Page 14 - NBIZ JUNE 2024

Addressing Texas Grid Reliability:

Time To Go

Nuclear?

By Garrett Golding, Emily Ryder Perlmeter and Prithvi Kalkunte

ithout additional conservation appeals during the month, An expanding economy and
dispatchable encouraging retail electricity customers population, a growing footprint of
power generation, to reduce use of air conditioning and manufacturing facilities and data
Wtraditionally from large appliances. Some days it was centers and more frequent episodes of
fossil fuels, Texas is vulnerable to barely enough. Output from solar and extreme heat and cold have contrib-
power outages during peak demand wind facilities was low while thermal uted to Texas electricity consumption
periods if solar and wind power energy sources (natural gas, coal, and rising at an annual rate exceeding the
sources fall short. Thirty years after nuclear) struggled to keep up with re- national average.
Texas’ last nuclear plant opened, new cord-setting electricity demand or load. Nuclear power advocates say that
nuclear generation could provide As the energy capital of the nation at a time of increasing use of renew-
needed power without planet-warming kept a wary eye on power reserves, ables and heightened concerns over
greenhouse gas emissions. ERCOT officials warned they might climate change, nuclear should become
By Texas summer standards, the need to resort to rolling blackouts to a more readily available part of the
heat in August 2023 seemed relentless keep the system from breaking. mix. Nuclear is reliable, energy dense,
but not without precedent. A string In recent years, low-cost renewable and scalable. It also has zero carbon
of 100-plus-degree days gripped the energy sources such as wind and solar emissions. Comanche Peak Nuclear
state, and the sound of air condition- have flourished. However, when the Power Plant No. 2 in Glen Rose, Texas,
ing was constant. wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t 85 miles southwest of Dallas, began
The overseer of much of the state’s shine, and there are inadequate ther- operations in 1993. Since then, no
electricity grid, the Electric Reliability mal resources to fill the gap, the grid other nuclear power plant has opened
Council of Texas (ERCOT), issued eight can become vulnerable. in the state.

14 NBIZ ■ JUNE 2024