Obsidian/Class Work/NUCE 2122/NUCE_2122_HW3.md

Dane Sabo

NUCE 2122 - Summer 2025

Instructions

Submit a 500 work analysis predicting two major events and specific locations that in your estimation have a high probability to occur in the next five years regarding nuclear operating and construction plants

In support of this, review the list of prematurely shutdown nuclear plants, review the new plant licensing status as it exists in several states, review the projected load growth data for the key states we discussed and predict locations where two events associated with additional nuclear plants will occur.

Events to be evaluated:

1. A shutdown plant will be restarted (Do not count Palisades or TMI)
2. A partially completed nuclear plant construction restarted
3. A new contract for a new nuclear plant signed and construction begun.

Evaluate your target locations by:

• their predicted electricity consumption growth;
• the availability of purchased power from a neighboring state;
• the current fuel balance issues faced in that location;
• and any reduction in the number of resource energy plants that were originally scheduled to be constructed per the utility’s strategic plans

Submission

Vermont Yankee Restarting

• Vermont Yankee is one of the most recent nuclear reactors to be decomissioned, and notably, was because of economic factors. This makes Vermont Yankee an ideal candidate to restart.
• NIMBYs in the area HATE Vermont Yankee. The state senate tried to block its license extension, but the NRC approved it anyway. The utility sued the state to stay open and won.
• New England is expecting a 10% power demand increase https://commonwealthbeacon.org/energy/grid-operator-forecasting-11-increase-in-electricity-consumption-by-2034/
• They're counting on two wind farms being built to fill this demand.
• These wind farms might get killed by new admin.
• There is also a massive resevoir and hydrolectric system that was built to balance load from specifically this reactor. Right now it's being used with fossil fuel plants, but is a massive piece of infrastructure that will be less efficient without the NPP

ARC: First Commercial Fusion Power Plant

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems is planing to build a 400 MWe tokamak reactor in the area
• It turns out, fusion technology can be approved at the state level instead of the federal level. Because of this, the regulatory process is completely different, and Virginia is super on board.
• The area is desperately going to need additional power, with power consumption from data centers expected to rise from 10GW to 30GW by 2040 https://virginiamercury.com/2024/12/18/virginia-to-host-worlds-first-fusion-power-plant/
• Virginia is the dominant place for data centers in the US, with more than 1 in 7 data centers being in Virginia.
• The basics out there say this will happen in the early 2030s. Realistically this is very optimistic, because the precursor project, SPARC, has yet to achieve Q>1. That being said, things are looking hopeful that SPARC might produce this benchmark in 2026.
• The impact of commerically viable fusion power cannot be understated, especially with the regulatory framework that will be regulated at the state level. Reduced pollution too is also a huge plus.