It was a breakthrough, of sorts. At the United Nations' latest climate change gathering in Dubai, nearly 200 nations agreed for the first time on the importance of “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” to cut carbon emissions and slow the warming of the planet.
But that doesn’t mean a big reduction in fossil fuels is coming anytime soon. Renewables such as wind and solar are rapidly gaining market share, yet oil and natural gas consumption is still rising globally as the world's population and economies grow. In the United States, President Biden has signed the most ambitious set of green energy subsidies ever, yet oil and natural gas production is still hitting new record highs.
The problem with renewables is that it’s very hard to store the energy they generate, especially in developing markets where resources are scarce.
The batteries that hold power in electric vehicles are the costliest components of the cars, and they still don’t pack as much range as a gas engine. It’s not yet cost effective to store the power that wind and solar farms capture. Grids powered by renewables typically rely on natural gas as a “base load” that’s available when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, because gas can be stored and used as needed.
There’s another power source that accomplishes the same thing as natural gas with virtually no carbon emission: nuclear energy. And it could be the bridge that gets the United States and other nations toward aggressive targets for slashing carbon emissions during the next decade. “We cannot get there with wind and solar only,” retired admiral Richard Mies, CEO of the Mies Group, said at a recent event sponsored by the think tank Third Way. “The only clean base load generation today is nuclear. We need to better acknowledge the advantages of nuclear.”
Transitioning away from fossil fuels? United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell, left, and COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber at the end of the COP28 UN Climate Summit, Dec. 13, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Kamran Jebreili/AP Photo) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nuclear power enjoyed a moment in the sun at Dubai, with the United States leading 21 other nations in a pledge to triple nuclear power production by 2050, which would vastly reduce carbon emissions in the electricity sector. Like many climate pledges, however, that might be wishful thinking. “Policymakers now make grand pronouncements about nuclear energy that they can’t or won’t keep,” nuclear advocate Ted Nordhaus wrote in Foreign Policy, citing high costs and regulatory barriers as problems.
A big challenge for the nuclear industry is persuading policymakers and the public that nuclear power is safe and that new designs will prevent the type of terrifying accidents people recall from the past.
About those accidents: The Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, which killed one worker, wasn’t caused by a flaw in the plant but by a tidal wave that swamped it. The 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, which killed about 30 people and sickened others, came from a flawed Soviet design never used in the West. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania was contained without any known deaths or negative health effects. “We have this aversion to nuclear, but I think a lot of the fear is unjustified,” said Bob Bunting, CEO of the Climate Adaptation Center and a former lead forecaster for NOAA, the government weather agency. “Like most things, we have to make choices between imperfect solutions.”
Nuclear power accounts for about 18% of US electricity generation. Natural gas accounts for 40%, coal 20%, and renewables including wind, solar, and hydropower about 21%. The goal is to first retire coal plants, which are the dirtiest, while bringing more renewables online as quickly as possible. On the current trajectory, nuclear power seems more likely to decline as a portion US electricity generation than to increase, due to periodic retirements of large, aging reactors.
Yet nuclear plants might be the ideal replacements for coal-burning utilities, given that much of the existing infrastructure could serve new, pollution-free nuclear plants. Wind and solar farms have to be built where it’s windy and sunny. But nuclear plants can go anywhere, and a recent study by the Bipartisan Policy Center estimated construction savings of 15% to 35% for coal plants retrofitted as nuclear sites. Three-quarters of the coal jobs could be transferred without new licensing requirements.
Earlier this year, the US government certified a new type of technology known as a small modular reactor, or SMR. Unlike traditional reactors, which generate around 1 gigawatt of power, on average—enough to power 750,000 homes—SMRs start small and are designed to be bundled. The newly approved design, built by NuScale, involves as many as 12 reactors, each producing 50 megawatts of power. Another design, still awaiting approval, would involve up to six 77-megawatt reactors per module.
One advantage of the smaller reactors is the ability to build them in a centralized factory instead of the on-site construction that’s typical now. They can also be scaled up or down as needed to mesh with plans to install renewable power and provide whatever base load might be needed as a backup.
The vision for what might be possible with SMRs, and with even smaller micro-reactors, is intriguing. Mike Wandler, president of L&H Industrial in Gillette, Wyo., says he sees opportunity in commercial reactors that could be deployed by the dozens, or hundreds. “L&H manufactures parts for the biggest machines on earth, and we want to enter that supply chain,” he told Yahoo Finance.
Nuclear power gets a second chance in the climate change debate: Cooling towers and reactors of the Electricite de France (EDF) nuclear power plant in Cattenom, France, (Yves Herman/File Photo/REUTERS) ·Reuters / Reuters
If the technology proves out and regulators issue approvals, small reactors could last 50 years or more, with regular refuelings, and provide pollution-free power more efficiently than fossil fuels. “You could have a town and instead of having one huge power source and 30% line loss, you could have 10 or 20 reactors around town,” Wandler said. “When there’s one being refueled you wouldn’t even notice it.”
Even more compelling: Transportable micro-reactors that fit in a shipping container could power individual factories, to slash the heavy carbon footprint that comes with producing energy-intensive commodities such as steel and cement. Any excess power from a micro-reactor could go back into the grid, supplying power elsewhere. Such applications could be especially useful for remote mining operations not connected to a grid, where diesel fuel normally has to be trucked in. “All of a sudden, you can solve a lot of problems,” Wandler said.
Yet new nuclear designs still don’t seem to be cost effective without heavy government subsidies. NuScale recently canceled a demonstration project in Utah using SMRs because costs rose and local communities declined to sign up, since they’d have to pass higher costs on to consumers. SMRs still involve costly engineering, and production hasn’t scaled up enough for mass production to make nuclear power competitive with gas, which is relatively cheap amid a production surge. Renewables are getting cheaper, too, making nuclear most expensive head-to-head.
“This is going to be an evolution, not a revolution,” said Christi Tezak, managing director at research firm ClearView Energy Partners. “It’s not that smaller nukes don’t work, it’s the cost relative to other technologies, and sorting out the licensing. Nukes are capital-intensive at the front end.”
Some things are going the right direction.
More states are opening the door to nuclear power as regulators realize it can play a key role cutting emissions. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest government-owned power company, is exploring the use of SMRs. Clean energy tax credits in the huge 2022 green energy bill apply to nuclear power, and will help lower costs. Other demonstration projects are ongoing, including some with Energy Department funding. “It’s an increasingly favorable policy environment,” Tezak said.
Mies, the retired admiral, calls for more government support, beyond tax subsidies and research funding. “The only way we can be successful to a certain degree is if the US government, as the largest purchaser of electricity, would use its buying power to place SMRs at government facilities in sufficient numbers that you could drive down the cost of SMRs,” he said at the Third Way event last month.
There’s more at stake than just clean, affordable power for Americans. Many nations are pursuing affordable nuclear power, including ones that don’t have home-grown technology. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of nuclear energy technology. China exports, too. Both have lower standards for safety than US producers, which claim just 8% of the export market. China already leads the world on solar exports, and it’s ahead of the United States on wind technology, too.
Clean energy comes in many forms, and like many countries, America’s capabilities for decarbonizing have not yet caught up with its ambitions.
