Granite Geek: New nuclear tech would be cool, sure, but renewables are ready now

I was delighted to hear Gov. Ayotte and other New England governors recently push for ways to strengthen our energy independence through increasing use of modern technology. Because we do need more solar, wind, batteries and non-wire alternatives to keep New Hampshire strong.

Oh, wait — they were talking about adding nuclear power.

Well, that would be nice too, I guess. Some day it may be part of the answer, although Ayotte won’t see it as governor even if she pulls a Lynch/Sununu and serves four terms.

The “advanced nuclear generation” that she mentioned in an executive order last month, also referenced by the governors’ joint statement, is barely at the pilot project stage. If any of those technologies are producing utility-scale electricity for the Northeast in a decade, it will be a miracle.

The impetus behind all this, of course, is the understandable desire for a silver bullet to produce more power without producing more greenhouse gasses. Understandable, although when they say that nuclear power will produce cheaper electricity it carries hope into the realm of fantasy.

Lusting after nuclear power is a well-worn path in New Hampshire, where a lot of folks have a passion for fission. Our former power utility PSNH first proposed building a nuclear power plant on the seacoast as long ago as 1966. In 1990, it opened Seabrook Station, which is still producing a large chunk of the state’s electricity, and many people still lament it doesn’t have two units as originally envisioned.

More recently, we had a state commission “to investigate the implementation of nuclear reactor technology in New Hampshire” and then another commission in 2022 to study “implementing next-generation nuclear reactor technology” in the state. This led up to Ayotte’s March 26 executive order telling the Department of Energy to get us ready for Generation IV nuclear technology, should it come to pass.

That cool term “Generation IV” — it’s got Roman numerals so it must be important — covers several designs in various R&D stages. They all break up atoms to release energy which is used to boil water so the steam can spin a turbine. They differ in how they control the enormous amounts of waste heat produced and the types of radioactive fuel used.

Note that none of those designs involve fusion, which mashes atoms together instead of breaking them apart to release energy. Fusion power has long been an energy pipe dream but is much, much farther away from reality than the wildest of Generation IV fission. Actually, that’s not entirely true: There’s a gigantic fusion generator up in the sky that sends us energy every day. All it takes is a solar panel to make use of it.

Despite my nuclear-doubting snark, creating state commissions to keep an eye on the industry makes sense. If some new nuclear technology proves commercially viable, we need to be ready to take advantage of it, and that requires advance planning.

But we can’t use this vague hope of some future nuclear renaissance as an excuse to sit back and do nothing. Because we have answers already.

Right now, the New England grid is getting three to six Seabrook’s worth of electricity for much of the day from rooftop solar panels plus almost a Seabrook’s worth from utility-scale solar. There’s also a Seabrook’s worth from hydropower via that new transmission line from Quebec into Maine. And another Seabrook’s worth from the belated arrival of offshore wind.

There are also increasingly sophisticated ways use digital controls and interconnections to reduce demand — which is just as valuable as increasing supply — and fairly cheap ways to increase the load that can be carried on the existing grid without building new towers.

Finally, the world is seeing an explosion in utility-scale batteries to store and release electricity as needed, giving an unprecedented level of flexibility. The state of batteries is truly astonishing: That industry is growing even faster than solar power and its cost is plummeting. In California right now, large battery farms release almost as much electricity after the sun goes down as is used in all of New England. Texas isn’t far behind.

In other words, we’ve got the technical answers we need for energy security right now, without hoping that somebody invents and builds something new at a reasonable price.

We do need to change our systems — the way we pay for power, distribute it and use it — to make everything work well, and that won’t be simple. But we don’t need to continue the old model of relying on a few big, hugely expensive power plants that need a constant resupply of fuel.

No matter what Roman numeral is attached to the technology.

The post Granite Geek: New nuclear tech would be cool, sure, but renewables are ready now appeared first on Concord Monitor.