclear in upstate
New York is now the subject of a lawsuit.
There are a handful of other nuclear plants that will
retire in the next two years, including three of Exelon’s in
Illinois and
Massachusetts and Entergy’s Oyster
Creek plant in
New Jersey.
There are also a few new nuclear plants coming on-line in
the U.S.,
most with significant budget and timeline overruns. Watts
Bar 2, which began operation earlier this month, came
on-line more than 40 years after construction began. Georgia
Power’s Vogtle expansion is facing about $1.7 billion
in cost overruns.
Although there is more new nuclear coming on-line in the
U.S.
in the next few years than there has been in the past two
decades, there is still a very limited role for new nuclear
in most parts of the world.
“The static, top-heavy, monstrously expensive world of
nuclear power has less and less to deploy against today’s
increasingly agile, dynamic, cost-effective alternatives,”
Jonathon Porritt, co-founder of the Forum
for the Future and former chairman of the U.K.
Sustainable Development Commission, wrote in the
forward to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2015.
Although fossil fuel generation is still largely
replacing retired nuclear capacity in the short term in the
U.S., the 2015 World Nuclear Industry Status
Report suggests that clean, renewable energy could
ultimately be the replacement fuel.
Even in regions where nuclear is a priority, renewables
are still seeing far greater investment.
China, for example, leads the world in new
nuclear builds and spent about $9 billion in
2014 on the technology, but invested more than $83
billion on wind and solar in the same year.
By
Katherine Tweed
Originally published onGreentech Media,October 31,
2016
http://www.energycentral.com/news/us-nuclear-retirements-largely-replaced-fossil-fuels