Nuclear energy is in a strange position.
On one hand, with controversies around past nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima and backlash over its dangerous byproducts, nuclear power is being phased out by many governments. Currently, 22 commercial nuclear power reactors are in the process of being decommissioned in the US. In 2023, Germany completed its 50 year long plan to close all of its nuclear power plants. But on the other hand, nuclear power is finding novel investors with deep pockets. Just this October, Amazon and Google both announced new plans to invest in small nuclear reactors to help meet electricity demand of power hungry data centers. They claimed that nuclear energy was necessary to meet energy demands without turning to fossil fuels.
This begs the question: Should we be celebrating or condemning nuclear energy now?
First, let's take a short trip back to the 1950s to 70s-- the "Atomic Era". Sideburns were all the rage. The Civil Rights movement was fighting for equality. And the Cold War was in full swing. In 1949, the Soviet Union tested their first nuclear weapon and sparked nuclear development across the world, spanning both weapons and energy. New construction started on some 25 to 30 new nuclear power plants every year. The United States Atomic Energy Commission predicted that by the turn of the 21st century, 1,000 reactors would be producing electricity for homes and businesses across the U.S.
However, in 1973, tragedy struck. At 6:56 a.m, staff declared an emergency at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station. A stuck valve created a positive feedback loop that burnt through the site's uranium and released radiation to the environment. For 3 weeks, more than 140,000 people evacuated the 20 mile radius surrounding the plant. Across the country, a crisis was declared and by the end of the decade, over 120 nuclear plant plans were canceled. People simply didn't want nuclear energy facilities built anywhere near them.
Over time, this worry has lost sight of the fact that nuclear power should be compared to its competition. And nuclear power faces a perception problem: a few massive incidents like Chernobyl are more newsworthy than many small incidents like people inhaling coal dust. In reality, when comparing energy sources on a long term timeline, for every terawatt-hour of energy produced; 25 people will die from coal and 18 from oil. For nuclear energy, less than half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a person will die. That's around the level of solar and wind, even accounting for nuclear energy's biggest disasters. Greenhouse gas emissions tell a similar story: For every terawatt-hour of energy produced; coal releases 970 tonnes of emissions, oil releases 720 tonnes of emissions, solar releases 53 tonnes, wind releases 11, and nuclear energy stands alone at only 6 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite statistics suggesting nuclear energy's safety, it has been consistently deprioritized. In fact, regulation and policy have only served to make nuclear power less competitive over time. In 2020, of the 634 billion dollars worth of energy subsidies, 70% went to fossil fuels, 20% went to renewable energy, 6% went to biofuels and only 3% went to nuclear energy. Furthermore, the average American nuclear power plant pays $22 million a year in fees to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and $32.7 million a year in regulatory liabilities, covering paperwork compliance, environmental risk and capital expenditures and fees paid to the federal government. In six nuclear plants, these regulatory burdens exceed profit margins!
While economic forces have made nuclear energy an unpopular choice by many cities, tech companies have noted its upside. Compared to renewable energy, nuclear energy is more location-flexible, dependable, and compact. Essentially, nuclear has become a luxury: an expensive but premium form of carbonless energy generation.
As climate change is projected to cause undernutrition, heat stress, and displacement for millions of people in upcoming years; it's more important now than ever to fight the dangerous environmental impacts of oil and gas pollution. Nuclear power should be a part of that fight, and to do that we need to make nuclear power accessible to more than trillion dollar tech companies.
As a reader, you don't have to just watch from the sideline. Support local nuclear energy campaigns or contact your lawmakers about nuclear energy. Ultimately, nuclear energy can only succeed with support.
