nuclear-news

“The industry got hit between the eyes by a number of things happening at once,” said Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member.

Five new reactors are currently being built, in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. But in the past year, utilities have permanently shut down four others and plan to take a fifth out of service next year. At least two other planned projects have been shelved.

The projected increases in electric demand didn’t materialize, tamped down by the steep recession of 2007-2009 and increasing efficiencies and conservation measures, Bradford said. Then, a revolution in drilling techniques produced a boom in cheap natural gas……..

n Vermont, the single-reactor Vermont Yankee plant will close in 2014 after its owner, Entergy, decided in August that it was no longer “financially viable.” Dominion Power shut down its Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin in May, a decision it said was “based purely on economics.” Duke Energy announced in February that it would write off its Crystal River plant in Florida, which had been idled since 2009 for repairs to its concrete containment building.

And San Onofre had been offline for more than a year when its owner, Southern California Edison, announced in June that it wouldn’t reopen. The plant shut down in 2012 after a gas leak revealed problems in its massive new steam generators, which had just been replaced at a cost of nearly $700 million. SCE said the “continuing uncertainty” over the plant’s future “was not good for our customers, our investors, or the need to plan for our region’s long-term electricity needs.”……..

Bradford, the former NRC member, said utilities have been unable to draw investors for new plants, forcing them to rely on loan guarantees from the federal government — and on customers in states like Georgia and Florida, which have allowed regulated public utilities to charge them for plants still under construction.

“The fundamental problem was the renaissance was always economically unsound,” Bradford said. “There was never a point in time at which private investors were prepared to back new nuclear. There were just too many things that could go wrong.”

And while the zero-carbon promise of nuclear power may be appealing, the billions it would take to build a nuclear plant could better be spent to develop renewable energy sources like wind and solar, boost conservation efforts and improve fuel efficiency for motor vehicles, he said.

“The problem with using nuclear as an answer to climate change is it’s so much more expensive than other potential answers,” Bradford said. “It’s like building palaces to solve a housing shortage, or using caviar to solve world hunger.”

Dominguez said his co-workers aren’t likely to have trouble finding jobs — “There’s a lot of skills that are transferable,” he told CNN.