The federal government needs to do more than just prop up existing nuclear reactors to achieve its climate goals, executives of a major nuclear non-profit and a labor union said in an op-ed Wednesday.
Though the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) both “welcome” the Joe Biden administration’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that provides roughly $6 billion in aid to struggling nuclear plants, the White House must also expand the country’s nuclear footprint, said ANS president Steven Nesbit and IBEW president Lonnie Stephenson in an op-ed published by the non-profit Wednesday.
“[C]limate change requires that we do more than preserve existing reactors and correct market flaws,” said Nesbit and Stephenson. “We must expand nuclear energy as well. By building new reactors at old fossil fuel–fired power plant sites, President Biden can ensure reliable clean energy and high-paying jobs for working families across the country.”
Any attempt to decarbonize the U.S. economy would require expanding nuclear energy alongside renewables and carbon capture technology, the op-ed argued. Citing a Princeton study, Nesbit and Stephenson said that a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 would require 250 new nuclear power plants or “several thousand” small modular reactors (SMRs) which would be installed at retiring coal or gas plants.
While pro-nuclear groups push for expanding nuclear, power plants are closing faster than they’re going up. By the end of the year three plants will be shuttered for good: Exelon announced last month that it would close Illinois’s Byron and Dresden plants in the fall, and Indian Point Energy Center in New York went dark back in April. Michigan’s Palisades plant is also slated for closure in 2022.
