Nuclear the answer to our climate crisis
It is worrisome that by 2050, humanity might still be relying on fossil fuels for about 70 per cent of its energy consumption, down hardly at all from 80 per cent today.
Renewables, including hydropower, solar, wind and biofuels, will account for just 27 per cent of energy consumption by 2050, according to projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Climate scientists have warned that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by at least 45 per cent this decade to avoid climate-crisis catastrophe and be eliminated altogether by mid-century.
It is difficult to imagine those goals being met, with the EIA forecasting that fossil fuel consumption will rise by another 27 per cent between 2020 and 2050.
Nuclear power is the chief means of providing the large amounts of safe, clean and reliable power needed over the next three decades. A decarbonizing economy switching to electricity — including a global fleet of electric vehicles — will push world power demand up by an estimated 47 per cent by 2050, the EIA predicts.
Nuclear plants also take up less space than most energy sources. Large-scale solar installations occupy about 80 times as much land as a conventional nuclear plant on a per-kilowatt basis. And wind farms occupy about twice as much land again.
But nuclear plants can be built where there’s not much wind or sunlight, and they generate a continuous flow of electricity, unlike the intermittent power generated by wind and solar, which will require as-yet unperfected battery storage to harness their power efficiently.
Yet the EIA expects that nuclear’s share of total energy consumption will drop to just 3.7 per cent by 2050 from an already modest 4.5 per cent today.
Discouraged by today’s slow pace of decarbonization, the U.S., France, Britain, Japan, Poland and Finland are among countries that have recommitted to nuclear power.
A China that is determined to abate its air-pollution crisis is in the lead. It has plans for about 150 new reactors over the next 15 years at an estimated cost of $440 billion (U.S.).
Canada is funding experiments in small modular reactors (SMRs), which could power hospitals, factories and apartment blocks.
And investors now see profit potential in nuclear. PitchBook reports that U.S. nuclear energy startups raised $676 million (U.S.) in the first nine months of 2021, more than the total for the previous five years combined.
But that might not be the dawn of a new age of civilian nuclear power. Attempts at a nuclear renaissance over the past generation have fizzled out.
The nuclear power industry lives in the shadow of the Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns. For decades, nuclear power has been starved of capital to build new capacity and innovate with new technologies such as fusion and SMRs.
Turning away from nuclear has come at a high price.
In Canada, with its heavy reliance on hydropower and nuclear, approximately 6.2 premature deaths per 100,000 population are caused by air pollution each year, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. The rate for China’s largely coal-fired economy is 106. In India, it is 164.1.
More than four million people worldwide die prematurely each year from air pollution — that is, from CO2, methane and other toxic greenhouse gas emissions — according to the IHME.
Canada has committed to a zerocarbon electric grid by 2035, and to legislating greater adoption of electric vehicles by then. But Ottawa hasn’t explained how it expects to achieve those goals.
Wind and solar advocates boast of how the cost of those alternative energy sources has come down considerably in recent years.
But the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that extending the life of existing nuclear reactors is the cheapest way of meeting the vast increase in power demand that lies ahead.
In a January report on Canada’s energy status, the Paris-based International Energy Agency called on Canada to as much as triple its clean-energy production. But Canada has no plans to do so.
By contrast, Ontario’s commitment to nuclear is evident at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on the shores of Lake Huron near Kincardine.
Bruce Power, as the facility is called, is one of the world’s largest operating nuclear stations. It alone supplies more than one-third of Ontario’s power needs. And it is managing a multi-year program to extend the life of its reactors to 2064.
Nuclear is not a silver bullet. Nuclear plants are expensive and time-consuming to build. And the challenge of safely storing nuclear waste has not been met.
But there isn’t that much waste. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that America’s total nuclear waste would fill a single football field, 9.1 metres high. A big reason storage has gone unsolved is a lack of industry capital to research a safe means of storage.
The nuclear industry is long acquainted with NIMBY protests. But “not in my backyard” activists have lately targeted planned wind and solar installations, and hydro projects as well.
As noted, the nuclear industry has been at a crossroads before. Electric utilities have many times been faced with tough investment decisions on the future of nuclear.
This time those decisions have public health, environmental and energy security implications beyond return on investment.
The stakes have never been higher.
Discouraged by today’s slow pace of decarbonization, the U.S., France, Britain, Japan, Poland and Finland are among countries that have recommitted to nuclear power