Nuclear Power Part of Solution

In past years, PACE has written extensively about the need to grow the U.S. nuclear sector as part of a comprehensive plan to meet energy demand in a lower-carbon future. The U.S. invented the commercial nuclear industry, but has struggled in past decades to put nuclear energy production on the grid.

That’s why a recent news report published by The Christian Science Monitor ought to get the attention of national policymakers. The article, which focuses on the need to electrify Africa, makes a compelling case for the potential of nuclear power to bring much-needed light to the so-called ‘dark continent.’ According to the report, Africa’s largest economies (South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria) and the continent’s uranium-rich nations (Namibia and Niger) have decided that nuclear could represent a way to speed access to electricity. Other nations such as Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, and Morocco are also considering nuclear investments. South Africa is the only African nation with current nuclear capacity.

Today, for example, more than 600 million Africans lack access to reliable electricity, with half of Africa’s 9 gigawatts of installed capacity residing in just one country – South Africa. Lack of access to reliable power is holding back the potential of national economies and ensuring that a large portion of Africa’s population remains trapped in something less than the 21st Century. At the current pace of electrification, it will take until 2080 to achieve universal access to power in Africa. A new report, though, says that a capital investment of $55 billion could achieve universal access by 2030. That’s a large investment, of course, but high too is the price of denying the full potential of two more generations of Africans due to lack of electrical access.

Clearly, nuclear power offers a viable option for African nations hoping to infuse new power into their economies. But nuclear power still holds potential in the U.S. too. A handful of lawmakers in Wisconsin seem to have recognized that, having recently introduced a bill to roll back the state’s 32-year-old ban on nuclear construction. Senator Frank Lesee and of De Pere and Representative Kevin Petersen of Waupaca have introduced companion bills that would pave the way for nuclear expansion in Wisconsin. The lawmakers cite the need to comply with EPA’s carbon mandate as one of the key reasons Wisconsin needs to consider nuclear expansion.

Stateside, officials from Entergy just this week announced the shutdown of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. The U.S. now has fewer than one hundred nuclear units running nationwide, as other nations continue to press forward with nuclear construction that provides reliable, carbon-free electricity. And although the nation’s most significant nuclear project, Plant Vogtle, continues to move forward in east Georgia, the fact remains that the most recent nuclear plant to come online in the U.S. did so nearly twenty years ago.

As EPA regulations continue to constrain our nation’s energy options and power demand continues to grow, let’s hope our nation’s policy makers and the public recognizes, as African leaders are doing, that nuclear energy is part of the energy solution, not part of the problem. Nuclear energy has much left to contribute, whether it’s energizing the economies of Africa and bringing hope to 600 million citizens left in the dark or strengthening the world’s most reliable grid here at home.