Opinion: New Jersey Can't Afford a 'Nuclear Renaissance'

By R. William Potter

[R. William Potter is a partner in Potter & Dickson, a Princeton-based law firm. His views are his own and not necessarily those of the firm or of any client.]

For the past few years, energy policy makers -- President Barack Obama and Gov. Chris Christie included -- have touted a "nuclear renaissance," a surge of support for building new nuclear power plants both to satisfy expected increases in energy demand and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuel.

Not even the Fukushima disaster seems to have slowed the rush to restart nuclear construction after a 35 year de facto moratorium following the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl explosion.

Now comes a little-noted study by John Blackburn, an economics professor emeritus at Duke University. The year-old report, sponsored by the North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction Network, or NC WARN, casts serious doubt on one of the mainstay arguments for nuclear: that it is so much cheaper than the alternatives, especially solar.

The study's title leaves little uncertainty as to its conclusions: Solar and Nuclear Costs -- The Historic Crossover: Solar Energy is Now the Better Buy..

As the report explains: "Solar photovoltaic [electric] system costs have fallen steadily. They are projected to fall even farther over the next 10 years. Meanwhile, projected costs for new nuclear plants have risen steeply over the last decade and they continue to rise."

Most significantly, "the trend lines have crossed.... Electricity from new solar installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear plants." A detailed graph shows solar costs dropping from 14-15 cents per kilowatt-hour today to less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020. New nuclear keeps on climbing to more than 30 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020.

According to Blackburn, these trend lines are documented by numerous studies and reports, many from the nuclear industry itself. Importantly, he adds, "everyone should understand that both new solar and new nuclear power will cost more than present sources. That is, electricity cost will rise in any case. But power bills will rise much less with solar than with an increased reliance on new nuclear generation."

What about maintaining system reliability? Whatever it's total cost, nuclear is 100 percent "baseload" meaning it runs 24/7 in almost all weather conditions (short of a Category 5 hurricane). But solar, even if cheaper, is an intermittent power source. Keeping the lights on, AC humming, and computers running requires a constant source of juice that solar just can't guarantee. Right?

Not quite. Enter Lyle Rawlings, president of Advanced Solar Products, one of New Jersey's most successful solar developers. (Disclosure: this law firm represented his company in years past.) Rawlings believes it's time for what he calls "The New Paradigm" for power development. And investing billions of dollars in the building of more nuclear plants has no legitimate role in the "portfolio mix" he argues.

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