Climate change spurs renewed interest in nuclear power

To South Carolinians of a certain age, the only thing more surprising than the recent resurgence of interest in nuclear power is that some longtime environmentalists are now among its biggest boosters.

That would have been unthinkable back in 1979 after the partial nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island and the nuclear accident portrayed in the award-winning movie The China Syndrome.

But given the rapid pace of climate change, a growing number of environmental activists argue that nuclear energy, which has carbon emissions even lower than wind and solar power, will have to be part of the solution. That’s why some now even support Microsoft’s plan to restart the Three Mile Island plant as a way to feed its power-hungry Pennsylvania data centers.

“In my view, we have got to acknowledge that we haven’t done what needs to be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” S.C. Coastal Conservation League founder Dana Beach told the Charleston City Paper on Oct. 29. “And nuclear is the one big change we can make to accelerate our progress toward a low-carbon future.”

That said, Beach makes it clear that in an ideal world, nuclear power wouldn’t be necessary, because we would never have allowed climate change to reach a level where the mountains of North Carolina now are a part of Hurricane Alley.

But after decades of what Beach sees as insufficient action and ongoing resistance from political and utility leaders, he says the state needs to move forward with the second-best solution of new nuclear power facilities.

“The science and math say that we need to make these changes right away, and that means before we get the good-ole-boys extricated from Columbia and the top management ranks in our utilities,” Beach said.

With the nation’s fastest growing population and new industrial users moving into the state seemingly everyday, South Carolina is facing an energy crunch that utility executives say could lead to rolling blackouts within the next decade.

Two state government panels that will play a critical role in addressing that issue met in October to begin charting a path forward that includes new nuclear energy production. Currently, nuclear power provides 52% of the power on S.C.’s grid — the third-highest rate in the country.

On Oct. 15, the Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council presented a report on its recent site visit to the V.C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station, where two partially-built reactors were abandoned in 2017 when the cost of completing the project was deemed prohibitive by the sponsoring utilities, SCANA Corporation and state-owned Santee Cooper. In the scandal that followed, SCANA was sold to Virginia-based Dominion Energy, several of its executives went to prison and ratepayers were saddled with $9 billion in losses.

But according to committee members, there may be reason to believe the project could be restarted.

“We went down there with the assumption that it was going to be a scene of neglect,” Co-chair Jim Little of Fort Mill told the committee. “But we didn’t see anything during our visit that would say [completing the project] would be precluded.”

In fact, the committee’s report found the site to be in “excellent condition,” and recommended a formal study of restarting the project, particularly in light of the successful recent completion of a similar facility in Georgia.

That idea was then taken up Oct. 16 by an S.C. Senate panel charged with producing energy legislation before the legislature reconvenes in January, where it met with mixed support.
“It is just hard for me to believe that a study of sorts hasn’t already been done by Dominion Energy and/or Santee Cooper when they decided to abandon this plant,” said Democratic Sen. Margie Bright Matthews of Walterboro.

But Beaufort Republican Sen. Tom Davis argued the proposal merited further consideration.
“The idea that we wouldn’t look at V.C. Summer [reactor] 2, which is 48% complete with $9 billion in the ground … is unfathomable to me,” Davis said. “I don’t understand the sense of reluctance.”

Key to any future discussions, most senators agreed, would be the extent to which large-scale industrial customers were willing to foot some or all of the bill, as Microsoft is doing at Three Mile Island.

“It seems to me, at the very least, that if [industrial use] is a significant reason for the need for more generation, there ought to be more of a financial burden on those facilities than on the residential customers,” Sen. Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said.

In the end, committee members agreed to include the idea in draft legislative form for further consideration at a future meeting.