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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution    
    If reactors are retired, polluting energy sources that fill the gap could   
   cause more than 5,000 premature deaths, researchers estimate    
      
     Date:   
         April 10, 2023   
     Source:   
         Massachusetts Institute of Technology   
     Summary:   
         A new study shows that if U.S. nuclear power plants are retired,   
         the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas to fill the energy gap   
         could cause more than 5,000 premature deaths.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   Nearly 20 percent of today's electricity in the United States comes from   
   nuclear power. The U.S. has the largest nuclear fleet in the world,   
   with 92 reactors scattered around the country. Many of these power   
   plants have run for more than half a century and are approaching the   
   end of their expected lifetimes.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Policymakers are debating whether to retire the aging reactors or   
   reinforce their structures to continue producing nuclear energy, which   
   many consider a low-carbon alternative to climate-warming coal, oil,   
   and natural gas.   
      
   Now, MIT researchers say there's another factor to consider in weighing   
   the future of nuclear power: air quality. In addition to being a low   
   carbon- emitting source, nuclear power is relatively clean in terms of   
   the air pollution it generates. Without nuclear power, how would the   
   pattern of air pollution shift, and who would feel its effects?  The MIT   
   team took on these questions in a new study appearing in Nature Energy.   
      
   They lay out a scenario in which every nuclear power plant in the country   
   has shut down, and consider how other sources such as coal, natural gas,   
   and renewable energy would fill the resulting energy needs throughout   
   an entire year.   
      
   Their analysis reveals that indeed, air pollution would increase, as   
   coal, gas, and oil sources ramp up to compensate for nuclear power's   
   absence. This in itself may not be surprising, but the team has put   
   numbers to the prediction, estimating that the increase in air pollution   
   would have serious health effects, resulting in an additional 5,200   
   pollution-related deaths over a single year.   
      
   If, however, more renewable energy sources become available to supply   
   the energy grid, as they are expected to by the year 2030, air pollution   
   would be curtailed, though not entirely. The team found that even under   
   this heartier renewable scenario, there is still a slight increase in   
   air pollution in some parts of the country, resulting in a total of 260   
   pollution-related deaths over one year.   
      
   When they looked at the populations directly affected by the increased   
   pollution, they found that Black or African American communities --   
   a disproportionate number of whom live near fossil-fuel plants --   
   experienced the greatest exposure.   
      
   "This adds one more layer to the environmental health and social   
   impacts equation when you're thinking about nuclear shutdowns, where the   
   conversation often focuses on local risks due to accidents and mining   
   or long-term climate impacts," says lead author Lyssa Freese, a graduate   
   student in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences   
   (EAPS).   
      
   "In the debate over keeping nuclear power plants open, air quality has   
   not been a focus of that discussion," adds study author Noelle Selin,   
   a professor in MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) and   
   EAPS. "What we found was that air pollution from fossil fuel plants is so   
   damaging, that anything that increases it, such as a nuclear shutdown, is   
   going to have substantial impacts, and for some people more than others."   
   The study's MIT-affiliated co-authors also include Principal Research   
   Scientist Sebastian Eastham and Guillaume Chossie`re SM '17, PhD '20,   
   along with Alan Jenn of the University of California at Davis.   
      
   Future phase-outs When nuclear power plants have closed in the past,   
   fossil fuel use increased in response. In 1985, the closure of reactors   
   in Tennessee Valley prompted a spike in coal use, while the 2012 shutdown   
   of a plant in California led to an increase in natural gas. In Germany,   
   where nuclear power has almost completely been phased out, coal-fired   
   power increased initially to fill the gap.   
      
   Noting these trends, the MIT team wondered how the U.S. energy grid   
   would respond if nuclear power were completely phased out.   
      
   "We wanted to think about what future changes were expected in the energy   
   grid," Freese says. "We knew that coal use was declining, and there was   
   a lot of work already looking at the impact of what that would have on   
   air quality.   
      
   But no one had looked at air quality and nuclear power, which we also   
   noticed was on the decline."  In the new study, the team used an energy   
   grid dispatch model developed by Jenn to assess how the U.S. energy system   
   would respond to a shutdown of nuclear power. The model simulates the   
   production of every power plant in the country and runs continuously   
   to estimate, hour by hour, the energy demands in 64 regions across   
   the country.   
      
   Much like the way the actual energy market operates, the model chooses   
   to turn a plant's production up or down based on cost: Plants producing   
   the cheapest energy at any given time are given priority to supply the   
   grid over more costly energy sources.   
      
   The team fed the model available data on each plant's changing emissions   
   and energy costs throughout an entire year. They then ran the model   
   under different scenarios, including: an energy grid with no nuclear   
   power, a baseline grid similar to today's that includes nuclear power,   
   and a grid with no nuclear power that also incorporates the additional   
   renewable sources that are expected to be added by 2030.   
      
   They combined each simulation with an atmospheric chemistry model to   
   simulate how each plant's various emissions travel around the country and   
   to overlay these tracks onto maps of population density. For populations   
   in the path of pollution, they calculated the risk of premature death   
   based on their degree of exposure.   
      
   System response Their analysis showed a clear pattern: Without nuclear   
   power, air pollution worsened in general, mainly affecting regions in the   
   East Coast, where nuclear power plants are mostly concentrated. Without   
   those plants, the team observed an uptick in production from coal and gas   
   plants, resulting in 5,200 pollution- related deaths across the country,   
   compared to the baseline scenario.   
      
   They also calculated that more people are also likely to die prematurely   
   due to climate impacts from the increase in carbon dioxide emissions,   
   as the grid compensates for nuclear power's absence. The climate-related   
   effects from this additional influx of carbon dioxide could lead to   
   160,000 additional deaths over the next century.   
      
   "We need to be thoughtful about how we're retiring nuclear power plants   
   if we are trying to think about them as part of an energy system,"   
   Freese says.   
      
   "Shutting down something that doesn't have direct emissions itself   
   can still lead to increases in emissions, because the grid system will   
   respond."  "This might mean that we need to deploy even more renewables,   
   in order to fill the hole left by nuclear, which is essentially a   
   zero-emissions energy source," Selin adds. "Otherwise we will have   
   a reduction in air quality that we weren't necessarily counting on."   
   This study was supported, in part, by the U.S. Environmental Protection   
   Agency.   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Matter_&_Energy   
                   # Nuclear_Energy # Energy_Technology # Electricity   
             o Earth_&_Climate   
                   # Energy_and_the_Environment # Environmental_Science #   
                   Renewable_Energy   
             o Science_&_Society   
                   # Energy_Issues # Environmental_Policies #   
                   Security_and_Defense   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Fossil_fuel o Natural_gas o Pollution o Nuclear_power_plant   
             o Hydrogen_vehicle o Nuclear_fusion o Nuclear_fission o   
             Energy_development   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology. Original written by Jennifer   
   Chu. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
      
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230410111700.htm   
      
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