Georgia’s Clean Energy Outpaces Fossil Fuels with New Nuclear Boost

For the first time ever, clean power generation topped electricity output from fossil fuels in Georgia this year as the U.S. state added the newest nuclear power plants in the country after years of delays and at more than double the cost.

Unit 3 and Unit 4 at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia, have started commercial operations in the past year, making Vogtle the biggest U.S. nuclear power plant with nearly 5 gigawatts (GW) of total generating capacity, surpassing the 4,210-MW Palo Verde plant in Arizona.

The significance of the new units at Plant Vogtle is that they helped the state of Georgia generate more electricity from zero-carbon sources than from fossil fuels for the first time in history. The share of clean power in Georgia’s mix jumped to a record 47% between January and May, according to the latest data by clean energy think tank Ember, cited by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.

The boost in zero-carbon nuclear power has also helped reduce the carbon intensity of power generation of the Southern Company Services power system, which encompasses most of Georgia, Alabama, and parts of Mississippi.

“Although a number of nuclear reactors have retired in recent years, interest in nuclear power as an energy resource to help reduce the carbon footprint of the U.S. electric power sector has increased recently,” the EIA noted earlier this year.

While interest in nuclear energy has been rising in the U.S., the Georgia plants that were the first to begin commercial operations in nearly a decade could be the last of their kind in America.

The huge cost overruns, for which Georgia ratepayers have been on the hook, and the years of delays to put the last two units at Vogtle into operation are not unique in the nuclear energy industry, where plants often take billions of U.S. dollars and years more to complete and start up.

Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and in 2017 (Vogtle 4), the project in Georgia ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns. Georgia Power now estimates the total cost of the project to be more than $30 billion, according to EIA estimates.

Vogtle Units 3 and 4 took 15 years to build and cost $36.8 billion, more than twice the projected timeline and cost, six Georgia consumer and environmental groups said in a report, ‘Plant Vogtle: The True Cost of Nuclear Power in the United States’, in May this year.

“Vogtle is a cautionary tale for the rest of the country. Here in Georgia, we’re stuck with the most expensive power ever produced, nothing to take pride in,” said Brionté McCorkle, executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters, which co-released the report.

Vogtle could be the last of its kind nuclear power plant to enter operations in the United States as efforts in nuclear energy are now focused on advanced reactors and small reactor technologies, which have the backing of the U.S. Administration via bills and incentives.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said at the startup of Vogtle Unit 4 in May, “To reach our goal of net zero by 2050, we have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country. That means we’ve got to add 200 more gigawatts by 2050.”

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has a production tax credit to help preserve the existing fleet of nuclear plants and several tax incentives for clean energy technologies, including advanced reactors. IRA also invests $700 million to support the development of a domestic supply chain for high-assay low-enriched uranium, commonly referred to as HALEU, which is urgently needed to support the deployment of advanced reactors.

In July this year, President Joe Biden also signed the ADVANCE Act to focus on small reactor technologies. The Administration thus hopes to accelerate the pace for innovation and “get shovels in the ground sooner to start building more domestic reactors.”

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com