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Nuclear Is Now 'Clean Energy' In Colorado (cpr.org) 113

With the signing of HB25-1040 on Monday, Colorado now defines nuclear as a "clean energy resource" since it doesn't release large amounts of climate-warming emissions. "The category was previously reserved for renewables like wind, solar and geothermal, which don't carry the radioactive stigma that's hobbled fission power plants following disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima," notes Colorado Public Radio. From the report: In an emailed statement, Ally Sullivan, a spokesperson for the governor's office, said the law doesn't advance any specific nuclear energy project, and no utility has proposed building a nuclear power plant in Colorado. It does, however, allow nuclear energy to potentially serve as one piece of the state's plan to tackle climate change. "If nuclear energy becomes sufficiently cost-competitive, it could potentially become part of Colorado's clean energy future. However, it must be conducted safely, without harming communities, depleting other natural resources or replacing other clean energy sources," Sullivan said.

By redefining nuclear energy as "clean," the law would let future fission-based power plants obtain local grants previously reserved for other carbon-free energy sources, and it would allow those projects to contribute to Colorado's renewable energy goals. It also aligns state law with a push to reshape public opinion of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy proponents promise new reactor designs are smaller and safer than hulking power plants built in the 20th century. By embracing those systems, bill supporters claimed Colorado could meet rising energy demand without abandoning its ambitious climate goals.

Nuclear Is Now 'Clean Energy' In Colorado

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  • It is low CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2025 @10:12PM (#65275273)

    From the point of view of climate change, Nuclear produces low CO2 relative to the amount of energy generated so it makes sense to call it "clean energy". There are issues of waste, proliferation, and cost, but countries like France have shown that nuclear can be operated successfully.

    • Re:It is low CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sjames ( 1099 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2025 @11:49PM (#65275387) Homepage Journal

      The waste isn't even that bad, simply because unlike the waste products from coal, oil, and gas, it's actually illegal to let the nuclear waste into the environment.

      • The waste isn't even that bad, simply because unlike the waste products from coal, oil, and gas, it's actually illegal to let the nuclear waste into the environment.

        If the US would simply embrace spent nuclear fuel reprocessing, as France and Russia has for years, there'd be dramatically less nuclear waste anyway. The whole "proliferation" bugaboo concerning the plutonium leftovers is not really a problem. It's not like we're going to give it away or anything.

        • by sjames ( 1099 )

          The real reason for no reprocessing is they want to hang on to the FUD about having to figuire out how to store "waste" for 10,000 years.

          With reprocessing, you get valuable fuel and actual waste that will decay to background in 250-500 years max. A back of the napkin calculation suggests we could run on just reprocessed "waste" for a couple decades and at the end of that time we would have less "waste" than we do now.

          Meanwhile, the toxic sludge from fossil fuel processing and consumption will still be here

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The cost issue can't be under-estimated though. You can get a lot more renewable energy for the money. Colorado tax payers are going to get fleeced by this.

      The other issue not mentioned is speed. It takes so long to build nuclear that it can't be part of any realistic plan to address climate change, and it also makes it very prone to corruption because nothing gets delivered for decades.

      • Re:It is low CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Loki_1929 ( 550940 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2025 @05:46AM (#65275743) Journal

        You can get a lot more renewable energy for the money. Colorado tax payers are going to get fleeced by this.

        The other issue not mentioned is speed. It takes so long to build nuclear that it can't be part of any realistic plan to address climate change, and it also makes it very prone to corruption because nothing gets delivered for decades.

        These are all issues directly related to regulation and unnecessary red tape created out of NIMBYism and irrational fear around radiation. India, Canada, and China aren't stupid. They're building and/or modernizing nuclear power plants like crazy because they're so effective at reliable baseline power, which renewables simply are not. In the US, we force years - sometimes decades - of reviews and permits and defending court cases and other bullshit unrelated to the construction and operation of clean, safe nuclear power.

        The other issue going to cost is that the US - again, stupidly - bars reuse of high energy spent fuel. If you simply separate the low energy (relatively safe, but useless for generating power) waste from the high energy fuel remaining and feed the high energy stuff back in, you can extract nearly all the energy, save a ton of fuel costs, mine less fuel, and have vastly less volume of waste and vastly less energetic waste.

        Let's assume some sort of absolute mandate were passed to build 5 CANDU-6 (known, proven, safe, reliable design) reactors. No reviews, no permits, no red tape, no lawsuits. Just build the damn things now. You can get one operational in ~3.5 years, all of them in about 4ish years. South Korea and China have built PWRs in 5. Assuming we also lifted the ban on fuel reprocessing, CANDU-6 plants will produce power at a cost of 5-6 cents per kWh, yielding a retail price of 13-17 cents per kWh. US average is about 16.2 cents, California has rates pushing 50 cents. But we're too stupid to get out of our own way and just do it, so we'll keep strangling the poor and middle class economically.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's funny how China uses slave labour and doesn't care about safety, pollution, or quality... Until they build nuclear, when they suddenly become the the paragons of safe, clean, ethical energy production.

          China is actually a great example of why nuclear is not needed. Their have already cancelled a lot of new reactors because renewables and storage are growing so fast. They just don't need it, and it won't be cost effective.

          As for doing away with safety rules and reviews, given that all the accidents we ha

          • It's funny how China uses slave labour and doesn't care about safety, pollution, or quality... Until they build nuclear, when they suddenly become the the paragons of safe, clean, ethical energy production.

            It's marginally possible that there is actually more than one person on slashdot who doesn't agree with every single opinion you hold, and those people might also not hold all the same opinions. So it might be a different person pointing out they are building nukes from the person pointing out how their s

            • by wed128 ( 722152 )

              It's marginally possible that there is actually more than one person on slashdot who doesn't agree with every single opinion you hold, and those people might also not hold all the same opinions.

              I was under the impression it was all just CowboyNeil!

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              The point is that the same people who say we shouldn't have solar because of slave labour, are also promoting nuclear from the same source as an example we should follow.

              The claim that it's all due to regulation doesn't work anyway. The UK doesn't have particularly heavy regulation by nuclear standards, all the legal stuff was resolved quickly, and the site houses an existing plant so most of the survey and environmental work was already done. It still ended up costing tens of billions and taking at least 2

              • The point is that the same people who say we shouldn't have solar because of slave labour, are also promoting nuclear from the same source as an example we should follow.

                Do they? Is it that guy? I mean I say we should have solar, but not the polysilicon made by slave labour, and we should have nuclear, but not following China's example.

                The UK doesn't have particularly heavy regulation by nuclear standards, all the legal stuff was resolved quickly, and the site houses an existing plant so most of the survey

                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  Funny you should mention coal, because nuclear tends to support it. Instead of just replacing fossil fuels with renewables, they keep them going until the nuclear plant comes online a few decades later.

                  • Oh like Germany? Or was that the other way around??

                      Are you trying to score points or have a conversation?

                    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                      Like Australia, for example. Germany has been reducing coal usage steadily.

                      It's just a fact. The longer you cling to centralized generation like nuclear, the longer you need to keep fossil fuels around waiting for it.

                    • Germany has been reducing coal usage steadily.

                      It's just a fact. The longer you cling to centralized generation like nuclear, the longer you need to keep fossil fuels around waiting for it.

                      I don't know why you keep promoting Germany as some sort of low CO2 poster child for why nuclear is bad.

                      Germany: 381g CO2/kWh
                      UK: 238
                      France: 56

                      Germany is reducing it's co2 from a very high bar.

                      In fact France is one of the lowest CO2 electricity produces in the world, the lowest of any major economy by a very long way. The o

        • If you simply separate the low energy (relatively safe, but useless for generating power) waste from the high energy fuel remaining and feed the high energy stuff back in, you can extract nearly all the energy, save a ton of fuel costs, mine less fuel, and have vastly less volume of waste and vastly less energetic waste.

          Let me just stop you right there.

          Fuel reprocessing is wildly expensive and dangerous, and uses the exact same techniques to extract plutonium for bomb making to extract plutonium and uranium from "spent" fuel so it's a proliferation nightmare. There's no "simply separate one radioactive material from a whole bunch of other radioactive materials" because it's not simple at all.

          Japan started building a facility to reprocess their own waste in 1993 [wikipedia.org]. After spending $27.5B on the place, guess how much fuel the

          • Did the Japanese reprocessing plants not reprocess fuel because they were incapable, or because of the protests and political roadblocks that your linked article details?

            As for reprocessing using the same/similar processes as used for making weapons-grade materials, exactly who are we trying to keep that byproduct from at this point? Iran is making their own, NK is making their own, Russia and Ukraine allegedly have lost a bunch to who knows where. I'm not sure who it is that we want to keep this stuff fr

            • I'm really not sure why you are dismissing the proliferation angle. The answer of "exactly who are we trying to keep that from" is "everyone that doesn't already have nuclear weapons."

              That really shouldn't be hard to figure out.

              So which is it that you would prefer? Wide proliferation of nuclear arms, or shipping nuclear waste across the globe to the countries that are allowed to reprocess at great expense and ecological damage?

              In any event, the original statement of "simply" reprocessing is absolutely stu

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by GooberPyle ( 9014301 )
        Anyone saying nuclear is cheap needs to show their analysis. There are no examples of nuclear being cheaper than today's solar and wind power. Nuke plants have all been subsidized in multiple ways to make them viable. Todays and tomorrows taxpayers take the hit. Generations will be stuck with managing waste from shuttered plants along with taking on the debt handed.
        Another issue is the timeline. By the time any new nuclear plant is operational we will be deep into climate change. Solar and wind can b
  • About time (Score:2, Insightful)

    This is an obvious win. Why did it take so long?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sethra ( 55187 )

      Absolutely. Fast tracking modern nuclear plant designs is a win for everyone on both sides of the aisle. Clean reliable 24/7 energy.

      Gen III plant designs are exceptionally reliable and safe, and the waste they produce is trivial compared to fossil fuels, and even solar / wind.

      I would absolutely feel great about my tax dollars going into this kind of effort to electrify our energy infrastructure.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The problem is that it's impossible to fast track these things. It simply can't be done in the West. And while on paper some of these designs look better than previous ones, in practice what gets built rarely lives up to the hype, and is usually scaled back or an older design to reduce risk and cost.

        • The problem is that it's impossible to fast track these things. It simply can't be done in the West. And while on paper some of these designs look better than previous ones, in practice what gets built rarely lives up to the hype, and is usually scaled back or an older design to reduce risk and cost.

          If only there were an administration willing to reduce/streamline the regulatory environment to reflect the maturity of the technology.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            It doesn't seem very mature, given they keep finding issues, and keep promising that the next iteration will finally be the really good one.

        • by Sethra ( 55187 )

          There are standardized plant designs, like the AP1000, that make the build times far shorter and therefore cheaper. Because it's a proven design already in use, unless you have misguided activists standing in the way, you can get them online relatively quickly.

          Building Gen III reactors only require the will to do so.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The UK's Hinkley Point C is a standard EPR design, of which several already exist. It's still taking 20+ years and tens of billions, only to produce some of the most expensive electricity in the UK.

      • I would absolutely feel great about my tax dollars going into this kind of effort to electrify our energy infrastructure.

        While I fully agree with your aforementioned enthusiasm regarding modern designs, you might want to limit that excitement until you find out how many of your precious taxpayer dollars it’s gonna take to buy a single kilowatt hour of that “premium” nuclear energy.

        I’ll feel good if the nuclear powered solution goes from breaking ground to operational in less than 20 years.

        I’ll feel great if we find the new kW per hour rate isn’t killing people just as efficiently via unaffo

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      This is an obvious win. Why did it take so long?

      Because of stupidity. Not theirs but yours. Nuclear isn't "clean energy". It requires mining, and produces waste. It is however "green energy". Yet here you are celebrating giving it the wrong definition.

      Words matter. This piece of legislation can now be remembered along other brilliant pieces of gaslighting legislation like House Bill No. 246 in Indiana which attempted to set pi = 3.

    • This is an obvious win. Why did it take so long?

      Because Greed N. Corruption was hired on as CEO to pimp solar and wind to IPO prosperity by any means necessary.

      Thats why.

      Now all that’s left to do is fire Major Redtape and his merry army of NIMBY grifters and actually make a nuclear-powered anything happen before the next fucking century rolls around. Or the next World War. Whichever is far more predictable to happen first at this rate of regulatory handcuffing.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      This is an obvious win. Why did it take so long?

      Because the rest of the world did it years ago, with nuclear power producing little CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions, so the US had to be different. Europe has considered it clean for decades with waste being disposed of responsibly.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Europe isn't so keen on nuclear, actually. The French went all-in on it, and it cost them dearly. The subsidies are massive and eventually the government had to bail out the operator when their debt exceeded their assets.

        It takes a minimum of 20 years to build a new nuclear plant here, and they always go over budget and get delayed.

    • This is an obvious win. Why did it take so long?

      Because Denver and Boulder are still filled with nuke-hating types, many leftover from the 70's and 80's protests. There is a certain sector on the Left that will never, ever accept nuclear. They're not the majority on the Left, but they're numerous enough and have enough influence to put a monkey wrench into any real nuclear power expansion in their states.

  • So resources for immediate reductions in climate emissions will get hijacked for another round of new experimental nuclear reactors. Likely with all the hidden (and not so hidden) public subsidies, cost overruns, delays and lack of reliability that has come to be associated with commercial nuclear power. But it will put money in investors pockets. Gates and the other tech bros can't wait for their investment in the nuclear PR campaign to produce fruit in the form of profitable investment opportunities.
    • Gates has dumped a bunch of his own money into nuclear already. Has been for years. https://www.terrapower.com/fun... [terrapower.com]
      • by necro81 ( 917438 )

        Gates has dumped a bunch of his own money into nuclear already

        And as bullish as Gates is for nuclear, has his investments over the past two decades produced a single kWh of electricity? Over the same time period, he could have deployed several GW of solar, made a profit, and offset his lifetime CO2 emissions many times over.

        • Gates has dumped a bunch of his own money into nuclear already

          And as bullish as Gates is for nuclear, has his investments over the past two decades produced a single kWh of electricity? Over the same time period, he could have deployed several GW of solar, made a profit, and offset his lifetime CO2 emissions many times over.

          Gates' goal isn't producing electricity. It's producing "investment opportunities" so he can soak up money like o fucking sponge for the rest of his life while being patted on the head for being a humanitarian. In that way, he's been successful. And we're supposed to all be happy about it because one of the most evil men in history has "reformed" by turning his greed in a different direction.

        • He's doing some solar stuff too: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/19... [cnn.com] When he set up his foundation he said something about wanting to invest in things that were too speculative or too expensive for regular market forces to solve on their own. There are already plenty of companies investing in solar using established tech; that stuff progressing just fine without him. He is interested in things that don't attract investment on their own.
    • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      I think there's a reasonable possibility that the new reactor designs will yield a good result, climate-wise. There's no fundamental reason why they can't provide reliable, carbon-free power.

      They'll still have to figure out what to do with the nuclear waste in the long term, though; but compared to climate change that's a relatively easy problem to solve.

      I am curious to what residents of Colorado think about this, though. Are they okay with it or are they going to go NIMBY on this?

    • Hey, it worked for Clean Coal!
  • The problem is that even with the best reactors it is not safe to run them in an unsafe manner.

    Basically reactors require maintenance and maintenance costs money and money for maintenance bites into quarterly profits.

    It's not a question of if it's a question of when the CEO starts cutting corners so he can get his bonus. And because he doesn't live anywhere near where the disaster is going to hit he doesn't care.

    And over and over and over again we have shown that we do not punish people up the f
    • by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2025 @11:51PM (#65275395)

      The problem is that even with the best reactors it is not safe to run them in an unsafe manner.

      The worst case accident for the current generation of reactors: Three Mile Island. In other words, no lives list, very minor radiation leakage.

      No operator wants to _lose_ a reactor and all of the future profits.

      • The worst case accident for the current generation of reactors:

        1) This is a new generation, remember. They have no safety record at all.

        2) Chernobyl. Yes, it was a one off. Lots of different problems converged to create it. But it shows you one thing that is certainly possible. Almost as certainly, it was not the worst possible.

        3) There were literally thousands of other safety problems at plants that never came together to create a disaster.

        4) There is no need for nuclear power. We can easily replace fossil fuel electricity far faster, cheaper, more reliably and

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by MacMann ( 7518492 )

          1) This is a new generation, remember. They have no safety record at all.

          Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are all second generation nuclear power plants. There's plenty of 3rd generation nuclear power plants in operation with many operating for something like 30 years now. If you believe there's no safety record for cunnrent generation nuclear power then it is likely because there's not been any accidents that made the national news.

          2) Chernobyl. Yes, it was a one off. Lots of different problems converged to create it. But it shows you one thing that is certainly possible. Almost as certainly, it was not the worst possible.

          Fukushima was also a one off. I just watched a video on nuclear power safety with a nuclear engineer narrating. The earliest reactors

          • can't be explained by a combination of old technology, incompetence that only Soviets could attain, and/or rare "black swan" events,

            There is no disaster that can't be explained. The problem isn't explaining them, its anticipating all the possible ways they can happen. And every disaster is a "black swan" if it wasn't anticipated.

            The idea that American's aren't capable of the same incompetence as the Soviet engineers has been amply proved untrue on numerous occasions. But its a time tested industry propaganda talking point that uses emotional appeals to patriotism to silence criticism.The problem with Chernobyl was it was designed by hum

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        How is that the worst case? They can still have a full on meltdown and explosions that release large amounts of radioactive material into the environment. The safety systems are better, but not foolproof and not guaranteed to work in all scenarios.

        That's why nuclear plants still can't get insurance. The insurers aren't falling for it, they can see that the worst case scenario would bankrupt them.

        • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
          Three Mile Island _was_ a full-on meltdown. That was contained by the containment building, just as designed. Minor radiation leakage was due to a release of overpressure that allowed some iodine and cesium to escape.

          and explosions

          What do you think can explode on a nuclear power plant? For your reference, Three Mile Island buildings also successfully contained a hydrogen explosion.

          That's why nuclear plants still can't get insurance.

          They certainly do. Nuclear power plants in the US pay around $1B a year for liability insurance.

      • by necro81 ( 917438 )

        No operator wants to _lose_ a reactor...

        And no driver wants to _lose_ a car, or their life, in a crash. Yet, reckless driving still happens.

    • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2025 @12:00AM (#65275397)

      At this juncture, this is no magic bullet for generating electricity. However, nuclear energy has been a reliable source of electricity for the better part of a century and makes a hueg contribution to the power grid. The longer we delay a transition away from fossil fuels, the more people will be condemned to die in the future because of climate change. So, my question to you is, how many people's lives are you willing to sacrifice because you are afraid of nuclear technology?

      • So I guess you wrote that with a straight face.

        This is not a serious argument. Using nuclear energey, or lack thereof, was never the issue with the move away from fossil fuels. It was the persistent use of fossil fuels (and denial of climate change) that created the situation.

        As others have pointed out, nuclear power is not a quick fix and creates problems of its own. For example what do you do with nuclear waste.

        There is no quick fix.
        • Using nuclear energey, or lack thereof, was never the issue with the move away from fossil fuels.

          Really? So you're saying that there is no problem with solar energy prices going negative because of a lack of energy storage capability before switching over to coal to generate power at night? We need to utilize all the tools at our disposal to save the most lives.

          As others have pointed out, nuclear power is not a quick fix and creates problems of its own.

          I never claimed it was perfect, in fact, I claimed the exact opposite when I wrote, "there is no magic bullet".

          The issues with nuclear power are real and they can be dealt with in the long-term. However, your reaction to nuclear power is similar

    • All power plants require maintenance.

  • "...amounts of climate-warming emissions"

    -- it releases heat.

    • All sources of energy emit heat which includes the Earth itself. The part that matters is nuclear power does not release CO2 which is a GHG that prevents heat from radiating into space by reflecting it back to Earth.

  • Perfect for when fusion is ready.

    As they say though, it still has to be cost competitive. I'd bet fusion will have a much better chance of achieving such a goal than fission could ever hope for.

  • Located in Morris, IL
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    772 tons of spent nuclear fuel going nowhere!
  • ... sureley there is no waste and Fukushima and Chernobyl never happened.

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