• A new report charts two paths — a Renewable Scenario and a Nuclear Scenario — to satisfy a recent state law requiring carbon neutrality in electricity generation by 2050
  • At 43,400 megawatts (MW), the Nuclear Scenario would require a tiny fraction of the amount of new capacity that the Renewable Scenario would require (339,406 MW)
  • Also, the Nuclear Scenario would need only 1,348 miles of new transmission infrastructure and 15,190 acres for power generation vs. more than 12,500 miles and 7.7 million acres for renewables

The current state law establishing the state Carbon Plan requires carbon neutrality in electricity in North Carolina by 2050. A new report from the Center for Food, Power, and Life at the John Locke Foundation takes stock of North Carolina’s energy infrastructure and estimates how much new infrastructure the state will need in the coming years under this law. The report examines two different paths toward that goal: either through renewable facilities or through nuclear power.

Is the Carbon Plan law necessary? Without needing state intervention, our emissions have already fallen by more than half since 2005. Even at their worst, North Carolina’s emissions from electricity were climatological small potatoes: completely insignificant. We’re just a speck on the vast planet Earth. Even if the theory of anthropogenic, catastrophic climate change were true (especially as filtered through media and politics), cutting — or keeping — all of North Carolina’s emissions could make no difference.

The global troposphere would not be affected by either carbon neutrality in North Carolina or the lack thereof. So who is affected by a state law requiring carbon neutrality? North Carolinians facing much more expensive and less reliable electricity.

The report shows that complying with this law “will require the largest expansion of electric infrastructure since electrification began in the early 1920s.” Barring a change in the law, which path we take will make a huge difference in the coming decades in the cost and reliability of our electricity. What would be the implications for North Carolina families, businesses, schools, and industries?

Previous briefs have looked into the report’s findings of how much solar and wind this law would require. The Renewable Scenario is the one advocated by former Gov. Roy Cooper and his administration. Meanwhile, the rise of data centers and growing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) requiring enormous amounts of electricity to operate were not anticipated even eight years ago. If people were to adopt electric vehicles at the level set by Cooper, it would add even more demands on the grid. Does new Gov. Josh Stein break from his predecessor with respect to promoting and favoring intermittent, weather-dependent renewables and instead support reliable thermal generation?

Nuclear vs. Renewables? The Differences Are Striking

“Lighting the Path” also examines a Nuclear Scenario for meeting the current law’s demands through new nuclear generation. Nuclear power is the only zero-emissions resource capable of baseload power generation, not to mention the only resource able to generate at night, when it’s overcast, and when it’s calm. Bipartisan passage of the federal Advance Act in 2024 should remove some of the regulatory obstacles and red tape that has been hindering new nuclear power in the United States for decades, and it shows that policymakers are recognizing nuclear’s crucial role in fulfilling our suddenly growing power needs.

The private sector recognizes it as well. In recent months, Google has announced a deal to power its data centers with “six or seven small nuclear reactors (SMRs),” and Microsoft and Amazon have also announced new nuclear deals for powering their data centers.

“Lighting the Path” shows how nuclear generation would save North Carolinians money, preserve land for other uses, and alleviate their concerns about blackouts, too. Will policymakers persist in requiring carbon neutrality as a state policy in electricity provision, closing coal-fired power plants and then phasing out natural gas facilities, too? If so, then adding more zero-emissions nuclear power would have to be the main focus over the long term to maintain grid reliability and keep costs as low as possible (under those policy constraints).

Among many other things, nuclear’s manifest efficiency would need no overbuilding, unlike intermittent, unreliable wind and solar. To be sure, even with nuclear, a law enforcing carbon neutrality is necessarily at odds with longstanding state policy of ensuring “least cost” electricity. Outside of nuclear power, however, the law is also at odds with the other longstanding state policy of ensuring “reliable” electricity.

But without nuclear, costs and unreliability could get out of control quickly for North Carolina families, businesses, and industries.

As shown in the report, the Nuclear Scenario differs significantly from the Renewable Scenario in many ways. It would produce “far more electricity with far less energy infrastructure,” require “fewer new power plants and transmission infrastructure,” and use “much less land than the all-renewable scenario.”

New Capacity: About Eight Times More for Renewables

Being so intermittent, solar and wind power require a great deal of overbuilding to approximate reliability, whereas nuclear is extremely efficient and reliable. The report estimates that replacing generation from coal and natural gas and meeting North Carolina’s future electricity needs would require 43,400 megawatts (MW) of new nuclear capacity, consisting of “large, APR-1400 power plants and small modular reactors (SMRs).”

The Renewable Scenario would require nearly eight times as much new capacity (339,406 MW).

Here is how the two scenarios compare in total energy infrastructure:

New Transmission Lines: More Than Nine Times More for Renewables

The gaping difference between new facilities needed by the different scenarios is also evident from the new transmission infrastructure required. As stated in the report:

[W]e estimate the Nuclear Scenario requires only an additional 1,348 miles of transmission infrastructure — a mere fraction of the more than 12,500 miles needed for the Renewable Scenario.

Land Use: 15,190 Acres for Nuclear vs. More Than 7.7 Million Acres for Renewables

The difference between the two scenarios in the acreage required for power generation is jaw-dropping. It’s an extension of the massive difference in land required to produce a megawatt of electricity: from as much as 71 acres for onshore wind to as little as about a third of an acre for nuclear.

Not only would the Nuclear Scenario require just 15,190 acres of land for power generation vs. well more than 7.7 million acres for the Renewable Scenario, but its actual land use could be much less. The report states it “could be reduced to 7,720 acres if new nuclear plants reuse existing coal and natural gas power plant sites.”

For context, the entire state of North Carolina consists of 34.4 million acres. With roughly 7.1 million acres of onshore land required for the renewable scenario, that means about 20.6 percent — over one-fifth — of the entire state’s land mass would need to be covered with wind and solar facilities to meet the Carbon Plan’s requirements. 

Summary

The Carbon Plan law is an expensive policy choice because closing working power plants and building new ones necessarily mean higher electricity rates. If the law is not changed, North Carolinians will at least need a sensible approach to meeting the law’s demand for carbon neutrality in electricity generation by 2050. Highly efficient, highly reliable, zero-emissions nuclear power would save people from overbuilding renewable facilities and their transmission needs, preserve the reliability of the grid, and reserve millions of acres for other, more productive uses.