Nuclear power is much better than fossil fuels, but renewables are better still. Why? Nuclear power is safe and clean, but not cheap and not fast. Wind and solar are safe, clean, cheap, and fast.
One thing you could have talked about more is the structure of electricity markets. Nuclear plants are unlikely to be the best cost solution for much of our electricity generation, not just because it nuclear plants are highly regulated, but also because they're less likely to help with congestion and peak demand issues that are thornier than bulk supply.
As far as regulation goes, PV and wind construction in the US are far more regulated than might be publicly understood. I work in the PV industry and it can easily take 2 years (or more!) to develop, build and commission a 5 MW PV plant (or a <1 MW PV plant, for that matter). To get to 1 GW, which is your standard large nuclear reactor size now, that means it would take 400 years to build 200 PV plants one by one. It's not just learning-by-doing that matters, but also taking advantage of better opportunity costs by varying the scale of plants.
There was a great article in The New Atlantis a few years ago that might interest you:
When Right politics chose Doubt, Deny, Delay as their response to global warming and handed the climate issue and podium and media microphone to Left Environmentalists who were well known to oppose nuclear instead of showing leadership themselves - "you care so much, you fix it" and framing the issue as for, by and about extremists to discredit it - nuclear was the loser. It was the sacrifice people who supposedly like nuclear - just not more than fossil fuels - were willing to make to protect fossil fuels from climate accountability.
"THEY should support nuclear" has become the catch cry of opposition to zero emissions commitments - and what is there for a climate science denier not to like? Unpopular and widely distrusted, is expensive and slow to build and scale up, needs long term serious commitment to emissions reductions and strong government interventions to make happen. And with strong emphasis on how serious and urgent the climate problem is, rather than persistently denying or downplaying.
Sam, at least you appear to be sincere about wanting nuclear to reduce emissions - most of the prominent voices around here (Australia) who say "They should" don't have it as their own policy. They don't really mean it and it is purely rhetorical, a way to square the circle so that even their own lack of such policy is blamed on people who want strong action on climate.
It isn't just that the combination of absolute support for fossil fuels and lack of credible emissions reductions commitments comes across as insincere, it is like the insincerity is feature, not flaw - like they want climate science deniers and opponents of renewable energy they spent so much effort encouraging to know it is to stop renewables, not stop fossil fuels.
Nuclear can overcome anti-nuclear activism, when the largest bloc of support comes out from behind the Wall of Denial.
Great piece and hard to argue with the well thought thru conclusions. Thank you.
I disagree a bit on next gen nuclear. We never know when if we’re on the precipice of a major breakthrough that could make the rest of this transition far easier and need to keep pressing this angle.
And similarly I think there is something to be said for a considerable effort to identify, and focus on rolling out the current one or two best-in-class nuclear designs, to cookie cutter a generation of nuclear plants as a minor part of the next generation energy solution as we remove fossil plants. Not because it is the singular best solution, clearly it is not. But it is a means to diversify and stabilize, take advantage of nuclear power advantages (like cogeneration potential) and keep evolving this tech forward.
I *hope* next-gen nuclear is on the verge of a major breakthrough! I agree we should keep funding research in this area (as the DOE and others are doing). I'm just pointing out that next-gen nuclear doesn't seem to be "ready for prime time" in commercial applications yet, while renewables are.
Sam, the chart that you rely on to argue that nuclear is expensive but renewables are cheap is based on LCOE (levelized cost of electricity). LCOE is _not_ an appropriate metric to compare dispatchable sources like nuclear to intermittent ones like renewables. Studies comparing apples to apples (for instance by taking into account proper backup and storage for renewables) consistently find renewables more expensive once they cross a fairly small share of total installed capacity.
Other studies find that the LCOE metric actually inaccurately *disfavors* renewables, making them appear more *expensive* then they truly are. Renewables' costs almost all occur at the outset of the project, while fossil fuels (and, in a different way, nuclear) rely on regular fuel inputs over the entire lifespan of the project. But standard LCOE calculation assumes that future fuel costs are essentially identical to buying all that fuel now, completely ignoring the effects of inflation, not to mention potential rises in real fuel costs! (Loewen 2020). Ultimately, the key clincher for the pro-renewables argument is the real-world results: renewables dominate new electricity-generating capacity being built around the world, even though many countries still disproportionately subsidize fossil fuels! The market has spoken-renewables *are* cheap.
LCOE ignores system integration costs though. A fairer comparison might be to quote the cost of solar and wind accompanied with enough storage to replicate a gas/nuclear system.
Thank you for this article. One thing you should have addressed is the intermittence of renewables which drives load rate of renewables to the low 20%. Capacity is not equal to production. In Germany when the sun does not shine and the wind for not blow, they HAVE TO ignite their nat gas and coal plants. So some type of reliable base load energy source has to be found even with lots of renewables. And that better be nuclear.
Missing in the price cost is the cost of battery-derived electric power. This power source would use daytime electricity power at $40 to charge batteries that deliver nighttime power. Even if we neglect the cost of the batteries, the cost of this power would be 40/e, where e is efficiency (how many kwh you get out relative to what you put in). For iron batteries this is less than 50%, so the power cost is likely higher than coal. For Li batteries efficiencies are much higher, and much of the cost will come from the cost of the batteries. But this is critical info, because solar needs to be matched with batteries in a fossil-free system.
This text has so many flaws that it is impossible to tackle them all... But "It would have been great if humanity hadn’t been so freaked out by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl" is just a slapp in the face of so many who have been killed or who have had health issues because of these nuclear disasters... Fukushima happened only 10 years ago and the consequences are dramatical. That you nearly mention the unsolved problem of the nuclear waste is another chapter of it's own. Germany is so much better off with their decision to shut down the nuclear power plants and focusing on renewables which produce more energy than France's nuclear power plants all together. I would suggest you to visit Chernobyl or Fukushima and have a look how "clean" this nuclear energy is... Wow, I can't believe what I just read!
I would argue that closing nuclear plants and replacing them with fossil fuels is a slap in the face to the hundreds of people who die from the resulting increase in fossil fuel-induced air pollution (see the study cited in the article above). As I discuss in the article, it's well-established that fossil fuels cause far more deaths, but *because* air pollution doesn't produce tragic memorial sites like Chernobyl and Fukushima, it doesn't *feel* that way to a news consumer. Germany's decision to shut down its nuclear power plants cost lives and unnecessarily contributed to more to climate change.
Writing this article under the title Anthropcene with cheering for nuclear power plants while the golden spike for the Anthropocene will presumably be found plutonium from nuclear bomb tests in a Canadian Sea (Nuclear power plants are just a side tech for producing plutonium for Nukes) is kind of a good joke I think. Fossil fuels and nuclear power plants are causing deaths and none of it is better than the other... Death is death. Nuclear power is an old technology and won't safe the climate... It is renewables or nothing.
I respect your passion on this issue, and admire your evident deep concern for the natural world. And I feel we are aligned on the broad-strokes picture of what needs to be done to address the climate crisis (more renewables, as fast as possible). But I think it is worth making the point that nuclear power does cause fewer deaths and less carbon emissions than fossil fuels.
I agree that renewables are the clear choice as the world's best source of energy-as I discuss in this article, nuclear power will be a sideshow at most. I absolutely oppose atmospheric nuclear bomb testing. And yes, fossil fuels and nuclear power plants both cause deaths. But the fact that nuclear power causes fewer deaths than fossil fuels means that yes, nuclear power is better than fossil fuels.
I really would think twice of riding the argument "Nuclear power does cause fewer deaths, so let's do it" (is it for sure like that?) too hard... It is not even close to a strong argument in favor. I understand understand your point but I highly disagree, so let's agree to disagree. Otherwise I mostly really enjoy reading your pieces!
There is no industrial society without industrial power. There is no industrial power without industrial production. There is no industrial production without external costs to life, human and otherwise. (At least, not yet.)
There are no technological solutions, only trade-offs. Renewables seem to be the best trade-off in most cases. But it would be foolish to ignore the other tools at our disposal.
..."ignoring other tools"? This is ridiculous, as nuclear power is a standard and the main stream for so many countries... there is a big industry behind it. My point is: Instead of cheering for an old technology, instead of building new reactors which means producing energy after 20+ years, instead of prolooooooooonging the life of unsafe reactors, instead of trying to recreate the sun (nuclear fusion)... It's time to put the emphasis on using the sun we have, to switch to renewables and boosting electricity infrastructure without compromises 😉👍!
DiningCar and Sam: the 800 pound gorilla at the table, the reason we will never willingly convert totally away from fossil fuels-particularly Oil, is War and preparing for war. It's the energy source of choice for our species' compulsive addiction. All those tanks in the Ukraine, all those fighter jets in Taiwan and China,. All those self-propelled artillery..they all run in oil, as do the non-nuclear warships of all the world's fleets. You can't fly a jet with renewables, you can't run a tank on solar or wind or hydro or geothermal. It's Oil all the way and will continue to be for quite some time. When oil is gone, best guess is electricity and high capacity battery power and you can bet your bottom dollar all the big nation states are working on that 24/7.
With the inevitable rise of the world's oceans already baked into the cake, alot of those Canadian lakes will be seas! What with the world's ice going away, the melting of circumpolar ices and Greenland's icecap, and what everyone seems to forget: oceanic thermal expansion... my desert property will be oceanfront soon enough.
This is a nice summary article of the issues.
I wrote about this topic back in 2019:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342678933_Bad_Faith_Arguments_for_More_Nuclear_Power
One thing you could have talked about more is the structure of electricity markets. Nuclear plants are unlikely to be the best cost solution for much of our electricity generation, not just because it nuclear plants are highly regulated, but also because they're less likely to help with congestion and peak demand issues that are thornier than bulk supply.
As far as regulation goes, PV and wind construction in the US are far more regulated than might be publicly understood. I work in the PV industry and it can easily take 2 years (or more!) to develop, build and commission a 5 MW PV plant (or a <1 MW PV plant, for that matter). To get to 1 GW, which is your standard large nuclear reactor size now, that means it would take 400 years to build 200 PV plants one by one. It's not just learning-by-doing that matters, but also taking advantage of better opportunity costs by varying the scale of plants.
There was a great article in The New Atlantis a few years ago that might interest you:
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/democracy-and-the-nuclear-stalemate
It goes into some detail about how technology lock-in has been a problem for nuclear, among other things.
When Right politics chose Doubt, Deny, Delay as their response to global warming and handed the climate issue and podium and media microphone to Left Environmentalists who were well known to oppose nuclear instead of showing leadership themselves - "you care so much, you fix it" and framing the issue as for, by and about extremists to discredit it - nuclear was the loser. It was the sacrifice people who supposedly like nuclear - just not more than fossil fuels - were willing to make to protect fossil fuels from climate accountability.
"THEY should support nuclear" has become the catch cry of opposition to zero emissions commitments - and what is there for a climate science denier not to like? Unpopular and widely distrusted, is expensive and slow to build and scale up, needs long term serious commitment to emissions reductions and strong government interventions to make happen. And with strong emphasis on how serious and urgent the climate problem is, rather than persistently denying or downplaying.
Sam, at least you appear to be sincere about wanting nuclear to reduce emissions - most of the prominent voices around here (Australia) who say "They should" don't have it as their own policy. They don't really mean it and it is purely rhetorical, a way to square the circle so that even their own lack of such policy is blamed on people who want strong action on climate.
It isn't just that the combination of absolute support for fossil fuels and lack of credible emissions reductions commitments comes across as insincere, it is like the insincerity is feature, not flaw - like they want climate science deniers and opponents of renewable energy they spent so much effort encouraging to know it is to stop renewables, not stop fossil fuels.
Nuclear can overcome anti-nuclear activism, when the largest bloc of support comes out from behind the Wall of Denial.
Great piece and hard to argue with the well thought thru conclusions. Thank you.
I disagree a bit on next gen nuclear. We never know when if we’re on the precipice of a major breakthrough that could make the rest of this transition far easier and need to keep pressing this angle.
And similarly I think there is something to be said for a considerable effort to identify, and focus on rolling out the current one or two best-in-class nuclear designs, to cookie cutter a generation of nuclear plants as a minor part of the next generation energy solution as we remove fossil plants. Not because it is the singular best solution, clearly it is not. But it is a means to diversify and stabilize, take advantage of nuclear power advantages (like cogeneration potential) and keep evolving this tech forward.
I *hope* next-gen nuclear is on the verge of a major breakthrough! I agree we should keep funding research in this area (as the DOE and others are doing). I'm just pointing out that next-gen nuclear doesn't seem to be "ready for prime time" in commercial applications yet, while renewables are.
This will be one to watch https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/OPG-chooses-BWRX-300-SMR-for-Darlington-new-build
Sam, the chart that you rely on to argue that nuclear is expensive but renewables are cheap is based on LCOE (levelized cost of electricity). LCOE is _not_ an appropriate metric to compare dispatchable sources like nuclear to intermittent ones like renewables. Studies comparing apples to apples (for instance by taking into account proper backup and storage for renewables) consistently find renewables more expensive once they cross a fairly small share of total installed capacity.
Other studies find that the LCOE metric actually inaccurately *disfavors* renewables, making them appear more *expensive* then they truly are. Renewables' costs almost all occur at the outset of the project, while fossil fuels (and, in a different way, nuclear) rely on regular fuel inputs over the entire lifespan of the project. But standard LCOE calculation assumes that future fuel costs are essentially identical to buying all that fuel now, completely ignoring the effects of inflation, not to mention potential rises in real fuel costs! (Loewen 2020). Ultimately, the key clincher for the pro-renewables argument is the real-world results: renewables dominate new electricity-generating capacity being built around the world, even though many countries still disproportionately subsidize fossil fuels! The market has spoken-renewables *are* cheap.
LCOE ignores system integration costs though. A fairer comparison might be to quote the cost of solar and wind accompanied with enough storage to replicate a gas/nuclear system.
Nuclear is an important bridge to renewables, but renewables are likely to be the way going forward, longer term.
Thank you for this article. One thing you should have addressed is the intermittence of renewables which drives load rate of renewables to the low 20%. Capacity is not equal to production. In Germany when the sun does not shine and the wind for not blow, they HAVE TO ignite their nat gas and coal plants. So some type of reliable base load energy source has to be found even with lots of renewables. And that better be nuclear.
Rapidly improving grid-scale battery technology also neatly solves the intermittency problem!
https://www.powermag.com/solving-the-intermittency-problem-with-battery-storage/
Guys enough of this BS, I'm really tired of it, You want to know why?
Talk about this and that, and nuclear , and Wind and Gas and and and...
We are Fucked ok? Don't want to admit it, good go to google.
And type in WorldoMeter
And look at energy, and then think about us humans, And EVERYTHING we use by the day, week , month, year.
And then write back to me about whats going to save us? Because right now,most humans really don't give a rats ass about the planet.
Sorry if I sound so glum
Im a 67 yr old Grandpa with 5 grandkids
It's hard to fathom
Sam my youngest granddaughter turns four months next week, I'd forgotten the. Amount of waste one little human being can produce
Missing in the price cost is the cost of battery-derived electric power. This power source would use daytime electricity power at $40 to charge batteries that deliver nighttime power. Even if we neglect the cost of the batteries, the cost of this power would be 40/e, where e is efficiency (how many kwh you get out relative to what you put in). For iron batteries this is less than 50%, so the power cost is likely higher than coal. For Li batteries efficiencies are much higher, and much of the cost will come from the cost of the batteries. But this is critical info, because solar needs to be matched with batteries in a fossil-free system.
This text has so many flaws that it is impossible to tackle them all... But "It would have been great if humanity hadn’t been so freaked out by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl" is just a slapp in the face of so many who have been killed or who have had health issues because of these nuclear disasters... Fukushima happened only 10 years ago and the consequences are dramatical. That you nearly mention the unsolved problem of the nuclear waste is another chapter of it's own. Germany is so much better off with their decision to shut down the nuclear power plants and focusing on renewables which produce more energy than France's nuclear power plants all together. I would suggest you to visit Chernobyl or Fukushima and have a look how "clean" this nuclear energy is... Wow, I can't believe what I just read!
I would argue that closing nuclear plants and replacing them with fossil fuels is a slap in the face to the hundreds of people who die from the resulting increase in fossil fuel-induced air pollution (see the study cited in the article above). As I discuss in the article, it's well-established that fossil fuels cause far more deaths, but *because* air pollution doesn't produce tragic memorial sites like Chernobyl and Fukushima, it doesn't *feel* that way to a news consumer. Germany's decision to shut down its nuclear power plants cost lives and unnecessarily contributed to more to climate change.
Writing this article under the title Anthropcene with cheering for nuclear power plants while the golden spike for the Anthropocene will presumably be found plutonium from nuclear bomb tests in a Canadian Sea (Nuclear power plants are just a side tech for producing plutonium for Nukes) is kind of a good joke I think. Fossil fuels and nuclear power plants are causing deaths and none of it is better than the other... Death is death. Nuclear power is an old technology and won't safe the climate... It is renewables or nothing.
I respect your passion on this issue, and admire your evident deep concern for the natural world. And I feel we are aligned on the broad-strokes picture of what needs to be done to address the climate crisis (more renewables, as fast as possible). But I think it is worth making the point that nuclear power does cause fewer deaths and less carbon emissions than fossil fuels.
I agree that renewables are the clear choice as the world's best source of energy-as I discuss in this article, nuclear power will be a sideshow at most. I absolutely oppose atmospheric nuclear bomb testing. And yes, fossil fuels and nuclear power plants both cause deaths. But the fact that nuclear power causes fewer deaths than fossil fuels means that yes, nuclear power is better than fossil fuels.
I really would think twice of riding the argument "Nuclear power does cause fewer deaths, so let's do it" (is it for sure like that?) too hard... It is not even close to a strong argument in favor. I understand understand your point but I highly disagree, so let's agree to disagree. Otherwise I mostly really enjoy reading your pieces!
Thank you for your civility and your kind words!
There is no industrial society without industrial power. There is no industrial power without industrial production. There is no industrial production without external costs to life, human and otherwise. (At least, not yet.)
There are no technological solutions, only trade-offs. Renewables seem to be the best trade-off in most cases. But it would be foolish to ignore the other tools at our disposal.
..."ignoring other tools"? This is ridiculous, as nuclear power is a standard and the main stream for so many countries... there is a big industry behind it. My point is: Instead of cheering for an old technology, instead of building new reactors which means producing energy after 20+ years, instead of prolooooooooonging the life of unsafe reactors, instead of trying to recreate the sun (nuclear fusion)... It's time to put the emphasis on using the sun we have, to switch to renewables and boosting electricity infrastructure without compromises 😉👍!
DiningCar and Sam: the 800 pound gorilla at the table, the reason we will never willingly convert totally away from fossil fuels-particularly Oil, is War and preparing for war. It's the energy source of choice for our species' compulsive addiction. All those tanks in the Ukraine, all those fighter jets in Taiwan and China,. All those self-propelled artillery..they all run in oil, as do the non-nuclear warships of all the world's fleets. You can't fly a jet with renewables, you can't run a tank on solar or wind or hydro or geothermal. It's Oil all the way and will continue to be for quite some time. When oil is gone, best guess is electricity and high capacity battery power and you can bet your bottom dollar all the big nation states are working on that 24/7.
*Canadian lake
With the inevitable rise of the world's oceans already baked into the cake, alot of those Canadian lakes will be seas! What with the world's ice going away, the melting of circumpolar ices and Greenland's icecap, and what everyone seems to forget: oceanic thermal expansion... my desert property will be oceanfront soon enough.