F
ifteen years and $35 billion. That’s what it took to finally complete the two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, heralded by the nuclear industry and politicians alike, as the beginning of a so-called nuclear renaissance. Even the completion timeline of Plant Vogtle was generous, given that the project was first announced in March 2004, initially planning a 2017 completion and projected cost of $14 billion. That’s the current track record of the nuclear industry: false claims, decades to build and tens of billions of dollars over budget.
Now, a similar pro-nuclear wave is descending on Colorado. The Colorado legislature recently passed and Gov. Jared Polis signed a pro-nuclear bill, despite pushback from frontline and underserved communities. House Bill 1040 is a small step in a much larger push to bring a nuclear reactor to the Pueblo area on the backs of Colorado’s ratepayers and most vulnerable.
As Xcel Energy considers future energy plans after retiring the Pueblo Comanche coal plant in 2030, building new nuclear power facilities, including Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs, in Pueblo, has been proposed. But nuclear power is not the answer for Colorado — it is an expensive, high-risk energy source that disproportionately burdens Black and brown communities while failing to provide real climate solutions. As a Denver native, Portia watched several of my own family members in need of jobs, take the most dangerous positions within the industry at the Rocky Flats Plant, which fabricated plutonium pits to be used in nuclear weapons, just to feed the family.
Across the country, nuclear projects are plagued by massive budget overruns and years — sometimes decades — of delays. Here in Colorado, Xcel Energy is eyeing a $100 million fund — money taken from taxpayers — to explore “advanced technology” like nuclear power. This is a dangerous gamble, especially when we know that proven technologies like wind, solar and battery storage can be deployed at a fraction of the cost and time required for a full nuclear reactor buildout.
We need to look no further than our friends in Georgia for what’s ahead. Utility bills for Georgians have skyrocketed since the completion of Plant Vogtle’s two new reactors last year. An electricity rate increase of over 35% hit ratepayers and everyone is pointing fingers playing the blame game.
Nuclear power is not cost-competitive in the U.S. and has not been for decades — Vogtle is the only new nuclear reactor in 30 years. The Georgia Public Service Commission ignored staff, public opposition and energy experts who recommended against continuing Vogtle when cost overruns were so extreme in 2017, the main contractor Westinghouse went bankrupt. Those bad decisions have put Georgians’ utility bills in among the top five most expensive in the country.
Disconnection rates for inability to pay high electric bills are soaring, up 30% over the same time period in 2023. Many retirees on fixed incomes can no longer make ends meet because of the rate increases. Some vulnerable Georgians had their power shut off last summer, creating life-threatening conditions in the middle of brutal heat waves when they could no longer cool their homes.
Georgians learned a painful lesson: New nuclear power is too expensive and takes too long. You can build more than twice the amount of solar, wind or storage capacity for half the cost in less than a quarter of the time. And no dangerous, long-lived, radioactive waste to deal with.
In Colorado, we have our own energy future to engineer as Xcel Energy plans for what’s next after retiring the Pueblo Comanche coal plant. Colorado should have learned, not only from other states, but our own failures with nuclear in the past.
The Fort St. Vrain nuclear power plant in Platteville, which operated from 1979 to 1989, was plagued by technical issues throughout its existence. It ran at an abysmal capacity factor of less than 15% over its 15-year lifespan due to recurring problems, including a final incident in 1989 when control rod failures led to another reactor shutdown. The discovery of hairline cracks in the main steam ring header sealed its fate, and operations were permanently terminated. The plant’s decommissioning was a long and expensive process, proving that nuclear power is unreliable and unsustainable for Colorado’s energy needs.
Nuclear proponents are constantly attempting to rebrand nuclear power as a “game-changer.” The reality is, even the “advanced reactors” or SMRs under discussion in Pueblo rely on old technologies dating back to the 1960s. Make no mistake, a proposed nuclear project in Pueblo would run into the same cost overruns and scheduling delays as Georgia’s Plant Vogtle.
Our advice to Coloradans is simple: Don’t get fooled by false promises of an industry in pursuit of big profits. Learn from others’ mistakes. Don’t repeat what Georgians just went through, because they’ll be paying for this boondoggle for years and years to come.
Portia Prescott of Denver is the regional president of the Rocky Mountain NAACP CO-WY-MT State Conference and has been a policy champion, community organizer and managing member of Prescott Solution for more than 30 years.
Kim Scott of Atlanta is executive director of Georgia WAND, is a native Georgian, and has a chemical engineering degree from Vanderbilt University.
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