Shutting Down Nuclear Power Plants: Economic and Environmental Impacts

1. Shutting Down Nuclear Power Plants: Economic and Environmental Impacts 15 June 2011 Professor Paul Fischbeck Carnegie Mellon University fischbeck@cmu.edu 412-268-3240 David Rode DAI Management Consultants, Inc. drode@daimc.com 412-220-8920

2. Shutting Down Nuclear Power Plants • Since Fukushima, there has been discussion of the risks imposed by nuclear power plants and several countries have taken steps to reduce use of nuclear power • Scheduled complete shutdowns of all reactors in Germany by 2022 and Switzerland by 2032 • June 2011 Italian referendum curtails development • Question: Given various criteria for shutting down nuclear plants, what would be the impact on environmental and economic metrics in the United States? • Individual plants • All plants exposed to natural risks (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados) • Plants with specific characteristics (individual, age, manufacturer) • Characteristics of surrounding region (population, political support) • Interactive spreadsheet to allow users to investigate various combinations of shutdown rules • Model and background information can be downloaded from: http://www.cedm.epp.cmu.edu/tools.php

3. Reasons for Curtailing Operations? http://www.mapcruzin.com/nuclear-plants-risk-us/ http://www.emsei.psu.edu/hazards/hurr2.htm http://theboldcorsicanflame.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/u-s-nuclear-reactor-power-plant-seismic-hazard-and-historical-earthquakes/

4. Method • All power generation facilities for each North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) region were modeled (total over 16,000 plants) • Historical capacity factor • Emissions rates • Variable costs (sorted) • Nuclear plants were turned off based on risk/decision criteria • Lost production made up by increasing the output of non-nuclear power plants with extra capacity in order of marginal cost (cheapest first) • Used NERC forced outage rates for coal and gas to determine available capacity • Assumed all production made up within each NERC region • Calculated cost of generation with new mix of plants is a lower bound • Infinitely elastic (did not model change in cost caused by additional demand) • Does not include transmission and distribution costs • Pipeline capacity would be reached for some regions well before demand is met • For some scenarios, increase demand would send NG prices much higher

5. The Model • All “yellow” cells are user selectable • Options for shutting down all plants or using a filter to select a subset of plants • Filter criteria • Three levels of hurricane, earthquake, or tornado risks • Population of surrounding county • Age of reactor • Politics of state (Red or Blue) based on 2008 Presidential election • Natural disaster risks are approximate based on various sources • Risk levels are designed to show general trends, not a detailed quantitative risk study • Multiple criteria can be selected with either “and” or “or” logic • Shutdown plants that have both tornado and hurricane risk (few plants would pass filter) • Shutdown plants with either tornado or hurricane risk (many more plants would pass filter) • National and regional metrics • Cost increase measured in $/MWh • Increase in emissions (NOx, SO2, and CO2) measured in millions of tons • Increase in coal consumption measured in millions of tons • Increase in additional natural gas consumption measured in millions of mmBTUs • Regional analysis is done for one metric at a time and can be shown for amount of increase or percent change • Number of replacement wind turbines estimated using 70 meter, 2.5 MW turbines operating at 25% capacity

6. Interface http://www.cedm.epp.cmu.edu/tools.php

7. Shutdown Based on Natural Risks Impact on percentage change of national measures

8. Shutdown Based on Demographics and Plant Characteristics Percentage change of national measures

9. Impact on US Generation and Costs

10. Impact on USEmissions

11. Impact on US Demand for Fuel Sources

12. Shutting Down Individual Plants • Regional impact of shutting down individual facilities • 104 reactors at 65 facilities • Shutdown all reactors at a single location • Impact measures • Cost increase measured in $/MWh • Increase in emissions (NOx, SO2, and CO2) measured in millions of tons • Increase in coal consumption measured in millions of tons • Impacts determined at the NERC region level • National Electricity Reliability Council • 15 regions used (2 regions have no nuclear plants)

13. Costs

14. NOx

15. SO2

16. CO2

17. Coal

18. Gas

19. Relationship between Regional ImpactsChange in Additional Coal and Costs

20. Relationship between Regional ImpactsPercentage Change in Generation Costs and CO2

21. Relationship between Regional ImpactsPercentage Change in SO2 and NOx

22. Conclusions • Nuclear power plants are a major source of electricity generation in the US • Shutdown of plants could lead to large increases in multiple outcome measures both at the regional and national scale • Significant unintended negative consequences could result from nuclear plant shutdowns for well-intentioned risk-reduction reasons if careful long-term planning is not done