Ensure Existing Nuclear Plants are Part of Fight Against Climate Change

Climate change is unquestionably one of the globe's most pressing geopolitical threats; a report in Nature published recently found that temperature change will leave the average income around the world 23% lower in 2100 than it would be without climate change, and adds to the growing body of evidence that cutting carbon emissions is a priority. Given that the United States consumes 25 percent of the world's energy, it's incumbent upon us to take the lead in finding ways to do so.

The Obama Administration is already doing this, exemplified in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recently finalized Clean Power Plan (CPP). And currently, President Obama is joining world leaders from dozens of countries in Paris to hash out new global climate goals, representing the progress that's been made around tackling this international challenge.

Naturally, the political rhetoric around how best to mitigate climate change is soaring. At a moment in time when the stakes are so high, we must ask ourselves a question: Are we going to be content to merely point fingers -- as so often happens in this country -- or are we going to work together to take practical steps that not only will help reduce emissions, but also make sense? We must cut through the clutter and, at a minimum, focus on bridging partisan and ideological differences to identify solutions we can agree on.

One piece of the carbon reduction solution in the United States that merits broad support is existing nuclear energy. Nuclear accounts for 20 percent of all electricity production in the U.S., but 63 percent of all its carbon-free electricity production. So it is clear that supporting these plants is imperative.

Yet, due to the consequences of electricity markets that do not value existing nuclear plants for their clean, reliable electricity production, these assets are under threat. There's been a string of plant closures or announcements of planned plant closures, with a number of other plants being cited as facing significant economic pressure that bring their longer-term viability into question. The Vermont Yankee plant shut down at the end of 2014, following the previous shutdowns of Kewaunee in Wisconsin and San Onofre in California. And recently, it's been announced that the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts and the FitzPatrick nuclear plant in New York are also being prematurely retired.

Some skeptics are applauding these events. They raise concerns about safety -- even though U.S. nuclear plants are among the safest and most secure industrial facilities in the world -- and following Fukushima, the nuclear industry launched immediate and long-term initiatives to ensure that all lessons were well understood and that improvements were implemented industrywide. It should also be pointed out that Japan recently decided to restart some nuclear power plants, a testament to their importance in that country's energy mix and strong evidence that safety has been assured.

So what can be done to prevent further plant closures and ensure nuclear remains a part of our long-term energy mix?

We certainly don't have all the answers, and they will vary by states and regions. But at the federal level, the CPP rightly acknowledges that we need carbon-free technologies such as nuclear. This is a good first step, but EPA should approve state implementation plans that specifically include nuclear energy as part of any Clean Energy or Low Carbon Standard.

The federal government also took recent steps to ensure greater reliability of the electricity grid, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approving "capacity performance" measures that will reward power plants that can deliver on firm power commitments. This will benefit nuclear plants because they are our most reliable source of energy - as we saw during the 2014 polar vortex, when nuclear kept the lights on.

At the state level, it's clear that CPP compliance will be made much easier by retaining existing nuclear plants. While the CPP does not specifically mandate the mechanisms by which states comply, it does place an emphasis on "mass-based" compliance, which would treat all low and zero carbon resources equally, and ensure that states get credit for investments they have already made to reduce emissions. This should be a priority and would benefit existing nuclear plants.

As with any difficult challenge that the public and policymakers face, there is no single solution or silver bullet that will serve as the answer to how the United States works to reduce carbon emissions. But nuclear quite obviously has a huge role to play. Allowing further premature nuclear plant closures would increase carbon emissions and undermine the progress that's been made to date to transition to cleaner energy, which stakeholders should keep in mind in Paris and beyond.

Just last month, the White House hosted a Summit on Nuclear Energy that underscored the Obama Administration's commitment to fighting climate change with the help of the country's existing nuclear plants and to addressing the challenges that nuclear energy plants face. It was the sort of rare, common-sense posture that everyone should be able to support. Let's hope that continues in Washington and at the climate summit in Paris, where 75% of that nation's power is generated by safe, clean nuclear plants.