'Advanced' nuclear reactors coming to Coastal Bend
By Julia Strong
Not just one, but four nuclear reactors are planned to come online in the Coastal Bend. These types of nuclear reactors have never been built before. How safe do you feel living in a “guinea pig” area like South Texas?
After reading Chisme Collective’s Part 1 on the area’s burgeoning nuclear industry, we know nuclear energy is not a zero greenhouse gas way of generating electricity.
Read more about nuclear power in South Texas here.
Read more about the uranium mining process here.
A partnership between X-energy and Dow has been formed to build four never-before-built reactors through a public-private partnership established under the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.
They proposed to build the reactors at the Dow Seadrift Industrial Park in Seadrift, Texas. X-energy is currently drilling bore holes to collect environmental samples for the Construction Permit Application. Gov. Greg Abbott supports this project and future nuclear projects within the state.
X-energy uses experimental technology for its 80 MW XE-100 reactors. It also will use an experimental fuel technology called TRISO-X that has never been used before. The fuel will be made in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Taxpayers are footing the bill for much of this project. More than $1 billion of funding has been supplied by the U.S. government. At this point, it’s unknown if the fuel or reactors will function correctly when they come online.
Dow plans to use the electricity provided by the four reactors, as well as the steam they will make, for their own industrial projects.
The Cost of Nuclear
Nuclear power plants need tons of water to operate making them one of the most water-intensive ways to create electricity. What natural resource are we short of in the Coastal Bend? Is there anything more precious than water? Why would our elected leaders allow corporations to waste it at a great expense to the taxpayer when lower water electricity generation is available, quicker and cheaper?
Nuclear is the most expensive way to generate utility-scale electricity, according to a study – “2023 Levelized Cost of Energy+” – by financial investment firm Lazard.
Nuclear energy can only be built with taxpayer-funded subsidies. One of the biggest subsidies was created by the Price-Anderson Act, which provides a mechanism for insurance in the case of nuclear accidents. If not for this, no nuclear reactors would have ever been built for electrical generation.
Between 2012 and 2022, 12 nuclear plants have been shut down due to financial and economic challenges, according to the Congressional Research Service.
It is only by the promotion of misleading talking points and lobbying by the nuclear industry that there is any talk about a so-called "nuclear renaissance."
Even Bill Gates has expressed alignment with industry shills. Nuclear is the new shiny toy for tech companies who hope it will power cryptocurrency mining and artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.
The Rise of Nuclear in Texas
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia and high-tech industries with energy-intensive operations are to blame for the resurgence of nuclear power desirability in Texas.
In the past, Russia supplied the U.S. with enriched uranium, but the two-year old Russian-Ukraine war interrupted that supply.
Abbott now is exploring ways Texas can become the national leader in “using advanced nuclear energy,” according to a report published in November by the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
The report titled “Deploying a World-Renowned Advanced Nuclear Industry in Texas,” states new Advanced Nuclear Reactors (ANRs) would most likely be built in Texas ports. Their purpose would be to power large industrial operations and enable further industrial expansion.
Nuclear & Desal
It appears that Abbott will continue his push to turn the Coastal Bend into an industrial wasteland at the expense of the typical area resident and natural environment.
And they might try to run it all with desalinated water.
According to reporting by Inside Climate News, powerful interests in Texas are the ones pushing to power new, experimental technologies with next-generation nuclear reactors. Texas is host to an array of high-tech industries like crypto-currency mines, AI, hydrogen production and seawater desalination. Compared to other industries, these are more energy intensive.
According to the state's nuclear report, “the synergy between micro- and small modular nuclear reactors and desalination processes is well-documented. Integrating these processes with hydrogen production could provide significant economic benefits, positioning Texas as a global leader in low-carbon hydrogen production.”