In Spring of 2019 for my Resource Economics class I stumbled upon this very convincing TED talk about nuclear energy. This guy, Michael Sullenberger, argues that of course solar and wind are great choices but they just don't provide sufficient energy to provide the world with the power it needs: as we'd need to basically cover the earth with solar panels and/ or wind turbines. Solar panels have limited lifetimes and contain some nasty substances as well that we'll need to be very careful when they eventually make their way to the trash heap.
Also futurist Steven Pinker and climate change experts Joshua Goldstein and
Staffan Qvist have recently published an article called, "Nuclear Power Can Save the World,"
in which they argue a few things. First, they say that the waste is manageable-
more manageable than coal ash, which like nuclear waste is toxic, but
much more voluminous. Further coal and to a lesser extent natural gas create a great deal of air pollution, which kills many, many people every year. Second, they remind us that while accidents involving scary and invisible radiation have happened, the only one that has led to a loss of human life is the horribly mismanaged facility at Chernobyl. Yes, other harm has resulted as land was rendered unusable by Fukushima and other incidents, but how much land has been devastated by mining, or how much would be needed for solar and wind? Surely a lot more.
A similar argument for nuclear is echoed by the Washington Post's Charles Lane: Germany under Merkel has tried and failed to limit carbon emissions without incorporating nuclear energy into the mix, with poor results. Bloomberg contributor Chris Bryant sums that up: "Germany’s nuclear shutdowns might please the electorate but they’re boneheaded from a climate perspective." Case closed?
Just when I was starting to be pretty swayed, I found a few other articles coming to the opposite conclusion. "Wild weather, fires, rising sea levels, earthquakes and warming water
temperatures all increase the risk of nuclear accidents, while the lack
of safe, long-term storage for radioactive waste remains a persistent
danger" argue Heidi Hutner and Erica Cirino. "Nuclear power... makes no economic or energy sense." Who's boneheaded now?
The other big piece on the subject is by Gregory Jaczko, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He has two key contentions: first, the costs of implementing nuclear today are just off the charts: cost overrun followed by cost overrun has led to spending tens of billions of dollars in a couple of sites without any power to show for it. Second, renewables are doing the job better: when Japan took its nuclear plants down after the Fukushima incident, they coped by ramping up conservation and reliance on renewables. Today they have plenty of power and greenhouse gas emissions are down. Jaczko has become an advocate for offshore wind energy.
I don't want to go too far down that other track, but suffice to say that offshore wind, while doing well in some parts of northern Europe, is pretty expensive. Here is a 2019 report published by the US EIA, saying that offshore wind is pretty darn expensive. Obviously that's not the final word, but I am still left balancing Sullenberger vs. Jaczko. What do you think?
PS Here are a few letters to the editor referencing the Jaczko letter. Skip the first but there are a few tidbits after that....
