As Trump Slashes Renewable Energy, Is Nuclear the Future?

Summary

Boiling Point Podcast Summary: "As Trump Slashes Renewable Energy, Is Nuclear the Future?"

Release Date: May 29, 2025
Host: Sammy Roth, Climate Columnist, Los Angeles Times Studios

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Introduction: Federal Cuts Threaten Clean Energy Progress

In this episode of Boiling Point, host Sammy Roth delves into the pressing issue of climate change in California against the backdrop of recent federal policy shifts. Roth highlights a significant development in Congress where House Republicans voted to drastically reduce federal support for clean energy. This move is encapsulated in President Trump's budget proposal, colloquially dubbed the "Big Beautiful Bill."

Key Points:

• Dismantling of Clean Energy Initiatives: The proposed bill threatens to nullify critical components of President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, including tax credits for solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles.

• Environmental and Economic Implications: A Princeton University-led analysis predicts that if the bill becomes law, U.S. climate pollution could surge by half a billion metric tons annually by 2030. Additionally, average household energy costs could rise by up to $160 per year, exacerbating both environmental and economic challenges.

• Oil and Gas Industry Gains: While clean energy sectors face setbacks, oil and gas companies stand to benefit from the reduction in federal support for renewable initiatives.

The Nuclear Energy Angle: A Controversial Climate Solution

Amidst these developments, nuclear energy emerges as a contentious yet potentially pivotal player in the climate solution landscape. Surprisingly, despite the Republican push aligned with fossil fuel interests, there is notable support for nuclear power within some Republican and Democratic circles.

Notable Insight:

"Nuclear is one of the few climate-friendly energy sources that might not be." — Sammy Roth [00:08]

Exploring Palo Verde Generating Station: A Nuclear Powerhouse

Roth recounts his visit to the Palo Verde Generating Station, America's second-largest power plant, situated west of Phoenix, Arizona. This facility is a cornerstone of the western United States' energy infrastructure, providing substantial electricity to major cities including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque, and El Paso.

Key Highlights:

• Panel Discussion at Palo Verde: Roth moderated a panel featuring three experts with divergent views on nuclear energy:
  • Amber Raimondo: Energy Director at the Grand Canyon Trust
  • Joe Romm: Senior Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania
  • Victor Abarra Jr.: Senior Manager for Nuclear Energy at the Clean Air Task Force

"It's the single largest electricity source for Los Angeles. It supplied 14% of LA's electricity in 2023." — Sammy Roth [02:03]

Expert Perspectives on Nuclear Energy

Amber Raimondo: Environmental and Community Concerns

Amber Raimondo emphasizes the adverse impacts of uranium mining and milling on tribal communities in the Colorado Plateau. She underscores the historical and ongoing environmental contamination issues that these communities face, arguing that the push for nuclear energy often overlooks these critical concerns.

Notable Quotes:

"A lot of tribes on the Colorado Plateau have outright banned it." — Amber Raimondo [28:28]

"There's contamination of the past and that's an issue. And then there's also the risk of going forward." — Amber Raimondo [29:31]

Joe Romm: Skepticism Towards Nuclear Viability

Joe Romm, with a background in physics and energy policy, expresses significant skepticism about the economic viability of new nuclear projects, particularly small modular reactors (SMRs). He highlights the escalating costs associated with nuclear construction and the lack of successful commercial SMR implementations.

Notable Quotes:

"Nuclear has gotten more expensive over the past few decades. No one has ever been able to build an affordable large reactor." — Joe Romm [08:50]

"There's a lot of competition for them, including long duration storage and enhanced geothermal." — Joe Romm [24:46]

Victor Abarra Jr.: Balancing Opportunities and Challenges

Victor Abarra Jr. presents a more nuanced view, advocating for the exploration of nuclear energy alongside other clean technologies. He acknowledges the challenges, including high costs and community trust issues, but believes that nuclear energy remains a crucial component for achieving deep decarbonization and energy reliability.

Notable Quotes:

"They are very crucial to creating a basis of a clean energy economy, but also complementing the proliferation that we're seeing right now of intermittent resources like wind, like solar and like batteries." — Victor Abarra Jr. [10:23]

"New nuclear is just an option that should definitely be explored if we want to make sure that as we work towards those goals we can meet them in a societally responsible manner." — Victor Abarra Jr. [36:05]

Challenges in Nuclear Investment and Technology

The discussion shifts to the viability of private investments in nuclear energy. Romm critiques the high costs and prolonged timelines associated with SMRs, questioning their potential impact compared to established renewable technologies like solar and wind.

Key Insights:

• High Costs and Delays: The Georgia Vogel plant serves as a cautionary tale, where costs per megawatt skyrocketed during construction, highlighting the financial risks of nuclear projects.

• SMRs Viability: Despite being marketed as cost-effective and modular, SMRs have faced significant cost overruns and construction delays globally, casting doubt on their feasibility.

"There's a lot of competition for them, including long duration storage and enhanced geothermal." — Joe Romm [24:46]

Indigenous Communities and Uranium Mining

Roth addresses the contentious issue of uranium ore trucking through indigenous lands, specifically within the Navajo Nation. Raimondo sheds light on the resistance from tribal communities against uranium mining and transportation, emphasizing the environmental and health risks involved.

Notable Quotes:

"A lot of tribes on the Colorado Plateau have outright banned it." — Amber Raimondo [28:28]

"There's not enough real focus put on the very real problems that are still there with uranium mining and milling." — Amber Raimondo [29:57]

Uranium Supply and Geopolitical Concerns

Raimondo points out the United States' reliance on foreign uranium sources, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Australia, and Canada. She argues that domestic uranium resources are insufficient and of lower quality, posing significant challenges for scaling nuclear energy in the U.S.

Key Points:

• Limited Domestic Resources: The U.S. holds only about 1% of global unmined uranium reserves, making it dependent on imports from countries with higher-grade uranium deposits.

• Geopolitical Tensions: Efforts to incentivize domestic uranium mining risk straining relations with key allies like Canada and Australia, further limiting access to necessary resources.

"All this talk about it and getting and focusing on it from a government standpoint and trying to incentivize mining is only harming communities for what will not end up being a large benefit." — Amber Raimondo [32:45]

Public Perception and Media Representation

Roth shares his experiences with public discourse on nuclear energy, noting the polarized views that often prevent balanced discussions. Some advocate for nuclear as the ultimate solution to climate issues, while others vehemently oppose it due to environmental and safety concerns.

Notable Quotes:

"There's people who are just so focused on that and I don't know, I'll open this one up to the floor." — Sammy Roth [33:43]

"There are a dozen startups and fusion is still experimental." — Joe Romm [36:17]

Conclusion: Weighing Nuclear’s Role in a Sustainable Future

The episode concludes with an acknowledgment of the complex trade-offs involved in adopting nuclear energy as a cornerstone of climate solutions. While nuclear power offers high-capacity, carbon-free energy, its economic, environmental, and social challenges require careful consideration. The panelists agree that while nuclear should remain part of the conversation, it must be balanced with continued investment and innovation in other renewable technologies.

Final Thoughts:

"We need to make sure that we address near term reliability concerns. But that doesn't mean we can't address medium and long term reliability and energy concerns as well." — Victor Abarra Jr. [15:26]

"If the country were serious about nuclear power, it would fix the biggest mistake the nuclear industry ever made, which was not settling on one design and working on getting that design cost effective." — Joe Romm [21:04]

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Additional Resources

For further insights and analysis, Sammy Roth has authored a column expanding on the themes discussed in this episode. Listeners and readers can find the column linked in the show's notes.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the "Boiling Point" podcast episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't tuned in.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

This is an LA Times Studios podcast.

[Sami Roth]

My name is Sami Roth and I'm the climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This is Boiling Point. The biggest climate story in the country right now is happening in Congress, where Republicans in the House of Representatives voted last week to absolutely decimate federal support for clean energy. If the Senate passes the so called Big Beautiful bill. Yes, that's what President Trump is calling his budget bill, then a lot of the climate progress from Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction act would vanish. Tax credits for solar and wind and batteries and electric vehicles, Gone. Subsidies to manufacture clean energy technology in America, Gone. An analysis led by Princeton University researchers found that if the bill is signed into law, it would increase US Climate pollution by half a billion metric tons per year in 2030. The bill would also raise average household energy costs by as much as $160 per home per year. So we're talking about more expensive power and a hotter planet. At least the oil and gas companies benefit. Here's something surprising. Much as leaders of the Republican Party are eager to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, they've also got a thing for nuclear power, as do some leaders of the Democratic Party. Nuclear is one of the few climate friendly energy sources that might not be.

[Moderator]

Totally trashed by the Big Beautiful bill.

[Sami Roth]

New nuclear plants would continue to qualify for tax credits for several years longer than any other clean energy source. As it happens, last month I visited America's second largest nuclear power plant. Actually, it's America's second largest power plant, period, in terms of how much electricity.

[Moderator]

It produces every year.

[Sami Roth]

It's called Palo Verde Generating Station and it's about an hour west of Phoenix on Interstate 10. I was there as part of the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists. I took a tour of Palo Verde on the first day of the conference and I learned just how important this power plant is not just to Arizona, but to the whole western United States. It's the single largest electricity source for Los angeles. It supplied 14% of LA's electricity in 2023. It's also a major power provider for other parts of Southern California, as well as Phoenix, Albuquerque and El Paso, Texas. I'm telling you all this because one.

[Moderator]

Of the things I did that day.

[Sami Roth]

At Palo Verde was moderate a panel. We had three expert panelists with very different views on nuclear and. And their animated discussion adds a lot of important context to what's happening in Congress right now. The panelists were Amber Raimondo, Energy Director at the Grand Canyon Trust. Joe Romm, a senior researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and Victor Abarra Jr senior manager for Nuclear energy at the Clean Air Task Force. Today on Boiling Point, we're going to play that conversation from Palo Verde and let you hear the arguments for and against nuclear power for yourself. This episode was recorded live at America's second largest power plant. Let's roll the tape.

[Mary Knoff]

Hi, my name is Mary Knoff and I'm a producer on Boiling Point. We are here with Joanne o' Neill, director of Customer programs at Clean Power Alliance. Hi Joanne.

[Podcast Host]

Hello.

[Mary Knoff]

Can you tell us a little bit about Clean Power Alliance?

[Sami Roth]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So Clean Power alliance is the not for profit electricity provider for 3 million residents and businesses across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

[Mary Knoff]

What renewable energy options does CPA offer its customers?

[Podcast Host]

So Clean Power alliance offers customers a series of choices between lean power, clean power or 100% green power to ensure that people have the option to choose a rate that's right for them and maximize their renewable energy.

[Mary Knoff]

Well, thank you so much for speaking with us, Joanne.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Mary Knoff]

Take the next step in building a more resilient and clean energy future for Southern California. To learn more, please visit CleanPowerAlliance.org PowerResponse Again, that's CleanPowerAlliance.org Powerresponse.

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[Moderator]

All right, thanks, everybody. We've got a really good group of panelists here. I'm Sammy Roth, by the way, climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Yeah, let's do introductions and sort of just brief introductory remarks and start right here with Amber.

[Amber Raimondo]

Hi, everyone, Amber Raimondo. I'm the energy director at the Grand Canyon Trust. We are a regional nonprofit conservation organization based in Flagstaff, Arizona. And I've been with the Trust for the past nine years. And in that time I've focused primarily on uranium mining and milling and the impacts that that has had on tribal communities across the Colorado Plateau. People that we work with, the tribal communities and tribal governments that we work with are disproportionately impacted by uranium mining and milling. Really, the Trust's role is to work with these communities and, and we advocate with federal and state policymakers. We try to bring science to the table and resources to the table to elevate these voices that are often kind of brushed aside. And we heard that a lot. Even during the Biden administration when there was a lot of focus toward building up a future nuclear power supply, it was really difficult to get folks to take seriously the impacts that these communities are feeling. And so that's really a big part of our role.

[Moderator]

Glad you're here, Amber, to make sure that perspective is part of the conversation. Joe, why don't you go ahead and you actually had a very interesting op ed in the LA Times recently that laid out some of your perspectives. So I'm sure you'll want to talk about some of that.

[Joe Romm]

Absolutely. Is this on?

[Moderator]

Yes, it is.

[Joe Romm]

Look, I'm really delighted to be here. I have a PhD in physics from MIT. Back in the 90s, I was at the US Department of Energy for five years. I started as special assistant to the Deputy Secretary and he was in charge of all the energy programs of the department. So he asked me. I was largely there. I had worked for Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute prior to that, and he had asked me to help him with the efficiency and renewable program, but he also wanted me to keep an eye and help him with the nuclear program. And so I've been following nuclear power for, you know, over 30 years. And what's been clear over those 30 years is that the price of, you know, solar and wind have come down steadily in price and the price of nuclear has gone up steadily in price price of new nuclear. And I want to be clear here, you know, the distinction between new nuclear and Existing nuclear power plants. And what's happened in the past 30 years is that the world's not building very many nuclear plants. In fact, almost nobody's building very many nuclear plants except China. Regular nuclear plants, the big ones that are about 1,000 megawatts, about a gigawatt, which represent essentially all of the commercial plants in the world. Those have gotten very, very expensive, and that's why we don't build that many anymore. The one that the most recent, the only plants the US built in the last few decades is the Georgia plant, the Vogel plant. And that was two 1.1 gigawatt plants that cost $35 billion, which was like.

[Moderator]

Twice as expensive as it was supposed.

[Joe Romm]

To be, as I recall, as it was originally supposed to be. And this is basically $16 million per megawatt. I mean, it's really an astoundingly high cost. That's why people have gotten interested in small reactors. I think the main point to realize about the small reactors is that it would really be quite unprecedented in the history of engineering and in the history of energy for something that is much smaller to have a lower price per megawatt. Right. There's this fantasy that you could somehow shrink a plant down and it would be cheaper per megawatt, which again, it really defies logic. And no one in the US has ever successfully built a commercial small module reactor.

[Moderator]

I want to go to Victor here and give him a chance to weigh in on that. You have a little more, Joe?

[Joe Romm]

Well, I was just going to say there's only three small module reactors anywhere in the world. Two of them in Russia that had a cost overrun of 400% and one in China that had a cost overrun of 300% and still took over a decade to build.

[Moderator]

All right, Victor, you're up. And I don't want to pigeonhole you here as the pro nuclear person, but I'm guessing you might have a little bit of a different perspective and I'm definitely going to want to hear that out. So go for it.

[Victor Abarra Jr.]

Yeah, you can hear me, right? Sweet. Thank you so much. So I've worn a lot of different hats in my life. Primarily a nuclear engineer now working in the NGO nuclear policy space. I'm not just at tatf, I'm also a board member at the Good Energy Collective, which is kind of more of a left leaning nonprofit organization that works a lot at federal, state and local entities on issues such as mining, milling and the back end of the fuel cycle, like spent fuel. But in my hats as well, I've Also worked at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. And I think one point that I look at nuclear is that we can't treat all megawatts the same. They all have different values and different entities and roles to play in a society where we're trying to meet two different types of goals, whether it's decarbonization, clean air, et cetera. From the perspective of reliability, you know, a capacity or a megawatt of firm capacity like nuclear's, like other clean energies like geothermal that provide a lot of high reliability and high capacity factors, they are very, very crucial to creating a basis of a clean energy economy, but also complementing the proliferation that we're seeing right now of invertebrate resources like wind, like solar and like batteries, which we need plenty and plenty and plenty of. The second point that I want to make is that there are actually new nuclear reactor demonstrations that are underway here in the United States. I was just referring to a couple of colleagues that there are private public partnerships that are under the Department of Energy that hope to demonstrate high temperature gas reactors, sodium fast reactor technologies that really try to show that type of flexibility that I'm talking about. Obviously my colleagues have pointed out that there are opportunities for new nuclear, but there's also a lot of challenges. They exist at a variety of levels, not just in operation, but in the front end of the fuel cycle where we're talking about exposure and communicating with a lot of communities that exist around the United States, specifically mining and milling communities that exist here in the Southwest. This is a very important community that not just reactor operators but the entire nuclear fuel cycle has to communicate with and build trust with. My understanding is that there are ongoing conversations between entities associated with the mining and milling process that have created even the beginnings of trust to move forward these with agreements. But beyond that, there is also not just in operation of siting new nuclear reactors, but also building trust on the back end for storing and siting any spent nuclear waste that is produced from the commercial operation of nuclear power plants. Like I said, from a cost standpoint, I agree from the sentiment that the argument that small modular reactors aren't cheaper from a kilowatt per dollar basis. But the reality is that these gigawatt sized reactor plants, or in this case the polyvagor generation station is 4 gigawatts. It's very difficult for a muni for a co op for these type of entities that may have a lower access to capital or access to a healthy debt sheet, be able to take on these gigawatt sized projects. Which is why you're seeing a range of interest not just from AP1000s, these gigawatt plus size projects, but also projects in that small modular reactor scale. Well, maybe they're not as cost effective, but they do allow the opportunity for the proliferation of new players to really get into the game. And then after subsequent first of a kind to end of a kind learnings, understand what is the opportunity for new nuclear in this decarbonized and cleaner world that we're all searching to, to, to reach to. So those are my opening remarks.

[Moderator]

Appreciate that. Let me ask you a follow up question, Victor. And there are several points from all of you that I want to circle back on. But you know, as to the, as to the first thing you said that you know, needing to decarbonize and needing, you know, some additional technologies to do that, I mean that, that tracks with, you know, you talk to utilities, you talk to folks like NREL who have done these large scale studies. I mean typically what I think is found is that yes, solar, wind, onshore wind, batteries can get us most of the way there. But then you start to get to a point, especially with transportation and building electrification, especially now with data centers and some amount of AI for better or worse, and semiconductors in states like, like this one, where yeah, you start to have so much electricity at all hours of the day and night that you then need what clean, firm, something additional that can be relied on, you know, more, more hours of the day. And so as I understand the case you're making maybe small modular reactors or that technology, maybe they're not, but at the very least you do some exploration and see if they can fill that role, if I'm understanding correctly.

[Victor Abarra Jr.]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I think they're definitely worth the opportunity. And you know, beyond just small modular reactors or AP1000 being the discussion, I think it's a discussion about how you best incorporate both of these type of technology or at least both of these scales of technology to see how we can best decarbonize not just, you know, our country, but what makes sense in different geographical areas of the United States as well.

[Moderator]

The question I have for you then is knowing that there's a variety of different technologies that, and it doesn't have to be just one, but that there are, you know, other technologies out there that utilities and that heavy industry that people are looking at, that there's advanced geothermal and long duration energy storage and offshore wind and different ways of operating the grid to do this. You know, as to some of the points Joe made that, you know, that the costs, as you said, are high. That some of the projects, I mean some of the early scale startups that are doing this stuff just hasn't worked out super well so far. I mean, there was a pretty high profile one in Utah, the new scale project that it was like late 2023 that collapsed, that all of the municipalities that were getting together to, I think it was in Idaho that they were going to build it, maybe there were some Idaho parties involved that they all started to pull out and then the backers pulled their funding. God, that one went down even here in Arizona with Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project in Tucson. They were telling us earlier they're starting to explore this, but they're talking about even in a best case scenario having something ready in the early 2000-40s, which, you know, if you're talking about all of the like really rapidly expanding electricity needs, that's, you know, that's not going to do anything in the near term, even in a best case scenario. So why, you know, why? Why given that, you know, the sort of lack of any real visible successes so far, even with all of the money that's being poured into this space by the federal government and by, you know, private capital, you know, why, why is this a technology that is worth continuing to invest a lot of time and energy into when there are other options that could potentially fill that need as well?

[Victor Abarra Jr.]

So in regards to the UAMPS related question that you asked.

[Moderator]

Yeah, that's the Utah Idaho project.

[Victor Abarra Jr.]

Yeah, the Utah Idaho project. I think that's an example of in new emerging technology markets there's going to be winners and losers. And I think this also touches a little bit on the aspect that I communicated a little bit earlier about. There are different types of entity that have different access to capital and ability to access debt. When talking about these large capital intensive projects. The new scale UAMS Idaho project was an example of a very large, very intensive capital project that these entities that pulled out of the project, which subsequently led to the cancellation of it, were munis and co ops that did not have access to that type of debt and capital to make sure that they could move forward with the project in a way that was responsible for them, for their ratepayers as a nonprofit entity. To answer the second part of that question of like, what is the appetite for these projects when they might not address any near term concerns? I think, you know, that is a very good point to make because we need to make sure that we address near term reliability concerns. But that doesn't mean we can't address medium and long term reliability and energy concerns as well if these projects just do have long lead times. But one thing that we have to be super conscious of now, especially when we're exploring the opportunity to site new projects of any type, is that there's a permitting process that we have to go through and there's long lead times with the equipment associated to support these type of projects as well. That includes auxiliary systems, infrastructure like transmission. Not any of those things are any more easier in the United States than they were in the 1970s. So now we have to play not necessarily a game of risk, but really take into consideration. We can't just focus on the near term. We have to do and realize that we need to focus on those medium and long term growth as well because it's only going to take more and more time for these projects to come online. So that's where I believe, I think there's a strong argument for new nuclear in General. Not just AP1000 SMRs, but, but we eventually all will still need this energy. So we should start as quickly as we can pending that this technology is safe and makes sense from a customer standpoint because we also want to make sure we protect customers.

[Moderator]

Let me ask you here, I mean there's obviously a conversation to be had about what's government's role in investing in this. But if you've got private investors like Bill Gates or companies like Google or even utility companies with shareholder dollars that want to invest and want to see if there's a long term future here and think that nuclear or small modular reactors in particular, you know, it, it is baseload, it is carbon free, you know, traditional reactors, even if it doesn't make a lot of economic sense to build new ones right now, if they see a potential here to, even if it's not short term, to meet some of these long term needs to generate a lot more electricity and, and it's not to mention that it's a technology that has, you know, pretty broad political support in a way that most other carbon free technologies unfortunately do. Now do you see a problem with these private folks going and investing in this? I mean, what's the harm in that if it might actually work out even if it hasn't thus far?

[Joe Romm]

Well, look, I think there's two harms, one of which is the nuclear industry would not exist if it weren't for the government. There's the Price Anderson act which indemnifies all of the nuclear reactors in the country against a very large disaster, which is, say, all of us would end up paying for it. There is all the tax credits and then there is a safety issue. I don't mind at all if Bill Gates wants to spend his money. I guess the question is what is the likelihood of this actually making a difference to any of us and to the planet? And it's interesting, Gates, there are a.

[Moderator]

Lot of folks for a long time who said, for instance, solar PV investment wouldn't work out and that did.

[Joe Romm]

Right? But I ran the solar program at the Department of Energy. We knew we could come down a learning curve. Right. The key point is that nuclear has gotten more expensive over the past few decades. No one has ever been able to build an affordable large reactor. The small reactors are going to cost more. Gates himself was on CBS in June and was asked how much this thing would cost. And he said, well, if you added up all the costs, it would be $10 billion. This is a 345 megawatt reactor. This is twice as expensive per megawatt as the Georgia Vogel plant, the most expensive plant ever built. The ratepayers there had to spend $1,000 before the plant was built and giving out electrons. And every decade going forward, they're going to have to pay $2,000, decade after decade after decade. So I don't think we're in a world where anybody wants to be paying more for their electricity bills now that solar and wind and batteries are the winner in the race for low cost energy. That, yes, you have many, many hours now of storage. So although we heard earlier that the big peak is right after the sun goes down. Well, everyone is using four to six hours storage right now. And I would just point out that the Energy Information Administration put out a chart which I have in Here, on the US plan utility scale electric generating capacity this year, 93% is solar, wind and batteries, 7% is natural gas. So that's what wins now. And if Gates, and I don't mind, I'm a big fan of R and D, ran a billion dollar R and D program for the Department for a couple years. But let's just be realistic for journalists. You have to kick the tires. Is there any plausible scenario in which small modular reactors are going to be a major winner in the marketplace? And I would just add that if the country were serious about nuclear power, it would fix the biggest mistake the nuclear industry ever made, which was not settling on one design and working on getting that design cost effective. Right. We're now pursuing three dozen experimental designs that no one has successfully built for decades. You can't mass produce those until there's one or two winners in the marketplace. Right? Because this country is not gonna stand up five new nuclear reactor designs, particularly now that we're pissing off Canada, Europe and all other potential buyers of this product. Right? So it will literally be decades before a small modular reactor will emerge as a winner, and someone's gonna then build a factory that could chug them out. And all I can say is there's a lot of competition for them, including long duration storage and enhanced geothermal. And in fact, Jigar Shah himself, who ran the loan office, was asked by Michael Librick on Librich's radio show, what do you think on a scale of 1 to 5 are the commercialization prospects of small modular reactors? And it was. On a scale of 1 to 5, it was a 2. He was asked, well, what about enhanced geothermal? And he said, oh, that's a five.

[Sami Roth]

We'll be back after a quick break.

[Mary Knoff]

Hi, my name is Mary Knoff and I'm a producer on Boiling Point. We are here with Joanne o' Neill, director of customer programs and at Clean Power Alliance. Hi, Joanne.

[Podcast Host]

Hello.

[Mary Knoff]

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[Moderator]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

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[Mary Knoff]

Well, thank you so much, Joanne.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Mary Knoff]

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[Moderator]

Amber, you know, to go back to, you know, the front end of this process with uranium mining and milling, I guess I'm curious if, you know, just sort of, if there's sort of total unanimity and sentiment, you know, on the Navajo Nation and among, you know, different tribes about this issue or if it's more varied and, you know, I know I can't ask you to speak on behalf of every tribe, but just, you know, knowing that you're enmeshed in these issues, like, I was just reading a couple of stories about the controversy that's going on in the Navajo Nation. Right now having to do with trucking of. And I hope I'm going to characterize this right about trucking of uranium ore from one of the mines that I believe Energy Fuels Resources operates, the company that operates that mill in Utah, from one of its mines in Arizona, from the Grand Canyon to its mill in Utah, that there was an agreement that the company just reached with the government of the Navajo Nation to be able to truck uranium ore across the nation to the mill. And that that was controversial, that the leadership of the Navajo Nation made that agreement and that there's been a lot of criticism among activists within the tribe about that. So I'm just. I guess I'm sort of curious if you can talk about that a little bit and just sort of talk about what the. What the dialogue is like, you know, within indigenous communities about this issue.

[Amber Raimondo]

I have not met anyone from these communities who is gung ho about having uranium mining or milling or trucking near or in their communities. A lot of tribes on the Colorado Plateau have outright banned it. And even in the case that you mentioned of Navajo Nation and the trucking issue across the nation, from the Pinyon Plain mine south of Grand Canyon to the White Mesa mill in southeastern Utah, Steven Etzity, the epa, the Navajo EPA director, has told the press and others that essentially this wasn't what they wanted necessarily. It was that they felt like this was their option. Like we either say no and go to court and potentially lose and get what we get, or we go to the negotiating table and try to get something better for the Navajo people. And then, of course, there are community members who are also just upset about that because it results in this stuff still going through their communities.

[Moderator]

Gotcha. Okay. So I guess I found myself wondering, is this a jobs issue? Is it an economic activity thing? I was partly wondering because I feel like I've seen headlines here and there about that.

[Amber Raimondo]

Yeah. I mean, the White Mesa Mill, for instance, advertises that they employ some folks from native communities, but I have not heard in any sort of substantial way folks saying that they want these jobs. The folks that do say they want the jobs are people in Blanding, Utah, and maybe on the Arizona strip.

[Moderator]

So I know you said at the beginning that, you know, you're not here to be sort of pro or anti nuclear. You're focused on the legacy impact of the, you know, the groundwater pollution from. Is it groundwater or air pollution as well from uranium?

[Amber Raimondo]

Well, both, yeah. It's the legacy contamination, which is kind of. It's a slap in the face. I Think to a lot of these community members who have been trying to get this issue taken care of for decades, and then it's sort of brushed aside in the greater conversation about the need for nuclear power and the need for more uranium mining, because it's kind of like, oh, well, that was just a problem of the past and we have environmental laws now. So what's the issue?

[Sami Roth]

Like?

[Amber Raimondo]

That's environmental laws. Oh, gosh.

[Moderator]

Yeah, I have.

[Amber Raimondo]

Yesterday I just saw.

[Moderator]

Yeah, actually just this morning we saw the. I was just talking with you about that beforehand. The news that Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument is on the list of six monuments that the Interior Department is considering to either, you know, I don't know if it's eliminate, but at the very least scale back, which seems like it's probably being motivated by a desire to encourage more domestic uranium mining so as to encourage more nuclear power production. So anyway. But go ahead.

[Amber Raimondo]

Yeah, well, I mean, that's essentially it in terms of, you know, there's not enough real focus put on the very real problems that are still there with uranium mining and milling. There's the contamination of the past and that's an issue. And then there's also the risk of going forward. And I mentioned the 1872 Mining Law before and that's a huge problem and a huge inhibitor to other environmental laws actually making a significant difference because federal agencies feel like they have to say yes to every hard rock mining proposal on federal lands.

[Moderator]

How do you think about the continued operation of existing nuclear plants knowing that it requires continued uranium mining? So I guess knowing the work you do for a living, I'm just curious how you think about the existing nuclear fleet.

[Amber Raimondo]

Well, I mean, I think this is a huge challenge because it's something we have to just be honest with ourselves about. I think that uranium supply is going to be an issue globally if you're not Russia or China and you have your own little cohort of friends who are giving you, who are exchanging uranium resources. I think, I mean, in the United States, we get our uranium from Russia, Kazakhstan, Australia, Canada. And the reason that we don't have a robust uranium supply in the United States is because we just do not have the resources. The uranium deposits in the United States are much, much lower quality than elsewhere. To give you an example, Energy Fuels likes to tout that pinion plain uranium mine. Highest uranium or highest grade uranium ore in the country. It's 0.88% uranium U308. In Canada, at the MacArthur mine, for instance, you might see something closer to 16 or 18% U308. So it is much more expensive to get the same amount of uranium here in the US and on top of the grade issue, we also have much less. So the United states has about 1% of global unmined uranium reserves. And if you look at Canada and Australia, they have a lot more. And the issue is that everybody is talk about nuclear, right? So if everybody is actually building these nuclear reactors, the United States is way far back in terms of our ability to obtain those uranium supplies. And we're only making our problem worse by making enemies of our friends, you know, Canada and Australia. If we're serious about getting uranium, those are the places that have what we need. And it is a pipe dream to think that we can get it here. And the problem is that all this talk about it and getting and focusing on it from a government standpoint and trying to incentivize mining is only harming communities for what will not end up being a large benefit.

[Moderator]

One more big picture thing here, just having written about energy for a long time now, is that, you know, anytime I write about nuclear, I get people shouting at me at the top of their lungs, like how almost no matter what I write, whether it's positive or negative, if I, you know, one side is this wasn't positive enough. Why don't you understand that nuclear is the solution to all our problems? And the other side is this. Why did you not tell people that nuclear is going to kill us all? What's wrong with you? And then when I write something that's unrelated to nuclear, exact same reaction from some people, like, why are you writing about anything that's not nuclear and how nuclear is going to kill us all? Or why didn't you, why didn't you write a story about how nuclear is going to solve all our problems? Why aren't you focused on nuclear and nuclear alone? Why do you think that is? And is that a problem, that there are people who are just so focused on that and I don't know, I'll open this one up to the floor. Actually, Victor, I'm curious what you think about that. But then, Joe and Amber, I'm curious about your thoughts as well.

[Victor Abarra Jr.]

You know, I definitely think, you know, I personally, I come from, like my family and I, we come from a mining village in Mexico. I've been a lot of resources taken from our land in a globalized world that we live in now. I think every energy source is going to involve, unfortunately, the mining and milling and exploration of a lot of these resources. That we want inherently if we want to reach a lot of our deep decarbonization and our clean air goals. I think it's very unfortunate that the nuclear industry has behave the way it has in the past. And I talk about this in multiple avenues, not just from the front end of the fuel cycle where indigenous communities have been definitely taken advantage of and there have been legacy mines and waste that we have to address also in operation. For the examples that we pointed out today, like the examples of the Vogel projects where Westinghouse thought it'd be a great idea to pretend to be a Bechtel like entity that helped build this great project here in, in Phoenix, Arizona for the Pelo. Yeah. For the Palo Verde nuclear generating station. And ultimately that's partially why they had an incomplete design going into the new project. And also on the back end of the fuel cycle trying to address what we can do in terms of trying to create communities engagement that can then see how they would like to move forward with nuclear in the future. I ultimately think that nuclear gives us a very unique opportunity to like I said, not just complement the growth of new other clean energy technologies that we're going to see in the future, but it really does give us an opportunity to manage some of the things we also care about like low land use, the capacity of these transmissions lines that we really really want to make sure that they're in full effect of the decarbonization of hard tail bait sectors like the industrial processes that I hope one day really renewables can do that. But what the science and reports are telling us right now, new nuclear is just an option that should definitely be explored if we want to make sure that as we work towards those goals we can meet them in a societally responsible manner.

[Moderator]

I appreciate the point about trade offs because I also can't write about solar without getting at least three emails about desert tortoises, which is a little bit of an exaggeration, but directionally true. Joe, did you have any thoughts on this one?

[Joe Romm]

Yeah, well, you know, I don't think we'd be talking about nuclear very much if it weren't for the small modular reactors.

[Moderator]

You don't? Interesting.

[Joe Romm]

The big plant story is spent and so a lot of this I will tribute to the media. My father's a newspaper editor for 30 years but it's all about news what is new. And you know this country has always been very techno optimistic looking for the silver bullet technology. You mentioned fusion, right?

[Moderator]

And I will just as a joke but yes.

[Joe Romm]

Yeah, well I'll Just. But as you know, there's half a. There's a dozen.

[Moderator]

I've never written a story about fusion and I never will.

[Joe Romm]

Well, but there's a lot of startups. There's many people putting real money into that. All I'm saying is, and I only mention this cause just on Tuesday, my new book, the Hype About Hydrogen, False Promises and Real Solutions to the Race to Save the Climate, I go through and I look at a lot of these sexy experimental things and why they're kind of implausible and haven't succeeded in the past. Hydrogen, direct air capture, fusion, small modular reactors. And I just think that those are very attractive to write about because they involve venture capitalists who we all hold in awe. And they involve high tech things that we hold as the future possibilities. And it's true, we're getting most of our new stuff from solar, wind and batteries. Maybe you can't write more stories on that. After a while people get bored. They don't want to hear the same old thing. But I would just say we need a lot more kicking of the tires of people who say some non existent experimental technology that's never been commercialized in the past is somehow going to change the world in a few years or even 10 years. You know, I think it's a lot about. Yes, the nuclear industry has cleverly rebranded as small and modular so that people can say, oh well, they're small and modular like solar and batteries. They'll come down a learning curve. No, they're large and they're not modular and they're not going to come down a learning curve.

[Moderator]

We're going to call it here. Thank you guys for this great discussion. I think we all learned a lot. Really appreciate it. Thanks everybody.

[Sami Roth]

Okay, you've heard the arguments if you're interested. I also wrote a column with some of my own commentary on nuclear based on the panel and the trip to Palo Verde. You can find the link in the show notes. Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflett. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shiflett. Elijah Wolfson is our editor. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our production manager. Nick Norton is our engineer. Special thanks to LA Times Studio president Anna Magzanian. President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argentieri and executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tango. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius Derekshon and created by me, Sami Roth.

[Amber Raimondo]

The LA Times sports video series Dodgers.

[Joe Romm]

Debate is coming to your podcast app on March 28th. Tune in for banter analysis and hot takes from me, Dodgers beat reporter Jack.

[Sami Roth]

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[Amber Raimondo]

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