Nuclear, Naked
Demystifying the superpower energy source that still makes people a little nervous
This week, we’ve been lucky to get a guest author, Ivana Petrich, which is great as a lot of people understand topics better than us, and she is one of them. Ivana Petrich is a British-Canadian sustainable finance professional specializing in GHG emissions and the energy transition. She is a CFA Charterholder and an active volunteer for the CFA Society of Calgary. We hope you enjoy!
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Nuclear
Nuclear energy has been grabbing headlines lately, with big tech companies like Microsoft and Oracle announcing plans to tap into the emissions-free, reliable energy source to power their data centers at the heart of the AI boom. But there’s still a lot of misunderstanding around nuclear energy, and some general surprise that this conventional source is making a comeback. Even on a recent work trip to New York, a hedge fund manager balked at my suggestion of nuclear as a power source for data centers and replied: “Nuclear?!”
As we head into NYC Climate Week and COP29 in Baku in November, the world is starting to acknowledge that the energy transition is hard. It’s hard to wean off oil and gas without several viable energy sources to shift to, especially with high interest rates hitting renewables companies, soaring electricity costs, pushback from consumers, and technologies that work but aren’t economical yet – all while trying to raise the living standards of the 6.7 billion people in emerging countries that want to live like the other lucky 1.4 billion. Amidst all that, nuclear stands out as a clean alternative that is not only doable – but has been done.
Nuclear has an image problem
Much like your weird older cousin who you only see at family gatherings, nuclear power has a complicated history that is often misunderstood. Anyone who watched the Chernobyl HBO miniseries about the worst nuclear disaster in history is going to have some questions about safety.
Indeed, public fear and opposition is the main reason that nuclear power fell out of favour in recent decades. Take Germany, for example – after the Fukushima incident in 2011, the climate-forward country decided to phase out its 17 operating power plants. Four months after the last plants were shuttered in April 2023, government reports revealed that the country was set to miss its net zero by 2045 goals.
“In the real world there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power.”
Climate and energy scientists in a 2013 open letter calling on world leaders to support development of safer nuclear power systems.
Science > sentiment
Nuclear technology is nothing new, as anyone who saw Oppenheimer would know – the first commercial nuclear power plant in the U.S. opened in 1958. As of last summer, there are 54 plants spread out across the country. Nuclear power plants have supplied ~20% of the nation’s electricity since 1990 in an incredibly efficient way, with plants operating at full capacity more than 92% of the time in 2017, compared to gas (55%), wind (37%) solar (27%).
Source | University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems
Despite its long-running history, there are some common misconceptions about nuclear:
Isn’t it unsafe? There have been two major nuclear incidents in the last 60 years: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. The number of direct deaths from the Chernobyl explosion, combined with cancer deaths post- event due to radiation, is around 400. The Fukushima power plant was hit by a tsunami, and no one died, except for one man who later died from lung cancer that the government says might have been linked. Both events were attributed to poor plant design. In contrast, air pollution from fossil fuels (mostly coal) is estimated to cause 3.6 to 8.7 million deaths every year.
Source: Markandya & Wilkinson (2007); Sovacool et al. (2016); UNSCEAR (2008; & 2018)
Isn’t nuclear waste dangerous? Nuclear fuel is very energy dense – there is more energy in one uranium fuel pellet the size of your fingernail than one ton of coal or 149 gallons of oil – and as a result, the amount of waste it produces is relatively small. A reactor that can power the lives of more than a million people for a year produces about three cubic metres of high-level waste. My simple non-scientist brain understands there are two types of waste:
Super dangerous hot stuff that lasts a shorter time: water is an excellent radiation blocker for this stuff, and giant pools are often used as wet storage for cooling.
Less dangerous stuff that lasts a longer time: the fuel can be disposed of in an underground repository, where Finland is seeing some success, or recycled in some countries. The amount of radiation from a repository is about 50x smaller than the background radiation that humans live with every day.
Isn’t it expensive to build? Yes, these are large projects with high upfront capital that regularly go over budget and take 6-8 years to build. But once built, you can have affordable, zero-emissions electricity for up to 80 years. Solar panels last 25-30 years, and wind turbines around 20 years, with significantly more land usage. Alternatively: we could stop shutting down plants that work perfectly well.
Is nuclear a critical part of the energy transition? Based on the above – heck yes! However, the clever people behind the EU Taxonomy (a finance classification system that defines which activities are aligned with the bloc’s climate goals) decided that nuclear waste is dangerous enough that the energy source should not be considered a sustainable investment. As such, some British and European asset managers rolled out ESG criteria in their portfolios that excluded “companies that generate more than 5% of their revenues from fossil fuels or nuclear power generation,” bucketing it along with other harmful sectors such as civilian firearms, controversial weapons and tobacco. I think this is unfortunate.
Why are green parties anti-nuclear? Your guess is as good as mine. Previous anti-nuclear movements have a complicated history, largely been driven by fear and misinformation. The energy transition is hard enough, let alone excluding a massive component that could help the world reach net zero by 2050. Send them this newsletter!
Make nuclear great again
Some cool things are happening in this space as we look to decarbonize electricity generation:
A university in Texas is building America’s first university research reactor in more than 30 years - NRC issues construction permit for Natura Resources molten salt reactor at ACU (PR Newswire)
Over 100 old coal sites in the U.S. could be suitable for “nuclear repowering”, i.e. retrofitted with nuclear reactors - US nuclear, coal power sites could host up to 269 GWe of new nuclear capacity: DOE (Utility Dive)
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that generation capacity of nuclear power worldwide is going to jump by 2.5x by 2050 - IAEA Projects 950 GW of Global Nuclear Power Capacity by 2050 (POWER Magazine)
There are some young pro-nuclear influencers on TikTok, but we need more- Shortfall in Young Engineers Threatens Nuclear Renaissance (WSJ)
GIMBY (Get in my backyard)
Lastly, people are getting excited about advanced small modular reactors (SMRs), and I am too. They are mini reactors that can be stored for a decade without any external fuel supply or replacement required. How can I have one of these things shipped to my house and buried in my backyard, so that I never pay another electricity bill again and can live fully off-grid? Sign me up.
-Ivana
Impact Logic, a technical recruitment leader for impact-driven founders, sponsors our jobs section below. Reach out to them here as you look to fill critical roles.
A range of nuclear jobs worth looking at today include
Science and Engineering jobs with Helion Energy
Analytics and IT roles at Bruce Power
Project Coordinator with PTAG
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