The Russian invasion of Ukraine prompts new calls for investment in nuclear energy.
Tech billionaires are reportedly lining up behind a new generation of nuclear energy technology, a potential reversal of a decades-long move away from the original green energy.
They aren’t the only ones. After beginning a major rollback of nuclear power, the Germans appear to be backtracking after the Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted fears of an energy crisis.
Is this a good idea? Tulane Energy Institute Associate Director Eric Smith told WWL the TEI is completely in favor of renewed investment in what they believe is the most viable large scale low-to-no carbon option currently available.
Currently, 20% of the nation’s energy production comes from nuclear facilities, according to Smith, but construction of new facilities has been sparse over the last few decades. Smith said lingering bias against what was once viewed as the energy source of the future has crippled nuclear investment.
“The things that people hold against them are basically some fairly horrendous one off accidents,” said Smith.
The new technology being backed by figures like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and other prominent tech billionaires is what is called SMRs, or small modular reactors. Smith said these have about one-third to a sixth the footprint of current nuclear facilities, are easily transportable, and can be mass-produced in factories and easily assembled on site.
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But Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and most recently Fukushima are still burned into the consciousness of many. Smith argued that outside of a few high-profile incidents though, the technology is safe and has gotten even safer thanks to modern advancements. It also takes up significantly less space per unit of power generated than solar or wind.
“They are extremely reliable, they are extremely safe, and at the end of the day they produce a clean power source on a postage stamp sized piece of ground,” said Smith, who added that Louisiana currently draws power from five regional plants.
One problem with nuclear power is that the capital investment needed to get a plant off the ground and maintain it can be substantial, even if the amount of power it generates is impressive. Smith said it takes about ten times as many people to run a nuclear facility than it does a gas powered plant under current regulatory requirements, and most of those workers are engineers, with many of them filling out copious amounts of paperwork.
“These are not guys making $15 an hour,” said Smith.
But what some may consider an impediment, nuclear supporters argue could be a political opportunity to create thousands of high paying jobs.
What about disposal of waste? Where to put the byproduct of nuclear fuel production is a big question, and a touchy one considering no one wants to live near a spent fuel disposal site.
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Smith suggests that could be less of an issue these days if we follow the French’s lead. They’ve mandated nuclear fuel reprocessing, which reduces the amount of radioactive waste that requires disposal. French policy also requires standardized nuclear plant construction, another move that Smith said would greatly benefit U.S. nuclear production.
Smith said despite the popular fear of nuclear power there’s a fairly bulletproof argument that it’s the bridge to a green energy future while other tech gets perfected, and a potentially key component of green hydrogen, which many regard as the best hope for a carbon-free energy future.
“For the amount of energy you have to spend to build a plant and extract the fuel from Mother Earth, [nuclear] is about 100 to one the amount of power you get out of it as a result,” said Smith. “When you talk about gas and oil, it is in the 15 to one range, when you talk about wind and solar and hydro, it’s like three to one."
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