Nov 24 2009

Nuclear Power: 60 is the New 40

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

PG&E's request for a 20-year extension on its license extension to operate its Diablo Canyon Power Plant puts the utility in good company: More than 50 U.S. nuclear reactors have received license extensions from their original 40 years out to 60 years, acording to the World Nuclear Assocation.

The result has been a largely unheralded but dramatic contribution to this country's clean generation facilities. While utilities, politicians, investors and activists debate the merits of new nuclear construction, the old plants keep chugging away, producing greenhouse-gas-free power around the clock and generally at very attractive prices.

A recent story by Paul Voosen of Greenwire raises the remarkable possibility that America's nuclear plants may run another 50 or more years before being decommissioned.

Thanks to new research on how to detect and repair flaws associated with aging, one expert said that if nuclear plants are properly maintained, "technically, there is no age limit."

Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of America's electric power, exceeded only by carbon-polluting fossil fuels. Without the license extensions made possible by improved maintenance, power shortages would have been "nothing short of catastrophic" and would have prompted massive construction of new coal- and gas-fired power plants, said Gary Was, the director of the University of Michigan's Phoenix Energy Institute.

Besides extending their plants' life, nuclear operators have also increased their efficiency and output, a process called "uprating." According to Power magazine, "Power uprates alone have added more than 5,600 MW since 1998 -- the equivalent of five new nuclear plants." Exelon's chairman, John Rowe, recently testified that future uprates could add an additional 8 gigawatts of capacity to the U.S. nuclear fleet.

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