New EPA rules and nuclear power

It is time to recognize preventing severe climate change is a matter of national security – and that the availability of nuclear power is critically important. Not only is it the cleanest way to produce a large amount of “base-load” electricity without emitting greenhouse gases, it is also safe and reliable, generating 19 percent of the nation’s power.

In order to reduce our nation’s carbon footprint, renewable energy sources like solar and wind power can help, but on days when the weather isn’t cooperating they require backup energy from fossil fuels. Currently, solar and wind energy combined, even with tax credits and state mandates for renewable sources, contribute less than 5 percent to the power grid.

Because nuclear power is the largest source of zero-carbon energy, we must act promptly and decisively to ensure the continued use of existing nuclear plants – and development of a new generation of reactors using innovative advanced designs. That’s where the government comes in.

As a professor of nuclear engineering, I find the Environmental Protection Agency’s policy toward nuclear power problematic. Without existing nuclear plants, EPA’s carbon-reduction goals will be practically impossible to meet. Rather than recognize nuclear power’s value, EPAs proposed carbon regulations fall considerably short of what’s needed to keep operating nuclear plants online, counting only 6 percent of nuclear generation toward a state’s carbon intensity goal. And the rules actually penalize new nuclear plants that are being built in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.

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Cities may turn to new forms of nuclear power

by JENNIFFER WARDEL, THE Davis Clipper


BOUNTIFUL, UT —  Safer, more compact nuclear power may be Utah’s energy future.

According to Doug Hunter, general manager of Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), the group is currently looking at small modular nuclear reactors as a possible solution to the new EPA regulations that will severely restrict the state’s coal plants by 2024. Though no decisions have been made, UAMPS members cities including Bountiful Power and Rocky Mountain Power are looking into utilizing the smaller, safer reactors.

“The nice thing about these smaller reactors is that they have such a safety factor built in,” said Allen Johnson, director of Bountiful Power. “The bigger nuclear plants can be sort of scary.”

The modular reactors are smaller nuclear units currently being built in a plant in Idaho. Though they produce much less power than a larger reactor or even a coal plant, they can be used in conjunction to produce just over the power an average coal plant would put out. The advantage is that this power is carbon-free, making it safe from the EPA regulations.

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