How much of a setback is San Onofre's closure?

The word "uncertainty" has become quite a buzzword in business and financial reporting, but it's perhaps nowhere more aptly used than it is when talking about the state of the U.S. nuclear power industry. Uncertainty is the stated reason why Edison International's Southern California Edison decided to permanently retire its already shut down San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

This uncertainty stems from low natural gas prices, the lingering memory of Fukushima, cheaper alternatives, nervous investors and capital costs that seem to start out high only to be revised higher — as is the case with both the SCANA Corp.'s V.C. Summer Nuclear Station expansion and Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle expansion.

The uncertain environment is in no way helped by the spate of awful headlines that is plaguing the industry as of late — everything from cracked equipment and plant closures to the strange case of how two goldfish wound up in a juice pitcher in a restricted area of FirstEnergy's Perry nuclear plant.

Headlines such as these (and others, as the parade of bad news for the nuclear industry has been almost too overwhelming to keep track of lately) have a cumulative negative impact on public opinion, and the nuclear sector has always had to be more concerned about public goodwill than most other businesses.

So call it navel gazing, soul searching or just a much-needed conversation, but people are wondering about the long-term future of this industry. Proponents of nuclear generation are hoping the technology didn't peak in 2001 when it produced more than 20 percent of all power in the U.S., though that figure has since fallen to 19 percent.

What are the bright spots for nuclear? Well, one advantage that will never go away is the technology's superior carbon emissions profile — namely, it releases none. However, there are alternatives to nuclear that release no pollution, are easier to install, suffer from less of a NIMBY effect and are generally better-liked by the public.

Another area where nuclear proponents are holding out hope for is small modular reactors. The Department of Energy is backing R&D for SMR technology, and several big-name companies are looking into getting involved or are already involved. The benefit of the SMR is safety and scalability, but developers still need to prove they can get an SMR up and running. The advantages of SMRs don't mean much if they prove every bit as hard to get deployed and operating as conventional reactors are.

For California, the permanent loss of SONGS' nuclear generation capacity means a less diverse generation portfolio overall, to be sure, however, all is not lost on that score. Around the same time SCE announced they were throwing in the towel on SONGS, the California ISO announced that the Golden State was now capable of producing more than 2 GW of solar energy.

Normally when nuclear power plants are taken offline, for whatever reason, the only feasible solution is to replace the lost baseload with coal-fired power or natural gas power. California, though, is one of the top 10 economies in the world and in possession of an incredible variety of natural resources and geological variety. The potential for developing geothermal assets, hydropower facilities and solar and wind farms is more promising in California than in many other areas of the world. The state already generates more than 23 percent of its power from renewable sources, including hydropower.

What California does or doesn't do about its generation mix, though, is cold comfort to the nuclear industry at large. The economics of power generation is changing as fuel prices fluctuate and new regulations kick in. Coal as well as nuclear energy — both proven ways to generate baseload power — are becoming liabilities to their owners instead of assets.

Given the economics of the situation, it's hard to blame Southern California Edison's for its decision on San Onofre. The plant had become a money pit. However, even now that the decision to close it has been made, the plant itself will continue to cost its owners a significant sum. Safely disassembling the facility will take decades — perhaps even a half century. You have to wonder what things will look like for the American nuclear power industry by the time the plant has been completely taken apart.

Too early to use the phrase 'nuclear renaissance' again?

Back around late 2008 when I worked for Power Engineering, one of our sister publications in the electric power trade media people were using the phrase "nuclear renaissance" quite a bit.

Is it too early to talk about a nuclear renaissance again? The short answer is: "Probably." The only other answer I can think of right now is, "Time will tell."

With both 2008 presidential candidates supporting a new fleet of nuclear plants and nearly 40 planned nuclear reactors ready to be constructed around the world, my senior editors told me a "sea change" was happening. Those were their exact words. The industry hadn't been buzzing about nuclear energy this much since the days before the Three Mile Island accident, they said.

This was, of course, before the world economy hit rock bottom and an earthquake-spawned tsunami swamped the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, touching off the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. That was before Japan's nuclear industry was shattered, Germany pulled out of nuclear energy entirely and few countries seemed eager to pursue anything resembling a renaissance.

For an industry that has for so long been defined by the terrible accidents associated with it, and not for the carbon-free energy that it produces as baseload electricity for some 30 countries, good news has often been scarce.

Even when people don't think about nuclear disasters, they tend to think of nuclear energy as being more expensive than it appears. While it is true you can fuel cities on just a few small pieces of fissionable material, the sheer amount of cash it takes to get those fuel rods humming in a fully constructed plant makes nuclear energy seem more promising on paper than it is in the real world.

So maybe it's because this industry hasn't gotten much good news over the past decade that people who advocate for nuclear energy are willing to latch on to any bit of progress. That progress may be arriving with the approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency's first Combined Constriction and Operating Licenses ever.

At Southern Co.'s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant and South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.'s Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station, the idea of the nuclear renaissance is being tested yet again. The approvals of the licenses are a big step — a historic step, even. But there is still a lot standing in the way of a true renaissance.

The first time Americans started talking about a nuclear renaissance was around the turn of the century. Perhaps key here was that natural gas and coal prices had spiked. Today, natural gas is dirt cheap, and there's a rush to build more gas-fired turbines. One might justifiably ask now why we shouldn't just build a fleet of gas-fired units instead of a large, expensive nuclear plant.

While there is still some dispute over cost-per-megawatt figure building a nuclear plant represents, no one will call that figure low. Even as large as modern power utilities are, some doubt whether there's a single utility with a balance sheet large enough to float a loan to build one — thus requiring the advent of nuclear consortiums, perhaps even international ones.

Then there's the problem of getting plans for a plant past the local public utility commissions, who must approve these expenditures. In today's economy, they might want to know why the utility doesn't want to choose a cheaper generation technology. Plant Vogtle's builders said they wanted to diversify into nuclear energy because they don't want to be held hostage to a future spike in natural gas prices. This seems logical, but bureaucrats can be less than logical.

Finally, you've got to sell the idea to a post-Fukushima public that is more skeptical of nuclear than ever. Even if you manage to find a receptive audience and the locals do want a nuclear plant, anti-nuclear and other hostile environmental organizations will be more emboldened than they were a decade ago when the talk of a nuclear renaissance first started.

There are still 18 expansion projects comprising 28 nuclear units that have applied for COLs, including Vogtle and Summer, according to the NRC. I'm thinking that potential nuclear power plant builders are thanking heaven for small favors that they are able to apply for and occasionally get a COL approved. Licensing might actually be one of the easier things about building a nuclear plant.

Then again, editors have long memories and we can be a cynical bunch. Just because we've heard this stuff before doesn't mean big things aren't about to happen.