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NextEra Power is contemplating restarting a nuclear plant in Iowa as demand for carbon-free vitality grows amid a historic surge in electrical energy consumption.
The Duane Arnold Power Heart in Palo, Iowa ceased operations in 2020 after 45 years of service. NextEra CEO John Ketchum stated Wednesday a radical evaluation of the dangers is required to see if restarting the reactor is possible.
“There can be alternatives and a number of demand from the market if we have been capable of do one thing with Duane Arnold,” Ketchum stated on NextEra’s second-quarter earnings name Wednesday.
“We’re taking a look at it,” he stated. “However we might solely do it if we may do it in a approach that’s basically danger free with loads of mitigants across the strategy. There are few issues we must work by means of.”
The Duane Arnold plant was scheduled for retirement in late 2020 after a key buyer, Alliant Power, sought cheaper vitality options. The plant ceased operations two months sooner than anticipated after a derecho, a strong windstorm, broken some parts of the plant together with its cooling towers.
Nuclear vitality fell out of favor over the previous decade as crops struggled to compete with cheaper vitality sources comparable to pure gasoline and renewables. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan additionally raised security considerations. A dozen nuclear reactors within the U.S. closed from 2013 by means of April 2021, in response to the Congressional Analysis Service.
Rush for carbon-free vitality
However curiosity is rising in nuclear once more because the U.S. faces vital wave of energy demand from synthetic intelligence knowledge facilities, a renaissance of home manufacturing and the electrification of the financial system.
“The prevailing nuclear crops are the most popular factor in energy proper now,” Mark Nelson, founding father of Radiant Power Group, stated on CNBC’s “Final Name” in June. “They are going to have the ability to practically identify their value to construct out to knowledge facilities which might be parked proper at their gate.”
Electrical energy demand is rising on the identical time the U.S. is attempting slash carbon dioxide emissions by accelerating the buildout of renewable vitality. Photo voltaic and wind, nevertheless, nonetheless face challenges offering dependable energy on account of their dependence on climate situations.
Whereas CEOs within the renewable trade imagine battery storage will finally resolve that drawback, utility executives have insisted that nuclear and pure gasoline are wanted to keep up grid reliability.
Southern Firm CEO Chris Womack stated final month that he thinks the U.S. must set up greater than 10 gigawatts of recent nuclear energy to satisfy electrical energy demand. Southern Firm, one of many largest utilities within the U.S., accomplished the primary new nuclear plant in many years final 12 months, although the undertaking completed delayed and over funds.
The push for brand spanking new nuclear has additionally confronted criticism. AES Company CEO Andrés Gluski informed CNBC in June that the keenness for nuclear is “overblown,” pointing to the prices related to constructing new crops.
The tech sector, nevertheless, has proven rising curiosity in nuclear as approach to supply dependable energy for knowledge facilities. Earlier this 12 months, Amazon Internet Providers purchased a knowledge middle powered by nuclear vitality from Talen Power for $650 million. The cloud service big can be in talks with Constellation Power for electrical energy equipped from a nuclear plant on the East Coast, individuals aware of the matter not too long ago informed The Wall Avenue Journal.
The U.S. maintains the most important nuclear fleet on the planet with 94 working reactors. The Biden administration has offered tax credit beneath landmark Inflation Discount Act to forestall extra reactors from going offline. In December, the U.S. and a coalition of greater than 20 different international locations pledged in December to triple nuclear energy by 2050 to deal with local weather change.