Xcel Energy's race to retire coal plants and remove carbon emissions from the state's power grid may rely on plans to keep Minnesota's three aging nuclear reactors operating for decades.
That prospect has a number of environmental groups, some of which have protested the state's nuclear policies in the past, wrestling with how to respond. In an era when greenhouse gases and climate change have become a more pressing environmental threat than nuclear waste, several groups want to take a closer look at the potential benefits of Minnesota's nuclear reactors.
Some places such as Germany are actively trying to shutter their nuclear plants, and several states across the country are retiring them early in a search for cheaper energy. But here in Minnesota, nuclear power may be a linchpin in Xcel's efforts to meet its promise to customers to make energy production carbon-free by 2050, said Chris Clark, Xcel's president for Minnesota and the Dakotas.
"I think the places that allow nuclear to close are going to find it much harder to exit coal," Clark said. "These plants are critical to helping achieve that carbon reduction."
Nobody knows exactly what the future of wind and solar might be, but experts agree the technology isn't there yet to rely on those resources alone. It's far from certain that it ever will be. In that case, billion-dollar decisions need to be made now on how to best cover the gap that wind and solar might never bridge.
When the priority is for Minnesota to phase out coal and stop construction of new natural gas plants, any carbon-free energy "takes on new value," said Allen Gleckner, senior director of energy markets and regulatory affairs for Fresh Energy, a renewable power research and advocacy group.
The future of nuclear energy all comes down to cost and safety, said Steve Clemmer, director of energy research and analysis for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a global-warming control advocacy group that has long been skeptical about the economic viability of nuclear reactors.
The big fear is that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has made natural gas so cheap that when nuclear plants are retired early, the power they had supplied would be replaced by carbon-emitting gas plants rather than by wind or solar, Clemmer said.