Peter Bradford

Vice chair, Union of Concerned Scientists



Peter Bradford advises and teaches on utility regulation and energy policy in the United States and overseas. A former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and former chair of the New York and Maine utility commissions, he has advised many states on utility restructuring issues. He has taught energy law and policy at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Vermont Law School. He served on a panel advising the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on how best to replace the remaining Chernobyl nuclear plants. He was also part of an expert panel advising the Austrian Institute for Risk Reduction on issues associated with the opening of the Mochovche nuclear power plant in Slovakia. He is also affiliated with the Regulatory Assistance Project, which provides assistance to state and federal energy regulatory commissions regarding economic regulatory policy and environmental protection. He is vice-chair of the Board of the Union of Concerned Scientists.



Nuclear Power’s Prospect in the Power Markets of the 21st Century

Why a Future for the Nuclear Industry is Risky

Nuclear Deficits by Peter Bradford and Kurt Gottfried, September 2006

Nuclear Not the Answer

Testimony before the United States Senate, Committee on Environment and Public Works, January 2002



Notes on Peter Bradford’s presentation to the Village Square (10.2.2007):

Nuclear belongs almost exclusively in the baseload category – should be running at 4:30 in the morning.

“So much of energy policy making and energy resource choices seem to involve forecasting and so often the debates involve people who seem to think the unknowable can be stated with certainty.”

Truths that 30 years ago most people would have held to be self evident back then:

• Oil would by now cost $150/barrel – in 1977 dollars, would be considerably more. Of course, oil has never come close to that price - 1980’s price fell –
• US will have 500 nuclear power plants by now - understated as atomic energy commission – said 1000 by now
• There would be brown and blackouts. But with 110 completed, 104 operating – there and no shortage of generation capacity
• 20% coming from middle east couldn’t be reduced – – current oil use in power sector is about 2%
• We thought natural gas was a declining resource. Congress passed law prohibiting more electric generating stations – was thought there wouldn’t be enough capacity.
• Conventional wisdom growth in demand for electricity in 7% range would double every decade – since then it’s more in the 1-2% range.
• Energy efficiency turned out to be the single largest source of energy “supply” during the years following the 70’s - explains why the 7% growth rate which had been the historical norm was able to fall to the 1% to 2% range. Makes a huge difference in number of plants actually needed nowhere near what we thought.

****“Necessary to approach it with the knowledge that what we really need is a set of correct principles rather than hoping somehow to have conferred upon us a significant prophecy because it is so very clear what has happened to the prophecies of 30 years ago.” (President stated not too long ago that conservation is simply “a sign of personal virtue”)

U.S. has most nuclear capacity by far in a way – second is French – they have a higher percentage nuclear than we do.

There aren’t many plants under construction now – largest number are in countries that don’t use competitive procurement processes to secure energy resources. French say going to build another one soon. This isn’t the stuff of a serious nuclear renaissance – at least not yet. Percent of nuclear in world – level pretty steady over years.

Economics of power plants have improved significantly over the years – output has grown dramatically because operations have become a good deal more efficient. They’re getting 30% more electricity out of the same fixed investment.

Another word about the economics: Operating costs of nuclear quite favorable. 1.2 for the best plants to 2 cents for the worst plants - They’re in the range that compares favorably with gas and coal fired plants. In parts of the country where power supply procurement is competitive, market price determined by competition - nuclear plants are making a lot of money. But in Florida where the rates are regulated, a large part of those benefits don’t flow through to the customers.

But that doesn’t lead to conclusion we should build more – construction costs are very high – he thinks they are higher than Bill thinks they are – at 2007 dollars – suggest numbers more on the order of between 3600 and 4000 a kilowatt – translates into between 8 and 11 cents per kilowatt hour AND that is not competitive unless things change to factor a high value for climate change.

That’s why the industry is seeking subsidies. Nuclear power is unable at this time to attract private capital. If output is more expensive than competitors, not good investment – plus there is licensing risk to someone (litigation possible) – uncertainties great – licensing process untested – and construction costs and overruns tend to be unnerving to investors. If a nuclear plant proponent is asked where wastes will go, the best thing they can do is shrug. It will stay on site for many years. In 2005 Congress passed package of support for new nuclear units – a handful of “first mover” plants and there would be just a handful of subsidies. Now controversial if there are to be more plants with loan guarantees requested and the taxpayers would be on the hook for them.

Loan guarantees don’t lower the cost, they shift the risk. The plant can make money charging less for power. It gets shifted to the taxpayer. If something does go wrong, the taxpayers pick up the bill. So net societal cost hasn’t changed. This is different that the effect of reducing the cost of steel or concrete or ability to build plant in less time – it’s not a real savings.

The effect of this passage of subsidies is to unlearn the power supply lessons that we learned from the nuclear cost overruns of 25 to 30 years ago which were essentially to get the cost down, let’s make the building like the building of paper mills – investors bear the risks and get the rewards. But under that, they didn’t get built and now they’re shifting back to the risk being carried by taxpayers and customers.

This is inconsistent with a sustainable nuclear renaissance. We know the government can build nuclear power plants – China/Russia shows this. But not the way we’d generally build large industrial complex in US.

So – obstacles remain successful participation in power supply markets, waste program and nonproliferation issues.

First, there is no renaissance underway. It will be a fairly heroic undertaking to prevent a decline in the capacity to replace aging plants capacity. To increase capacity substantially as would be necessary to combat global warning – means we’d need to double or triple existing fleet. Since none underway, that’s not going to solve the problem.

There are enough ways to reduce carbon – auto fleets, houses, renewable energy resources. One doesn’t have to rely on nuclear. If can be brought online at a reasonable cost, good, but if it’s being brought online with excessive targeted subsidies, it’s actually harmful to our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases - some people think it is harmful to progress as we are not making the best buys first. If you can find more greenhouse gas emissions with the 3 or 4 million put into a plant, then you’re hurting the situation.

Era of strong political support for nuclear. Had another era like that when Reagan came in and it didn’t help nuclear power .

Reprocessing of spent fuel (chopping it up and extracting plutonium for new fuel)– advanced as a potential solution, but it isn’t. Doesn’t reduce size of repository or the cost of waste disposal and also has implications for proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The ingredients of an intelligent energy policy that might help nuclear power, or it might not:

It starts with recognizing that nuclear power is an energy source and not a religion. If we have a broad climate change regime that internalized the value of reducing carbon – and there was real competition - competing even-up, “one doesn’t know who would win. . . We just don’t know what combination of resources would prevail. What’s important is not to play pin-the-tail on the donkey in Tallahassee or Washington in the sense of saying “we know what the winner is” and put a substantial part of our chips behind getting it done regardless of what sophisticated integrated resource planning or market mechanisms are telling us.

There is time to deal sensibly with waste, safety and proliferation issues because we can’t scale it up rapidly anyway. We don’t have to take shortcuts in dealing with these issues carefully.

Finally federal and state energy research efforts need to prioritized along lines of criteria we need to meet rather than a sense of which resources need favored treatment.