Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
plants. That deal ends in 2013, but in 2008, a new contract was signed
that permits Russia to supply 20 percent of U.S. reactor fuel until 2020
and to supply the fuel for new reactors quota free. According to the
Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade association, former nuclear
bomb material from Russia accounts for 45 percent of the fuel in Ameri-
can nuclear reactors today; another 5 percent comes from American
bombs.
The price for uranium was $7 per pound in 2003 when it began a slow
rise to $25 in 2005. It then skyrocketed to a high of $139 in 2007 before
joining the sharp decreases in oil and natural gas prices and falling to $40
in 2009. The current relatively low price for all three of these commodi-
ties is certain to increase as the world recovers from the 2008-2010
economic decline. However, unlike oil or natural gas, the cost of the
uranium fuel is only a small part of the cost of the electricity produced
by the power plant, so even large fl uctuations in the price of uranium do
not have a major effect on the price of the electricity produced.
All existing full-power operating licenses for nuclear power plants in
the United States were issued between 1957 and 1996. Of the 132 plants
that were granted licenses, 28 have been permanently shut down, so 104
nuclear power plants are now in service; the most recent came online in
1996 in Tennessee. They operate at 92 percent of capacity rather than
100 percent because of shutdowns for maintenance and repair. This is
a much higher percentage than for coal (73 percent), natural gas (16-38
percent), or oil-fueled (30 percent) plants.
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Although no nuclear plants
have been built in the United States in recent years, existing facilities
have substantially improved their performance and lowered operating
costs.
Most nuclear plants whose operating licenses were approaching
their end have requested and been granted twenty-year extensions. And
because of heightened concerns about global warming and carbon
dioxide emissions from coal-fi red plants, the Nuclear Regulatory Com-
mission (NRC) received twenty-one applications in 2007 and 2008 for
permission to build thirty-four new nuclear plants at various sites around
the country.
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These are the fi rst such applications in thirty years. A large
percentage of proposed nuclear power plants whose applications are
approved are never built, so the future of nuclear energy in the United
States is uncertain despite the fl ood of applications. Most of the applica-
tions were submitted by utilities in the South. The NRC estimates it will
need two and a half years to review each application and an additional
year to conduct hearings on its conclusions. As a further setback to the
