Gov. Jared Polis delivers his 2025 State Of The State address in January at the state Capitol.
Gov. Jared Polis last week publicly indicated he is open to the idea of officially designating nuclear power as "clean energy" as groups ramped up their efforts to persuade him to either embrace or reject the proposal that swiftly gained traction at the state Capitol after years of going nowhere.
The measure, if enacted into law, could expand options for public utilities that might contemplate using nuclear power to produce carbon-free energy as they scramble to meet the state's emissions goals.
A consensus appears to be building nationwide over the necessity for nuclear energy to achieve carbon reduction goals, especially with the advent of power-hungry data centers proposed by companies like Amazon and Google and electric vehicles. But not everyone agrees that more nuclear power is a good idea -- environmental groups argue it is unnecessary and hazardous.
On March 18, the governor indicated he is open to the idea of adding nuclear energy to the mix of "clean" sources of power.
If the state is "serious" about reducing carbon emissions, "we need to look at all viable alternatives," Polis told The Denver Gazette.
Critics: Clean designation diverts money away from 'renewable' energy Critics sent Polis a letter asking him to veto the bill, which passed both chambers of the General Assembly and now awaits his signature.
The critics argued that including nuclear power under the legal definition of clean energy would divert money away from other "renewable" sources.
They called nuclear energy a "false solution" and a "risky, expensive, and unsustainable technology."
"The idea that nuclear power is a clean energy source could not be further from the truth," stated a letter from roughly 70 groups, individuals and elected officials. "Nuclear power is the only energy resource that generates dangerous waste that will remain radioactive for thousands of years. There is no known method or technology to process this waste effectively, and thus, it must be stored as long as it remains radioactive."
"Nuclear power is not 'carbon-free.' In reality, mining and enriching uranium, producing and transporting cement, constructing nuclear reactors, and processing and transporting waste all contribute to the upstream carbon costs of nuclear energy," they said. "The carbon footprint of nuclear energy development is significantly larger than the carbon costs associated with wind and solar energy production."
They offered another technical reason for rejecting the bill -- water consumption by nuclear reactors is "too high" for Colorado's arid climate.
"Nuclear reactors are by far the most water-intensive way to produce energy," they said. "A single 300 megawatt small modular reactor operating at 90% capacity would withdraw between 160 million and 390 million gallons of water daily. Colorado is experiencing a water crisis, and our state cannot afford this level of fresh water usage."
They pointed to the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, arguing that nuclear energy corporations and major utility companies would "reap all the profits, while Colorado's frontline communities would absorb all the risks, health impacts, and environmental contamination."
Utilities: Nuclear power is necessary to meet Colorado's carbon goalsFeatured Local Savings
Utilities in Colorado have welcomed the changing attitude toward nuclear energy.
"Having baseload generation, even in an age of renewables, I would probably argue it's even more important because those resources are still intermittent, and we still have an obligation to provide 99.99% reliability, which is one of the reasons I think nuclear becomes an attractive baseload resource," Xcel Energy Colorado President Robert Kenney told The Denver Gazette earlier.
Xcel Energy has been operating nuclear power stations since the 1970s. Three reactors on two sites in Minnesota provide power to nearly 30 percent of Xcel's customers in the Upper Midwest.
Utilities have argued that one obstacle to the commercial development of nuclear power in Colorado is that it is not currently included in the state's list of "clean" power sources defined in state statutes.
Colorado Springs Utilities CEO Travas Deal said this discourages investment and can affect government grants and permitting at both the state and federal levels.
Experts who favor nuclear energy maintained that it is pragmatic, sustainable and efficient.
As for water use, calculations show that nuclear reactors use about the same amount, both consumptively and temporarily, as conventional coal and gas power plants, depending on the technology used, they said.
They also countered that spent fuel from traditional reactors is not waste but is a rich source of energy itself.
Jess C. Gehin, the national technical director at the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy Microreactor Program, earlier said enough energy exists in the nuclear waste in the U.S. to "power the entire country for 100 years with clean energy."
"We use a half a percent of the energy that's in the uranium that's dug out of the ground. You can get a large fraction of that energy if you were to recycle the fuel through fast reactors," Gehin said.
He is referring to the use of "fast breeder reactors" that use a different fuel cycle than traditional light water reactors. Fast breeder reactors create more usable fuel material than they use. After multiple recycling of the materials, the reactor leaves mostly materials that have relatively short half-lives of 300 to 500 years, rather than the thousands of years cited in the letter.
Fast reactors can make the final waste footprint up to 10 times smaller and burn off isotopes that thermal reactors cannot handle efficiently, making the final waste decay much faster, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
All 86,000 tons of the spent fuel rods in the U.S. created since 1950 would fit on a football field to a height of about 30 feet, the Department of Energy and the General Accounting Office said.
Nicole C. Brambila contributed to this report.