A tale of two bills in Colorado
This commentary originally appeared at Big Pivots.
Matters of little consequence often get major time and attention. And vice versa. Two energy bills in the Colorado Legislature this year, one about nuclear energy and the second about electrical transmission, illustrate this.
The first bill, House Bill 25-1040, which is now law, declared that nuclear energy is clean. It proclaims that utilities can meet clean-energy targets with nuclear. It also allows private projects access to financing restricted to clean energy development.
The bill sailed through the Legislature. Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law March 31. For believers, those who want to believe that nuclear energy will be the answer, it was a big win.
To what effect? Likely none. Forget about nuclear waste and safety concerns. Cost of energy from new nuclear plans remains exorbitant.
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Some of this was sorted through in a four-hour committee hearing in March. Chuck Kutscher was among several dozen individuals given two-minute slots to testify. He deserved more time. A nuclear engineer by training, he subsequently moved into renewables, retiring from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory several years ago.
At a later meeting in Jefferson County, Kutscher explained why he expects nuclear energy to play no role in Colorado's energy transition. It comes down to cost.
'I like to give credit where credit is due. And the fact is that nuclear power in this country has saved a heck of a lot of carbon dioxide and air pollution emissions,' he said. 'Nuclear provides almost half of U.S. carbon-free electricity, which is pretty impressive.'
As for costs, Kutscher cited two metrics courtesy of Lazard, a financial company that monitors electrical generation. The cost of building new nuclear plants comes in at $8,000 to $13,000 per kilowatt of generating capacity. Solar comes in at $1,400, wind at $2,000.
A broader metric, the levelized cost, includes capital, fuel and operating costs over the life of an energy plant. 'The longer a plant runs, the lower its life-cycle costs, because it's producing more energy,' Kutscher explained. By this measure, nuclear still comes up short: 18 cents a kilowatt-hour compared to solar and wind for 5 and 6 cents.
Might costs drop with a new generation of small modular reactors? SMRs can generate 300 megawatts or less. One was planned in the West, but in 2023 the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems pulled out of its contract with nuclear company NuScale — because of cost.
If nuclear costs make it a non-starter in Colorado, can renewables deliver us to an emission-free electrical system? The sun vanishes daily, and sometimes winds on our eastern plains die down, even for days. Kutscher sees possible solutions in improving storage technologies and expanded transmission. Transmission can enable electricity to be shared across multiple time zones and weather systems.
Even moving electricity around Colorado more efficiently has value. The second bill, Senate Bill 24-127, proposes to do that. It would require investor-owned utilities to investigate tools called advanced transmission technologies. They will enable more use from existing transmission lines and associated infrastructure.
Larry Milosevich, a Lafayette resident, decided six years ago to devote himself to fewer pursuits. He says he chose the role of advanced technologies for transmission because of its oversized impact. The transmission system developed during the last century has many inefficiencies.
'I would love to see advanced transmission technologies get a little more light,' he says. Why hasn't it happened? 'It doesn't have sex appeal.'
This bill will not solve all problems. 'You need a lot of arrows in your quiver to get there. And it's not one technology that's going to save the day,' says Leah Rubin Shen, managing director of Advanced Energy United, an industry association that advocates for technologies and policies that advance decarbonization.
More transmission will still be needed. Approvals take time. Using these tools can more rapidly expand capacity at lower cost. 'We characterize it as a no-regrets solution,' says Rubin Shen.
State Sen. Cleave Simpson, a Republican from Alamosa, was the primary author of the bill. 'We can increase the capacity and resilience of our infrastructure without having to undertake expensive, large-scale construction projects,' he told committee members at a March meeting.
The committee that day heard from fewer than a dozen witnesses. It passed an amended bill and moved on within 45 minutes. Several weeks before, the same committee heard nuclear testimony for hours.
In a later interview, Simpson described the bill, slimmed greatly in ambition from its original iteration, as 'maybe a tiny step forward, but a doable one.'
Unlike nuclear, not the answer, but a doable one.
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