Utah Must Learn From Its Nuclear Mistakes
By Lexi Tuddenham, Executive Director at HEAL Utah
In November 2023, the NuScale/Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) project collapsed due to cost overruns that would have saddled subscribers with untenable energy costs for untold decades to come. The NuScale project, dubbed by its creators the “Carbon Free Power Project” (CFPP) — was once hailed as the future of energy in Utah.
Yet over the course of a decade, while the population and energy needs of communities waiting on the promise of its power grew and grew, the only things it actually delivered were shiny presentations and tours of Idaho National Laboratories, where it would have been built. Despite years of planning, and millions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars spent, the estimated cost of the project had grown 75% from initial estimates from $5.3 billion to $9.3 billion. Just between 2021 and 2023, the price at which the plant would have delivered electricity jumped 53 percent, from about $58 per megawatt-hour (MWh) to $89/MWh. All that with a proposed $4 billion federal subsidy that was bringing down the cost by $30/MWh. Without the subsidy the estimated cost before a single shovelful of actual dirt had actually been moved, was nearly $120/MWh, double the cost of solar energy combined with battery storage.
Meanwhile, the estimated time of completion had continuously been pushed further out. In 2015, it was 8 years out. In 2022, it was still eight years out.
- When the CFPP was finally terminated, the CEO of NuScale, John Hopkins, famously stated, “Once you’re on a dead horse, you dismount quickly…”. Unfortunately for the communities banking on the energy of the dead horse, there was no easy exit. Those communities who stuck around until the bitter end of the project were spared the high exit fees that were extracted from those who saw the writing on the wall and departed earlier, but they were left scrambling for energy to keep the lights on for growing businesses and families. The main beneficiaries of the entire boondoggle? Investors in NuScale who speculated on the backs of families trying to make ends meet.
Just two years later it seems clear that we have not learned our lesson here in Utah. At a time when Utah families and businesses are already stretched thin by soaring housing costs, rising groceries, and growing utility bills, our state and utilities are doubling down on risky, slow, and expensive nuclear power projects – the most unaffordable option.
Back then, we were told these theoretical power plants were for electrification–to clear our dirty air and power the economic vitality of rural communities facing a decline in fossil fuel generation. Now, as the power landscape of the U.S. has shifted with the ballooning of AI data centers and their much-vaunted need for power, we are told that new nuclear development is essential for data centers, and that “energy superabundance” is just around the corner.
What is not clear in any of this is how communities will benefit. The same pattern repeats itself. Startups naive to nuclear energy production, and even energy production in general, are able to garner millions of dollars infederal subsidies (i.e. your taxpayer dollars) and private investment as they sell their prospective projects to both hyperscalers like Google and Meta and growing communities desperate for energy. Data centers have yet to account for how they will obtain sufficient water for operations, keep ratepayers from paying sky-high rates for electricity, and displace other power needs from the grid. Jobs, community revitalization, and a brighter future are promised to those who most need them. But when the project collapses or the company goes bankrupt, communities are left holding the bag. They still need power, and in some cases are paying for energy they will never get.
Public transparency is key.
Here in Utah, Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) recently issued a heavily redacted request to the Public Service Commission to expedite its own power purchase agreement with Bill Gates’ Terrapower Natrium nuclear reactor project in Wyoming. Details that would clarify whether the project might actually provide “system-wide benefits…to ratepayers,” as RMP testified, are marked “confidential.”
Meanwhile, EnergySolutions, a radioactive and hazardous waste disposal company recently rebranded as a “nuclear energy” company, is actively pursuing a secretive effort to import over 1 million tons of radioactive waste over international borders into the U.S. for permanent disposal. There was limited public information made available about the request, and no local comment opportunity.
As we are faced with an alphabet soup of new reactor designs and companies, it is essential that we ask key questions. At a bare minimum these should include–what is the company’s experience and expertise in this area? How will a public purchase agreement be designed to protect consumers from ballooning future costs? How will transparency be ensured so that a competitive and fair process transpires and true costs, plans for radioactive waste disposal, and timelines are disclosed and the company advancing them can be held accountable? And how will community risks and benefits be integrated into the decision making process?
Too often, the nuclear industry and its cheerleaders wave away community concerns, telling people to “trust the experts,” while burying legitimate questions about safety in jargon. If we are to seriously consider nuclear power, we need a clear-eyed assessment of its real costs, risks, and trade-offs.
Overstating the case for safety and affordability does not serve to bring the people of Utah closer to safe, clean, reliable, affordable, and abundant energy. What is truly needed is an honest reckoning with the facts.
