The Truth About Nuclear Energy
If you have heard about Nuclear energy in the news or in the media there is a good chance it was not being praised for its potential. It is far more likely that it was being demonized in a tv show or movie. The most popular recent example can be seen below:
Now if you didn’t have an opinion on nuclear energy before, I would assume you have one now. Having never seen the show, the trailer alone is chilling. Hearing a character say, “every atom atom of uranium is like a bullet, penetrating everything in its path: metal, concrete, flesh… Now Chernobyl holds over 3 trillion of these bullets. Some of them will not stop firing for 50,000 years” is almost enough to convince ME that nuclear energy is bad news.
Chernobyl is one of the worst man-made disasters in human history, but nuclear energy cannot be cast aside without first looking at its benefits:
Mr. Hill makes some excellent points:
- Uranium-235 is 1,000,000 times more energy dense than coal
- Nuclear power causes significantly less deaths than wind, solar, and coal per TWh, even considering nuclear disasters like Chernobyl
- After being built Nuclear reactors release zero carbon emissions
- Since 1971 it is estimated that nuclear energy has prevented 64 gigatons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere, which is the equivalent of the United States burning coal for 35 years.
Hill closes by saying that fear mongering and bad press have given nuclear energy a bad reputation. It’s true. Some countries, like Germany, are trying to completely phase out nuclear energy because public perception of it is so poor. What is alarming is that nuclear energy is the only proven scalable and easily transferrable power option with zero carbon emissions and countries are willing to completely overlook it.
If you still have some reservations about the safety of nuclear reactors, I guess I don’t blame you. Although there have been very few nuclear disasters, the ones that have occurred have literally been the basis of multiple horror and drama films. With that said, consider what the World Nuclear Association tells us.
According to this article, there have been only 3 significant nuclear accidents in history. One of which (3-Mile Island) was properly contained and resulted in no negative health or environmental outcomes. They also mention that these are the only accidents to occur in “over 18,500 cumulative reactor-years of commercial nuclear power operation in 36 countries.”
If accidental nuclear disasters are not where your misgivings about nuclear safety lie then perhaps you are skeptical of the potential for nuclear reactors to be used as weapons to inflict catastrophic damage. Luckily the WNA article above also addresses these concerns. Because the fuel used in nuclear reactors is “not enriched beyond 5%, and much higher enrichment is needed for explosives,” there is no possibility for nuclear power plants to be used as a weapon in that sense.
Further terrorism concerns are also touched upon in the article above. The unlikely scenario where terrorists fly a large commercial jet (fully fueled Boeing 767–400) into a reactor is entertained in the article and multiple studies found that the nuclear reactors would safely be able to withstand a collision without releasing a threatening amount of radioactive materials. In fact, the article even goes as far to say that, “nuclear reactors would be more resistant to such attacks than virtually any other civil installations.”
If you are now able to consider nuclear energy as a potentially safe energy alternative then maybe you have some questions regarding some of the other misleading rumors swirling around the energy source. Some common grievances include, but are not limited to:
- Nuclear energy is too expensive even more so than renewable options
- Uranium will run out in the near future
- The waste will be deadly for the rest of time and cannot be dealt with in a safe manner
- Nuclear power plants take too long to build
Conveniently, one fiery quora user voiced all these concerns in the conversation below. Other quora members of the same conversation were quick to jump on the anonymous user and pick apart their arguments.
The one complaint that most of the proponents of nuclear energy were not able to dismantle was the claim that nuclear power plants construction time is unreasonably long. For reference, nuclear reactors can take as much as 10-12 years to build. This is obviously a glaring problem when humans are already running on borrowed time in the fight to avoid dooms-day/ armageddon levels of climate change. Unfortunately, the construction process takes so long because there are many safety standards and tests that need to be met and passed before a power plant can operate.
While these construction restrictions and building regulations have been successful in preventing accidents in the United States thus far, one can only wonder how much quicker construction might be if the public wasn’t so skeptical of nuclear energy.
If construction time is the extent of nuclear energy’s issues then it obviously remains a solid alternative to fossil fuels and can hold its own alongside the renewable sources like wind, solar, and hydro. In fact, other renewable sources of energy share some of the same problems as nuclear.
Strangely enough, large hydroelectric power stations also take 10 years to build but there is much less public pushback towards hydro-power. It is especially confusing when considering that hydro-power has a long history of devastating disasters much worse than even Chernobyl. According to the WNA article linked above:
- In 1975 multiple dams collapsed in Henan, China, and at least 30,000 people were killed immediately and around 230,000 overall
- In 1979 and 1980 in India about 3500 were killed by two hydro-electric dam failures
- More recently in 2009 75 people were killed in Russia by a hydro power plant turbine disintegration
Now these numbers are much more daunting than even the most extreme the death estimates produced by Chernobyl and Fukushima, yet public perception of hydro-power is completely untainted. Now the purpose of showing these numbers is not to slander hydro-power; instead, it is supposed to show how unfair it is that nuclear power is so heavily criticized for two accidents that pale in comparison to one of their renewable counterparts.
In the end nuclear power has a role to play on the road to net zero carbon emissions and it is reassuring that some people are finally starting to catch on. It is especially reassuring that one of those people is the United States Secretary of Energy.
The government is not alone in its excitement about the future of nuclear energy. The private sector and silicon valley have jumped onto the nuclear energy bandwagon and have made inroads with some promising innovations.
The reactors created by Oklo are new, small, and extremely safe and they solve the one glaring hole that people on quora agreed was an issue. They cut down on delays and unnecessary costs that are common when building larger nuclear rectors. Resultantly, they take much less time to build. Additionally, they use the nuclear waste of conventional nuclear reactors, which provides even more benefits for the environment and makes nuclear an even more appealing option.
While Oklo’s progress is certainly inspiring, it is merely a stepping stone in the fight against climate change because of the small size of the reactors. Despite the shortcomings, hopefully the positive momentum that nuclear has developed will translate into a push from the public for nuclear power and eventually cut carbon emissions down to safe levels.