Denver’s mayor and airport chief touted a $1.25 million study Wednesday probing the chances of a “small” nuclear power plant to feed DIA’s rapid growth, but questions about the idea instantly reached criticality.
DIA chief executive Phil Washington said considering a “small modular reactor,” or SMR, as one alternative for the megawatts needed for airport growth would help Denver be “the masters of our own energy fate,” and that the study using airport money is not a commitment to any plan.
Critics immediately shot back with a long list of challenges for the world’s sixth largest airport going nuclear, among them:
- None of the highly touted modular reactors have been permitted, let alone completed, anywhere in the United States.
- Nuclear power plants consistently sustain billions of dollars of cost overruns, usually eaten by local ratepayers or governments.
- No U.S. repository exists for spent nuclear fuel, meaning radioactive waste sits in storage at each existing or decommissioned nuclear site. Xcel Energy, at the press conference Wednesday to support the study, acknowledged that nuclear waste from its decommissioned Fort St. Vrain plant still sits in storage in Platteville.
- Siting unproven nuclear technology amid 100 million passenger visits a year seems … provocative.
- Truly green energy, in the form of solar or wind, can be easily sited on DIA’s 53 square miles, with proven battery backup storage to ensure reliability for future growth, and construction is quick with existing technology.
The reality is that neither the safety, nor the economics, nor the environmental consequences of nuclear power have improved in the 40-plus years since American industry largely stopped building or seeking permits for new plants, said Ed Lyman, a physicist and director of nuclear safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
There is renewed buzz for the small reactors because the Trump administration is speeding up permitting reviews, and tech companies bursting with money need new power for artificial intelligence, Lyman said.
But calling them “small” doesn’t change the hazards or the complexity, and actually makes the economics worse for consumers because the reactors wouldn’t generate enough electricity revenue to pay investors, he added.
“The rhetoric and the advertising and the cheerleading has gotten so far ahead of the actual technology that it’s mind boggling,” Lyman said. “So I think they’re really overpromising. For decades, they’ve been trying to rehabilitate the technology, to kind of ‘greenwash’ the public into thinking that it’s a lot better for the environment, for public health, for the economy, than they really are.”
The DIA chief and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston fielded similar hostile questions in launching the study, which will use airport enterprise funds that are raised from airline landing fees and other revenue at DIA.
“These are exactly the questions we have,” Johnston said.
The request for proposals to conduct the study went out early Wednesday morning, and the money will be “well spent” even if nuclear at DIA is shown to be nonviable, Washington said. “Folks will rally to us to do this particular study,” he said. Yet, he added, “we are not going down this road without off-ramps.”
Denver’s stated goal is to be carbon neutral in emissions that contribute to climate change by 2040, Johnston said, and studying a nuclear option does not change the city’s stance of “all of the above to non-fossil-fuel” energy sources. They noted that DIA has already built 30MW of solar arrays so far, over 100 acres, and will continue to pursue all viable forms of clean energy regardless of the 6- to 12-month nuclear study.
Meanwhile, the airport has passed 80 million passengers a year as the third busiest in North America, expects 100 million passengers within a few years, and 120 million by the 50th anniversary of DIA in 2045. Officials said Wednesday they are also putting out the call for major new development in the DIA footprint, with the possibility of AI data centers and other heavy power users.
The airport currently draws about 45MW of power, and projects are already underway that will add 40MW more to that demand, Washington said. Modular reactors under development range in size from 30MW of generation up to 300MW; they can be built largely off-site and trucked in on semitrailers, and in theory could be “stacked” or expanded whenever DIA anticipates big power demands.
A modular reactor at DIA would likely be placed underground, Washington said.
Officials said they would welcome contributions from a new set of federal grants boosting nuclear power studies and development, as well as other potential funding partners. Xcel Energy representatives attended the press conference and said the company would lend its experience with two nuclear reactors it operates in Minnesota, as well as the Fort St. Vrain history.
House Bill 1040 this year, signed by the governor, established nuclear power as an official “clean power” source, that would make it eligible for utilities’ mandated clean energy conversion plans and access to government financing.
Environmental groups are wary of claims that nuclear power is a “green” energy option because the generation process doesn’t emit carbon. Mining uranium for fuel causes damage, they say, and there is no viable federal repository for spent nuclear fuel from any of the existing 93 reactors at 54 commercial sites in the U.S.
“There is no solution” to the waste problem, Lyman said. “So any reactor that’s built at this airport now, the mayor will have to expect that it’s going to become a long-term radioactive waste storage facility.”
An advocate with Colorado GreenLatinos challenged the officials at the press conference to set aside a nuclear study in favor of “deployable technologies” like wind and solar that would more quickly cut into the Front Range ozone pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
“This is not a proven technology, and so we should be spending money on things that are already available and deployable,” said Patricia Garcia-Nelson, of GreenLatinos. “We want solutions.”
“We are in no way slowing down on all of our other ambitious climate goals around renewable energy,” Johnston responded. “This is an investigation, it’s a study as to whether or not we think nuclear can be one part of that puzzle.”