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The problem: The U.S. aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. But to do that, it’ll need cleaner sources of energy. In 2023, about 60 percent of U.S. electricity generation came from fossil fuels, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The fix: Two companies, Constellation Energy and Holtec International, are currently working on restarting shuttered plants that could be test cases for the somewhat retro future of nuclear power in the U.S.

Constellation recently announced plans to restart one of two nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island, the Pennsylvania nuclear plant that it shut down in 2019. Three Mile Island partly melted down in 1979, in the worst nuclear reactor accident in U.S. history.

And in Michigan, Holtec is working on restarting the Palisades nuclear plant, which shut down in 2022.

The Biden administration is working “in a very concrete way” to restart nuclear plants, Ali Zaidi, the White House climate adviser, told Reuters this week. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about what this might entail.

How it might work: Restarting a nuclear plant takes more than just flipping a switch. First, there’s hiring. Holtec’s work force fell from 600 to 220 when it shut down, but Nick Culp, Holtec’s senior manager of government affairs and communications, said the company intended to be fully staffed by spring. Holtec requalified more than two dozen workers to operate the Palisades plant who will also need to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he said.

Then, there’s inspection work. Holtec said in August that the plant’s primary coolant system had been cleaned. The company is working on inspecting the plant’s main turbine and transformers, among other parts, and on moving some of its spent fuel to an on-site storage facility, it said. Holtec aims to have the plant up and running again by the fourth quarter of 2025.

Constellation spent more than a year and a half inspecting the reactor it’s working to restart at Three Mile Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center. The company said it planned to spend $1.6 billion to get the reactor operating again and hoped it would reopen in 2028.

Last month, the Biden administration approved a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help Holtec reopen the plant. Constellation is also reportedly seeking a federal loan guarantee.

The obstacles: Restarting mothballed nuclear reactors takes a lot of time, investment and regulatory approvals. And it would reverse a trend: More than a dozen reactors shut down in the U.S. between 2012 and 2022.

“A lot of people are watching to see how this goes for us,” said Culp, the Holtec senior manager. “When we restart, I think it’s going to change the conversation a bit.”

Public opinion on nuclear energy has also been changing. More than half of Americans in 2023 said they were either strongly or somewhat in favor of nuclear energy — the highest level of public support for the industry in a decade, according to Gallup.

What’s next: The Energy Department said, the country will need 200 gigawatts of added nuclear capacity by midcentury to meet increasing electricity demand while reaching net-zero emissions.

But, as Brad Plumer reported, only one other dormant nuclear plant in the U.S. could plausibly be restarted: the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa. Other reactors that have recently shut down are already being dismantled. — Allison Prang

Summary:

The problem: To keep climate change at tolerable levels, countries will probably have to do more than just slash emissions — they’ll also need to remove hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere this century.

The fix: In Nova Scotia, a startup called CarbonRun is grinding up limestone and sprinkling it into rivers poisoned by acid rain. Not only does this technique help local salmon populations, it also helps pull greenhouse gases from the sky.

Typically, rivers contain carbon dioxide that is constantly escaping into the air, where it traps heat and warms the planet. But adding limestone converts some of that carbon dioxide into a stable molecule that instead stays underwater and washes into the sea, where it should remain trapped for thousands of years.

The potential: There are hundreds of acidified rivers worldwide, and CarbonRun estimates that this process, known as river liming, could remove hundreds of millions of tons of carbon each year.

That might just be a start. If similar techniques could be done in the ocean — adding an alkaline substance like limestone or magnesium oxide to seawater, for example — humanity could potentially remove billions of tons each year.

So far, oceans have been tougher to work in. It’s tricky to prove that adding alkalinity actually removes carbon in the turbulent high seas, and early research efforts have faced public backlash. Some scientists hope CarbonRun can be a pioneer, because it’s easier to verify carbon removal happens in rivers, and river liming has been highly popular with local communities, since it can help revive devastated fisheries.

The obstacles: CarbonRun needs to cut costs, which means figuring out how to inexpensively mine and transport limestone. The company needs about two tons of rock for every ton of carbon it removes.

The company also needs buyers. Right now, only a handful of wealthy tech companies, like Microsoft and Stripe, are willing to pay startups to remove carbon from the air. Some experts say carbon removal should be considered a public good and governments should pay for it, but it’s still early days.

One policy twist: Congress offers a generous tax credit — worth $180 per ton — for companies that remove carbon from the air using complex direct air capture machines, but that subsidy does not cover techniques that involve oceans or rivers.

What’s next: CarbonRun has received $25 million to remove an initial 55,442 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and is starting to scale up. Elsewhere, researchers in Halifax and Massachusetts are studying whether alkalinity enhancement can work in the oceans. — Brad Plumer

Link to full article in OP.

Summary:

The problem: Every year over the last two decades, countries have been losing about nine million acres of tropical forest that are crucial to curbing climate change. Markets for selling carbon credits and other financial mechanisms have not significantly changed that trend globally.

The fix: Officials from Brazil are finalizing a proposal for a new financial product called the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, which aims to raise $125 billion from investors, countries and philanthropic organizations.

Its structure is unique: investors would loan the fund money, which would be paid back with interest. That money would then be invested in a diversified portfolio that would generate a return. Those excess returns would be used to pay roughly 70 developing countries $4 for every hectare of tropic forest they protect — including for forests that are not under immediate threat and which have historically received very little funding.

The structure means T.F.F.F. is more like a return-generating investment than traditional foreign aid, which the fund’s creators think could help make it more palatable for countries and philanthropies.

“We have long talked about the advantages of conservation, but haven’t been able to, let’s say, translate that into concrete things people can feel,” said Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister.

The obstacles: Getting $125 billion in investments is an enormous challenge to say the least. If the T.F.F.F. were to raise $125 billion it would be, by some measures, the biggest climate fund in the world. There are also concerns about who would — or could — govern such a large financial portfolio. And then there’s the risk of a financial crash, which could hurt the fund’s abilities to pay countries for forest protection.

What’s next: Officials in the U.S., Norway, France and other wealthy nations are evaluating the idea, as is the World Bank. The project, first presented at the global climate summit in Dubai, last November, is now in its final stages of design.

Under the plan’s terms, countries with a lot of forest could get a significant boost in their budgets. Brazil, for example, would have been paid around $600 million this year if the fund was operational. — Manuela Andreoni

Link to full article in OP.