What Is the Half-Life of a Nuclear Revival?

The Vogtle four-unit nuclear power plant, near Waynesboro, Georgia, is the largest nuclear power plant in the United States. But is it a harbinger of the industry’s expansion, or an echo of its history of costly, behind-schedule construction? Photo: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Public Domain).

Backgrounder: What Is the Half-Life of a Nuclear Revival?

Part 1 of 2

By Joseph A. Davis

Until recently, the United States hadn’t built a new nuclear power plant in decades — we largely stopped by the 1980s. 

Nukes reached a plateau before the Three Mile Island meltdown of 1979. But TMI largely put the cork in it. Then came Chernobyl in 1986. Then came the Fukushima multi-meltdown in 2011. 

Some Asian countries continued building them (often with help from U.S. companies). But other nations, like Germany, chose to close their nukes for safety reasons.

 

Now the United States has

begun developing new nukes again.

Is it the ‘nuclear renaissance’?

 

But now the United States has begun developing new nukes again. Is it the “nuclear renaissance”?

That’s still an unsettled question. First of all, it’s a business question. After that, it’s an environmental and safety question. And in the end, it’s also a regulatory and political question. 

Most journalists will want to approach the nuclear question with an open mind. But it’s important to know nuclear issues have rarely been settled on a level playing field.

The federal role

Atomic energy started as a federal thing — as a secret wartime project to develop the world’s most destructive and lethal weapon. And it did end WWII. 

Eventually, the oversight role was taken up by the Atomic Energy Commission, which Congress set up in 1946 to extend the federal role from military to civilian use.

President Eisenhower, in a 1953 speech to the U.N., launched the federal “Atoms for Peace” campaign. And the first U.S. commercial nuclear electric power plant, at Shippingport, Pa., went critical in 1957. 

Back then, people did not worry enough about the health effects of radiation. The United States was still testing nuclear bombs by blowing them up in the open atmosphere and letting the fallout fall where it might. 

 

Worry about fallout was

one of the deepest

taproots of the modern

environmental movement.

 

Worry about fallout (e.g., strontium 90 in milk) was, in fact, one of the deepest taproots of the modern environmental movement. Ultimately, the United States signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (banning atmospheric tests) in 1963.

But the Atomic Energy Commission was criticized for — among other things — not paying enough attention to nuclear safety. It had an inherent conflict, in that it was responsible for both promoting and regulating nuclear power. 

So, Congress set up the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to replace it in 1974. The NRC was supposed to focus entirely on safety. But it didn't. Or at least it didn’t satisfy everyone that it was doing so.

What makes a renaissance?

Even if we arbitrarily pick the 1979 meltdown of TMI as the “death” date of commercial nuclear power in the United States, it wasn’t really. Most of the 90-odd operating nukes continued to operate. It’s just that new ones were not (or hardly) being built. And old ones were being retired.

The industry made much — very much — about the licensing and construction of two additional units to the existing two-unit Vogtle plant in Georgia starting in 2009.  

But the additions to Vogtle didn’t really make the case that a renaissance was happening (or worth pursuing). These two projects went way over budget and were way behind schedule, as, in fact, nuclear plant licensing and construction had been doing quite consistently since they ebbed in the 1970s. 

To be honest, budget and schedule problems (and the construction defects that often caused them) were a major reason for the abandonment of nuclear power. Solar and wind have today become cheaper than other sources (not to mention faster and safer). A new natural gas thermal plant is likelier to be faster and cheaper than a nuke as well, according to Google AI (if you believe it).

What makes subsidies glow?

The big corporations that (mostly) own and operate the electric utility industry don’t really like risk — which is a shame, since nukes are very risky. Good thing they have so many subsidies to help lower the risk.

Worried about a meltdown? Not a problem. For that, we have the Price-Anderson Act. First passed in 1957, Price-Anderson guaranteed that costs for cleanup and property replacement would be taken care of. 

Well, not exactly. The first $15 billion would be paid for by utilities, via an assessment on all nuclear utilities. After that, cleanup costs would be paid by the federal government. Except that Congress did not actually appropriate the money to do so. A detail to be taken care of some other time. 

 

The problem was that

nuclear utilities couldn’t

get any useful amount

of insurance on their own.

 

But at least the industry was off the hook. The problem was that nuclear utilities couldn’t get any useful amount of insurance on their own. In 2024, Congress extended Price-Anderson through 2045.

If we were to list all the other federal subsidies for nuclear power, it would take the rest of this article. But all of the research to develop nuclear energy before about 1953 was paid for by the bomb-makers. And much still is. 

Then there’s the fuel cycle: Federal funds have paid for a big fraction of the mining, refining and enrichment of nuclear fuels like uranium. The engineering firms that build nuclear plants today get most of their business abroad — and federal agencies have smiled tolerantly on these enterprises. 

And foreign governments are not all as concerned about nonproliferation as we are. The industry, as it profits from building nukes in Europe, Asia and Russia, has a huge financial stake.

If the taxpayers don’t subsidize it, the ratepayers will. Despite federal reform legislation (such as PURPA), U.S. electric utilities are still regulated monopolies, and they get to pass most capital costs (even for expensive nukes) on to ratepayers. That’s you.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Backgrounder, which looks at the next generation of reactor design, the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the question of what to do with nuclear waste. 

[Editor’s Note: For more, check out an earlier Backgrounder special on the future of nuclear power, a Toolbox on the nuclear energy beat, a TipSheet on energy markets, an Inside Story Q&A on radioactive risks at Midwest nuclear plants and BookShelf reviews, “Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator” and “Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster.” Plus, see our Topic on the Beat: Energy page for related stories and EJToday headlines.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

---

* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 11, No. 18. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.