Authored by RJ Roux & Yaël Ossowski via RealClear Wire,
For decades, the fruits of the fracking revolution, plus our newly minted status as the world’s top net exporter of natural gas, demonstrated that American consumers were swimming in bountiful energy.
But as the pandemic effects of supply chain shortages, the war in Ukraine, and higher government spending gave way to inflation hikes, suddenly all eyes were on utility bills. In 2021, Americans spent as much as 25% more on energy than in the previous year.
Compounding that problem for energy consumers are political pledges aimed at the “electrification of everything,” including massive subsidies for electric vehicles, home heat pumps, and solar panels in pursuit of a carbon neutral future.
Now state policies are accelerating that, as at least 22 states — plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. — have committed to either 100% carbon-free electricity generation or “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050.
But rather than subsidize our way toward political climate goals with foreign-made solar panels, batteries, and wind turbines, what if we looked to the new generation of a safe technology that is already the densest and carbon-free source of electricity in the world? What if it’s time to once again champion nuclear energy?
Energy investors, customers, and even green politicians should have every reason to love the atom. Nuclear energy is safe, clean, and reliable for decades. It produces no emissions and produces tens of thousands of good jobs for generations. There’s a reason nuclear plants have larger parking lots than wind turbines or solar farms.
At least three states — Illinois, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — currently generate over 50% of their electricity needs from nuclear power, making them effectively carbon neutral and an ideal hub for energy-intensive industry.
Even green warrior California Gov. Gavin Newson was forced to rethink the closing of Diablo Canyon in the face of aggressive climate goals, giving the state’s only nuclear plant a lifeline. Other states are reconsidering nuclear energy as their licenses head toward their expiration date.
That said, traditional nuclear energy faces several obstacles. Environmental and radiation concerns are invoked, though new innovations like accident-tolerant fuels have lessened the risk. Regulatory restrictions and permitting can delay approvals and renewals for up to a decade. Most importantly, nuclear projects are significantly labor and capital intensive, testing the financial limits of private investors and utilities who dip into subsidies to stay afloat.
But the age of the brutalist concrete cooling towers and highly centralized state control as the only features of nuclear power may already be over.
Next-generation nuclear energy technology — such as small modular reactors — may share the splitting of the atom with its predecessor, but its modern form is anything but.
SMRs can be as small as an SUV but still produce plenty of megawatts of energy. They can more quickly and reliably deliver power to the electric grid or industry, and in some cases, the spent fuel can be reused. SMRs could become the main carbon-free power source for a large manufacturing facility that would employ thousands of people and keep the load off residential grids.
For example, SMR developer X-energy is collaborating with chemical giant Dow to install an advanced SMR nuclear plant at Dow’s manufacturing site in Seadrift, Texas. The Dow project is focused on providing its Seadrift site with safe, reliable, zero carbon emissions power and industrial steam as existing energy and steam assets near their end-of-life.
The project is contingent upon delivering on various reviews and approvals, as companies like Dow must follow strict timeframes to ensure continued operation of its site. X-energy first initiated NRC pre-application activities for their Xe-100 reactor in 2018.
Only one small modular reactor design, made by Oregon-based NuScale, has been certified by the National Regulatory Commission, which released its final rulemaking after a decade-long application process.
If we want to deliver energy at scale and at a low cost for millions of energy consumers, that pace will have to move to a warp speed timeline.
There are simple solutions that could save us time. Every state with an expiring nuclear license should consider supporting plant life extensions. States with anti-nuclear statutes should rethink their implications. Where possible, states should include nuclear and fusion technology within “clean energy” definitions, as North Carolina seems poised to do. The NRC should continue its steadfast efforts in reducing regulatory burdens to fast-track reviews and permits for new nuclear while still keeping a laser focus on safety.
Rather than closing coal plants without alternatives, states should quickly allow experienced project proponents to convert those facilities into nuclear stations. The US Department of Energy estimates that over 80% of the country’s existing coal plants could be cheaply converted into SMRs or advanced nuclear reactors, saving up to 35% in infrastructure costs while reducing emissions for decades. Roadmaps already exist to convert coal plant jobs to next-generation nuclear jobs.
This would represent billions in savings to energy customers, hundreds of thousands more good-paying jobs, and unlimited opportunities for innovators to unleash the next generation of nuclear power technology both domestically and as a global export.
Politicians and regulators have created the paradigm of a net zero world. Nuclear energy will enable that and provide prosperity, resilience, and sustainability that will keep us energy independent.
It’s time we recognize nuclear energy’s vital role and champion it as a force for good in our world.
RJ Roux is a nuclear industry strategist and president of Lions Global, a clean energy consulting firm, and Yaël Ossowski is deputy director at the Consumer Choice Center, a global consumer advocacy group.
HT/David H and Yooper
It isn’t just the best answer, it’s the ONLY answer.
Not the ONLY answer, surely. What about the continuance of fossil fuels – coal especially?
Exactly. Given that CO2 emission reduction is a false policy coal is a great choice, along with deregulated nukes.
Maybe. I see nuclear as being the main option although hydrocarbons will always be useful, mainly as feedstock for other products rather than just burning them. I don’t see the end of hydrocarbons for centuries yet but it’s worth replacing some of it’s use while we can so that the limited supply will last longer. Eventually those hydrocarbons in the ground are going to be ever more expensive to get out of the ground so it makes sense to have an alternative energy source in place to deliver affordable, reliable energy.
It would not make sense to build a bunch of nukes now just to wait until coal becomes scarce as that might take centuries.
Really? It makes good sense to me to start building a ‘bunch of nukes’ now to work out the bugs that still remain, refine the technology and build up a fleet of reactors long before hydrocarbons becomes scarce. The last thing I ever want to see is a situation where hydrocarbons become more scarce, more expensive and we have nothing to use as an energy source because it was easier to wait for the hydrocarbons to run out first. Let’s start phasing in workable reactors now, see if they get cheaper as the technology matures and can be mass-produced now, before we are forced to do so.
Exactly right!! – why build gen 2 or gen 3 designs, which at best might be safer and simpler versions of most of the reactors built decades ago, when much better designs are on the drawing board? Better that governments and industry focus on pilot projects of breeder reactors, high temperature sodium cooled ones, molten salt reactors, etc., in order to jump to the realm of high efficiency reactors that can also close the loop of the fuel cycle.
And before anyone chimes in with any negative or defeatist comments, remember that it is already happening in China and India, so we’re behind the curve already. Bad enough going to the dollar store and everything is made in China – but please let’s not give up the power industry to them as well!!!
Long before hydrocarbons become scarce – you mean in about a thousand years?
Anyway, they like everything are scarce. It is free market capitalism which turns scarcity into abundance, which is why we have more scarce oil now than we did 100 years ago, and more scarce natural gas than 60 years ago.
Read my first reply to David Wojick please – I do mention centuries (plural) as a tentative timescale.
It’s a safe bet that technology will continue to advance at ever accelerating rates.
100 years ago, would anyone have predicted that man would be on the moon in just 40 over years?
If you want to improve and gain experience with a technology, only a small number of plants are needed.
I say go with the technology that makes the most economic sense. Then use the money saved to invest in more research and better lives for everyone.
If working out the kinks is your goal, you only need to build a small handful of nukes. Why waste money building a “bunch of nukes” if you don’t know that they are going to work right?
Nuclear power generation makes all the sense in the world at any time, for any reason having to do with reality. It is by far the safest source of energy we have ever discovered, has the least effect on public health, and – once the idiotic regulatory “oversight” and endless lawfare from the Left are removed – is by far the least expensive large scale source of energy. Liquid hydrocarbons are irreplaceable as portable fuels. Aviation could not exist without them. And liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons are irreplaceable as chemical feedstocks. But the cultural war that we are losing is against people who desire the destruction of civilization and extinction of humankind. We have a long way to go before we stop them, then begin to reverse the political and cultural damage they have done. Until we have done that, nuclear power will be out of the question in the United States.
The Cuban Missile Crisis and Silent Spring generations won’t support it – so another 20 years.
RP’s comment raises the question “What is the real cost of plastic”. I usually associate plastic products with low cost, but breaking the link to hydrocarbons changes the cost structure of oil-based non-energy products.
Eventually Mark is right. But, yeah, let’s make use of the cornucopia of fossil fuels that we know can do the job in spades.
10,000 years of fissile/fertile material. 200 years of coal?
And then there is fusion.
Fusion is still 20 years away from today, tomorrow, the next day…
Might as well wait for the Space Brothers to show us how it’s done.
No, there might be fusion, as there might have been cold fusion. You want to gamble on a possibility or a proven technology?
The only answer if there really is an emergency and the oceans start boiling.
The heat exchanger on my Stirling engine is going to work very efficiently when the oceans start to boil.
I am pretty sure I will be able to provide “grid level” amounts of electricity more cheaply than any of the current sources!
The essential thing is to undo the Jimmy Carter era revisions to the environmental impact regulations, which I understand to have been almost entirely based on executive orders.
The current regime is organized to encourage indefinite delays to any project, through endless appeals by multitudes of “independent” groups, with the regulators not relying on precedent.
And killed the recycling system.
Jim Stone, Updated on July 22, 2013 – “During my journey of discovery in my investigation into the Fukushima disaster, I interviewed an 85 year old nuclear engineer who worked in the nuclear industry during America’s glory days, an engineer who earned GE over 100 patents. He was one of the engineers who designed Fukushima, so naturally when conducting an investigation into such a disaster a journalist would want that type of reference.
When I started to think I was going to walk away with nothing new, he began to talk about an entirely different subject. He began his new direction in the discussion with the phrase “My team succeeded in closing the nuclear loop, and Carter banned our miracle with an executive order.
We perfected the second reactor design which used liquid sodium as a coolant and the reactor ran much hotter – 1100 Fahrenheit as opposed to 550 in a boiling water reactor. The liquid sodium circulated inside the reactor instead of water, with the heat of the reaction being removed from the system by a heat exchanger which produced steam outside the reactor for use in producing electricity. The temperature difference and coolant characteristics in the complimentary reactor facilitated the burning of the isotopes, and you got to use both sides of the reaction – the boiling water reactor produced electricity while producing unwanted isotopes, and the sodium cooled reactor produced electricity while burning the unwanted isotopes out. This process could be repeated 20 times, and when it was finished the fuel was DEAD and no longer hazardous because all of it’s radiological potential was used up. It was a clean energy dream come true, and Carter banned it by executive order!” [Executive Order 12193]
He specifically stated that the burn down was so complete that the spent fuel was safe to handle directly with bare hands
Would have solved the long term storage problem also.
Links please!
You wont get those links cuz they were just vivid dreams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-cooled_fast_reactor
I think GE has plans for them approved and on the shelf. just waiting for a customer.
The situation invites baksheesh.
Funny timing for this article.
NuScale just cancelled its Idaho project. No longer working in the US.
Probably much greener pastures in Poland, etc., away from the Brandon administration.
The Chernobyl disaster was 37 years ago (with Russian cost-cutting), Three-Mile Island was 44 years ago. The first experimental nuclear reactor was tested 72 years ago.
It stands to reason that the technology has improved. The only objections seem to come from (and I don’t think this is a straw-man argument) people who are committed to Marxist ideologies and want the power grid to fail.
Unfortunately, that category includes the propagandists who make up the mainstream media these days, so politicians don’t have the intestinal fortitude to make this happen.
Chernobyl was the result of the reactor being put in an area of operation where the reactor was unstable. Everybody knew that was a problem in advance but somehow the word didn’t get to the people operating the reactor. Had they done a complete shutdown and waited a day or so for the short lived isotopes to clear, it wouldn’t have happened. It can happen in our reactors but we are careful not to make that mistake.
Dena, right about “…area of operation where the reactor was unstable.”, but it’s even much worse than that. In order to conduct this stupid experiment the engineers of the night shift needed to shut down all of the alarms and automatic shut-down systems, which gave them no reaction time to the run-away reaction.
They were running a test that was supposed to have been run prior to the plant being certified. The builders lied and said it had been done in order to get approval to go live.
Not only that, the test was supposed to have been run during the day with the most experienced people operating the plant. Because of various issues, the test was delayed until the night shift, after the most experienced people had gone home.
The RBMK reactor was never primarily intended for electricity production. Its principal mission was the production of plutonium for the Soviet military program. No one ever tried seriously to build power reactors using graphite cores. Britain’s difficulties with Magnox and AGRs showed this to be the case.
Goes back to JG’s comment – it was 37 years ago in a political world that is important but now gone, gone, gone into history. It’s only we who were alive for it that care anymore. Alas for nuclear power, 80-year old politicians make the calls.
“Everybody knew that was a problem in advance but somehow the word didn’t get to the people operating the reactor. “
Because RBMKs were a military project, the evidence was concealed by the Kurchatov Institute. The shutdown of the alarm systems and emergency core cooling systems was irrelevant to the accident. On the night of the accident, Chernobyl 4 surged from approximately 5% thermal power to 100 times maximum rated thermal power in less than 10 seconds.Stated simply, there was no core to cool after the steam explosion.
Very few people understand what happened or what it looks like now. any don’t even know what country the plant is in… most assume Russia.
I think this is not correct. The machines in Ukraine had a positive reactivity feedback that Western power reactors do not. Maybe a neutron person can verify, or correct.
Yes, RBMK reactors had a positive void coefficient. All reactors have a void coefficient of some type. Negative void coefficients can also be highly dangerous. What matters is: 1. the absolute value of the coefficient (the larger it is meaning its more unstable); and 2. the adequacy of any control systems to compensate for the coefficient, of whatever type it may be.
The problems with the RBMKs were numerous. The first and most serious problem is the total inadequacy of the reactor control system to damp out any power surge that may occur.
Second was the reactor shutdown system itself. It was so poorly designed that the act of shutting down an RBMK injected POSITIVE reactivity into the reactor. To use a simple analogy, if the RBMK was a car, depressing the brake pedal accelerated rather than stopping the car all unknown to the operator that this reverse effect could occur.
Third, the RBMK had NO redundant power shutdown system. All western power reactors have not one but TWO shutdown systems designed and capable of shutting down the reactor under any possible accident condition. Not only did the RBMK not have two such systems, it’s existing system actually caused the power surge that blew the reactor to pieces.
Fourth, Chernobyl 4 had a poorly trained crew not fully informed of the reactor’s performance characteristics.
Fifth, the Kurchatov Institute concealed a very similar event at Leningrad 2 in 1977. This meant that all other RBMK crews had no idea of the possbility of such an accident.
The people were the Soviet Union. That bunch make Putin look like a Methodist Bishop.
Putin is a former head of the KGB. He was part of the former crew and fully complicit in their crimes.
They want to make sure that the US buys useless stuff from China so the Big Guy can get his 10% and the US will be reduced to being a resource slave of China.
Jane Fonda is no longer cute anymore, so there is no need to listen to her.
The only renaissance on offer in the U.K. is a doubling down of technocracy/managerialism
The Cameroons are back and globalism is the order of the day
A cabinet of Cnuts…trying to hold back the tides of history.
I think you transposed two letters there.
I am all for nuclear, but I am against promoting it for wrong reasons.
If the false NetZero narrative is not defeated, the lower cost nuclear energy will be used to subsidize inefficient wind and solar, putting $$ in the pockets of green scammers.
The consumer will still be paying the tax to the church of CAGW.
Regarding feasibility of NetZero with nuclear, I think it is nonsense. Not everything can be electrified.
Trust me, everything can be electrified, everything. Maybe only the once but it can be done.
“Not everything can be electrified.”
In Wokeachusetts, they admit to this- so here net zero doesn’t mean no carbon emissions- only low carbon emissions- with those emissions being balanced by removals of CO2 from the air by whatever means can be found- as of now, they’re focusing on locking up forests to sequester carbon and minimizing actual forestry work. Some people say cut the trees then bury them at terrific cost of course. That’s an incredibly stupid idea.
They know you can’t electrify heavy machinery, airplanes, cement and metal production, etc.
If we just went back to building all homes out of solid logs and big wooden beams and joists instead of dimensional lumber and structural materials made of wood scraps like OSB and TJIs a lot more “carbon” would be sequestered in new homes then is under current framing methods.
Homes would also be much more fire resistant. It is much harder to burn down a log cabin than a home built with dimensional lumber and trusses/TJIs.
BUT why do we build with modern engineered wood products? To save the forests!!
SO I must agree with the lunatics, lets keep building “modern” houses and bury the forests, costs MUCH more to save the world from CO2 that way.
My house is built of bricks and mortar – even more difficult to burn down plus I don’t care about sequestering carbon dioxide anyway.
I promise you Joseph, I can electrify anything once – it’ll be completely unuseable afterwards but that’s hardly the point!
Russia building more nuclear reactors than any other country, IAEA data show
According to the IAEA, a total of 412 nuclear reactors are in operation at power plants across the world now, with their total capacity at about 370.2 gigawatts
MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/.
Russia is building more nuclear reactors that any other country in the world, according to data from the Power Reactor Information System of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The data show a total of 58 large-scale nuclear power reactors are currently under construction worldwide, of which 23 are being built by Russia. A plant may have up to 4 reactors, usually 1100 MW each
“Indeed, Rosatom is doing the most construction of international nuclear power units.
It is interesting that our state corporation’s direct competitors, according to PRIS data, currently are three Chinese companies: CNNC, CSPI and CGN.
They are building 22 reactors, but it should be noted that they are being built primarily inside China, and the Chinese partners are building five of them together with us.
If we talk about the Americans and Europeans, they are lagging behind by a wide margin,” Alexander Uvarov, a director at the Atom-info Center and editor-in-chief at the atominfo.ru website, told TASS.
I remember the sign in lights on Prospekt Kalinina (now known as Novy Arbat)
Атом для мира
Atoms for peace (or the world according to taste in translation)
Any time I see a statement of “SMRs could become the main carbon-free power source” or “Zero Emissions” I see nothing but a scam. Nothing is Zero Emissions, and to state it as shows either shows significant ignorance, a deceptive agenda, or a pandering to the ignorant. You cannot use just electricity to produce any major construction project. The use of hydrocarbons is required throughout the process.
Do I think that these small modular reactors would be helpful? Maybe, if the economics work, and we start reprocessing spent fuel, and using more modern systems. However, their is a fear within the public of these activities, that is not based upon reality, and the Media and Hollywood are fighting against it.
It is about time for us to stop using the Weasel Words and Phrases, and speak in reality. If truth is not told and adhered to we will not get out of this mess without a lot of pain.
“Do I think that these small modular reactors would be helpful?”
Helpful for what?
Helpful for lots of reasons. Cheaper maintenence, high density power even for smaller towns, more reliable power, industrial heat source and if the right design is used, low risk of melting or proliferation.
Agreed. They can help provide electricity in remote locations with no grid access such as large Arctic mining sites or remote communities with seasonal road access. In these sorts of cases, the competition is diesel generation.
A few years ago, a large community in northern Canada nearly froze to death from a long winter and very short navigating season. This city nearly ran out of diesel fuel at the end of winter. Airlift was unavailable at the time.
Australia, Africa and Pacific Islands were the first 3 places I thought of that could use the technology. As a ‘generator’ it would be ideal.
Living next to NH and didn’t know how much nuclear it has. Nice to know. I think they hate wasting their landscape for wind and solar.
Seabrook did not have an easy time of it, facing much opposition in the 80s. Also, there were supposed to be two reactors, not just the one, but because of the difficulties in getting just the one built (with huge cost overruns), they scrapped the idea of Seabrook II. We also have a coal plant here, Merrimack station. However, it only gets used during emergencies, which is really dumb. And unfortunately, the scourge of wind and solar is here as well, like a disease. A lot of towns got hornswaggled into allowing the bird-chopping monstrosities on mountain tops, then realized, too late that it was a mistake.
“Regulatory restrictions and permitting can delay approvals and renewals for up to a decade.”
But… but… I though we’re having an emergency! If it really was, these issues would be resolved in a hurry.
Exactly right. If this was even close to the dire emergency the climate enthusiasts and bought politicians keep mindlessly wittering on about then the systems would have been designed, built and implemented long before now. It’s just a big con.
“But as the pandemic effects of supply chain shortages, the war in Ukraine, and higher government spending gave way to inflation”
If you want to change your name to ‘Really Real Wire’, this statement should be:
This whole mess is Western World Policy-Caused- Economic and Social- Disaster. This was all baked in before the war in Ukraine. A focused campaign of of legislation, defunding, restrictive regulation, and renewables mandates was aimed at destroying the fossil fuel industry (FFI). Add to this that they had targets for outlawing ICE cars and trucks, even though EV buses, cars and grid batteries. Political nimrods amazingly were unaware that ridiculous wind and solar do not work without FFI.
Indeed, you cannot manufacture and install solar and wind generators without products from FFI. Nuclear could have done part of this, it but nimrods shut these down, even though the economic problems they created were already halfway manifesting themselves.
Then reality struck and nimrods jumped into the FFI spot market bidding prices up in a short supply market that they had created . Com’on Real Wire. Even our friends have bought into the official meme covering up the crimes against humanity.
https://www.science.org/content/article/deal-build-pint-size-nuclear-reactors-canceled
While article had some good info, I can understand why NuScale didn’t provide a spokesperson. Additionally, the Union of Concerned Scientists has always been against nuclear.
We used to call the the Union of Soviet Scientists.
Here in Cleveland, Ohio, there is a nuclear reactor about 50 miles from here and they just applied for a new 20-year permit to operate.
Is that the one in Perry, Ohio? We used to play their school in football and from the field you had a nice view of the nuclear cooling towers. We used to joke that is why their lineman were so big.
This is the most important paragraph in this article:
“Rather than closing coal plants without alternatives, states should quickly allow experienced project proponents to convert those facilities into nuclear stations. The US Department of Energy estimates that over 80% of the country’s existing coal plants could be cheaply converted into SMRs or advanced nuclear reactors, saving up to 35% in infrastructure costs while reducing emissions for decades. Roadmaps already exist to convert coal plant jobs to next-generation nuclear jobs.”
As Voglte 3 and 4 have proven, Gen 3 nuclear is very expensive and not ready for prime time. At least in the US, the best path forward for about the next 40 years is CCGT. During those decades, seriously examine the several Gen 4 nuclear proposals, then build pilots of the few most promising and operate them for a decade to shake the bugs out. Then decide to go nuclear with the best new stuff.
Many years ago the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was created to have all Government authority over nuclear reactor safety issues to the extent even of deciding what is and is not a safety issue.
Imagine that police departments throughout the country were suddenly empowered to write all law, enable all law and enforce all law with no involvement of legislatures, Presidents, Governors, or any elected office whatsoever and with no consideration of cost, reasonableness or any constraining philosophy at all. Then consider what Barak Obama did with the appointment of Gregory Jaczko as chairman of the NRC in 2005, an individual who refused to permit the construction of any new reactors whatever and to shut down all efforts to develop an effective waste management system, goals which he achieved and, when is no longer Chairman, called for the elimination of nuclear power everywhere for all time. That is what we have with the NRC. Nuclear power has little chance of becoming reestablished in the US until the issue of reactor safety is rethought and the NRC is reformed into a rational institution.
The highest powers that matter in US are not NRC, Congress, President or any form of elected Government. The ultimate power belongs to banking industry, that owns the state and the Government, whose executives are their expendable puppets. The ultimate power belongs to those who make investment decisions, while all of those Presidents and NRCs just execute them. To aid an artificial investment cycle in green energy and EVs, the banking industry decided to shut down everything that actually works, including nuclear energy. The wishful thinking was that green energy and EVs will be viable. Now, as it becomes more obvious that the green energy and EVs are failing, some corrections will be allowed. However, they will not easily back off the green scam.
It is a mistake to think rich people are dumb, even if we’re super smart critics.
If anything I said makes them look dumb to you, it is your call, your interpretation. I never thought or implied they were dumb.
I think a better epithet for them is arrogant. They are above everybody else, untouchable, as they are not elected and not publicly scrutinized. They feel immune to bad decisions, capable of printing $$ at will as plan B if anything goes not their way. If I am not mistaken, during the last recession they uncontrollably printed $16-17 trillion to recapitalize themselves to cover their losses that were result of their own mismanagement. This was on top of $3 trillion publicly discussed Stimulus package. So, the Government borrows from them $3 trillion (and they determine the interest rate at which it is borrowed), all eye are on it, and they just print any amount they want and put in their pockets. If somebody steals in supermarket, it is theft, but printing $17 trillion is not only OK, but admirable and deserves a “Nobel” prize in economics. No wonder they believe they can get away with anything. Anything.
Of course their behavior is somewhat similar to a drug or gambling addict. But who said all drug or gambling addicts are dumb? Quite the opposite, they are often extremely smart people. Plus, a typical drug or gambling addict has to pay the consequences himself, while they are detached from reality. Yes, a lot of bad debt will accumulate though out the world, that cannot be paid off, but so what? A big war will write off any debt. The important thing to them, no matter what happens, they will not suffer like the rest, stay behind the scene, and retain their position. Is creating such a system and occupying this position in it dumb? It is your call.
As George Carlin said “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it!”
While I am on board for nuclear generation I would not hitch my wagon to net zero or so called green energy. Green energy and net zero are a farce a political ploy for power. Nuclear should be promoted because it works, it is safe, it is dependable and it is clean. I also believe it would be cheap if we put an end to the mindless court delays, regulatory delays, environmental delays and on and on. All of these delays and cost overruns are avoidable. Matter of fact I think they are built in by those who oppose nuclear.
The opening paragraphs may need tweaks to acknowledge the international readership. Even as a US citizen I feel like the context assumes a US-centered universe.
Hasn’t France realized this for decades now, and doesn’t nuclear provide 58% of its electricity, some of which is being exported to Germany to make up for shortfalls in their wind and solar output? In addition, isn’t China, despite its reliance on coal, also the country that’s currently building the greatest number of nuclear plants? So all North American electricity producers have to do is add more nuclear and hydro, and they’ll have the green power that the environmentalists are demanding, but not wise enough to accept.
France exports electricity to all neighboring countries: Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy. France built its nuclear power system because in the late 1960s its principal elecrical fuel source, the Franco-Belgian coal field, was depleting rapidly of coal. The last coal mine in France closed about 15 years ago.
So for France, the choice was simple: build nuclear or do without electricity. There were and are no alternatives for them.
Sounds like Japan…
Coal power is the best path forward, cheap to install, cheap to run, cheap to renew, best for base load, abundant coal at relatively stable low prices.
This only works if the CO2 greenhouse gas controls the Universe fiction and lies are rejected.
The ‘best’ answer does not validate the question.
The Germans in 1940 spent a great deal of time and effort in determining the best answer to their ‘problem’ – does that justify, validate, excuse the ‘problem’ they invented and its best solution?
The Germans by contrast were somewhat modest in their aims, Climatists want to exterminate most of the Human Race.
Not so. Coal is severely limited by its enormous cost of transporting it any large distance. France went nuclear because its domestic coal sources were running out. Ontario in Canada and Sweden went nuclear because they had no coal at all. The UK went nuclear because of the massive increase in cost from underground coal mining and the fact that NUM had become a KGB subversion operation.
Cheaper open cast mining might be an option in some countries but in the UK we’re pretty densely populated and we’ve built towns over much of the remaining coal, apart from the seams that run under the North Sea that is.
Idaho Power, November 10, 2023, withdrawing from NuScale’s SMR technology proposal because of inflation escalation pushed USA SMR commercialization back at least 10 years. SMR’s, like solar panels, will need to come from China. We are out of the game. How we’re going to keep buying things by increasing the National Debt continues to be ignored.
Several, I believe, relevant points concerning commercial nuclear power particularly in the US:
1. Nuclear power can operate safely. Currently operating US pressurized, and boiling water reactor power plants bear no relation to the issues experienced at Chernobyl.
First, Chernobyl was designed with a “positive power coefficient”. That means if the reactor lost coolant to the core, the power level would increase. Hence, when the reactor did lose coolant during a test gone awry, it spiraled out of control overheating, burning the graphite moderator core, and melting the fuel. All US plants are required to have a “negative power coefficient” so if coolant is lost it leads to a power decrease.
Second, the Chernobyl reactor had no inner or outer containments, so the burning reactor graphite moderator components were released to the environment and spread across the countryside. All US reactor designs have always been required to have two containments, a core barrel of ~6-inch steel and a concrete housing that is 3-4 feet thick. Both of these design features would have precluded a Chernobyl-type accident. New third-generation reactor designs in the US will be even safer, precluding a Fukushima-like accident due to auxiliary power loss from back-up diesel generators. Cooling will be available without auxiliary power.
2. Used nuclear fuel can be stored safely. Financing of US commercial nuclear power plants has always included back-end charges to facilitate storage of used fuel once it comes out of the reactor. That money (upwards of $12 billion) was used to design and build a storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. (Yucca Mountain was chosen after a survey of other potential sites in the US.) As the site was under development, design bases were revised mainly dealing with required assured length of the stored fuel isolation from tens of thousands of years to hundreds of thousands of years, thus adding significant costs to the project and subsequently rendering the site technically unsuitable. I believe this was done for political reasons to stop more nuclear power plants from being built. Hence came the battle cry—”We can’t build more nuclear because there is no place to store the waste”. So, now the used fuel is stored all across the US at individual reactor sites. This situation can be remedied by a reconsideration of the Yucca Mountain storage facility in light of nuclear power being the only practical solution to the “climate emergency”.
Land of the Lost: 1. Nuclear power can operate safely.
When known issues carrying the most severe adverse consequences are systematically ignored by reactor owners and operators, sh*t happens.
In the case of Chernobyl, the Russians ignored a loaded cannon pointed at their reactor in the form of an inherently unsafe reactor design. In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese ignored a loaded cannon pointed at their coastal reactors in the form of a high wave tsunami which was capable of breaching the facility sea walls.
Nuclear safety is best enhanced when reactor managers and operators don’t make obviously stupid decisions. As Admiral Rickover once observed, ignoring a serious issue is itself a decision, one fraught with important consequences if things go south.
Land of the Lost: 2. Used nuclear fuel can be stored safely.
Absolutely. But ….. Yucca Mountain as the solution for storing and disposing our stock of spent nuclear fuel wasn’t anywhere close to becoming operational when the project was shut down in 2010.
A test excavation was present, but it represented only a small portion of the extensive underground workings needed to be completed before waste handling operations could begin. Another decade of work costing tens of billions of dollars was needed before Yucca could come into active service.
Yucca Mountain never made any sense either for interim storage or for long term geologic disposal. Our stock of spent nuclear fuel is much more likely to be retrieved and reprocessed at some point within the next hundred years than it is to remain buried forever in some deep geologic repository.
The Department of Energy’s staff knew in 2010 that Yucca Mountain was a complete waste of money. By 2010, the Congressional staffs who were most familiar with nuclear issues also knew that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982/1987 under which Yucca Mountain was being funded was a mis-directed policy from every fuel management perspective and was therefore destined to fail.
Which is why the Congress supported DOE’s Yucca Mountain shut down decision by ending funding for the project, thus sealing its well-deserved fate.
Here in the US, dry cask storage on the surface will keep our spent nuclear fuel safe and secure at reasonable cost until demand for nuclear energy grows to the point where reprocessing in the US becomes economic.
Reprocessing, when it resumes again at some point in the future, will generate smaller volumes of radioacive waste material which can be easily disposed of either at the WIPP facility in New Mexico or else using deep borehole disposal in sealed cannisters. No problemo.