What is the best way for utilities to delay the transition from fossil fuels? Propose to build nuclear reactors.
Electricity utilities wanting to “decarbonize” have several options for replacing the fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) plants on their grids: aim to increase energy efficiency and productivity; add new renewable energy and storage resources; consider adding carbon capture and storage (CCS); or propose to build new nuclear reactors.
By objective measures, building new nuclear power plants will cost more, take longer to deploy, and introduce catastrophic accident risks—relative to improving energy productivity, expanding renewables with energy storage, and developing distributed energy resources. CCS suffers from limits of appropriate geology, reduced plant efficiency, and high costs.
However, if the goal is to keep fossil fuel-fired plants operating as long as possible, promising to build more nuclear energy has definite appeal.
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Dr. Susan O’Donnell is a core member of CRED-NB, on the board of the NB Media Co-op and adjunct research professor and lead investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Dr. Mark Winfield is a professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University in Toronto, and co-chair of the faculty’s Sustainable Energy Initiative.