Will nuclear energy arrive on time and at cost?

Oliver Stone has a new movie, “Nuclear Now,” that made its Colorado debut in Boulder on May 1. In it, Stone argues that the grave risks posed by climate change require we embrace nuclear energy.

A few hours before, at a hearing in Denver, state legislators heard an even more urgent equation. “Anybody who opposes nuclear I believe is a climate denier,” an individual testi ed before the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee.

And in Pueblo that evening, city council members heard about a committee formed by Xcel Energy to study options to replace tax base, jobs, and electrical generation once the last coal plant there closes. e group will hear about nuclear.

In the background is the federal government, o ering gambling money on all sorts of decarbonization solutions, including nuclear. People on the left and right nd common ground in support of nuclear energy, but their motivations di er. Some, like Stone, the moviemaker, are driven by the existential danger posed by climate change. Even the pleasant days of spring are spoiled by news that the carbon dioxide detector atop Mauna Loa recently rolled past 425 parts per million, up from 315 ppm in the 1950s. We’re dancing ever farther on the snow cornice, ddling with our phones in busy tra c. We’re irting with real danger here.

Some in Colorado see nuclear energy replacing coal plants. e last coal unit at Pueblo will close no later than 2031. Xcel has guaranteed property tax revenues through 2040, but not to 2070, the original retirement date.

Craig also faces giant uncertainties. Increased tourism?

“We don’t want to become sheetchangers,” one Mo at County landowner told me. Western Montrose County, where a uranium boom occurred during the 1950s — and which lost a small coal plant in 2019, is also interested in nuclear.

HB23-1247, titled “Assess Advanced Energy Solutions in Colorado,” now awaiting the governor’s signature, will direct study of nuclear energy but also other options. All have upsides but questions marks. Green hydrogen, made from renewables and water, can store energy for use when renewables are unavailable. However, the technology remains costly. Too, some scientists question whether accidental release of hydrogen into the atmosphere will create as many problems as it solves.

Nuclear can also backup intermittent renewables. Nuclear does pro-