Duke Energy wants nuclear reactors at Belews Creek - Winston-Salem Journal

Duke Energy wants nuclear reactors at Belews Creek

The Triad would be home to North Carolina’s first new nuclear power plant in more than 35 years under a proposal filed with state regulators Tuesday.

Duke Energy is asking the N.C. Utilities Commission to sign off on a plan to add reactors at its Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County. A similar system would be added at a second site still to be determined.

Each nuclear facility would be capable of powering nearly a quarter-million homes at one time, the company said.

The last nuclear facility to come online in North Carolina was Duke’s Harris Plant in Wake County in 1987.

Charlotte-based Duke’s Belews Creek request is part of a newly filed update to its state-mandated plan to reduce climate-impacting pollution in electricity production 70% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels and reach “carbon-neutral” status by the middle of the century.

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The latest filing is an update to the 2022 Carbon Plan, in which Duke offered three scenarios that would get the company to the 70% level by 2030, 2033 or 2035.

In the latest version, the company asks the commission to permit the 2035 timeline.

“This plan delivers a path to cleaner energy without compromising grid reliability, affordability or the energy demands of a growing region,” said Kendal Bowman, Duke’s North Carolina president.

Continued economic development, population growth and increased use of electric vehicles are projected to add 35,000 gigawatts of consumption by Duke Energy customers in North Carolina and South Carolina over the next 15 years — more than the annual electric generation of Delaware, Maine and New Hampshire combined, the company said.

“We’ve already made tremendous progress in the energy transition, retiring two-thirds of our aging coal plants in the Carolinas and reducing emissions by 46% since 2005,” Bowman added. “Now we’re proposing specific new generation at existing plant sites, leveraging our current infrastructure, transmission system and workforce to save customers money while supporting job creation and tax base in these communities.”

In addition to 600 megawatts of new nuclear power, Duke proposes adding:

- 6,000 megawatts of new solar by 2031.
- 2,700 megawatts of battery storage by 2031.
- 5,800 megawatts of natural gas capacity that can be transitioned to emission-free hydrogen by 2032.
- 1,200 megawatts of onshore wind by 2033.
- 1,600 of offshore wind in 2033 or later
- 1,700 of stored hydro-electric energy by 2034.

Duke’s strategy of using natural gas to help replace coal capacity until more emissions-free generation comes online continues to draw criticism from environmental advocates.

“It’s deeply disappointing and alarming that Duke’s plan continues to rely on expensive, polluting and unnecessary gas,” Will Scott, director of Southeast climate and energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement Tuesday. “The continued use of fossil fuels to generate electricity is a principal cause of the climate disruption that is resulting in extreme heat, deep freezes, intense storm systems and extended dry periods.”

Federal incentives for installing wind, solar and storage make those options more affordable, he added.

Piece by piece

At 50-year-old Belews Creek, nuclear generation would replace power currently produced by the burning of coal, which emits heat-trapping carbon dioxide, the leading contributor to human-caused climate change.

The transition would involve the addition of so-called small modular reactors that can be built in a factory and shipped in pieces to their ultimate destinations, allowing for a gradual ramp-up in generating capacity.

“Belews Creek has the available land, transmission infrastructure and workforce, as well as a supportive community eager to replace the existing facility since it generates 17% of the county’s tax base,” said Glen Snider, Duke’s managing director of resource planning and analytics. “There (also) are federal funding benefits (through the Inflation Reduction Act) for placing replacement generation at a retiring coal site, which lowers the cost for customers.”

He added that nuclear power is a critical element in Duke’s strategy to reach carbon neutrality because, unlike solar and wind power, it produces emission-free electricity 24 hours a day, regardless of weather conditions.

Duke plans to end coal-fired power generation at Belews Creek by 2036. The plant, with a current capacity of 2,200 megawatts, now can operate on coal, natural gas or a combination of the two.

Critics argue that small modular reactors — which have been used for nearly 70 years to power U.S. Navy submarines — are unproven as utility scale producers of electricity.

Duke’s timeline for generating nuclear power at Belews Creek would be from the mid-2030s into the 2040s, giving the technology more time to evolve, Snider said.

The company plans to apply for an early site permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in mid-2025.

“Then there are additional steps after that,” including a certificate of proposed construction from the N.C. Utilities Commission, Duke spokesman Bill Norton said. “If we successfully cross all those checkpoints, we anticipate construction starting in 2030.”

Like coal, nuclear power produces waste that must be disposed.

At Belews Creek, Duke is in the early stages of a project to excavate 12 million tons of ash, the carcinogen-laden byproduct of burning coal at the complex for decades, from unlined storage basins and move it to a landfill with watertight barriers above and below.

Used nuclear fuel also would be stored onsite at Belews — first cooled in enclosed, steel-lined, concrete pools under about 20 feet of water then, after seven to 10 years, transferred to large steel and concrete storage containers designed to withstand extreme events such as earthquakes, fires and hurricanes.