Woking up to Nuclear Power

Consider this smattering of recent news articles about nuclear power:

Nuclear power: Can it meet Africa’s energy needs?

Advancing the Nuclear Power Plant: Current Developments

Colorado’s Mini Nuclear Power Plants Could Help Power Space

Inside the U.S. government project to create tiny nuclear reactors like batteries

Explainer-Could Germany keep its nuclear plants running?

Japan eyes restarting nuclear reactors as heat wave causes power crunch

Minnesota’s energy and climate needs absolutely require more nuclear power

The Netherlands, Facing Energy And Climate Crises, Bets On A Nuclear Revival

Why Nuclear Energy Is More Relevant Than Ever

World leaders are finally acknowledging the reality that their Wind-and-Solar-and-Battery (WASABI) aspirations are crashing against granite cliffs of reality. The imperious "Make It So" approach to greening national energy grids isn't working as intended, as they discover they cannot simply decree their desired state of things into existence.

The idiocy to date has been mind-numbing. Germany, in the wake of the Fukushima accident, decided to shut down all her nuclear plants. Yet, the actual harm from Fukushima was miniscule. A single radiation-related death, many years later. Dozens die every day in mining accidents around the world - mining that produces not just coal, but the rare earths and lithium that WASABI requires. A hundred Americans die every year in oil rig accidents in the US alone. Then there's the radiation released into the environment:

Utterly trivial.

Ditto for the Three Mile Island accident (part 2 of the anti-nuclear "mic drop" trio). That release was so insignificant that not a single additional incidence of cancer could be attributed to it.

Then there's Chernobyl. A reactor built with a disregard for safety so wanton that it's not even worth mentioning in this context, because no Western reactor has been built or would ever be built like it. You'll never, ever, see a Chernobyl in the West.

In normal operation, nuclear plants are so safe that the only deaths apart from the solitary Fukushima fatality across their operational history was a murder-suicide at a plant that had nothing to do with radiation. The radiation they expose the public to is also utterly trivial.

WASABI's resource problem is a dirty secret (in multiple ways) that politicians ignore, greens wave off, and the general public is woefully ignorant of.

WASABI's acreage problem is also widely ignored.

What of accidents? What if a “worst case” hasn’t happened yet, but can?

There is the existing record of nuclear power across the 71 years since the first one went on line. Today, there are 440 nuclear plants across the world, with 93 in the US alone. Those 440 produce 10% of the world’s power overall. France gets 70% of her power from nuclear. Hungary, 45%. Bulgaria, 35%. Finland, 33%. Sweden,31%. America actually lags all these nations, at 19%. Nuclear power is all over the world and has a better safety record than any other significant power source. Beyond this record, there is the “fail-safe” aspect of certain advanced designs. Without getting too technical, reactor meltdowns happen when cooling systems fail and the coolant boils off. With some reactors, the presence of coolant is necessary for nuclear fission to actually happen (it serves as a moderator as well), so lose the coolant, and the reactor stops working. Meltdowns cannot happen in such designs.

Nuclear power has long been unjustly feared. That fear is born overwhelmingly of simple ignorance and stoked by a press corps that is a - also ignorant, b - unwilling to remedy that ignorance by simply learning some facts, and c - more incentivized to leverage that fear for ratings (aka dollars) than tell people "you needn't worry."

Politicians, also highly resistant to facts, play to the public's fears, and stand in strident opposition, even when there's no reason to and every reason not to. New York's disgraced Governor Andrew Cuomo shut down the Indian Point power plant north of NYCity last spring. That was about a gigawatt of generating power that is now being made up by, among other things, gas turbine generators emitting carbon that Indian Point did not produce. The wind turbines that Cuomo envisioned would eventually replace that output will eat up 1300x the land that Indian Point sat on, and count on most of that acreage being bitterly fought over.

Modern technology is moving us toward "modular" reactors, which can be mass produced in a factory instead of custom-built on side - and reprocessed in a similar fashion. Additionally, small reactors - smaller than a shipping container - are also in the pipeline, allowing for portable and widely distributed power generation that doesn't have the problems that wind and solar do.

Most sober and serious green advocates recognize that nuclear power must be the backbone of any green grid. It's only dilettantes, i.e. people who embrace a fantastical delusion and don't bother digging into the numbers or other realities, that won't accept this. As those dilettantes start to feel the realities: the rolling blackouts, the rising prices, the insecurity of the grid, the global realpolitik, and the like, they are starting to "woke up" to nuclear power.

The nice thing is - you don't even have to be a global warming armageddonist to support a robust expansion of nuclear power generation domestically. It'd free up domestic gas and oil for export, enabling us to support our allies and undermine our foes. It'd not hoover up vast tracts of land the way solar panels and windmills do. It wouldn't rely on China for rare earths to make those turbines and solar panels. And, it'd help us move closer to what I believe is the next real step in vehicle power trains: hydrogen fuel cells.

As I've written time and again, anyone who demands action against global warming but doesn't immediately mention nuclear power is either unserious or has a hidden agenda. The unserious are getting with the program, and the hidden agenda folks are being exposed for the socialistic humanity haters they are.

If you're ambivalent or nervous about nuclear power, I strongly recommend watching Pandora's Promise. That and coming to terms with the fact that the press loves to lie to you about it. There's plenty of good info out there. Take a bit of time to learn more, and odds are good you'll join me in advocacy.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.