Why America and the World Need Nuclear Power

Why America and the World Need Nuclear Power

Aside from environmental concerns, there is no other realistic way to scale up energy supply to meet expected future demand.

by Todd Royal

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), in its International Energy Outlook 2021 report, notes trends in global energy supply, demand, and emissions to 2050 that forecast the need for nuclear power.

The report projects world energy consumption to rise around 50 percent by 2050, due to strong economic growth, increased access to energy and electricity, and rapid population growth in non-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and continents.

CO2 equivalent and emissions (CO2e), which excludes emission changes from land use changes and forestry, are projected to grow in OECD countries by approximately 5 percent and in non-OECD countries by 35 percent between 2019 and 2050.

Meeting this projected demand will be a herculean challenge, especially if we require such energy to be clean. In fact, zero-carbon electrical generation that comes from nuclear power is the only scalable solution that can meet the necessary requirements (higher energy use, manageable costs, lower emissions, and improved global energy security).

The State of the U.S. Nuclear Industry

As of August 2020, the U.S. fleet of nuclear reactors is at ninety-four working reactors. Yet this figure faces uncomfortable prospects. A recent loss was the Duane Arnold Energy Center, outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Since 2013, eleven nuclear reactors have been closed and scheduled for decommissioning. Eight more are scheduled for closure and decommissioning by 2025. If this trend continues, the United States could lose more than 10 percent of the nation’s nuclear capacity within a decade. This is extremely puzzling, as the American public “favors nuclear power for emission cuts.”

In fact, on paper, the United States is committed to nuclear power as a seminal part of its long-term energy strategy, which was solidified when the 115th U.S. Congress enacted two bills to promote advanced nuclear reactors. The first, the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act of 2017 was signed into law in September 2018, and requires the Department of Energy (DOE) “to develop a versatile fast neutron test reactor that could help develop fuels and materials for advanced reactors and authorizes DOE national laboratories and other sites to host reactor testing and demonstration projects.” The second law was the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, which requires the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to “develop an optional regulatory framework suitable for advanced nuclear technologies.” More recently, the ADVANCED Act, introduced on April 3 by five Republican and five Democrat senators builds on bipartisan efforts to promote nuclear power.

It is true that U.S. nuclear power has challenges to overcome, such as long construction times, project management issues, competition from historically low natural gas prices due to increased hydraulic fracturing practices, and a segment of the population adversely reacting to the prospect of (a) nuclear reactor(s) in their neighborhoods or business centers. Bureaucratic inertia at all levels in the United States is also taking a toll on next-generation reactors—referred to as Generation IV reactors (Gen IV), small modular reactors (SMRs), and microreactors—and new nuclear power builds being constructed and deployed.

New Reactors, New Impact

With more intermittent and unreliable industrial wind and solar farms flooding U.S. grids, many utilities are considering a hybrid or integrated systems approach to improve economics and grid stability by including SMRs into the mix. The DOE defines these as “reactors with electric generating capacity of 300 megawatts and below, in contrast to an average of about 1,000 megawatts for existing commercial reactors.” Gen IV SMRs and other advanced reactors from U.S. companies such as TerraPower, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, and X-energy are working towards being safer, lowering cost by incorporating factory-built modular construction instead of building on-site, operating without the need for safety-related backup electrical systems, adjusting electrical output to match demand leading to grid stabilization and using a variety of non-water coolants (such as lead-bismuth, liquid metal, helium, and salt); and produce less nuclear waste.

Similarly, entering the market soon will be fast neutron Gen IV reactors that “can burn long-lived actinides which are recovered from used fuel out of ordinary (water-cooled) reactors.” Zero carbon during baseload generation and zero nuclear waste will be achieved.

A DOE-sanctioned study on the economic and job impacts of SMR deployment estimated, “a standard 100 [megawat] SMR costing $500 million to manufacture and install, would create nearly 7,000 jobs, generate $1.3 billion in sales, $404 million in earnings (payroll), and $35 million in indirect business taxes.” Every nuclear plant is unique in its design and build, but these are encouraging numbers for SMR advancement in both the United States and globally.

Additionally, the flexibility these advanced reactors offer is important for rural electric cooperatives, remote municipal agencies, and isolated military installations. The lowered construction time is arguably the most important point since, combined with lower operating costs, this would allow contemporary and future reactors to be cost-competitive with natural gas-fired power plants and taxpayer-subsidized renewable electricity sources.

The advanced reactors and power plants under development in the U.S. and globally represent a variety of sizes, technology options, and siting scenarios. Each project can be defined by the variety of electricity generated—ranging from tens of megawatts in distant locations to hundreds of megawatts for power generation, process heat, desalination, or other industrial uses. Defining SMRs and other Gen IV reactors will continually change as new projects, positioning options and technologies advance when SMR designs could possibly use light water as a coolant, or other non-light water coolants.

Nuclear Power Matters Now More than Ever

Nuclear power is vitally important to the future of the environment. Coal usage globally is on the rise, skewering COP 27 pledges to reduce CO2 and methane emissions. China and India have pledged to grow coal use indefinitely. Both are purchasing increased volumes of fossil fuels from Russia at a deep discount.

Likewise, renewables are not technologically able to meet the surging need for electricity and higher energy use from China, India, the remainder of Asia, and Africa’s growing population. Only nuclear power has the ability for reliable baseload electrical generation while producing zero-carbon to counter the growing demand for energy security and lowering emissions.

Using nuclear power; particularly advanced nuclear technology is the appropriate energy soft power response to Russian belligerence, and environmental stewardship for the post-World War II, U.S.-led, global order to continue unabated.

About: Todd Royal is an author and consultant specializing in global threat assessment, energy development and policy for oil, gas and renewables based in Los Angeles, California.

Why America and the World Need Nuclear Power | The National Interest

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Climate Change Alarmism Is a Lie that Must Stop

Instead of trying to fight CO2 emissions, we would do better to invest in researching ways to make reliable supplies of energy both cleaner and less expensive so that everyone -- by choice -- will rush to use them.

by Drieu Godefridi - April 14, 2023

• With China opening an average of two new coal-fired power plants a week and India apparently more determined than ever to continue its development curve, as is the entire non-Western world, global CO2 emissions will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. There is not yet any available, inexpensive alternative to fossil fuels.
• This increase in global CO2 emissions would be inevitable even if the West persists in its efforts to reduce emissions: Western reductions are -- and will continue to be -- more than offset by the increase in emissions in the rest of the world.
• "Setting an example" to regimes and countries around the world that often hate the West simply enables those countries to grow stronger, while the countries setting the example weaken themselves by committing themselves to severe economic disadvantage -- while having virtually no net effect on the climate.... Meanwhile, as they grow, they would doubtless be extremely happy to see the West hobbling itself.
• The climate knows neither Europe nor Asia. Nothing that Europe and the West accomplish in this field has the slightest meaning if reduction of emissions is not global.
• In its fifth and latest (full) report, the IPCC estimates that a 3° warming -- twice the Paris Agreement target -- would reduce global economic growth by 3%. Three per cent a year? No, 3% by the year 2100. This amount represents a reduction in global economic growth of 0.04% a year, a number that is barely measurable statistically. That is in the IPCC's pessimistic scenario. In the more optimistic scenarios, the economic impact of warming will be virtually non-existent.
• [A]ccording to the data of the IPCC itself, the economic growth and well-being in Europe and the United States are more threatened by extremist and delusional environmental policies than by global warming.
• "The EU and its Member States have focused on climate policy, mobilizing enormous financial and human resources, thereby reducing the resources necessary for the development of its industry and weakening the security of energy supply." — Jean-Pierre Schaeken Willemaers, Thomas More Institute, president of the Energy, Climate and Environment Cluster, science-climat-energie.be, February 22, 2023.
• Future generations will judge us harshly for allowing extremist environmental activism to enfeeble us in the West, while a hostile East – China, Russia, North Korea and Iran -- continue to advance their industrial and military capabilities. Instead of trying to fight CO2 emissions, we would do better to invest in researching ways to make reliable supplies of energy both cleaner and less expensive so that everyone -- by choice -- will rush to use them.
• Global emissions and the accumulated stock of CO2 in the atmosphere will, unfortunately, not be decreasing any time soon, but that is no reason to let the global standing of the West decrease instead.

Since 1992 and the Earth Summit in Rio, the West has been living under the spell of a "climate emergency" that is repeatedly renewed but never happened. Since then, the West – and only the West -- has set itself the main goal of reducing CO2 emissions (and other greenhouse gases, implied in the rest of this article).

It is now 2023, time for a review:

1. CO2 emissions have not stopped growing and will continue to grow.

Since 1992, global CO2 emissions have continued to rise. With China opening an average of two new coal-fired power plants a week and India apparently more determined than ever to continue its development curve, as is the entire non-Western world, global CO2 emissions will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. There is not yet any available, inexpensive alternative to fossil fuels.

This increase in global CO2 emissions would be inevitable even if the West persists in its efforts to reduce emissions: Western reductions are -- and will continue to be -- more than offset by the increase in emissions in the rest of the world.

2. Will the warming target of the Paris Agreement -- "to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels" -- be met?

Achieving the Paris Agreement target requires drastic reductions in CO2 emissions. This has not happened. We are not on track. This global reduction will not happen. Therefore, the Paris Agreement target will not be achieved. This is now a certainty or, in the words of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a projection with a very high degree of reliability.

3. Will the EU's target of "decarbonisation by 2050" be met?

Even more extreme than the Paris Agreement is the EU's goal of decarbonisation. As stated earlier, even if the EU ceased to exist, global CO2 emissions would continue to rise. From this perspective, reducing European emissions only makes sense if it is part of an effective global framework, not a national or regional one. "Setting an example" to regimes and countries around the world that often hate the West simply enables those countries to grow stronger, while the countries setting the example weaken themselves by committing themselves to severe economic disadvantage -- while having virtually no net effect on the climate. Do we really believe that China, Russia and India will let the West dictate their economic conditions and CO2 emissions? Meanwhile, as they grow, they would doubtless be extremely happy to see the West hobbling itself.

Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission, probably the most zealous extremist to come to power in Europe since 1945 -- whose chief of cabinet is the former leader of Greenpeace's anti-nuclear campaign -- multiplies measures, initiatives and declarations aimed at drastically reducing European CO2 emissions -- even at the cost of Europe's economic devastation, at the cost of freedom, and at the cost of causing a cruel increase in Europe's dependence on China's rare earth minerals.

The climate knows neither Europe nor Asia. Nothing that Europe and the West accomplish in this field has the slightest meaning if reduction of emissions is not global.

4. Would the economic consequences of even the most pessimistic IPCC global warming scenario matter?

Let us now look at the issue of the economic impact of CO2 emissions.

The climate expert and physicist Steven Koonin, former Under Secretary for Science during the Obama Administration, notes in his latest book, Unsettled that even if the IPCC's most pessimistic warming scenario were to come true, the global economic impact would be negligible (Unsettled: Dallas, BenBella Books, 2021, chapter 9, 'Apocalypses that ain't', page 179s.)

In its fifth and latest (full) report, the IPCC estimates that a 3° warming -- twice the Paris Agreement target -- would reduce global economic growth by 3%. Three per cent a year? No, 3% by the year 2100. This amount represents a reduction in global economic growth of 0.04% a year, a number that is barely measurable statistically. That is in the IPCC's pessimistic scenario. In the more optimistic scenarios, the economic impact of warming will be virtually non-existent. The IPCC, AR5, Working Group II, chapter 10 states:

"For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers.... Changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices... and many other aspects of socioeconomic development will have an impact on the supply and demand of economic goods and services that is largely relative to the impact of climate change."

In other words, according to the data of the IPCC itself, the economic growth and well-being in Europe and the United States are more threatened by extremist and delusional environmental policies than by global warming. As Jean-Pierre Schaeken Willemaers of the Thomas More Institute, president of the Energy, Climate and Environment Cluster, noted on February 22:

"The EU and its Member States have focused on climate policy, mobilizing enormous financial and human resources, thereby reducing the resources necessary for the development of its industry and weakening the security of energy supply."

The lesson of all this is simple: Future generations will judge us harshly for allowing extremist environmental activism to enfeeble us in the West, while a hostile East – China, Russia, North Korea and Iran -- continue to advance their industrial and military capabilities. Instead of trying to fight CO2 emissions, we would do better to invest in researching ways to make reliable supplies of energy both cleaner and less expensive so that everyone -- by choice -- will rush to use them.

Global emissions and the accumulated stock of CO2 in the atmosphere will, unfortunately, not be decreasing any time soon, but that is no reason to let the global standing of the West decrease instead.

Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (Saint-Louis University of Louvain), a philosopher (Saint-Louis University of Louvain) and a doctor in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is the author of The Green Reich.

Climate Change Alarmism Is a Lie that Must Stop :: Gatestone Institute

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