May-June 2018 NPJ

Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2018 NuclearPlantJournal.com 27 (Continued on page 28) carbon-free generation. That’s equal to half of all the megawatt-hours of wind electricity generated last year in the United States. Ohio and Pennsylvania face a choice right now; FirstEnergy has announced that without policy changes, it will retire two reactors in Ohio and two more in Pennsylvania, in 2020 and 2021. We can stick with a myopic focus on short- term prices. Or we can strive to preserve a resilient, robust electricity system, jobs, tax revenues, clean air and healthy communities. A report by the Brattle Group was It will sum up the threatened closures starkly. Keeping the four Ohio and Pennsylvania nuclear plants running would avoid more than 21 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually, compared to making the electricity with gas and coal. That’s the equivalent of 4.5 million cars. Losing these plants would more than reverse the emissions benefits of all the renewable generation in PJM installed over the past 25 years. Those installations cost billions of dollars. Policymakers have begun to take these risks seriously. Secretary Perry has sparked a much-needed conversation about the importance of having a resilient grid. FERC has embarked on a deeper investigation of resilience. Here’s the issue: If our markets force nuclear plants to close, we will create risks we have not thought about enough. ISO New England has looked at what its future might be like without the nuclear plants and it sees reasons for alarm. New England’s electricity mix is now at 48 percent natural gas, up from 15 percent in 2000. As the grid looks out to the mid-2020s it sees less coal and nuclear and still more reliance on natural gas. The challenge the planners face is that the region uses natural gas for heating. While they have the generation capacity to meet that need, the region hasn’t added enough pipelines to also support electricity production. In a cold winter, they forecast that they will be unable to produce enough power except under the most optimistic scenarios. And winters are going to be tougher in places served by those 12 reactors marked for premature retirement. In the cold weather last winter, even with these plants helping to provide power, electricity prices soared above $200 per megawatt hour in some areas as fossil fuel prices spiked. Managing severe cold weather events without these nuclear plants will be costlier as the system will depend on less resilient sources of energy. Weather is a major challenge to the electric system. Hurricanes caused widespread devastation in 2017, and we expect intense storms in years to come. Already this year we’ve had the “bomb cyclone.” Keeping the bulk power supply system intact and ready is crucial; you can’t recover from a hurricane without electricity. You can’t ride thorough a polar vortex or other extreme cold or heat without electricity. Irma and Harvey were unwelcome visitors. But even as roads in the Houston area became impassable, the South Texas Nuclear Project continued to churn out electricity. Other services faltered, but not electricity. Nuclear plants keep a stock of generators, pumps and other emergency equipment on-site. They can keep themselves safe but also they can continue churning out their product, electricity, for the safety of others. This is the type of asset that is now threatened. Are we making wise choices with our electric grid? Or are we allowing incremental changes that together introduce a level of risk nobody would knowingly accept? These are the questions that we need to be asking. We are seeing state governments taking a lead to ask and answer those questions. And, increasingly making choices about how they will value nuclear energy. We have nuclear power plants in 30 states. Three years ago we saw only about a dozen nuclear-related bills in the state houses; last year we saw more than 100 of them. This year is on track for a similar number. States recognize more and more that nuclear plants are vital to meeting environmental goals, driving local economies and providing the energy security they need. A handful of states are considering steps to preserve nuclear plants. Connecticut passed a law last fall that could allow the Millstone plant to participate in its clean energy procurement process. New Jersey has held hearings on legislation that would create zero-emission credits for electricity from nuclear plants. I testified in Trenton, and Columbus, about the need to preserve these nuclear plants. I was not alone. I was joined by environmentalists and labor leaders. It’s clear to legislators in Trenton that if the goal is to avoid emissions, then preserving existing reactors is a very cost-effective way to do it. And doing so will also preserve valuable capacity and reliability. Pennsylvania lawmakers have established the first-ever bicameral, bipartisan nuclear energy caucus. Members of Maryland’s House of Delegates just formed such a group. Ohio has considered a zero-emission nuclear credit bill. The Minnesota legislature has advanced a bill out of committee that would create a stable environment for capital investments at its nuclear facilities. These states are following the leads provided by NewYork and Illinois, which acted to save plants. These policies were challenged in U.S. district court, although in each instance the case was dismissed. In reviewing the New York policy, the judge could not see how state programs to support renewable deployments were meaningfully different than the program to preserve nuclear plants for their non- emitting attribute. Each case is now being heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals. The pursuit of clean energy can threaten our nuclear plants if we don’t do it thoughtfully. If the goal is to reduce emissions, then all zero-emission technologies must be part of the solution. We must recognize what we already have in place, and build on that. Replacing zero-emitting technology with other zero-emitting technology won’t help. Arizona is facing a clear choice about how a state should use nuclear energy in meeting its environmental goals. One of the proposals under consideration would include nuclear; the other sets a less ambitious goal while excluding nuclear. The first one will get more done and get there faster, because of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station. It is America’s largest single source of non- emitting electricity. It provides 30 percent of the state’s total electricity. It should be