This repository holds the data, report text, and analysis related to a report by the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This repository is open in order to enable interested readers to explore the data, question the assumptions, and engage with the work. We welcome your comments. If you would like to make a comment, correction, or improvement, please open an issue in this repository.
On August 27, 2020, Exelon Generation announced planned premature closures of two Illinois nuclear plants (4 reactor units) which compete economically with fossil fueled plants within the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) interconnection [1]. This report quantitatively explores how these closures would undermine economic and decarbonization goals in the state of Illinois, such as an aggressive target to achieve a zero carbon electric grid by 2030.
Previous energy systems research has shown that such clean energy goals cannot be reached if nuclear plants prematurely retire. In particular, the February 2021 National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus report, “Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System,” determined unequivocally that US decarbonization will require keeping existing nuclear plants open [2]. Consistent with that liter-ture, our simulations indicate that decarbonization in Illinois will require not only maintenance but expansion of nuclear energy capacity. The simulations in this report minimize future Illinois electric system cost in the context of potential policy constraints and demonstrate that:
- nuclear energy is necessary to reach Illinois’ carbon reduction goals,
- without existing nuclear power, reaching zero carbon would require solar deployments to displace 10, 000km2 of critical Illinois farmland.
- and deploying new advanced nuclear generation is the least expensive way to allow Illinois farmland to remain farmland while reaching zero-carbon by 2030.
These simulations also revealed many specific, complementary conclusions, such as:
- Keeping Illinois’ existing nuclear plants open through 2050 avoids 25 million metric tons of life-cycle CO2 emissions and 600,000 metric tons of e-waste.
- Even if advanced nuclear deployments experienced 200% capitalcost overruns, total system cost impacts would be negligible.
- Deploying advanced nuclear avoids approximately 900,000metrictons of e-waste.
- Significant grid-scale battery storage is required to meet any zero- carbon target.
intended as a template to standardize and ease the initialization Purpose of this Repository: process for Technical Reports from members of the Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While this version of the template is geared towards an ARFC Member's report, it can be adapted to any individual's needs.
- Clone your repository with SSH keys.
- Open a command line or terminal on your device and enter the directory into which you want to clone your template based repository.
- Enter
git clone git@github.com:arfc/2021-04-nm-illinois.
- The report directory holds the report. You can build it with LaTeX using
the
makecommand. - The pdf will appear in your report directory.
- Clone your repository with SSH keys.
- Open a command line or terminal on your device and enter the directory into which you want to clone your template based repository.
- Enter
git clone git@github.com:arfc/2021-04-nm-illinois.
- You will need to install the Temoa tool. Use the instructions at https://temoacloud.com/.
- In the temoa-illinois directory you will find sql input files for all Temoa simulations.
- Once Temoa is installed, you can run our configured model using the
.sqlinput files in this repository.
Dotson, Samuel G., Amanda M. Bachmann, Zoë M. Richter, Nataly R. Panczyk, Nathan S. Ryan, Anna C. Balla, and Erin R. Fanning. 2021. “Economic and Carbon Impacts of Potential Illinois Nuclear Plant Closures: The Cost of Closures.” Technical Report UIUC-ARFC-2021-02. Advanced Reactors and Fuel Cycles Group Report Series. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. github.com/arfc/2021-04-nm-illinois.
@techreport{dotson_economic_2021,
address = {Urbana, IL},
type = {Technical {Report}},
title = {Economic and {Carbon} {Impacts} of {Potential} {Illinois} {Nuclear} {Plant} {Closures}: {The} {Cost} of {Closures}},
shorttitle = {Comissioned by {Nuclear} {Matters}},
url = {github.com/arfc/2021-04-nm-illinois},
abstract = {n August 27, 2020, Exelon Generation announced planned premature clo- sures of two Illinois nuclear plants (4 reactor units) which compete eco- nomically with fossil fueled plants within the Pennsylvania-New Jersey- Maryland (PJM) interconnection [1]. This report quantitatively explores how these closures would undermine economic and decarbonization goals in the state of Illinois, such as an aggressive target to achieve a zero carbon electric grid by 2030.
Previous energy systems research has shown that such clean energy goals cannot be reached if nuclear plants prematurely retire [2, 3, 4]. In particular, the February 2021 National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus report, {\textquotedblleft}Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System,{\textquotedblright} determined unequivocally that US decarbonization will require keeping existing nuclear plants open [2]. Consistent with that liter- ature, our simulations indicate that decarbonization in Illinois will require not only maintenance but expansion of nuclear energy capacity.},
language = {english},
number = {UIUC-ARFC-2021-02},
institution = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign},
author = {Dotson, Samuel G. and Bachmann, Amanda M. and Richter, Zo{\"e} M. and Panczyk, Nataly R. and Ryan, Nathan S. and Balla, Anna C. and Fanning, Erin R.},
editor = {Huff, Kathryn D. and Munk, Madicken},
month = may,
year = {2021},
keywords = {arfc, cyclus, nuclear fuel cycle, report},
pages = {1--20}
}