Skip to main content

TIME and the Nuclear Energy Conundrum

time coverTIME Magazine offers a bit of a head scratch today. For most of Bryan Walsh’s article, mostly about nuclear energy, the author is quite the downer on doing anything with any energy source. And his approach is peculiarly inexact. For example:

Even with massive help from the Obama Administration, renewable energy start-ups like Solyndra went bankrupt, challenging existing technology.

Not “start-ups like Solyndra,” “Solyndra.” Most other solar panel companies are doing okay. The last phrase, “challenging existing technology,” is completely mysterious. Other solar technologies? I just don’t know.

This is how Walsh rolls, apparently.

With the fracking revolution pumping out cheap natural gas in the U.S. and renewables preferred in much of Europe, nuclear will remain in decline in the developed world unless it can get cheaper.

If Germany is much of Europe, fine, but otherwise, nuclear energy is not seen as in decline in Europe. But after being annoyed with Walsh’s style and uncertain grasp of facts for several paragraphs, he suddenly has an epiphany – with which one can agree.

According to statistics from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2013, between 1993 and 2002, carbon-free sources — meaning nuclear, hydro and renewables — made up 19% of total increase in global energy consumption. Between 2003 and ’12, as the rate of global energy consumption doubled, carbon-free sources made up only 14% of that increase. (Hat tip to Roger Pielke Jr. for pointing out these trends.) Despite the very rapid increases in renewables like wind and solar over the past decade — albeit from a very tiny beginning — we are losing the war to decarbonize our energy supply.

This still suffers from details scattered all over the place. At least they’re the right details and the point is good: even with all the best intentions, it’s tough to get to a carbon free profile on renewable energy alone – not tough at all with nuclear energy.

I think nuclear can play a significant role in decarbonization, but it will only happen if atomic power isn’t expensive — all the more so given that most of the increase in global energy consumption will be coming in developing countries that are especially price sensitive.

To be clear, “atomic power” isn’t expensive, though it does have daunting up-front costs. Additionally, the electricity it adds to the grid won’t blow any holes into an electricity bill. For some countries – we’ve recently talked about UAE – it’s not essential to decarbonize, though that’s a excellent goal, but to make a lot of electricity. Here’s a bit from ENEC, the UAE government agency overseeing nuclear energy-related activities:

Energy demand in the UAE is growing at an annual rate of about 9 per cent – three times the global average. Developing a reliable supply of electricity is critical to the future growth of the Nation. ENEC is taking on this challenge, with a target of delivering electricity to the UAE grid in 2017.  By 2020, it is projected that nuclear energy will produce nearly a quarter of the nation’s electricity needs.

Significant quantity significantly fast. ENEC doesn’t ignore global warming, yet it does not even get a mention here. It’s important, but “the future growth of the nation” is more important. (I don’t necessarily agree with the priorities, but UAE is allowed to have its own, yes?)

Walsh’s piece is headlined Nuclear Energy Is Largely Safe. But Can It Be Cheap? with the subtitle: Outside of the developing world, nuclear energy is on the retreat, thanks largely to the spiraling costs of new atomic plants. But innovative reactor designs could change the equation.

TIME makes nuclear energy and its use seem more a conundrum than it really is, even though its heart is in the right place. Take a look at the article – I did not mention the innovative reactor design (spoiler: molten salt) at all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should