Why We Must Invest in Nuclear Power

Every year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes an energy consumption forecast through 2050. The chart below is from their 2022 forecast published in March this year: 

Even with an aggressive ramp of non-hydro renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, fossil fuel derivatives like petroleum and natural gas continue to grow and dominate the fuel source for the next few decades. 

If our goal is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions from energy, how would we compare which sources to invest in? We might look at energy efficiency, availability, safety, and of course, greenhouse gas emissions between different fuel sources. Through this research, we would find that nuclear power must be a major component to our emission free future. 


Efficiency & Availability Comparison of Energy Sources

To successfully support modern life, electricity supply must be able to match electricity demand. When this fails, rolling blackouts occur, like the Texas polar freeze earlier this year. How do electricity grids fulfill this requirement?

There are 3 classifications of power sources when it comes to our electricity grid: base load, intermittent, and peak power. Wind and solar are intermittent power sources because no power is generated when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. As a result, all wind and solar sources are augmented with some sort of base load power, usually coal, natural gas, or nuclear power. They often come with expensive Lithium Ion battery systems, but any grid level deployment that takes power availability seriously will back up those batteries with base load sources. Peak power is rarely used, but critical to mitigate spikes in demand, say, during the depths of winter when we can’t feel our toes. This is usually with natural gas. A simpler description of the 3 types of power availability might be “always on”, “sometimes on”, and “rarely on”. 

How would we make an apples to apples comparison across different fuel sources? Based on the first law of thermodynamics, energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy is converted from one form into another and in this sense, no energy source is truly “renewable”. To make solar panels, we use fossil fuels to make the polysilicon. We need energy in order to mine uranium, the key fuel source for nuclear energy. Wind turbines require enormous amounts of steel and that manufacturing process requires energy. The Energy Return on Invested (EROI) gives us the apples to apples comparison we want: it provides the energy output based on a single energy input from a particular fuel source. This metric factors in all energy inputs required to generate power: mining, fabrication, construction, installation, maintenance, and transmission. Let’s take a look at the results across different energy sources:

The buffered EROI metric incorporates storage capacity, which is required to make a “sometimes on” energy source like wind and solar serve our needs. Wind and solar are least energy efficient with an EROI of 3-9. Natural gas and coal hover around 30 and nuclear leaves everybody in the dust with an EROI of 75. Even if we compare the unbuffered metrics, nuclear wins by a long shot. 

As end users of energy, most of us prefer our electricity “always on”. To provide for residential and industrial needs, base load power (“always on”) is the most critical input, followed by peak power sources (“rarely on” except during demand spikes). While we know wind and solar offer us cleaner forms of energy, they cannot operate as base load or peak power with current battery technology at a reasonable cost. This leaves us vulnerable to power outages. In order to meet our functional consumption needs, we must take into account the power availability of an energy source. We rely heavily on coal and natural gas for our base load power today and as we’ll see in the next section, these sources emit the most. In order to replace these effectively, we must select a base load power that generates less emissions for the same or higher amount of energy output. Nuclear energy offers the most efficient base power source by a huge margin.


Safety & Greenhouse Gas Emissions Comparison of Energy Sources

Moving on from efficiency and availability, we ask the next logical question in the context of climate change: what are the safest and cleanest ways to make energy? 

Surprisingly, nuclear is the safest base load power by a long shot with less emissions than even wind or solar. Nuclear meltdowns are highly reported disasters magnified in the public sphere, but comparing accident data between energy sources paints a clear picture: nuclear is safe. Combine this with low emissions and high ERoEI means nuclear power is the closest we have to a safe, renewable energy source.


Innovation in Nuclear Power

What are the common concerns with nuclear power? Two key issues, one technical and one public perception: (1) long build times with high capital expenditures and environmental risk and (2) a natural association with nuclear weapons.

Innovation in the nuclear space helps us address the first concern around build timelines, cost, and overall risk: SMRs, small modular reactors, are compact nuclear reactors. SMRs cut down deployment time and cost dramatically because they are compact, standardized, and pre-fabricated in a factory instead of custom built on a specific site. SMRs can be completed in 3-5 years versus 6-12 years for traditional nuclear reactors. SMR cost estimates are $1 billion compared to $6 billion for a traditional reactor generating 1 GW of energy. Earlier this year, NuScale, a company specializing in building SMRs, announced agreements to build SMRs with energy providers in Romania and Poland.

On top of this, SMRs have a smaller environmental footprint and risk. Conventional reactors have a 16 kilometer radius for emergency planning along with an 80 kilometer exclusion zone for protecting food and water resources. U.S. regulators have decided that SMR designs only need a 2 kilometer emergency planning zone, giving SMRs the flexibility to integrate with the existing grid and provide us with base load electricity much faster than a conventional reactor. Additionally, SMRs have passive failure systems and don’t require operators or external power to shut down safely like traditional reactors. While they still require water for cooling, certain compact designs allow the nuclear reactor to sit far away from water sources, where meltdowns threaten drinking water.


Risks in Arms Proliferation?

A common association with nuclear power is nuclear weapons. I made the same assumption before researching this piece: inputs for nuclear energy are interchangeable with nuclear weapons. Combine this with highly reported nuclear meltdown incidents, political and public support for nuclear energy tends to be skittish. After diving into the literature, nuclear arms proliferation is more of a political challenge than technical. While arms proliferation deserves its own deep dive, I’ll cover the key takeaways below.

The technical requirements of uranium for nuclear power act as a natural barrier to arms proliferation. Mined uranium has 0.7% of the isotope U-235. In order to be used in energy reactors and weapons, uranium must be enriched via a complex and intensive process. Fuel reactors require uranium enriched to 3-5% of U-235 in order to generate electricity while weapons grade uranium is typically enriched to 85% U-235. An enrichment facility will not refine uranium above the required levels for reactors since it’s more expensive. It’s a natural economic disincentive. 

The World Nuclear Association documents existing safeguards, different agencies, protocols, and treaties involved today. The entire document is worth a read, but a few important points for our purposes: it only takes 5 tons of highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear warhead and current world trade for electricity production involves 70,000 tons of uranium. What does this mean for nuclear power? Uranium supply is plentiful across the globe today and that risk is managed by existing nuclear proliferation treaties and protocols. Given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s recent advances in nuclear capabilities, the international community must continue strengthening safeguards. At the same time, it also means we should not point to arms proliferation as a sole reason to stop investment in energy projects—the risk exists today and the international treaties are actively managing this risk. 


What does the nuclear landscape look like today?

2022 could be an interesting turning point for public support of nuclear power. I mentioned Romania and Poland previously, but the global winds of nuclear power shifted in a matter of months. Putin has made a laughingstock of Germany’s decision to shut down nuclear power plants in exchange for intermittent “sometimes on” wind and solar sources. Europe is learning how critical base load power is to energy independence, the hard way: natural gas prices in Europe have fluctuated between 7-10 times US natural gas prices this last year, even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration launched a $6 billion program to revive existing nuclear power plants with further aid to states like Wyoming to drive innovation. The EU approved a major taxonomy update to include nuclear as clean energy. Gavin Newsome of California is walking back plans to shut down the Diablo Canyon plant, the only one of its kind in the state. France, already spearheading the European efforts in nuclear power, announced plans to build new power plants.


While the prospects for nuclear power look optimistic, political and public opinion change slowly and still tilts against the energy source due to its negative public perception. However, after examining the Energy Return on Invested metric, power availability, safety, and greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power along with innovations in newer reactors, it’s clear nuclear energy needs to be part of any serious plan to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.


Recommended further reading: