It’s become a biannual tradition.

Since 2021, when North Carolina adopted a law requiring Duke Energy to zero out its carbon pollution, advocates have spent every other year poring over the company’s plans for supplying this state of 11 million with clean electricity. 

As of late last month, the first phase of the new ritual is now complete: citizens turned out by the hundreds to public hearings around the state and submitted written comments; and dozens of organizations, businesses, and large customers filed testimony to the state’s Utilities Commission, charged with approving or amending Duke’s plan by year’s end.  

A review of these comments shows clear dissatisfaction with Duke’s plan, which critics say is too reliant on gas and unproven technologies and too dismissive of resources like solar and battery storage.  

But there are also a few powerful institutions pulling in the opposite direction. And their voices could grow louder in the coming months, as the state enters the next phase of in-person, expert witness hearings. 

The law requires Duke to cut its carbon pollution by 70% by 2030 and at least 95% by midcentury, in line with scientists’ recommendations for avoiding catastrophic global warming. The statute directs regulators on the Utilities Commission to develop a plan to make that happen and to update the blueprint every two years.

Even as the popular, bipartisan measure moved through the legislative process, some critics worried it gave too much deference to Duke and did not make clear that regulators — not the utility — would chart the state’s path to a decarbonized electricity sector.

Still, after Duke in 2022 issued its first Carbon Plan proposal — a document covering hundreds of pages and including four different pathways for achieving net zero — a host of outside stakeholders put forward their own plans for the commission to mull, hoping the panel would pick and choose from them or even craft its own blueprint.

But in the end, after months upon months of expert hearings, public input, and thousands of pages of written testimony, the commission adopted Duke’s plan with few edits. 

This first Carbon Plan order was largely nonbinding. But after regulators sided with Duke on virtually every major issue — from how much the company should drive energy efficiency to how much solar it can connect annually to the grid — advocates this year are taking a slightly different tack. 

Rather than devise their own painstaking models to compete with Duke and its army of lawyers, engineers, and other experts, this time most organizations are starting with the company’s portfolios and critiquing key elements.

‘Most reasonable, least cost, least risk plan’

As in the lead up to the first Carbon Plan, this year Duke has proposed multiple routes to zero carbon by midcentury, with one clear preference. Offered in January after predicting a steep rise in electricity demand, that pathway is to add over 22 gigawatts of renewable energy and battery storage in the next decade, including from ocean-based wind turbines.

In the same time frame, the company wants to shutter most of its coal plants and add nearly 9 gigawatts of new gas plants, nearly three times the immediate build-out it proffered two years ago and one of the largest such proposals in the country. It also envisions two small nuclear plants of 300 megawatts each, about a seventh the size of the state’s largest nuclear plant outside Charlotte.

The company seeks to exploit exceptions in the state’s law to achieve a 70% cut in carbon emissions by 2035 instead of 2030. And while its plans to zero out its pollution are vague, they rest partially on building more nuclear reactors by 2050 and fueling any remaining gas plants with hydrogen – a technology still under development.

Still, Duke’s focus is on the immediate term. In its January filing, it sought support for “pursuing near-term actions that align with [its preferred pathway] as the most reasonable, least cost, least risk plan to reliably transition the system and prudently plan for the needs of…customers at this time.”

‘Imperative that the 2030 target be met’ 

Numerous commenters questioned that assertion, including the company’s premise that ratcheting down emissions more slowly than the law prescribes presents a “lower execution risk.” 

Perhaps most notably, the Clean Energy Buyers Association, a group of 400 major corporations from a range of sectors with their own sustainability targets, argued forcefully against delaying the 2030 target. 

“The ability of [our] members that are Duke customers to meet their clean energy commitments depends in large part on how clean Duke’s resource mix is,” the association’s Kyle Davis said in written testimony. He went on to say regulators should “only” approve a near-term plan that would allow Duke to cut its pollution 70% by decade’s end. 

Similarly, a group of local government Duke customers with climate goals, including major cities Raleigh and Greensboro and small college towns Boone and Davidson, noted that Duke’s energy mix would dictate whether they could meet their aims.

“Due to the urgency of the climate crisis and the implications to the health and well-being of the constituents we serve,” the cities and counties wrote, “it is imperative that the 2030 target be met in the timelines specified in [the law.]”

Testifying for the office of the Attorney General Josh Stein, expert witness Edward Burgess noted that the commission has not yet abandoned the 2030 deadline and that, according to the law, the 70% cut could only slip past 2032 under “very specific conditions” that have not been met.

Regulators haven’t authorized a nuclear or wind project that has been delayed beyond Duke’s control, he asserted, and a delay wasn’t necessary to maintain the “adequacy and reliability of the existing grid.”

Recognizing Duke’s latest increased demand projections, Burgess urged commissioners to “set a clear directive for Duke to achieve the Interim Target by no later than 2032.” Otherwise, said the witness for the attorney general, the public interest would be harmed by the “increase [in] the cumulative tons of CO2 emitted, which would remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years.”

‘Arbitrary limits on battery and solar’

The process by which Duke maps its generation plans over the next decade is complex and time intensive. But it’s aided by a computer modeling program that weighs various factors including costs to produce an optimal generation mix.

This method produces more solar and battery storage each year than Duke thinks is possible or appropriate to connect to the grid, so the company imposes manual limits on the computer program. Critics call that step unnecessary and damaging to the project of curbing carbon emissions in a least-cost manner. 

“Solar [photovoltaic] is the cheapest source of carbon-free electrons on the grid now and for the foreseeable future,” testified expert witness John Michael Hagerty on behalf of the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association. “All things being equal, the more generation… that Duke can get from solar PV instead of other resources, the cheaper it will be for Duke to comply with carbon reduction targets.”

Michael Goggin, an expert witness for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association and clean energy groups represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, analyzed other grid operators around the country and estimated that Duke could connect around 4 gigawatts of solar and storage annually, compared to the upper limit of 2.8 gigawatts suggested by the utility.

“Duke’s arbitrary limits on solar and battery interconnection should be greatly increased if not eliminated,” Goggin wrote. “These limits do not reflect reality, and there are many potential solutions to the interconnection challenges Duke claims in its attempt to justify these limits.” 

Pleading for more offshore wind

While numerous commenters were happy to see Duke move much more ambitiously toward offshore wind than it did two years ago, they noted the utility’s projected 2.4 gigawatts — enough to power about a million homes — fell significantly short of the near-term potential in ocean wind areas off the state’s coast. 

“The Carolina Long Bay projects have the potential to reach more than 2 gigawatts, and the Kitty Hawk Projects have the potential to reach nearly 3.5 gigawatts,” two employees of wind company Avangrid testified. “Therefore, there is additional offshore wind resource beyond the Preferred Portfolio request available to North Carolina.”

The state’s Department of Commerce has taken a keen interest in offshore wind because of its vast potential for economic development. Jennifer Mundt, an assistant secretary at the Department, implored regulators and Duke to “set a path forward… that directs the deployment of at least 6.0 gigawatts of offshore wind by the mid-2030s.” 

Such development is achievable with the Carolina Long Bay and Kitty Hawk areas, she said, and “will unlock billions in capital expenditures and tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for North Carolinians, and boost Duke towards its mandate to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century – a true win-win-win scenario.”

A pair of experts testifying for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association noted that Duke would benefit from being a “second mover” on offshore wind in the United States: it could learn from the many other projects underway on the Eastern seaboard without putting ratepayers at risk. 

In contrast, John O’Brien and Philip Moor warned that for small modular nuclear reactors, “it is unclear when the Companies will be a second mover… the only approved project design…has been cancelled, and the closest designs… are under development by TerraPower and the Tennessee Valley Authority.”

Skepticism of new gas and ‘advanced’ nuclear

Indeed, while most clean energy advocates believe large, existing, emissions-free nuclear power plants can play a vital role in curbing carbon pollution, several say Duke’s near-term pursuit of as-yet unproven small modular reactors over more readily available alternatives is a mistake.

“Given the long lead-times, nuclear experts have found that [small modular reactors] will do nothing to address climate change, as the technology is too little, too late,” Grant Smith, senior energy policy advisor with Environmental Working Group, testified on behalf of his group, Durham nonprofit NC WARN, and others.

Numerous stakeholders criticized Duke’s plan to build 10 new gas plants in the next decade, half of which would be large baseload plants forced by new federal rules to run 40% of the time or less. Not only would Duke customers be on the hook for these underutilized plants, critics argued, they’d also be subject to erratic fuel prices.

“In North Carolina, this volatility was at the heart of hundreds of millions of dollars of recent fuel cost increases approved by the commission,” expert witness Evan Hansen testified on behalf of Appalachian Voices. “The Companies’ proposed aggressive build-out of natural gas-fired power plants will only increase their exposure, and their ratepayers’ exposure, to the future volatility of natural gas prices.”

The company’s strategy of converting gas plants to run on hydrogen molecules separated from other compounds as late as 2049 also strains credulity for some. 

“Duke’s general plan to build new natural gas-firing facilities and then transition those facilities to 100% hydrogen-firing faces significant technical uncertainty, infrastructure hurdles and costs,” testified William McAleb for the Environmental Defense Fund. The plants, he said, “are not necessary to maintain grid reliability, may never be co-fired with hydrogen, and will likely raise rates.”

The Clean Energy Buyers Association also suggested that Duke’s plan to supply its members with gas-fired electricity could backfire, causing the state to lose economic development projects and the utility to lose new customers.

“Some of the new load that Duke is forecasting may not materialize if Duke increases the carbon intensity of its resource mix as it has proposed to do in this docket, since some of the customers bringing new load… have clean energy targets,” the association’s Davis wrote. 

If that happens, he said, “and Duke overbuilds with fossil fuel capacity, it would result in higher costs for existing customers and make it more difficult for existing customers to meet their sustainability targets.”

Amid all this criticism, support for Duke’s approach stood out, especially where the timeline is concerned.

Testifying for the Carolina Industrial Group for Fair Industrial Rates, a powerful consortium of manufacturers and other large Duke customers, Brian Collins asserted, “there is increased cost and risk in reliably meeting the interim 70% target by 2030. As a result, I recommend that the Commission not require Duke to meet the 70% emission reductions target by 2030.”

Public Staff, the state-sanctioned ratepayer advocate, believes that compliance with the interim pollution cut is possible by 2034 but not before. And the state’s 26 electric cooperatives, which buy electricity wholesale from Duke, expressed some concern about the speed of transmission upgrades necessary to add renewable energy to the grid fast enough. 

A technical conference is scheduled for next week in Raleigh, and what is likely to be weeks of expert-witness hearings begin July 22.

Groups urge N.C. regulators to push Duke Energy on solar and wind, pump the brakes on new gas is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel will hear arguments Tuesday about whether two citizen groups can challenge Energy Harbor’s application to extend the life of Ohio’s Perry nuclear plant through 2046.

The Ohio Nuclear-Free Network and Beyond Nuclear say they are worried about potential radioactive leaks into Lake Erie, as well earthquake risks that were not understood four decades ago when the plant was originally licensed. They also question whether the company adequately considered whether relicensing is necessary.

Both Energy Harbor and the NRC staff oppose the groups’ petition to intervene, which would give the anti-nuclear advocates a formal role as parties in the case, with the right to submit and challenge evidence at a hearing.

“The idea of having an adversarial proceeding is for us at least to have a chance to scrutinize the evidence more closely than the NRC staff might,” said Terry Lodge, an attorney in Toledo who represents the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network and Beyond Nuclear in the case.

However, it’s not unusual for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff to seek to limit interventions, according to national experts on nuclear licensing cases.

In general, “the ways they construct their rules on hearings and standards are very restrictive,” said Diane Curran, an attorney who works on nuclear power plant issues and is not involved in the case. And companies that want to keep their plants running have had a winning track record for getting license renewals granted.

Remaining issues

The environmental groups’ reply brief said they plan to withdraw their contentions about earthquake risks, which the NRC staff argued can be “addressed by ongoing regulatory processes.” Although new information came to light after the plant began operating, those risks presumably existed when the plant was first licensed. So, the staff said, they don’t belong in a relicensing case. 

Beyond Nuclear and the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network argue that neither the renewal application nor its environmental report address the impacts of radioactive tritium or other radionuclides that can leak from the plant, including how they might interact with other contaminants in Lake Erie. Energy Harbor’s environmental report filed with its application notes that tritium was found in groundwater wells near the site in 2020 and 2021. The groups’ reply said they provided enough information to show there is an issue, whose merits would be decided later based on evidence at a hearing.

The groups also argued that Energy Harbor’s environmental report exaggerated the potential adverse consequences if the plant shuts down, and that understanding the actual consequences matters when it comes to considering alternatives that could avoid or mitigate environmental risks posed by the plant.

It’s unclear how much consideration the groups’ concerns will get if their petition to intervene is denied.

“The NRC’s technical review process includes multiple opportunities for the community near a plant to provide input on potential environmental impacts of license renewal,” said Scott Burnell, a public affairs officer at the commission. “The NRC technical staff consider this input to ensure our review appropriately addresses matters under the agency’s jurisdiction.”

But that consideration would not take place in the context of a public hearing, Lodge said. And there’s no guarantee about how deeply the staff would consider different issues in its back-and-forth communications with Energy Harbor. It’s “very optional,” he said.

And while the commission must publish its proposed environmental impact statement for public comment, its rules also make it hard to raise issues after the fact. The NRC often treats various issues as “generic,” even though the law calls for a site-specific consideration, Lodge said.

“The NRC has basically constructed the rules around relicensing to make them a very pro forma process,” said Tim Judson, executive director for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Generally, the main focus is on whether a company has an adequate “aging management program, to be able to monitor and repair things as needed.”

Connie Kline, a member of the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network, said she was surprised that the NRC staff was “so virulent” in opposing the groups’ participation in the case and basically echoing Energy Harbor’s points. From her perspective, that’s worrisome, because the agency’s job is to regulate industry in order to protect the public.

“We call NRC, in many respects, a lap dog and not a watchdog,” Kline said.

Members of the public may listen to but not comment during the oral argument and prehearing on Jan. 30. A Jan. 22 notice from the NRC provided the dial-in number, but did not state the time to call. A separate Jan. 4 order says the proceeding will start at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Federal agency, Energy Harbor seek to keep citizen groups out of Perry nuclear plant case is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Climate and clean energy advocates in New Hampshire say a pending proposal to define nuclear power as clean energy could undercut solar and wind power in the state. 

Though the details are still in the works, state Rep. Michael Vose, chair of the legislature’s science, technology, and energy committee, is drafting a bill that would allow nuclear power generators, such as New Hampshire’s Seabrook Station, to receive payments for contributing clean energy to the grid. 

“The broad idea is that, long-term, we can hope and expect that that reliable source of baseload power will always be there,” Vose said. “It won’t be driven out of business by subsidized renewable power.” 

Some environmental advocates, however, worry that the proposal would provide unnecessary subsidies to nuclear power while making it harder for solar projects to attract investors. 

“It’s just another way to reduce support for solar,” said Meredith Hatfield, associate director for policy and government relations at the Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire. 

Renewables and reliability

New Hampshire’s renewable portfolio standard — a binding requirement that specifies how much renewable power utilities must purchase — went into effect in 2008. To satisfy the requirement in that first year, utilities had to buy renewable energy certificates representing 4% of the total megawatt-hours they supplied that year. The number has steadily climbed, hitting 23.4% this year. 

New Hampshire was the second-to-last state in the region to create a binding standard — Vermont switched from a voluntary standard to a mandated one until 2015. New Hampshire’s standard tops out at 25.2% renewable energy in 2025, but the other New England states range from 35% to 100% and look further into the future. 

Vose, however, worries that even New Hampshire’s comparatively modest targets could put the reliability of the power supply at risk. 

“Until we can have affordable, scalable battery storage, the intermittency of renewables is going to guarantee that renewables are unreliable,” Vose said. “And if we add too many renewables to our grid, it makes the whole grid unreliable.”

That idea has been widely debunked. Grid experts say variable renewables may require different planning and system design but are not inherently less reliable than fossil fuel generation.

The details of Vose’s clean energy standard bill have not yet been finalized. A clean energy standard is broadly different from a renewable energy standard in that it includes nuclear power, which does not emit carbon dioxide, but which uses a nonrenewable fuel source. Those writing the legislation, however, will have to decide whether it will propose incorporating the new standard into the existing renewable portfolio standard or operating the two systems alongside each other.

Clean energy advocates say they are not necessarily opposed to a clean energy standard, but argue it is crucial that such a program not pit nuclear power and renewable energy against each other for the same pool of money. And they are concerned that that’s just what Vose’s bill will do. 

“While we would welcome a robust conversation about how to design a clean energy standard, I fear that’s not what this bill is,” said Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of nonprofit Clean Energy New Hampshire. 

Undermining renewables

If a clean energy standard is structured so both nuclear and renewables qualify to meet the requirements, clean energy certificates from nuclear power generators would flood the market, causing the price to plummet. Seabrook alone has a capacity of more than 1,250 megawatts, while the largest solar development in the state has a capacity of 3.3 megawatts. Revenue from renewable energy certificates is an important part of the financial model for many renewable energy projects, so falling prices would likely mean fewer solar developments could attract investors or turn a profit. 

At the same time, nuclear generators could sell certificates for low prices, as they already have functioning financial models that do not include this added revenue. Nuclear could, in effect, drive solar and other renewables out of the market almost entirely, clean energy advocates worry.

“The intention of the [renewable portfolio standard] has always been about creating fuel diversity by getting new generation built, and a proposal like that would do the opposite,” Evans-Brown said.

A single standard that combines nuclear and renewables could also hurt development of solar projects in another way, Hatfield said. When New Hampshire utilities do not purchase enough renewable energy credits to cover the requirements, they must make an alternative compliance payment. These payments are the only source of money for the state Renewable Energy Fund, which provides grants and rebates for residential solar installations and energy efficiency projects. 

“If you add in nukes and therefore there’s plentiful inexpensive certificates, then you basically have no alternative compliance payments,” Hatfield says. “It could potentially dry up the only real source we have in the state for clean energy rebates.”

Though Vose and the bill’s other authors have not yet released the details of the proposal, he has indicated that he would not like the new clean energy standard to significantly increase costs for New Hampshire’s ratepayers. The existing standard cost ratepayers $58 million in 2022, when utilities were required to buy certificates covering 15% of the power they supplied, according to a state report issued last month. 

The legislation may meet the same fate as last year’s effort, Vose acknowledged, but he is still eager to get people talking about the issue. 

“Even if we can’t get such a standard passed in this session,” he said, “we can at least begin a serious discussion about what a clean energy standard might look like.” 

Advocates fear N.H. clean energy proposal would pit nuclear against solar, wind is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

As an Ohio uranium enrichment plant opened this month, yet another study questioned whether nuclear power from small modular reactors can compete with other types of electricity generation. 

Centrus Energy’s new plant in Piketon produces high-assay, low-enriched uranium, or HALEU. The fuel will contain between 5% and 20% fissile uranium, or U-235, which is the range needed for various types of small modular reactors, or SMRs. The current fleet of large nuclear reactors uses fuel with up to 5% U-235.

Large nuclear plants have had problems competing with other types of electricity generation in recent years. Ohio’s House Bill 6 would have mandated ratepayer spending of more than $1 billion to subsidize the 894-megawatt Davis-Besse plant and 3,758-megawatt Perry plant in Ohio, for example. Lawmakers repealed that law’s nuclear subsidies after alleged corruption came to light.

Now the question is whether small modular reactors designed to produce up to 300 MW of electricity can compete better.

Huge gigawatt-scale nuclear plants can have economies of scale because their power output grows faster than increases in capital and operating expenditures.

“However, the extensive customization of many of the currently deployed reactors undercuts much of that economy,” said William Madia, a nuclear chemist and emeritus professor at Stanford University who is now a member of Centrus’ board of directors.

The lack of a standard design also makes it harder for large reactors to get replacement parts when needed. “Things like large-scale forgings are in short supply globally,” Madia noted.

In contrast, small modular reactors can be built in indoor factories and then sent to where they’ll be used. That avoids site-by-site mobilization costs, as well as weather problems that might interrupt construction. 

“But the real driver is standardized design,” Madia said. So eventually, production can take place on assembly lines. And that should produce its own economies.

All in all, “the capital cost for SMRs is much lower than GW-scale machines,” Madia said. Also, if the choice is between lower-cost modular reactors and huge ones, “many, many more utilities can afford a few billion dollars on their balance sheets. Very few can handle $10-plus billion.”

Facing competition

No small modular reactors are operating commercially in the United States yet.  

“Right now, if you’re looking to spend money on bringing new generation online, you have tech that you know works with wind and solar and storage,” said Neil Waggoner, federal deputy director for energy campaigns at the Sierra Club.

An analysis published this month by the journal Energy estimated the levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, for different types of small modular reactors. The LCOE basically reflects the average costs for producing a unit of power over the course of a generation source’s lifetime. 

Small modular reactors “seem to be non-competitive when compared to current costs for generating electricity from renewable energy sources,” the Energy study found.

Comparing intermittent resources like wind and solar to “dispatchable resources with small land footprints is a flawed exercise,” said Diane Hughes, vice president of marketing and communications for NuScale Power. Nuclear energy from small reactors requires little new transmission infrastructure, she added. So, “the cost per plant is comprehensive in a way that one solar array or wind farm is not.”

Yet the Energy study found renewables would still be more competitive even with added system integration costs that would roughly double the levelized cost of electricity.

“These costs can stem from batteries, but there are also many other means of flexibility that can be used,” said Jens Weibezahn, one of the study’s corresponding authors and an economist at the Copenhagen Business School’s School of Energy Infrastructure.

Weibezahn’s group got similar results when they compared the projected market value for energy from small modular reactors with the weighted market value for renewable electricity at the time of generation. Costs for dealing with radioactive waste “will add a significant additional economic burden” on nuclear technologies, he added.

A March 2023 study by Colorado State University researchers suggested the economics for SMRs wouldn’t be dramatically better than those for large reactors. The researchers also found the levelized costs of electricity for different types of small modular reactors would be substantially higher than that for natural gas power plants without carbon capture.

However, “natural gas plants release tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases which engender societal and environmental costs,” said the paper in Applied Energy. Adding in carbon capture increased the estimated levelized cost of energy for the natural gas plants to the general range for the small modular reactors.

Commercial methane-fired power plants with carbon capture are not yet running at scale. The American Petroleum Association has objected to proposed rules that might effectively require such equipment.

How things will shake out in the future is unclear, said Jason Quinn, who heads the sustainability laboratory at Colorado State University and is the corresponding author for the March study. But, he added, “typically decisions are driven on economics, and current SMR estimates show them not to be a commercially viable solution as compared to other technologies.” 

SMRs coming to Ohio

For now, initial production at the Centrus HALEU plant will meet a commitment to the Department of Energy. Centrus expects the plant will employ up to 500 direct employees when it moves to full-scale commercial production, said Larry Cutlip, vice president for field operations. Supporting industries will provide work for another 1,000 to 1,300 people. And all those workers could stimulate economic activity for roughly eight times as many jobs, he added.

Centrus already plans to supply HALEU fuel to TerraPower and Oklo, Inc. Each company has its own individual SMR design and is working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission toward having the designs certified. 

Oklo plans to build two sodium-cooled fast reactors in Piketon near the Centrus’s HALEU production plant. Each of the SMRs could supply up to 15 MW of electricity and more than 25 MW of clean heating, said spokesperson Bonita Chester.

Plans call for the SMRs to supply some carbon-free electricity for the Centrus facility. Other possible customers for electricity include commercial, industrial or municipal entities. 

“As for the clean heating output, we envisage potential industrial partners and applications for district heating systems,” Chester said. 

The ability to sell or otherwise use the heat as well as electricity could potentially lower the average costs.

“We are committed to ensuring that our electricity and heating output remain competitive with other forms of energy generation,” Chester added. “Our technology benefits from simplified design and cost-effective materials, making it an economically effective option.”

NuScale plans to deploy a dozen 77-megawatt small modular reactors in Ohio and another dozen in Pennsylvania for Standard Power data center projects by 2029. Those pressurized water reactors can use low-enriched uranium and won’t need HALEU, Hughes noted.

Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk expects HALEU and small nuclear reactors that rely on it will be competitive.

“People appreciate the importance of baseload power, and I think that will be even more important as we further decarbonize the electricity economy,” Turk said. That will appropriately include more wind and solar energy, “but it’s good to have that baseload power to make it all work in the end.”

Electricity from SMRs will be “a real source of energy security and energy resilience,” Turk added. “You need diversification, but you need to have a variety of different inputs going into the system.”

“Nuclear certainly can provide baseload, but it does this at a cost significantly higher than an integrated renewables-based system,” Weibezahn said.

A bigger question may be whether there will be enough carbon-free electricity. 

The Department of Energy estimates the United States will need to triple nuclear energy production to about 300 GW by 2050. That growth will be driven by advanced nuclear technologies, much of which will use HALEU.

“If we want to meet our climate goals and meaningfully reduce carbon emissions, we need all sources of clean energy, including wind, solar and nuclear energy,” said Jess Gehin, associate lab director for nuclear science and technology at Idaho National Laboratory. “Current projections show that we cannot meet our climate goals without nuclear energy.”

As nuclear fuel plant opens in Ohio, can small reactors compete? is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article originally appeared in the Sahan Journal.

Standing in the same former bean field he played in as a child, Prairie Island Indian Community President Johnny Johnson recently led a crowd of project partners and community members in celebrating progress on the tribe’s net zero carbon project. 

More than two years after its inception, the project features an almost complete solar field, in-the-works geothermal energy wells, and plans to reduce energy consumption and costs for Prairie Island residents. 

“It was a long and worthwhile journey,” Johnson said. “Our path to net zero is a transformational opportunity, not just for the Prairie Island Community, but for any community that is trying to reduce its impact on the environment.”

Prairie Island first contacted legislators in 2018 to get support for the project, Johnson said. It wasn’t until two years later in 2020 that Governor Tim Walz signed legislation greenlighting the project.

The Prairie Island Indian Community reservation, which lies along the Mississippi and Vermillion rivers in and adjacent to Red Wing in southeastern Minnesota, is home to descendants of the Mdewakanton Band of Eastern Dakota.

Johnson’s family had no electricity or running water until 1968, when the federal government built 12 homes in the community. Tribal members now live in about 150 homes. The reservation operates the Treasure Island Casino, which has operated since the 1980s.

As the community has grown, so has the need for energy. Now built atop what was once an unused pile of sand dredged from the Mississippi is a mostly complete 5.4-megawatt field of solar panels that Prairie Island leaders hope will be a step toward what they call “energy sovereignty.”

The solar field is not currently in operation; it’s expected to be up and running in early 2024.

Energy has long been a topic of conversation for Prairie Island’s community, which sits in the shadow of one of Minnesota’s two nuclear power plants. In 1973, the federal government authorized construction of the facility less than a mile from the reservation. 

Over the years, many Prairie Island tribal members have voiced dismay that the plant and nuclear waste storage are so close to their reservation. In March, Xcel Energy agreed to increase its annual payment to the community from $2.5 million to $10 million to compensate it for storing spent nuclear waste near its land.

Plans for the future

Knobelsdorff, an industrial electrical contractor, partnered with Prairie Island to install the solar field, according to its CEO, Karl von Knobelsdorff. 

Construction of the geothermal plant and wells included in the project’s plans is still in its early stages, with drilling having only recently begun near the solar field. Prairie Island and its partners expect it to be completed in 2025.

Geothermal wells use temperatures underground, which remain relatively consistent, to heat or cool buildings depending on the season.

Another key part of the net zero carbon project highlighted Thursday by Prairie Island leaders is the Residential Energy Upgrade Program. There are hopes it will reduce both energy consumption and costs for residents by upgrading insulation and converting heating systems and stoves to electricity.

Five tribal members worked on installing the solar field. They were excited about learning to work with solar energy, Johnson said.

“Each and every one of them said they either wanted to continue working on a project similar to this, or just be more involved in the solar project here,” he said.

Solar Bear, a Native American-owned solar installation company based in Minneapolis, worked with Knobelsdorff to create a program to train Prairie Island tribal members to work on the project.

Von Knobelsdorff said three of the tribal members who have been working on the project will stay on as full-time employees.

Tribal members get involved

Five years ago, before the net zero project had even gained traction, Prairie Island resident Tina Jefferson installed solar panels on her roof to power lights all around her yard. 

“My grandkids think I’m crazy—‘Grandma, you’ve got all these lights everywhere!’” Jefferson said. “Well, I don’t have to pay for electricity—it’s free!”

Although her house isn’t fully powered by solar, it’s a step toward what she sees as the future for herself and her community.

Jefferson participated in “Intro to Solar” classes Prairie Island offered community members, then went on to help build the solar array in the field.

“Part of the reason why I joined this project is because I wanted to express that we as individuals want that in our homes,” Jefferson said. “We want to be off the grid as much as possible.”

Jefferson hopes Prairie Island’s project will inspire other tribal communities in Minnesota to take on similar projects.

“I know several community members there [Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community], and they’ve talked about watching what we’re doing,” she said.

In the shadow of a nuclear plant, Prairie Island celebrates steps toward a green future is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.