Xcel Energy would like the option to build nuclear power plants in Colorado after 2020 to produce carbon-free electricity.
“There’s a negative attitude in the state (about nuclear power), something we need to turn around,” Xcel chairman and chief executive Dick Kelly said Wednesday during a panel at the Denver Leadership Summit.
“The demand for power is not going away — individuals are buying plasma televisions, businesses are growing and using more power,” Kelly said. “We have to come up with a solution.”
President Barack Obama wants to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Carbon contributes to global warming.
Coal plants emit carbon. Scientists are looking to sequester the carbon, but the technology has yet to mature.
Nuclear plants don’t emit carbon, but they raise other safety concerns.
“We have to deal with waste and nonproliferation to make sure nuclear materials aren’t used as a terrorist threat, and only then sign up for nuclear as part of our energy mix,” said Dan Arvizu, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and a panel participant.
The radioactive waste from Xcel’s Fort St. Vrain nuclear plant — shut down in 1989 — is in casks and buried in layers of steel inside a concrete warehouse near Platteville.
Gargi Chakrabarty: 303-954-2976 or gchakrabarty@denverpost.com
