Colorado has a new law declaring nuclear power a source of clean energy. The Denver airport might explore building a small nuclear reactor to meet the rising demand for electricity. Local business, civic and labor leaders see nuclear energy as the fuel of choice when Xcel Energy stops burning coal at its power plants in Pueblo County,
Is nuclear power becoming cool in Colorado?
The state has had only one nuclear power plant, Fort St. Vrain near Platteville. And it was converted to natural gas in 1989 after 10 years of technical problems. The former Rocky Flats weapons plant, which produced plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs, drew thousands of protesters for years to the site north of Denver, including such prominent activists as Daniel Ellsberg and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
In 2004, Colorado voters were the first in the country to approve a renewable energy mandate for utilities. How has nuclear power, with its baggage of radioactive waste and the Three Mile Island partial meltdown, become a seriously considered option in today’s fuel mix?
Worry about the demand for electricity outstripping capacity and concerns about progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions led state Rep. Alex Valdez, a Denver Democrat, to back legislation this year that defines nuclear power as “clean.” He sponsored House Bill 25-1040, which added nuclear to the energy sources that utilities can use to meet state clean energy targets.
“As a kid, I grew up in the ’80s when a lot of talk about nuclear was in relation to the weaponry that was pointed at each other between the Soviet Union and the United States,” Valdez said. “I think I just kind of lumped nuclear into the same conversations as most people do: around its negative uses, less desirable uses.”
Valdez got a different perspective when he was appointed to the nuclear working group at the National Conference of State Legislatures. The group visited France, which gets about 70% of its electricity from nuclear power. Roughly 19% of electricity in the U.S. comes from nuclear energy.
With some forecasts showing electricity demand rising dramatically, Valdez said the U.S. will have to add “a tremendous amount of energy” to the grid if it’s going to compete in quantum computing and other advanced technology.
A boom in data center construction driven by increasing the use of artificial intelligence is expected to escalate the need for more electricity generation.
Valdez, who spent most of his career in the renewable energy field, said the legislation he sponsored recognizes that the power generated by nuclear energy is carbon-free. “As we move toward our path to zero-carbon (energy), it can be included in the mix to get us there.”
Not ready for prime time
A lot of the current interest in nuclear power revolves around a new technology: small modular nuclear reactors, about one-tenth to one quarter the size of a conventional reactor. They’re billed as potentially less expensive, safer, easier to build and adaptable because modules can be added as more power is needed.
The technology is also still in the development and demonstration stage. Just a few are operating in China and Russia. No small modular reactors –SMRs– are in commercial use in the U.S.
“SMRs aren’t ready for prime time,” said Dennis Wamsted, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “You will hear from developers and others about the advantages. The advantages right now are all on paper.”
The institute focuses on research into the economics of expanding the use of renewable energy.
“We are not fans of nuclear power because it costs too much and that cost has been consistently high over the years. We see no track record of it declining,” Wamsted said. “We certainly don’t see that happening with a new class of reactor that nobody’s built before and nobody’s run before.”
Noah Rott, a spokesman for the western region of the Sierra Club, said the environmental group feels that discussion around nuclear energy “is largely a distraction as utilities work to address electric load growth in the next decade.”
“Cleaner sources like wind, solar, demand response, energy efficiency and storage are the answer here,” Rott said in an email.
However, the concept of an energy source that can run 24/7 and emit no heat-trapping greenhouse gases when generating power is compelling. Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in August that the airport, the country’s third-busiest, planned to commission a study to explore the feasibility of building a small, modular nuclear reactor on its campus to meet the growing demand for electricity in the area and cut the use of carbon-emitting power.
The airport put the study on hold after complaints that city officials hadn’t talked to area residents first. The airport determined that a broader scope will best serve its interests and needs and will issue a request for information later this fall on multiple clean energy solutions, including reactors, after first receiving ideas and input from the community, spokeswoman Courtney Law said in an email Wednesday.
Nuclear power generation is the top choice of a local advisory committee for replacing coal at Xcel Energy’s Comanche power plants near Pueblo. Xcel has proposed tapping renewable energy, battery storage and natural gas when it stops burning coal by 2031.
But the Pueblo Innovative Energy Solutions Advisory Committee, established by Xcel and community members, said renewable energy facilities wouldn’t provide the same number of jobs and tax revenue for local governments that nuclear or gas facilities would. The committee is promoting installing SMRs.
Xcel Energy operates nuclear facilities in Minnesota and has said they’re not off the table for Colorado, but the new type of reactors likely won’t be commercially available when the utility has to replace its coal plants.
The Western Governors Association, WGA, held workshops in September at the Idaho National Laboratory, which focuses largely on nuclear energy.
The workshops were part of an initiative by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called “Energy Superabundance: Unlocking Prosperity in the West.” Cox, the WGA’s chairman this year, said the country is looking to the West for ways to meet the surge in need for more electricity.
Andy Cross, The Denver PostSome community leaders want to see nuclear power replace coal-fired power when Xcel Energy quits burning coal at the Comanche power plant in Pueblo County. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)Idaho Gov. Brad Little said during a workshop that the U.S. won’t meet its energy needs “with our legacy energy.”
“We’re going to have to have scalable, safe nuclear energy,” Little said.
While it could be five to 10 years before small reactors are up and running in the U.S., Mark Jensen, a chemistry professor at the Colorado School of Mines, said the federal government is more involved in promoting nuclear energy than in the recent past. He noted that the Department of Energy has opened federal sites to allow companies to test prototypes and that could help streamline development.
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Jensen, director of the nuclear science and engineering program at the School of Mines, said more private money is flowing into nuclear projects than he has seen over the past 35 years.
Wind, solar the ‘workhorses’
Jack Waldorf, WGA executive director, said in an email that advancements in nuclear energy provide the opportunity to expand clean, reliable generation of electricity, but achieving true energy abundance will require a comprehensive approach.
Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that Colorado has a history as an innovator and nuclear energy should be no different. ” As projects become cost competitive and safer, we should view nuclear energy not as a competing energy source to wind and solar, but as a complementary solution for better overall reliability and lower costs.”
Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, agreed. He said as Colorado moves to more deeply cut emissions, other technologies will be needed and nuclear energy should certainly be in the mix.
“It’s pretty clear that wind and solar will be the workhorses of the grid just looking at the cost modeling,” Toor said. “You can build them relatively quickly and they’re so much cheaper than other resources.”
He expects nuclear power to be in a group of what he calls “clean, firm” energy sources: ones that emit low or no greenhouse gases and provide round-the-clock power. Toor said geothermal energy is likely the furthest along among those sources.
“The challenge with nuclear is really still the same challenge that it has been for utilities, which is the cost, how long it takes to build and the uncertainties of federal permitting,” Toor said.
He added that he would be surprised if Colorado utilities moved ahead with conventional nuclear or “to be first in line for the first-of-its-kind” small modular reactor.
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