Make the Carolinas’ Energy Lead “Untouchable”
Although decades have passed since the construction of the last new commercial nuclear reactor in the nation, nuclear energy supplies roughly 20% of all U.S. electricity. The Carolinas produce more than 11% of our country’s nuclear electricity. We provide an important energy product to our two states and nation.
This week Carolinians learned about other important products of the nuclear industry – jobs and economic impact.
More than 37,000 of our neighbors work in jobs related to the nuclear industry, according to new research. The study, requested by the Carolinas Nuclear Cluster, a group of companies, educational organizations and nonprofits, was conducted by economic researchers at Clemson University.
Understanding the economic impact of our states’ nuclear industry is especially important to the Carolinas in a tough U.S. business climate. The Carolinians who hold nuclear positions earn and re-deploy more than $2 billion in annual pay. In 2008 the industry also paid more than $750 million in local and state taxes.
The message is this: The Carolinas’ nuclear industry provides us with important energy security and high quality economic support. This point is critical.
Consider this. Acclaimed columnist Thomas Friedman says our “Great Recession” is not just a financial system failure. He says we relinquished our competitive edge in the world. We borrowed our way to a high quality of life; we did not earn the intellectual equity of improved productivity and education.
Friedman says that smart people (and insightful regions, in my opinion) ensure that they are beyond the reach of the competition: “Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive.”
Friedman’s call for a turnaround is where he and the Carolinas Nuclear Cluster intersect. We practice the “entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity” he says our country needs.
The nuclear industry is scientists, engineers and expert crafts people. Our supply chain responds in-kind as smart businesspeople who are audited for top quality. Nationally, plant capacities (time on-line) have increased almost every year since the 1980s and now are above 90%. Average nuclear production costs are down more than 30% in a decade. That’s increased productivity!
The Carolinas exemplify the best of the industry. We fabricate fuel that touches well over 50% of the nuclear power production in the U.S. Our engineering offices design and help maintain plants globally. There is hardware from the Carolinas inside facilities down the interstate and across the oceans. Our university graduates are stationed across the spectrum of the industry.
Is the Carolinas’ nuclear energy competitive edge worth keeping? I vote “yes.” We all can vote “yes,” in several ways.
On the national scale, our energy policy should embrace nuclear power as a safe, carbonless and reliable source of electricity.
Within our two states we can increase our economic impact by increasing the “entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity” Freidman extols. The anticipated “nuclear renaissance” could double the more than 37,000 Carolinians currently engaged in the nuclear industry. Local businesses would benefit from increased sales as suppliers to the industry.
All of us can – and should – urge policymakers to recognize the environmental benefits and the financial imperatives of nuclear energy. The nuclear industry and other high-tech businesses benefit as we support high quality engineering and technology programs.
Finally, let’s encourage young people to be energy engineers and technicians as a way to earn a good living, while supporting the Carolinas and our nation.
Jim Little is a senior vice president of URS Corporation in Fort Mill, SC, which provides environmental planning and engineering expertise to power facilities worldwide.
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