Hopeful technology #1 - new nuclear energy

Can Bill Gates save the world?

“You wouldn’t go without me, would you?” Buddy’s life was filled with well-developed hopes and fears.

Do reporters and commentators more effectively stimulate readers to take climate actions when our topics are hopeful? Or when they’re fearful?

This week let’s try hope.

I have long considered nuclear power to be a wonderful source of clean energy, largely hidden by ignorant opposition and fear.

Yes, there are several big drawbacks to past nuclear designs.

• They need lots of water for cooling, limiting the location of power plants.

• They heat the water to steam causing dangerously high pressures and safety concerns.

• They are hugely expensive and take forever to build.

• If used with other sustainable sources, the nuclear plant must be dialed up and down to respond to peak demand and drops in solar and wind output.

But most people don’t realize that safety—the big bugbear for many people—is NOT one of the drawbacks. See below for the facts on nuclear disasters.

Nuclear power has changed.

New designs largely avoid past problems. One example is the Natrium plant being built and promoted with Bill Gates’ help.

• The plant uses liquid sodium as the coolant so it doesn’t need to be located near a water source.

• Sodium, unlike water, cannot turn into a gas; it allows much higher temperatures without creating pressure, giving the reaction efficiency and safety benefits.

• Natrium plants are cheaper. Current nuclear power plants cost between $131 and $204 per megawatt hour; Natrium is predicted to cost $60 per MWh! That makes its construction even cheaper than some offshore wind farms and solar farms!

• Output is not sent to the grid only at high-demand times. It’s constantly sent to huge batteries. At peak demand the grid draws from the batteries, putting no extra load on the reactors. This allows the reactors to be smaller, which further reduces construction costs and operating costs.

Natrium’s technology will be used to start building a plant in Wyoming by 2026. Completion is expected in 2030. Seems slow compared to building solar and wind farms, yes, but for nuclear it’s super fast.

Older technology is being hugely improved.

The next generation of nuclear power plants may be Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Components can be sourced around the world and assembled in remote factories. The completed reactors can be transported by truck and delivered anywhere. Individual reactor modules would be cylinders about 15 feet in diameter and 80 feet tall and could be ganged together to reach various output levels.

These smaller, more dispersed power plants with battery storage may help take pressure off the electrical grid which, today, appears incapable of distributing the amount of clean energy we’re hoping for.

The leading firm in this field, NuScale, is considering installations in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Its first US plant will be built at Idaho National Laboratory and, like the first Natrium plant, is scheduled to reach full production by 2030. The company is also working to build plants in Romania, South Korea, Poland and other countries, thus creating an export market for reactors.

Will the public accept more nuclear power?

American opinion on nuclear power is improving rapidly. According to a 2022 poll by Bisconti Research, Inc., 77% of Americans favor the use of nuclear energy as a way to provide electricity, while 23% oppose it. This is the highest level of support for nuclear power in the United States in over a decade. If Natrium and SMRs show success over the next few years, these numbers could become a landslide.

Acceptance of nuclear power by investors is another matter. Facing plummeting solar and wind power costs, high interest rates, and expected cost overruns, even cheaper nuclear projects are not necessarily low-risk investments. The Inflation Reduction Act is helping by making federal subsidies available to atomic energy, but more government assistance may be needed to lure investors.

What we can do

Efficient, economical, safe nuclear energy is not yet a given, so it’s important that we keep educating ourselves about its possibilities, not just accept its promoters’ claims. There are lots of organizations that can help us do this, including Environmental Progress, and Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness.

If we decide we want to actively push for growth in nuclear power, we can become active in Generation Atomic, Clean Air Task Force, Mothers for Nuclear, Stand Up For Nuclear, or similar initiatives.

And we can use the growing likelihood of clean nuclear power advances to give us hope—the hope that encourages us to work harder building the other elements of a mostly-electric, low-emissions, high-efficiency, smart power system for America.

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LEARN, THINK, ACT

• Here’s a good overview of nuclear power and its current advantages.

• How many people died in the big three nuclear accidents? Answers: thirty-one, one, and zero. Yes, at Chernobyl many workers brought in afterwards to clean up the site were avoidably sickened and killed by radiation exposure. In Japan thousands died from the earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima plant to fail, but not from radiation or other effects from the reactor. And at Three Mile Island, there were no deaths. Certainly, all three accidents poisoned their surroundings and caused tremendous difficulties for nearby residents—but not by killing them.
  
  Compare these thirty-two deaths to the thousands of illnesses and deaths attributed directly to the bad air from power plants burning fossil fuels, not to mention the heat, storms and floods from the indirect warming effect of burning those fuels.

• Here’s a look at Natrium.

• Two looks at SMR’s, (small modular reactors).

• And the Bisconti polls on nuclear power.