There's Just No Comparison When It Comes to Nuclear vs. Solar!

Guest Post by Roger Caiazza of Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.

I recently published an article summarizing a Syracuse Post Standard description of the transition problem by Tim Knauss who described the work done by Cornell’s Anderson Lab headed by Dr. Lindsay Anderson. I submitted a letter to the editor describing the implications of Anderson’s work arguing that pausing renewable energy development would be appropriate. This post responds to the rebuttal of my letter by Peter Wirth, Vice President, Climate Change Awareness and Action who claims that pausing renewable energy is the last thing we should do.

There’s just no comparison!

Overview

My primary reliability concern is the challenge of providing electric energy during periods of extended low wind and solar resource availability. Experts, including those that are responsible for electric system reliability, agree that a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) is necessary during those periods.

I have dedicated a page to DEFR which I described in an article that summarized six analyses describing the need for DEFR: the Integration Analysis, New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 Technical Conference, NYISO Resource Outlook, Richard Ellenbogen, Cornell Biology and Environmental Engineering Anderson Lab, and Nuclear New York.

My Letter to the Editor

On the same day that the Syracuse Post Standard published the Knauss article they published the following letter to the Editor:

The Tim Knauss article on Cornell Professor Anderson’s evaluation of the future New York electric grid is a readable summary of the issues associated with the need for a new dispatchable emissions-free resource (DEFR).

However, it does not address the implications on current NY energy policy.

The Hochul Administration has finally started its update of the NY Energy Plan. The draft scope of the plan describes an electric system that relies on wind and solar generation. No jurisdiction anywhere has successfully developed such a system. The State agencies responsible for a reliable electric system agree with Professor Anderson that a wind, solar, and energy storage system requires DEFR. It is prudent to fund a demonstration project to prove that such an electric system will work or, at the very least, complete a comprehensive renewable feasibility analysis to determine whether such a system will maintain affordability and reliability standards.

The most likely DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready. Nuclear power has a proven record for resilient electric production, development would not require changes to the rest of the electric system, it is not limited by weather extremes, it has lower environmental impacts, and when life cycle costs are considered is likely cheaper. Its use as backbone energy would eliminate the need for wind, solar, energy storage, and new DEFR deployment to meet Climate Act mandates. Renewable development should be paused until proven feasible because it is likely a dead-end approach.

Rebuttal to My Letter

Two weeks later the Syracuse Post Standard published a rebuttal to my letter by Peter Wirth entitled “Pausing cheap, renewable energy is the last thing NY should do”

Roger Caiazza’s letter, “NY must not rely on wind, solar to meet its energy needs” (Nov. 20, 2024), might make sense if it were written in 1954, when Bell Labs announced the invention of the first silicon solar cell.

Today, solar power is the least expensive form of energy, growing in leaps and bounds and the technology improving year by year.

In 1954, the cell developed by Bell Labs was about 6% efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. Today’s solar cells convert 20% to 22% of sunlight into electricity. Advanced research panels have reached as high as 30% efficiency. Every year the rate of efficiency improves.

Solar energy per kilowatt is cheaper than coal, which is less expensive than gas. Nuclear energy is, by far, the most expensive. In 2019, it was reported that New York utility customers subsidized nuclear reactors in Upstate NY to the tune of $540 million.

Given that solar energy is the least expensive, we should not be surprised that solar power has seen massive growth in the U.S. Between 2000 and 2022, solar capacity increased by an average of 37% per year, doubling every 2.2 years. As of the end of 2023, the United States had nearly 210 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed, enough to power 36 million homes.

Solar energy is the energy of the future!

The study by Cornell Professor Lindsay Anderson does raise valid, serious questions. The grid needs to be upgraded. Storage capacity needs to be increased. Can we bring enough renewable energy on line quick enough? What is the role of nuclear energy in the short run? This is a complex problem with many moving parts.

However, to pause renewable energy — which has a track record of being the least expensive, becoming more efficient every year and emitting no greenhouse gases, the cause of climate change — is the last thing we want to do.

My Response

There are two problems with Wirth’s response. If the consumer cost for delivered energy is considered, then solar is not the “least expensive”. Secondly, Wirth did not acknowledge that until the feasibility of DEFR technology is resolved solar and wind resources may not be viable.

First, I will address the Wirth claim that the “solar energy per kilowatt is cheaper” than coal or natural gas which are both cheaper than nuclear. I agree that is true. For example, in this Energy Information Agency analysisthe total overnight cost (2022$/kW) states that nuclear is 5.8 times more expensive than solar. However, I think most consumers care about the cost of getting electric energy delivered to their homes on a kilowatt-hour basis which is what we pay for. When that metric is used solar is not cheaper than nuclear

For starters in 2023 the New York Independent System Operator reported in the 2024 Load & Capacity Data Report that the energy produced by all the New York utility-scale solar facilities relative to the maximum they could have produced was only 16.6% whereas the nuclear facilities generated 92.5% (Table 1). Using the two years of data available it is reasonable to say that the ratio between nuclear capacity and solar capacity is around five. That means to get the same kilowatt-hour production you need five times as much capacity.

Table 1: Comparison of New York Nuclear and Solar Capacity Factors

Wind and solar resources are intermittent, and energy storage must be included to address that. Nuclear units operate at full load for months at a time. Solar only works during daylight. The cost of energy storage for diurnal variations and seasonal variations must be included in the costs to deliver energy to our homes. The implication of the study by Cornell Professor Lindsay Anderson is that DEFR is also needed beyond the short-term energy storage capacity.

Consider the Scoping Plan projected capacity of different resources shown in Table 2. In 2040 the Climate Act mandates that all electricity generated be 100% “zero emissions”. The Scoping Plan projects that 40,860 MW of solar capacity and 26,580 MW of wind from various sources will be required. To back that up an additional 15,388 MW of battery storage and 17,868 MW of zero-carbon firm resource, aka DEFR, are needed. The cost of the solar share of the backup sources need to be considered for a “apples to apples” comparison of the cost of solar relative to nuclear.

Table 2: Scoping Plan Mitigation Scenario Summary Fuel Mix (Capacity)

But wait there is more. The life expectancy of solar panels is on the order of 25 years whereas nuclear is at least 50 years. Solar facilities are spread out and require transmission development. There are additional ancillary support services provided by nuclear that are not provided by solar so there are additional costs there as well.

To sum up, the solar capacity needed to produce the same capacity as nuclear is five times larger. It is reasonable to assume that the short-term energy storage costs needed for solar and the DEFR requirement will another doubling of capacity costs. Solar lasts half as long as nuclear so over the long-term, so there is another doubling of capacity costs.

I have no idea what the costs to provide ancillary support services would be or how much the additional transmission development would cost so I won’t include them in the total. Overall, the long-term cost of solar power is roughly 15 times as much as nuclear power. Even if solar energy per kilowatt is six times less than nuclear power, the delivered cost over the long term is 2.5 times higher than nuclear.

It is more disappointing that Wirth missed the point I tried to make about the implications of DEFR feasibility on the viability of solar. Assuming that the reason was my poor description, let me try another way to explain that DEFR is a necessary requirement for renewables deployment as envisioned by the Climate Act.

Anderson and responsible agencies all agree that new DEFR technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system work reliably. No one knows what those technologies are. I believe the only likely viable DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I do concede that there are commercial issues that need to be resolved.

Here is the key point, if the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then the wind, solar, and energy storage approach favored by Wirth cannot be implemented without nuclear. I estimate that 24 GW of nuclear can replace 178 GW of wind, water, battery storage, and DEFR which eliminates the need for a huge DEFR backup resource and even more massive buildout of wind turbines and solar panels sprawling over the state’s lands and water.

I suggested it would be prudent to pause renewable development until a DEFR technology is proven feasible because the choice and even the viability of any DEFR technology will affect the entire design of the future electric structure necessary to meet the Climate Act net-zero energy system. Throwing money at renewable energy is the last thing we should do because New York cannot afford to invest in “false solutions.”

Conclusion

Over the years I have had many conversations with people who understand the electric system. Universally they all agree that the wind, solar, battery storage, and DEFR electric system will never work.

Most also agree that the momentum of the political mandates for this approach will only be checked when there is a catastrophic blackout caused by over-reliance on renewable resources.

I have no doubt that advocates like Wirth will argue that such a blackout was caused by industry not transitioning to renewables correctly despite evidence to the contrary.

In a recent meeting, someone from the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority suggested there would be a five-year plan to address DEFR technologies.

In a rational world, the fact New York is proceeding to implement a “zero emissions” electric system by 2040 that requires a new technology to be developed, tested, and deployed in that time frame would concern the Hochul Administration enough to pause implementation until a DEFR technology is proven feasible in the suggested five year plan.

The fact is that without such technology the renewables approach cannot work, and if nuclear power is determined to be the only viable DEFR technology, then renewable investments are not needed.

Editor’s Note: Natural gas requires no five-year plan. It only demands tolerance and is the inevitable bridge and complement to nuclear energy.

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This post represents his opinion alone and not the opinion of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated. Roger has followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and has written over 480 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.

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