Cost and Safety of Nuclear and ‘Clean’ Coal Plants Is Questionable,
Could Take Resources Away from Wind, Solar Initiatives, Texas Coalition Says
The Texas Public Utility Commission (PUCT) should not give
nuclear plants or “clean” coal plants priority on the “new renewable energy
superhighways” as part of its decision on the state’s competitive renewable
energy zones (CREZ), according to a coalition of consumer and environmental
groups in a petition filed today with the commission.
The PUCT decided on July 17 to authorize 18,456 megawatts of transmission
lines to transport wind energy from rural West Texas to highly populated Texas
cities. The ability to transmit wind energy from West Texas has become
challenging in recent years. It takes less than a year to build a wind plant but
five to seven years to build transmission capacity. This has resulted in
transmission overload because there is already more wind power being generated
than there is transmission so the transmission lines available are already
overloaded. To address the challenge, the PUCT was charged by the Texas
Legislature with writing a plan to develop more transmission lines to serve
renewable energy plants.
“The transmission lines serving the windy areas were like two-lane dirt roads
when we needed six-lane superhighways to connect the wind to our cities,” said
Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office.
However, the commissioners delayed until July 31 a decision about whether to
give priority on these lines to nuclear and so-called clean coal plants. A
coalition of environmental and consumer groups, including Public Citizen, the
Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, and Environment Texas,
filed a petition with the PUCT asking to sever the decision on whether to give
dispatch priority on these transmission lines to nuclear and coal plants.
Giving nuclear and so-called clean coal plants priority to use these lines
could discourage renewable companies from investing in Texas and unnecessarily
delay the entire plan, according to Smith. It also could discourage investment
because the inclusion of an unknown number of nuclear power and “clean” coal
plants makes it difficult for the renewable industry to accurately assess
transmission capacity in various CREZ zones and on various lines.
The idea that nuclear and coal plants could be built in a reasonable amount
of time is questionable, too. When Texas last built new nuclear plants, they
were eight to 10 years late. And even if they are built quickly, they may not
work properly; the “clean” coal plants would use untried technologies that may
not be ready on time or may not work, increasing the risk that the CO2
sequestration promised on these “clean” coal plants may not operate
“All of these scenarios would discourage the development of renewable energy
and would thwart the legislature’s goal of expanding the use of renewable
energy,” Smith said.
And while current nuclear power may look cheap, proposed nuclear plants are
actually the most expensive way to generate electricity. Cost estimates for the
next generation of nuclear plants have increased 2 to 2.4 times in the past two
years. The commissioners’ perception of costs may be out of date, not fully
reflective of current estimates of bond rating houses and not based on estimates
of costs by utilities.
“This is a decision that needs to be made based on a full analysis of cost
and benefits of each of the various methods of energy generation. It should not
be based on the commissioners’ perceptions or out-of-date estimates of costs,”
said Karen Hadden of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition.
“The PUCT should make this decision based on fully developed estimates of
current costs of the alternatives in another proceeding (PUCT Docket No 34577)
that has been opened to specifically discuss this issue.”
Texas is already a leader in wind energy and is poised to be a leader in
renewable energy. According to Luke Metzger of Environment Texas, concentrating
solar energy in West Texas is now cheaper than the latest cost estimates for
nuclear power. The proposed transmission lines could ship solar energy from West
Texas into the state’s cities and help meet surging peak demand for
electricity.
“We think that giving priority to nuclear and so-called clean coal plants
will be promoting last century’s technology instead of promoting new cheaper,
cleaner and safer technology,” he said.
