Pollution and Progress: The Nuclear Dilemma

When it comes to energy production, nuclear energy is one of the more controversial sources of electricity used today, even though it accounts for a little under 20% of electricity production in the US. In the US, the construction of new nuclear power plants is fairly rare. In fact, from 1977 until 2013, no new nuclear power plants began construction, although there are currently two new facilities under construction. Now, many old reactors are reaching the ends of their lifetimes and are being decommissioned; in fact, the Palisades nuclear power plant, which is about a half hour drive from Andrews University, is one such plant, and it is to be decommissioned this spring. Given this, I think it would be profitable to take a close look at nuclear energy: how dangerous is it, what are some of its advantages and disadvantages, what are other countries doing with it, and should we be using it?

When many people think of nuclear power, I am quite confident that what comes to people’s minds are two places, Chernobyl and Fukushima, where two major nuclear power plant disasters took place. Thus, we would expect that there are quite a few deaths and health hazards associated with nuclear power. Thankfully, scientists have looked at the various types of power generation and have compared how many premature deaths are caused by each one. Taking into account the deaths from nuclear disasters, nuclear energy comes in at 0.07 deaths per terawatt-hour (TWH) (for context, the US produces about 4,007 TWH annually). Comparing this to other methods of power generation, unsurprisingly, the number of deaths per TWH for nuclear power is more than wind and solar power, which come in at 0.04 and 0.02 deaths per TWH respectively. However, what is more surprising is how this compares to coal, which has 24.6 deaths per TWH, and oil, which has 18.4. This means that coal power is over 350 times more deadly than nuclear power.

The reason why people know about the nuclear disasters, why they appear all over the news when they happen, is precisely because they are so rare and unusual. Nuclear reactors have many safety measures built into them because when they catastrophically fail, it can be really bad. But catastrophic failures almost never happen.¹ In fact, the Fukushima meltdown was determined by a commission to have been preventable and caused by human error, as a result of mismanagement, and lack of safety oversight and training. When reactors are managed properly, like the vast majority are, they are actually one of the safest power options we have.

Besides their danger, one objection many critics of nuclear energy have is the difficulty of storing nuclear waste. This is indeed something that one has to deal with when nuclear reactors are developed. However, scientists and engineers have developed many different solutions for storing nuclear waste. For example, one commonly used technique is deep geological disposal, where the nuclear waste is put in multilayer, corrosion resistant tanks and stored hundreds of meters underground, where it can safely decay without risk of leaking. Other solutions include near surface storage facilities, where one prominent method includes storing tanks of nuclear waste in large pools of water. The water absorbs any nuclear radiation from the waste, allowing safe storage.

Now, if humanity wants to move towards entirely renewable energy, should we even be investing in nuclear energy? Why not just move directly into producing more solar and wind farms for energy? There are several main problems with solar and wind energy that make them hard to use as the exclusive sources of power, primarily being inconsistency and storage. The sun isn’t always shining, and the wind isn’t always blowing, and as such, one can’t control how much power one has access to.

For this reason, when one develops solar and wind power facilities, one also often needs to create large power storage systems to store electricity for “rainy days.” While there are many power storage system solutions both currently available and in development (the US recently invested $27 million in energy storage research), having a steady source of power that is predictable and controllable makes both windless days and spikes in power consumption easier to deal with. In the US, that steady power production is currently mostly from fossil fuels, which accounts for 60% of US electricity. Thus, nuclear is a great alternative to fossil fuels as we work on transitioning to other renewable sources. Either way, even once the electrical grid goes completely carbon-free, there needs to be something that is a stable energy source, and, in my opinion, better nuclear than fossil fuels, since as shown before, it is both safer for humans and better for the environment.

So, given what we know, what should the US do? I think there are two possible responses to nuclear energy that are exemplified by Germany and France. Germany, in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown, has been moving towards a complete phase out of all nuclear power. France, on the other hand, has been pursuing nuclear power as a primary energy source, even having up to 70% of their electrical generation coming from nuclear energy, although they are planning on reducing that to 50% by 2035. Germany currently uses fossil fuels for over 40% of their power generation, with renewables accounting for about 44%. France, on the other hand, only derives about 7% of its energy consumption from fossil fuels.

Which way is better: to pursue nuclear power generation or focus on other renewable sources? Depending on who you ask, you will get different answers on what the best answer is, but I think, given what you now know, you will agree that nuclear power is a much better alternative to fossil fuels. Not only is it safer, but while coal produces 820 tonnes of greenhouse gasses per gigawatt-hour (GWH), nuclear energy only produces 3. It is a consensus in the scientific community that every country needs to move towards getting rid of fossil fuels and moving towards green energy. Certainly, shutting down nuclear reactors for no other reason than the fictitious belief that they are more dangerous than other sources of power following disasters like Fukushima is not helping the problem.

Nuclear power is a proven method of generating electricity for use in our everyday lives, it is capable of being a stable source of clean energy to our power grids, and it may be the best short-term solution as we still work on solving the problems involved in the widespread implementation of renewable energy sources. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, stated that nuclear power is “the most carbon-free way to produce electricity with renewables." It certainly seems to be a good option, but either way, every day we spend debating whether to pursue nuclear energy or not is a day in which we are delaying the transition towards more sustainable sources. In any case, we need to get over our fears of the past and look to the facts as we progress into a more sustainable future.

¹ Though accidents do occasionally happen, with the vast majority of nuclear reactors proper care is truly taken, as is exemplified in the rarity of nuclear accidents. Fukushima is an exception in that way, it is an unfortunate example where care was not taken. One can just as easily talk about how care is often not taken on oil rigs, or in coal mines, and probably also in building hydroelectric dams and other renewable sources. People cutting corners and not following regulations is something common to all areas. Since Fukushima, there has been significantly more oversight with nuclear power, so it is almost a tragic blessing, although it would be ideal if other power sources could have similar levels of oversight.