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The coalition of allies who understand the need to decarbonize is a broad one, and many of those invaluable players, honestly, and fairly, have come to the conclusion that some kind of nuclear component will be necessary to meet climate goals in the coming 2 decades. In this time of emergency, the last thing in the world we need is another classic circular firing squad among progressives over the issue of nuclear. In my state of Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been an indispensable leader in setting world-leading climate goals, and has also been a proponent of re-powering the closed Palisades nuclear reactor, as well as building two Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) at that site. There are other big industrial players looking at soon-to-close fossil fuel power plants as sites for SMRs. I have reservations, but I wish them all the luck in the world. Given the history of nuclear development in the US, they will need it. I push back only on the idea that nuclear is some kind of panacea, or easy slam dunk. I caution my anti-nuclear friends that the nuclear industry has never stumbled due to hippies carrying signs and demonstrating, but rather due to its own technical and economic ineptitude, and the merciless logic of markets. Worth remembering, there is no decarbonization scenario that does not include large buildouts of solar, wind, battery storage, and transmission. If you are pro-nuclear, join me in working to site solar, wind, transmission and batteries as quickly as possible. If you are anti-nuclear, leave the signs at home and show up at local meetings in support of siting clean energy and transmission. If the nuclear ambitions pan out, great, that money will not have been wasted. If nuclear remains true to the worst historical precedents, we are going to need all the clean energy steel in the ground we can muster, and then some.
Atomic power’s potential as a clean-energy source forestalling climate change is increasingly at risk, with new data suggesting nuclear growth could be threatened by spreading geopolitical instability and war.
While bankers balk at the $5 trillion price tag to triple atomic generation by 2050, researchers at George Washington Universityreported this week that deteriorating security inside key growth markets may also threaten the next nuclear-energy renaissance before it begins.
“It is hard to see how a tripling of nuclear energy could occur without exacerbating the risk of proliferation, nuclear terrorism, sabotage, coercion and weaponization,” said ex-US State Department diplomat Sharon Squassoni, who led the study. “Approaches to reducing carbon emissions really need to consider national security implications.”
The report authored by GW professor Sharon Squassoni, “ New Nuclear Energy: Assessing the National Security Risks,” comes as drone strikes against Ukrainian nuclear power plants highlight nuclear reactor vulnerabilities. Other risks will accompany nuclear growth as renewed interest in nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sparks programs across the globe, according to the report.
An attempt to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers using nuclear energy could worsen the risk of proliferation by motivating fuel cycle independence, the report states.
Many SMRs are still in development, with few restrictions on designs. Reactors fueled with highly enriched uranium or plutonium will increase risks of proliferation and terrorism because those materials are weapons usable, according to the report.
The report also finds: reactors designed to include lifetime cores will build up plutonium over time; fast reactor designs that require reprocessing, especially continuous recycling of fuel, could ultimately confer latent nuclear weapons capabilities to many more states; the kinds of reactors now under consideration do nothing to reduce known risks, and some pose heightened risks; there appears to be no attempt to forge agreement among suppliers or governments to restrict reactor choices that pose greater proliferation risks.
If the mass production of small modular reactors lowers barriers to entry into nuclear energy, there will be many more states deploying nuclear power reactors, and Russian and Chinese programs to promote nuclear energy target many of those states, according to the report.
…pledging to triple nuclear capacity by 2050 is a little like promising to win the lottery. For the United States, it would mean adding 200 gigawatts of nuclear operating capacity (almost double what the country has ever built) to the current 100 gigawatts or so, generated by more than 90 commercial reactors that have been running an average of 42 years. Globally it would mean tripling the existing capacity built over the past 70 years in less than half that time, in addition to replacing reactors that will shut down before 2050.
