Salesmen of “new advanced” nuclear reactors are overrunning the state Capitol, selling the fantasy that Texas will become the leader in building a new generation of small, cheaper reactors if we invest a lot of taxpayer money now.
There are significant problems with this plan:
- Nuclear power radiation can cause cancers, birth defects and deaths.
- After 70 years of searching, the country still has no permanent repository for nuclear waste.
- Many proposed reactor designs don’t have containment vessels or buildings to protect people from deadly radiation.
- Some proposed reactor designs were rejected because of economics and technical failures in the 1950s.
- Several modular reactor proposals around the world, including one planned in Utah, have been abandoned due to cost or safety concerns. In 2023, only three were in operation — in Russia, China and India.
In the early 1980s, Texans were assured that building nuclear power plants would result in lower electricity costs compared to other sources. Although the plants were constructed, that promise turned out to be false. Texas’ nuclear reactors were completed years behind schedule, with costs soaring five-fold for the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station near Bay City and 11 times for the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, which took 19 years to complete near Fort Worth. Many Texas ratepayers still bear the burden of those cost overruns in their utility bills.
In the early 2000s, the nuclear folks were back, promising cheap, non-carbon-emitting energy from additional nuclear plants. The so-called Nuclear Renaissance led with proposed reactors in Texas, but some utility customers were stuck with the bill from utilities merely considering the expansions.
Today, nuclear plant salesmen are asking the state for $2 billion of your tax dollars. Legislation filed this session, House Bill 14, would provide developers of so-called advanced nuclear reactors with grants of up to $200 million in state funds, which could be used to reimburse wealthy investors. The proposed subsidized reactors are intended for industry and large data centers, not for everyday people like you and me. The bill creates a policy that prioritizes nuclear power over safe, proven and affordable technologies like wind, solar and batteries.
Control over nuclear grant funding would rest with the governor, offering little assurance that it would be used to benefit Texans. Nuclear developers might be reimbursed for expenditures made years ago, receiving up to $200 million for each reactor, regardless of how limited its intended use Is. Even worse, completed reactors could receive additional tax dollars based on their electricity-generating capacity, even though the bill does not mandate their connection to the grid.
To push this vision, nuclear interests have recruited large industries, the governor and major universities. Together, they designed a permitting process that would grease the skids and not protect the public’s health and safety. And they plan to stick us with the bill.
New modular reactors are a terrible, expensive idea that should be halted. But if new reactors are built, there must be guidelines:
- All new reactors must have adequate decommissioning funds to remove and dispose of nuclear waste and clean up contamination.
- Additional nuclear plants should not be permitted until a national underground permanent nuclear waste repository is in place.
- Local first responders must be adequately trained, funded and equipped to respond to an accident involving nuclear reactors and radiation releases. Evacuation plans must be developed.
- Containment structures should be required to isolate radioactive materials and limit radiation releases from accidents or leaks.
- The Public Utility Commission of Texas should be required to conduct biannual reviews comparing the costs of advanced nuclear reactors to other types of generation and cancel grants for projects with out-of-control costs.
Corporations don’t build these reactors with their own money for several reasons: They cost too much, take too long, do too little and are too risky.
Legislators can’t get fooled again. Now that the Texas House has approved this bill, Texans should call their state senators and demand they stop the new nuclear boondoggle of HB 14 in its tracks.
Tom “Smitty” Smith is the retired director of Public Citizen’s Texas office. As a consumer advocate who worked primarily before the Public Utility Commission, he’s had a front-row seat to the debates about nuclear energy and ratepayer bill increases for over 40 years.
