Nuclear Power – Friend or Foe?
At the World Climate Action Summit of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP 28) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai, more than 20 countries from four continents launched the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy. The Declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5-degree goal within reach. The endorsing countries include the United States, France, Japan, Canada, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, among others. The Declaration also acknowledges the benefits of new nuclear technologies, such as smaller land footprints, complementarity with renewable energy sources, and decarbonization beyond the power sector.
Nuclear reactors are the heart of a nuclear power plant. They contain and control nuclear chain reactions that produce heat through a physical process called fission. That heat is used to make steam that spins a turbine to create electricity. The main job of a reactor is to house and control nuclear fission —a process where atoms split and release energy. Reactors use uranium for nuclear fuel. The uranium is processed into small ceramic pellets and stacked together into sealed metal tubes called fuel rods. Typically, more than 200 of these rods are bundled together to form a fuel assembly. A reactor core is typically made up of a couple hundred assemblies, depending on power level. The heat created by fission turns the water into steam, which spins a turbine to produce carbon-free electricity.
Nuclear power plants produce vast amounts of radioactivity in nuclear waste, some of which are in the form of used fuel. The nuclear waste has the same volume and mass when it comes out of the reactors as the nuclear fuel that went in several years earlier. But when it is removed to put in fresh fuel, the fuel rods are 100 million times more radioactive than before undergoing fission in the reactor. The splitting of atoms creates even more radioactive byproducts, but it is not consumed the way coal or natural gas do. The used fuel remains extremely hot for hundreds of years. Radioactive materials in the waste remain a threat to health, water, and the environment for over one-million years.
Nuclear accidents can have catastrophic consequences. The most well-known nuclear accident was the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which resulted in the release of radioactive material into the atmosphere. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 was another example of a nuclear accident that had severe consequences. The disaster was caused by a tsunami that damaged the plant and led to a nuclear meltdown. The disaster resulted in the evacuation of over 150,000 people and had long-term environmental and health impacts.
Nuclear power plants are expensive to build and maintain. The cost of building a nuclear power plant can run into the billions of dollars. The high cost of nuclear power generation has made it difficult for nuclear power to compete with other forms of energy generation, such as renewable energy sources.
Nuclear energy can play a key role in the transition to a clean energy future and support climate change and energy transition goals because it is not an intermittent source of power like renewables. Nuclear power is a low-carbon source of energy, and it produced about 10 percent of the world’s electricity in 2018 . Together with expanding renewable energy sources and fuel switching from coal to gas, higher nuclear power production contributed to the leveling of global CO2 emissions at 33 gigatonnes in 2019. To reach the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation must fall to nearly zero by the middle of this century, even as electricity needs worldwide continue to grow and expand in end-uses such as transportation, heating, and industrial energy use. Nuclear power, as a dispatchable low-carbon source of electricity, can help achieve this goal. Nuclear energy is considered a key low-carbon technology for achieving ambitious and urgent climate change mitigation. The final issue of consideration is with respect to the availability and supply security of Uranium. This is an area where investors have become extremely excited with record spot prices for uranium being seen today.
Nuclear fusion is a process where atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, releasing energy in the process. It is the same process that powers the sun and other stars. Nuclear fusion has the potential to be a transformative technology for electricity generation in the future. If nuclear fusion can be harnessed to produce electricity on a large scale, it could provide a virtually limitless source of clean energy with no greenhouse gas emissions. However, nuclear fusion is still in the experimental stage, and it is not yet clear whether it will be possible to develop a practical and economically viable nuclear fusion reactor. Most experts agree that we’re unlikely to be able to generate large-scale energy from nuclear fusion before around 2050.
