The Progressive: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Antiques Road Show

The Progressive

August 2024

This summer marks the first time since 1954 that not a single large light water nuclear reactor will be under construction in the United States. As dozens of reactors have closed coast to coast—and countries like Germany and Japan have trimmed or shut down their nuclear fleets—the exorbitant price of building this power source has forced industry giants like Westinghouse Electric Company into bankruptcy.

Business is so bad that the industry’s last-ditch attempt to rebrand itself by launching so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) has run aground. The first American attempt to open one in Idaho was abandoned in November 2023 due to soaring costs. As it turns out, these SMRs are neither small nor modular. Another in Wyoming that might come online in six years will produce energy that costs three times the cost of readily available wind power.

Business is so bad that the industry’s last-ditch attempt to rebrand itself by launching so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) has run aground. 

The last two nuclear power plants to open in the United States, at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, have come in at $21 billion over the original $14 billion cost estimate—seven years late. Georgia Power customers are being hit with a 10 percent rate increase to cover these astounding Vogtle cost overruns.

Even worse, in New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut, a group of obsolete older reactors are on life support, thanks to more than $14 billion in bailouts. In 2021, Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill repealing a $1.1 billion bailout for two reactors cratered by a $60 million bribery scandal. One defendant, the former speaker of the state’s House of Representatives, was sentenced to twenty years in federal prison for his role in this scandal. At the same time all this was going on, Ohio’s legislature blocked a $4.2 billion investment in wind power.

Stanford University professor and climate expert Mark Z. Jacobson, whose research is central to the Green New Deal, pointed out on my podcast that electricity from Vogtle comes in at $16 per watt vs. $1 per watt for wind and $0.8 for solar. Wind, water, and solar power sources can be up and running in one to five years, he said, compared to a ten- to twenty-two-year wait for new nuclear power sources in the United States and Europe.

Despite all these obstacles, industry cheerleaders fall back on the lie that nuclear power is central to reversing climate change.

“The clean nuclear power argument from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy is nonsense,” Jacobson told me. “Mined uranium does not show up in perfect form. It must be refined, which takes a lot of energy and causes pollution. Nuclear reactors are belching huge amounts of water vapor and heat, contributing to local and global warming. Evaporated water from the giant steam generators is a greenhouse gas.

“New nuclear power plants cost 2.3 to 7.4 times those of onshore wind or utility solar [photovoltaic panels] per [kilowatt-hour] of electricity, take five to seventeen years longer between planning and operation, and produce nine to thirty-seven times the emissions per [kilowatt-hour] as wind.” 

In Michigan, where I live, wind, water, and solar investments can pay for themselves, cutting annual energy cost rates by more than 60 percent, eliminating potential blackouts, and creating 242,000 jobs in the process.

In view of these undeniable facts, the always-optimistic nuclear power industry has come up with a new strategy, attempting, for the first time, to resuscitate the closed Palisades nuclear reactor on Lake Michigan, sold for decommissioning just two years ago. For decades, Consumers Energy operated this nuclear power plant that did not meet more than fifty standard Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) codes.

After the NRC discovered the plant was not meeting the agency’s fire code in 1996, Consumers was fined $50,000. The Michigan utility paid the fine and continued operating in noncompliance with the fire code until 2007, when it sold Palisades to experienced fleet operator Entergy. 

Entergy continued to operate the plant, which closed in 2022 due to the loss of a government-subsidized power purchase agreement and the hard-to-predict cost of long-overdue safety upgrades. “But they never finished the promised modifications to the plant to be compliant with the fire code due to cost,” said former senior Entergy employee Alan Blind.

Although no fleet operator appears to be willing to touch this plant today, the industry’s nuclear waste mortician, Holtec International, has created a new business model with the help of the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, Michigan’s governor, and the state legislature.

After buying the plant for scrap and decommissioning it in 2022, Holtec, a company that has never built or operated a nuclear reactor, is now trying to reopen Palisades. Thanks to an estimated $8.3 billion in state and federal subsidies, Holtec optimistically plans to put the plant back into service by the end of 2025. This timeline seems even more unrealistic considering that operating Canadian reactors take a to refurbish.

If this controversial company successfully reopens Palisades, other abandoned reactors could potentially be brought back to life. Should Holtec fail, the industry may lose out to vastly less expensive carbon-free energy, including wind, solar, and water. “One thing we have learned in this business is that the industry is only as strong as its weakest player,” said Blind in an interview on my podcast. A former vice president for nuclear at Consolidated Edison, he served as Palisades design engineering manager for six years after the Entergy takeover in 2007. “If this first-time nuclear power plant operator fails at Palisades, it will reflect poorly on the entire nuclear industry and will result in the waste of many millions in taxpayer and rate payer dollars.”

It’s hard to understand why state and federal legislators want to prop up a nuclear industry plagued by the vast unresolved nuclear waste problem.

Considering this possibility, it’s hard to understand why state and federal legislators want to prop up a nuclear industry plagued by the vast unresolved nuclear waste problem. After all, carbon-free renewables coupled with enhanced battery storage eliminate the risk of another Three Mile Island, Fermi 1, Chernobyl, or Fukushima disaster. Equally troubling, said Jacobson, is the fact that 1.5 percent of nuclear reactors have experienced meltdown.

This solution is surprising, especially considering that according to the research of Kevin Kamps at Beyond Nuclear, the $20 million cost of each new job at Palisades (according to my calculations) could cover far more employment at solar and wind farms that are much quicker to build and provide lower-cost green energy.

With a portfolio of nuclear waste management contracts from Chernobyl to South Haven, Michigan, Holtec is banking on two weak arguments. One is attempting to falsely characterize nuclear power as the answer to global warming. Another, supported by its dubious Palisades restart plan, is the myth that a reactor operating in defiance of current NRC regulations is the quick fix to America’s energy challenges.

“I know this plant,” said Blind, “and I can assure you that a combination of aging equipment and the lack of spare parts from suppliers that are out of business will create endless challenges. Failure to comply with standard Nuclear Regulatory Commission code has led to many failures, a culture of accepting problems, and spills of radioactive tritium into Lake Michigan.”

“Past accidents with nuclear fuel rods have left behind so much radiation inside the reactor containment vessel that it will be very difficult and extremely expensive to make long overdue mandatory repairs,” Blind added. “There are also ethical questions surrounding the need to subject workers to all this harmful radiation. I seriously question whether this plant will ever be able to safely reopen.”

Roger Rapoport

Roger Rapoport is an investigative journalist and the host of the new podcast "The Nuclear Reactor Next Door," available on all major platforms. He has covered the nuclear industry for many years and is author of "The Great American Bomb Machine."