Energy production has long been instrumental to Colorado’s economy and the state’s way of life.
Boosted by a productive oil and gas industry and a burgeoning renewables sector, the state ranked seventh in the nation in total energy production last year, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
But the state is also currently undergoing a radical transformation in its approach to energy, as combating climate change becomes a key political driver of the state’s policy decisions.
An untapped resource
As priorities have shifted, much of the focus has been on the debate between fossil fuels and renewables. This myopia has allowed an untapped resource featuring the best qualities of both to go largely unnoticed: nuclear power.
And there has never been a more opportune time to deploy nuclear power in Colorado.
The nuclear energy industry is currently undergoing something of a renaissance across the U.S. and much of the world, as policymakers are beginning to realize the value of securing reliable, emissions-free power in the face of global supply chain constraints and geopolitical strife.
The Czech Republic, Belgium, France, Canada, the UK, Japan, and South Korea have all announced plans to either restart, extend, or expand nuclear energy programs in their respective countries. And the EU Parliament even voted to classify nuclear power as “green” under its taxonomy rule book the purposes of climate investments earlier this month.
In the U.S., states like Tennessee, Wyoming, Idaho, Georgia, and Washington are all currently pursuing nuclear energy projects that seek to demonstrate the potential for next-generation plants to power the future. Other states have begun passing laws removing barriers to nuclear development and incentivizing its construction.
Colorado should join in on this push so that the state can reap the environmental and economic benefits that only nuclear energy can bring.
Decarbonization Goals
While Colorado has only recently set the ambitious goal of achieving 100% carbon-free electricity generation by 2040, nuclear power has been helping to decarbonize the nation’s grid for decades.
Americans have enjoyed carbon-free electricity from nuclear fission since the 1950s, when the first nuclear power plant went into operation. As it stands today, 20 percent of the country’s total electricity and 52 percent of its clean electricity is supplied by 93 operational nuclear reactors.
Though renewables have grown substantially in the Colorado, roughly two-thirds of the state’s electricity still comes from carbon-based fuel sources. Wind and solar alone are simply not enough to meet the state’s established energy goals.
Only nuclear power has the ability to support what’s known as “deep decarbonization”. Beyond boasting the production of reliable emissions-free electricity, nuclear plants can be used to co-produce heat and hydrogen. That makes it a prime candidate to help the state meet its decarbonization goals in the heating, industrial processing, manufacturing, and transportation sectors as well as in electricity.
Reliability factor
While other energy resources are also capable of contributing to the state’s clean energy portfolio, none are able to do so as reliably as nuclear.
Like solar and wind, nuclear power generates zero carbon emissions; unlike solar and wind, it can reliably produce electricity when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing.
According to the US Department of Energy, “Nuclear has the highest capacity factor of any other energy source—producing reliable, carbon-free power more than 92% of the time in 2021. That’s nearly twice as reliable as a coal (49.3%) or natural gas (54.4%) plant and almost 3 times more often than wind (34.6%) and solar (24.6%) plants.”
Such consistency makes it capable of serving the energy needs of customers independent of any other supporting resource. It also allows nuclear to serve as an emissions free supplement to Colorado’s existing wind and solar operations during periods of variable production.
This asset becomes a key feature in a grid already under strain from age and heightened demand due to population growth.
Plainly put, nuclear power is the only GHG-free energy source that is both scalable and reliable for consistent electricity production. That fact alone should make it appealing for advocates of grid decarbonization and electrification.
Low land use
Nuclear energy produces more electricity on less land than any other clean source.
A typical nuclear plant can produce an amount of electricity equivalent to over 3 million solar panels occupying 75 times the land-area, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. For wind, over 430 turbines using 360 times the space would be required to match the output of a single nuclear plant.
Nuclear’s low land-use means future projects would be less likely to face easement disputes, local community opposition, or wildlife disruption compared to more space-extensive resources like wind and solar.
Just transition
Additionally, nuclear power is uniquely poised to offer a replacement for transitioning coal communities, of which there are several in Colorado. This is particularly the case with advanced nuclear energy, specifically small modular reactors (SMRs).
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are, as the name suggests, scaled-down nuclear reactors that generally have a power capacity of less than 300 MW(e) per unit. They can be factory-assembled and transported as a unit for onsite installation, offering time and cost savings on construction.
Strategically deployed SMRs can make use of much of the existing infrastructure of a retired coal plant, while offering improved wages, employment, cleaner electricity, and tax revenue to coal communities.
A December 2021 report from the Good Energy Collective research group found nuclear plants tend to offer higher salaries compared with coal plants.
“The median hourly wage in the nuclear industry at large has been estimated at $39.19—nearly 105% higher than the national median and about a quarter higher than the median hourly wage of the coal industry ($28.69),” the report reads. “For nuclear work in utilities specifically, the median hourly wage is $47.00, compared with $41.30 for coal work in utilities.”
Likewise, a 2021 report from energy consulting firm ScottMadden found that a small modular reactor plant could provide jobs “well in excess of a typical coal plant.” It also suggested that many SMR plant jobs would require skills similar to those of a typical coal plant with minimal retraining.
Additionally, SMRs provide the potential for more than 70 jobs for which there is no coal plant equivalent, but that could become a development opportunity for coal workers to advance and prosper.
“Jobs, such as reactor operators or radiation protection technicians, do not have a coal plant equivalent, but they are in fact potential developmental paths for current coal workers,” the report explained. “This opens the door for the coal plant workforce to progress and develop into higher-paying jobs.”
Local officials from Colorado’s coal communities have begun to take notice of this potential and are taking early steps to explore replacement SMR plants, but more needs to be done.
Leaders from Pueblo County, where the Comanche 3 coal power plant is expected to be shuttered near the end of this decade, proposed replacing the plant with a nuclear power station utilizing small-modular reactor technology late last year.
More recently, officials in Garfield and Moffat counties have announced early plans to pursue small-scale nuclear technology to replace the Craig station coal plant that’s slated to close by 2030.
The fact that SMRs offer job replacement to displaced coal workers, with minimal retraining and an opportunity for career advancement, should be highly appealing for those in the state who would have us undertake a “just transition” away from coal power.
Addressing common concerns
Despite nuclear’s unique capability of providing abundant clean energy, there are detractors who often point to issues like waste and safety concerns as reasons to avoid the technology.
But those concerns are misguided.
Because nuclear fuel is extremely energy dense, the amount of waste produced is relatively small. To put it into perspective, all the nuclear waste ever produced by the commercial nuclear energy industry since the 1950s could be stacked on a single football field roughly 10 yards high.
Spent fuel rods still contain massive amounts of potential energy making them prime candidates to be recycled and reused, which several countries in Europe, Japan, and Russia already do. Spent fuel that isn’t recycled can be safely stored on site in dry casks.
Furthermore, advanced microreactor designs like the Oklo fast-reactor are being developed to run solely on nuclear waste, further bolstering nuclear’s case as a sustainable source of energy going forward.
On the safety front, fears of nuclear meltdowns are akin to shark attacks. They tend to capture vast swaths of public attention when they happen despite being statistical outliers. Despite decades of operation in countries around the world, nuclear accidents have occurred with astonishing rarity. Only one incident, the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, has ever resulted in fatalities directly attributable to a nuclear accident.
In fact, nuclear energy has a lower death rate based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt hour of energy produced than any other source of energy besides solar.
Irrational fears about accidents and concerns over nuclear waste should not dissuade Colorado policymakers from pursuing an invaluable source of electricity. The resource has the potential to reliably produce abundant, clean power and contribute to the state’s transitioning economy.
With such ambitious decarbonization goals, combined with a growing state population reliant on ever increasing energy needs, Colorado would be foolish not to join in on the development of the nation’s largest source of carbon-free baseload power.
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