How Swapping Coal for Renewables Equals Nuclear Energy

Electricity diversity is a defining value for utilities that maintain a reliable, stable supply. This is helpful in foul weather and in other situations, of course, but it’s also allows a utility to respond to new priorities.

That’s what Xcel is doing in Minnesota (via the Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin):

Xcel Energy on Friday filed plans with state regulators that would shut down part of the state's largest coal-fired power plant.

Why?

Sherco's two older units would retire in 2023 and 2026 as part of the plan, which also calls for 1,200 megawatts of renewable energy, including a new 50 megawatt solar installation at the site of the Sherco plant in Becker.

Sherco is short for Sherburne County Generating Station. It has three coal units and Xcel intends to build a new natural gas facility there.

And nuclear energy?

While two of Sherco's three coal units will retire, Xcel plans to keep running its two nuclear plants at Monticello and Prairie Island through 2030.

Obviously, the Clean Power Plan is the motivation behind all of this – I’d add the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which isn’t mentioned, but has impacted a lot of coal facilities - but Xcel is also ensuring that it has sufficient baseload power to cover the intermittency of wind and solar energy.

If a utility has a full deck of energy sources, it has the flexibility to answer to society’s current needs without causing undue stress on the electricity grid. In the current instance, Xcel has explicitly mentioned that it will keep its nuclear plants open. That makes sense, because nuclear energy is CO2 emission free and thus fits Xcel’s goal of reducing its carbon emissions 60 percent by 2030.

We weren’t expecting a case study on the value of energy diversity this soon – and it’s not by a longshot the only value demonstrated in Xcel’s announcement - but there you go. I wonder if Xcel’s announcement will make other utilities think: can building a nuclear facility increase my options while reducing emissions? Short answer: Yes, yes it can.

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A Design Team Pictures the Future of Nuclear Energy

For more than 100 years, the shape and location of human settlements has been defined in large part by energy and water. Cities grew up near natural resources like hydropower, and near water for agricultural, industrial and household use.

So what would the world look like with a new generation of small nuclear reactors that could provide abundant, clean energy for electricity, water pumping and desalination and industrial processes?

Hard to say with precision, but Third Way, the non-partisan think tank, asked the design team at the Washington, D.C. office of Gensler & Associates, an architecture and interior design firm that specializes in sustainable projects like a complex that houses the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. The talented designers saw a blooming desert and a cozy arctic village, an old urban mill re-purposed as an energy producer, a data center that integrates solar panels on its sprawling flat roofs, a naval base and a humming transit hub.

In the converted mill, high temperat…

Sneak Peek

There's an invisible force powering and propelling our way of life.
It's all around us. You can't feel it. Smell it. Or taste it.
But it's there all the same. And if you look close enough, you can see all the amazing and wondrous things it does.
It not only powers our cities and towns.
And all the high-tech things we love.
It gives us the power to invent.
To explore.
To discover.
To create advanced technologies.
This invisible force creates jobs out of thin air.
It adds billions to our economy.
It's on even when we're not.
And stays on no matter what Mother Nature throws at it.
This invisible force takes us to the outer reaches of outer space.
And to the very depths of our oceans.
It brings us together. And it makes us better.
And most importantly, it has the power to do all this in our lifetime while barely leaving a trace.
Some people might say it's kind of unbelievable.
They wonder, what is this new power that does all these extraordinary things?

New Home for Our Blog: Join Us on NEI.org

On February 27, NEI launched the new NEI.org. We overhauled the public site, framing all of our content around the National Nuclear Energy Strategy.

So, what's changed?

Our top priority was to put you, the user, first. Now you can quickly get the information you need. You'll enjoy visiting the site with its intuitive navigation, social media integration and compelling and shareable visuals. We've added a feature called Nuclear Now, which showcases the latest industry news and resources like fact sheets and reports. It's one of the first sections you'll see on our home page and it can be accessed anywhere throughout the site by clicking on the atom symbol in the top right corner of the page.
Most importantly for you, our loyal NEI Nuclear Notes readers, is that we've migrated the blog to the new site. Moving forward, all blog posts will be published in the News section, along with our press releases, Nuclear Energy Overview stories and more. Just look for the &qu…

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