Daniel Howes

Michigan should go for nuclear jobs

Detroit -- Michigan needs to get on the nuclear power train because it's getting ready to leave the station -- and take the jobs with it.

No, this isn't a call to green-light yet another nuke plant here. It's a reminder that the Big Mitten still has the ability to make things. Climate-change politics and surging demand for electricity around the world are powering a nuclear renaissance, and states like Michigan -- deep in engineering expertise, surplus industrial capacity and an established transportation infrastructure -- could get a piece of that multi-billion dollar business.

But we've got to move fast.

Otherwise the jobs, the investment, the economic growth and the re-purposing of vacant industrial sites to supply parts for nuclear plant construction will go where they typically go: to Indiana, to Pennsylvania, to Tennessee, anywhere but here. And, yes, to European and, especially, Asian firms who see opportunity in the confluence of national economic maturation and political demands to combat climate change.

"I can't make Michigan become a key supplier of nuclear components," Dan Roderick, senior vice president for nuclear plant projects at GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Inc., told a "nuclear renaissance" seminar this week organized by DTE Energy Corp. "You can. How much of this do you want? Someone's going to come and get it."

The "this" he's referring to is the $12.8 billion spent last year alone to acquire nuclear materials, services and fuels around the world. It's a piece of the 53 new nuclear plants already under construction worldwide, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. It's the 137 plants on order or planned in 26 countries or the 295 under consideration in 36 countries.

In China, 16 nuclear plants are under construction. In Russia, it's nine. In India and South Korea, it's six each. In the United States, home to 104 nuclear plants -- including three in Michigan -- applications for 13 plants are under review after a nearly generation-long hiatus.

American public sentiment toward nuclear power is shifting, driven by concerns over climate change and recognition of a geo-political need to enhance the nation's energy security. A co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, co-chairs a coalition supporting the expansion of nuclear power. And the 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions proposed by the House energy legislation essentially makes expansion of nuclear power inevitable.

Otherwise, you can't get there from here. Politicians and regulators, like automakers, increasingly recognize that 21st-century energy needs will be answered with a basket of technologies. In the energy space, those would be coal, petroleum, wind, solar, renewable fuels and nuclear power.

The Environmental Protection Agency predicts the nation will need to build 187 new nuclear reactors, partly to replace existing ones that have reached the end of their functional lives and partly to meet the expanding power needs of a deeply electrified society. Add electrified transportation, and the demand grows even more.

"We've got available capacity and available skills" in Michigan, says Gerry Anderson, chief operating officer of DTE Energy. "If we want to stake a leadership position, we've got to move now."

He's right. Replacing the state's hollowed-out auto sector with the nuts and bolts needed to build a nuclear-power infrastructure makes business sense. They need structural steel and concrete; cabling and piping; electrical components and nuclear-grade valves; pumps and heat exchangers -- all of it potentially made in Michigan.

More, this makes political sense for leaders who spend most of their time squabbling about small-bore budget issues instead of seizing a promising economic opportunity that is staring right at them.

Aiming the state's limited economic development resources in support of nuclear component manufacturing would be a natural extension of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's emphasis on "green" jobs, even those in homeland security.

Delay shouldn't be an option. Unions and environmental lobbies, at least those armed with facts, should get behind this. So should Democrats and Republicans, local pols hungry for fresh tax revenue and business leaders (including DTE Energy) eager to see new business activity.

"This can't come off the table, this opportunity," says Skip Pruss, director of the state Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth. "This takes some major investment, new certifications, retooling. The supply chain needs to know this opportunity is real."

They're not the only ones.

dchowes@detnews.com (313) 222-2106 Daniel Howes' column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.