Technology | Electrification | Nuclear
Nuclear energy: a low-carbon solution we hate to love
Isn’t it time we reconsider our opposition to nuclear energy?
Published May 2023 | Revised Nov 2023
Nuclear is as hot a topic as any topic can be. It’s sensitive, secretive, central to national security and top of the list of things that get most of us into NIMBY-mode. The internet is awash with claims, counterclaims, science and pseudoscience on nuclear power. As citizens, we don’t want to live next to a nuclear power station, as nations we don’t want to live next to a nuclear power, especially one that might go rouge someday.
Nuclear power is however one of the most efficient sources of energy generation. It is how stars including our sun generate heat and light. It is efficient, carbon friendly and generally safe. But current nuclear power plant designs suffer from one major flaw that means it remains a power source we have all come to dislike.
This article is not intended as the final word on nuclear power. We are not nuclear experts and have little to no knowledge of the medical, security and technical concerns surrounding nuclear power. We prefer to leave expert opinions to experts.
However, we are consumers, and we know some of the error-prone ways people have looked at the issue of nuclear power, and that is the focus of this article. Furthermore, we are focused on the energy generation aspect of this topic, not its security aspects.
Here are some of the reasons we think it is time you re-evaluate your dislike for this otherwise powerful, low-carbon energy source. An energy source that may be essential to the goal of transitioning our energy sources to low carbon sources.
We understand the science
The science of generating electricity by driving steam through a turbine has been with us since the advent of the steam engine. Generate a steady stream of steam, drive a steam turbine with it, and the turbine's generator turns that mechanical energy from its rotating blades into electricity. Steam in, electricity out.
It is a system we have used for decades in coal, oil and gas-powered plants. Start a fire with the coal, superheat water into steam and drive turbines with it. With nuclear power, we use the heat generated from the fission reactions to heat the water, then generate steam and drive turbines with it to get electricity.
Unlike coal, oil and gas, our nuclear reactions do not produce massive amounts of carbon that contributes to global warming. It is a low carbon energy source, producing no carbon as a bye-product of the actual energy generation process.
Although it doesn’t produce carbon, it produces something far more dangerous to human health – radiation. Radiation protection safety is a central focus of nuclear safety, and it is also the source of most of the public’s misgivings on nuclear energy. And nothing captures that fear better than disasters at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011.
So, is nuclear power safe? Yes, it is. Because we understand the science of energy production from nuclear fission, and we understand the science of radiation protection and containment. The lessons learnt from Chernobyl and Fukushima are being incorporated into new nuclear designs in the form of increased passive safety measures that can prevent uncontrolled nuclear reactions and heat-induced melt-downs in the event of failures of active safety measures.
Chernobyl and Fukushima were blackeyes for nuclear
Chernobyl. A word that has become synonymous with only one thing – nuclear disaster is the most potent argument that highlights the public’s misgivings about nuclear power. Chernobyl was a disaster. A series of organisational failures accentuated the effects of flaws in the design of the plant. These overwhelmed the controls designed to address one of nuclear energy’s Achilles heel – the complex process of shutting it down when things go wrong.
Nuclear reactors rely on setting off a chain of reactions that continues as long as there is enough fuel in the system. These reactions generate tremendous amounts of heat and under normal operations; that is exactly what we want – heat to generate steam. Under emergency situations, however, the system will not stop its heat generating reactions until we shut it down. So, in the event of a power outage or flood that cuts off the operator’s access to the reactor, it just keeps going.
It was that a critical inability to shut down the generation of heat that led to the Chernobyl disaster. There, engineers were running tests that got out of hand, and then they were unable to shut down the system. The very same inability to shut the system down was what led to the disaster at Fukushima.
At Fukushima, the largest earthquake in recorded Japanese history followed by the largest tsunami in recorded world history damaged parts of the plant and prevented the operators from being able to shut the reactor down.
These disasters are, of course, very complex and have been the subject of review by some of the smartest people in the world. In the lay man’s term, however, there simply wasn’t an effective “off button” that you could push to kill the whole thing.
The unimaginably powerful nature of these nuclear chain reactions, the complex process of shutting them down and the radioactive mess they leave behind in the wake of a disaster is what has earned nuclear energy a special place on the list of things we don’t want in our backyard.
Mankind is no stranger to disasters. Many of our cities are built on the sites of past disasters. But the idea that the areas around Chernobyl and Fukushima may not be habitable for thousands of years is mind-boggling. We seem to have evolved to be able to deal with disasters that allow us to go back home and rebuild when it is over, nuclear accidents just don’t seem to allow that.
So, how safe is nuclear energy? When radiation and heat-induced melt-downs - the two biggest risks associated with nuclear reactors are managed effectively, nuclear becomes just as safe as other power generation processes such as coal and gas-powered plants. But for the risk of radiation contamination, the disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima would rank near the bottom of the list of industrial accidents.
Next generation nuclear designs are safer
One major advantage that the next generations of nuclear power reactor designs have is that they can build on the things we have learnt from previous disasters. We live in a world where our computers can simulate endless scenarios, allowing us better ways of assessing the risk associated with every aspect of the new reactors.
Advances in computing mean that we can simulate earthquakes of magnitude X, followed by tsunami of Y magnitude and even throw in dastard acts of industrial espionage and similar security issues. Elements of the sort of test Chernobyl was attempting when disaster struck could be simulated with significant accuracy, such that when real tests become necessary, we have more to rely on than the expertise of the technician and engineers.
Most importantly, however, the events at Fukushima have accelerated the need for expanding the use of passive safety features in the design of nuclear reactors. These systems have been used extensively across previous designs, but they have not been used for the critical question of how to effectively shut down a reactor in the event of active measures failing – the big "off button" highlighted previously.
Whilst the incorporation of passive safety features that can effectively shut down a reactor safely in the event of failures of active systems sounds promising, getting these systems designed, integrated and approved is a long process. The process of approving new nuclear designs is incredibly complex and time-consuming, but the right people are studying this and that should make for safer designs for the future.
Nuclear fuel is abundant and energy dense
One of the major benefits of nuclear power is the energy density of its fuels. A teaspoon full of uranium packs enough energy to power your home and all the homes on your street for a year. This is a very rough estimate, of course, but the point here is that nuclear fuels such as uranium are extremely energy dense, and pack tremendous amounts of energy compared to other fuels.
One clear benefit of this is the low environmental footprint of the entire powerplant. A finger-sized pellet of uranium can generate as much electricity as a tonne of coal can . And there is no shortage of uranium and other nuclear fuels on earth, at least in relation to the amounts needed to power our economy.
We have fission but the safer fusion is still experimental
Another positive news about the future of nuclear is the potential of nuclear fusion. All our current nuclear power plants are fission plants, where atoms are split to generate heat. The opposite process (fusion) can also generate a tremendous amount of heat that can be harnessed for the generation of steam. Fusion doesn’t have the radioactive liabilities that fission does, at least as far as we know for now. It is therefore considered a significantly safer form of nuclear energy generation.
There are no fusion plants in operation anywhere on earth. All we have at this stage are experimental designs such as the Tokamak, a soviet-era-based experimental machine designed to harness fusion energy.
The most advanced fusion research team today is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project . A truly international collaborative effort between 35 nations that is developing a tokamak in southern France. The dream of creating micro stars that produces tremendous amounts of clean energy without the radioactive and other downsides seems worthy of a 35-nation collaboration.
There are technical solutions to nuclear waste and plant decommissioning
Whilst nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima represent what can go terrifyingly wrong during the operating lives of these plants, the management of the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power stations is a major source of the public’s misgivings about nuclear power. And the cost and technical challenges of decommissioning old plants is well within our technical know-hows.
The concerns about nuclear waste are rooted more in poor communication than any serious technical challenge. The earth offers almost endless options for disposing nuclear waste. There is no shortage of geologically sound disposal options that can be used for nuclear waste. The real challenge is the security of disposal / reprocessing sites and the transportation processes involved.
Nuclear waste can be entombed in concrete and buried in geologically sound structures deep in the earth's crust, away from environmentally sensitive structures like aquifers and geologically sensitive structures like faults that are associated with earthquakes.
The security challenge is one that our militaries can address effectively. They already handle a lot of nuclear waste anyway. The majority of countries that can operate nuclear power stations tend to have militaries that are competent enough to handle the security challenge of handling nuclear waste.
The issue of nuclear waste is therefore a relatively minor issue that gets overblown because of its association with the broader nuclear debate around nuclear accidents, proliferation and other security matters.
Not all nuclear energy fears are worth worrying about
Worrying about things that could harm us is at the essence of our evolution. A state of mind that helped our ancestors survive the wild but tends to hold us back today when it shouldn’t. Concerns about nuclear power are valid, but like other concerns, they need to be contextualised.
Concerns about mobile phones and brain cancer permeates the internet and several handset manufacturers and network operators such as Microsoft via its acquisition of Nokia are still defending decade-long lawsuits alleging adverse effects from radio emissions associated with mobile phones. Very few of us have stopped using our mobile phones as a result of these claims and lawsuits.
The point here is not to denigrate the fears and arguments surrounding the use of mobile phones, the point is to show that we all tend to find ways of moving forward in the face of our fears and worries. Millions took the Covid-19 jabs in spite of the furore online. Millions consume fluoride in tap water as mandated by their governments even though someone has an opinion on this somewhere on the internet. 5G is also having its moment with opinions on the internet but will become widespread like 3G and 4G did before it.
We all know the joke about people taking calls on their mobile phones whilst demonstrating against mobile phone masts. The contradiction here can be overblown for comic effect, but the reality is that demonstrations are a part of a healthy society. People should be empowered to demonstrate as they see fit. As you should be entitled to review the facts and change your mind as you see fit. The concerns about nuclear safety are real, but the realities of our energy future mean we must take another look at it.
We all get X-rays done when the doctor requests it because we have learnt to trust healthcare professionals to ensure that adequate radiation protection measures are in place. Nuclear power has a lot of issues around it. But it also represents one of our best options for avoiding catastrophic climate change and global warming. Maybe it is time to take another look at those fears in detail and balance them with the need of the environment we call home and one we hope to leave in a good state for future generations.