Kazen 1

John Kazen

Giuliani, Laurie

RHE 306

31 October 2019

Do We Need The Nuclear Option?

In the Spring of 2018, the owners of the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant based in Massachusetts, shut

down the facility after nearly 50 years, as it proved too costly and couldn’t compete against

cheap natural gas. Nuclear opponent, Mary Lampert, founder of the citizens’ group Pilgrim

Watch says, “good riddance” as she claims the nuclear plant, once rated the worst in the nation

by regulators, was unsafe, unreliable, and generally unwanted. According to Lampert, “We have

plenty—Nuclear power has had its day. We are transitioning to a different type of electric

economy”(qtd. in Gellerman par. 2, 3). While on the subject of climate change, Gellerman, as

opposed to Lampert, believes nuclear energy may be part of the solution. As of Spring 2019,

nuclear is the second-largest low-carbon power source in the world, accounting for 10% of

global electricity generation, only second to hydropower at 16%.

In high income countries such as the United States, Canada, the European Union and

Japan, nuclear power has been the largest low-carbon source of electricity for more than 30 years

and going. Nuclear energy plays an important role in electricity security in several countries

(“Steep Decline”).Considering the radioactive waste, plant safety, and expenses, Pilgrim

produced most of the carbon-free, climate friendly electricity generated in Massachusetts which
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is more than solar, wind, and hydroelectricity combined. “Nuclear power plants produce about

50 percent of our carbon-free electricity,” said Ken Kimmel, president of Cambridge based

Union of Concerned Scientists (qtd. In Gellerman par. 6). Nuclear power has played its most

important role, especially in France, with 70% of its electricity generated from nuclear reactors.

However, many currently operating reactors are nearing their end. In the US, the European

Union, and Russia, power plants’ operation averages around 35 years or more, nearing their

destined lifespan of 40 years (Johnson par. 5).

A 2018 study by the Nuclear Watchdog group found, a third of the nations remaining 97

nuclear plants are in financial distress or could close prematurely (Gellerman par. 5). To avert

global climate catastrophe we must “decarbonize” the world’s economy by mid century. The

United States leads the number of operating reactors with 97 plants capable of generating 105

gigawatts. However, building new nuclear power plants that are based on traditional designs is

nearly impossible in developed countries, according to IEA analysts. High costs and long

construction time proves too challenging as well as time to recover costs once plants start

operation. Other interferences include radioactive waste disposal, not to mention the competitive

electricity marketplace in the US which makes it difficult to sell nuclear energy compared to

cheap natural gas, wind, or solar energy. As of September 2019, only 11 nuclear plants are under

construction in developed societies with 4 being based in South Korea (Johnson, par. 5,6).

This isn't an energy future you can bank on, said Paul Hibbard, former chairman of the

Massachusetts Department of Utilities. “I think there’s a lot of resistance among investors at this

point in time to invest in new nuclear capacity,” he said, “because it's not economic compared

with the alternative.” Hibbard, now with the Boston-based Analysis Group, a global economic
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consulting firm, says electricity generated by wind and solar is now cheaper than nuclear in

many places. “Until the fundamental economics of constructing and operating nuclear plants

changes, I don’t see a lot happening other than investments to maintain and to safely operate the

existing nuclear assets,” said Hibbard (Gellerman, par. 15-18). However, not all nuclear

scientists agree with this viewpoint. Jacopo Buongiorno, head of MIT's Center for Advanced

Nuclear Energy Systems, claims the least-cost path in decarbonizing our economy includes

nuclear energy as we can’t afford to construct new nuclear power plants. “Nuclear still has to

play a big role, and that is because if you exclude nuclear what are you left with?” he asks.

Buongiorno led ​The Future of Nuclear Energy​ ​in a Carbon-Constrained World​ study, the eighth

series of studies done by MIT on the future of nuclear energy. “Our analysis shows that the most

effective and frankly least-cost path toward decarbonizing our economy includes nuclear

energy,” or, he said, another low carbon energy source available on demand. Buongiorno

believes renewable isn’t always readily available; no one can control when the sun shines or the

wind blows. And while the price for large-scale battery storage has decreased drastically, it still

proves too costly. So MIT professor Buongiorno argues we will need an abundance of new

nuclear power in order to fuel our carbon-free future, or alternatively, an abundance of easily

available renewable energy resources.

Scientists, like Buongiorno, firmly believe in easily available renewable energy resources

while protecting the lifespan of nuclear power plants. Scientists such as Rachel Cleetus, the

UCS’s climate and energy policy director, backup Buongiorno’s viewpoints. The UCS’s

proposed solution in providing energy is to tax and cap carbon dioxide emissions while

introducing low-carbon electricity standards for all energy sources. The UCS believes following
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these measures would jumpstart construction and development of low-carbon energy facilities

alongside technologies. Considering the future of nuclear energy, the organization endorses

temporary financial support for the extension of some nuclear plants, alongside greater

investments in renewables and energy efficiency conditioned on rate protection for consumers,

and safety requirements. “We can’t just give them lots of money and blanket life extensions,”

Cleetus said. The UCS’s provided scenarios and mathematical models estimate that nuclear

energy is very unlikely to grow beyond providing at most 16% of the world’s electricity

generation capacity by 2050; even with aid, Cleetus and the UCS believe their goal would be far

short of the 85% or more of the little to none carbon generation needed to address global

warming (Johnson, par. 10,11). However, with the aid of a new nuclear energy advocate, the

solution to the risk of safety may have shown itself.

“When you look at the technology, and you ask yourself, how are we going to solve this

problem of climate change, and how are we going to decarbonize? To not have nuclear energy

on the table makes the job much harder,” said Per Peterson, a professor in UC Berkeley’s

department of nuclear engineering (qtd. in Murdock par. 2). As previously mentioned, All

nuclear reactors in the U.S. were built over 35 years ago. Historically speaking nuclear power

plants have had two big problems: they produce radioactive nuclear waste, and secondly, they

can be vulnerable to a disaster like a nuclear meltdown. Nuclear meltdowns occur because water

that’s used to cool the radioactive fuel rods can’t be pumped in which is due in part to backup

power failure. This fuel heats up rapidly and since these reactors operate at high-pressure, there

can be the possibility of explosion due to the excess heat (Long, et. al). Leslie Dewan,

co-founder and CEO of a startup company, Transatomic Power, has a proposed solution to the
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efficiency of power plants. “Our reactors operate at atmospheric pressure and you don’t need that

typical containment door. You don’t need the big stacks. You have a lot more flexibility in the

architecture of the plant” (Long, 2:15-2:25 ​). ​This redesign could ultimately prevent the risk of

explosion that is so feared by everyday people. However, it’s not only about stopping potential

disasters, the fuel in itself is toxic and has to be stored underground for a period well over a

thousand years. “You can only extract about 4 percent of the energy that you could conceivably

get out of uranium, and the rest is left behind as waste”(Long, 2:50-2:58 ). Coincidentally, that

method of extraction was used in older nuclear reactors. With Transatomic’s reactor design, fuel

will be used in a liquid form so it can stay within the reactors for longer periods of time, which

inadvertently reduces the amount of waste left over. There’s an interest to phase out conventional

fuel rods for different forms of fuel as seen with Per Peterson’s recent developments. Per

Peterson is a nuclear engineer at the University of California Berkeley who’s working on a

next-generation reactor design that uses an entirely different form of fuel (Long, et al.). “In the

last 20 or 30 years, we've developed different types of fuel, which, in fact, physically cannot

melt,” said Peterson (qtd. in Murdock par. 4). Peterson works with pebble-bed reactors,

“pebbles” are small spherical units of fuel where radioactive material is encased in a ceramic

shell that can withstand extremely high temperatures. Fuel pebbles can empty into a holding tank

if a power outage were ever to occur, an advantage old reactors couldn’t achieve (Murdock par.

5). As innovative as they may seem, none of these advances can quite overcome nuclear energy’s

biggest challenge: fear. , Dan Kammen, who is also a professor in the department of nuclear

engineering at UC Berkeley, believes while many nuclear worries are overblown, it’s clear that

nuclear power’s bad reputation has been well deserved (Murdock par. 7).
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Nuclear power plants have been defined by the rare catastrophes throughout the decades:

Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl; so much so that people rarely, or don’t even

consider how they compare with fossil fuel plants. “Nuclear is massively safer than coal,” said

Kammen. “I'd much rather have a nuclear plant nearby my home than a coal-fired power plant.

When you look at the number of deaths on an immediate basis, even one of these horrible

nuclear accidents or long-term from a coal plant, there really is no comparison”(qtd. In Murdock,

par. 9,10). Underlying the debates about power plant costs and operating lifetimes are questions

of actual safety and risks of nuclear reactors and radioactivity. These recent concerns have made

nuclear power unpopular in the US, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. Essentially there seems to

be two main debated viewpoints when looking at nuclear energy as a possible reliable energy

source. Paul Hibbard, Mary Lampert, and IEA analysts believe with competition against​ ​cheap

natural gas and renewable energy, there is a low demand for nuclear power plants; with rising

operational costs, safety, and performance problems, the profitability of nuclear power plants is

diminishing. However, the counter argument which consists of the Union of Concerned

Scientists, the Nuclear Watchdog group, MIT's Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems,

and the department of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley, all advocate for a future that solves

the problem of climate change with safer, more efficiently run nuclear reactors; the least-cost

path in decarbonizing the economy which includes nuclear energy within the near future.
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Works Cited

Gellerman, Bruce. “To Combat Climate Change, Do We Need The Nuclear Option?” To

Combat Climate Change, Do We Need The Nuclear Option? | Earthwhile, WBUR,

17 Sept. 2019,

www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2019/09/17/nuclear-power-future-history-controversy​.

Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.

Johnson, Jeff. “Can Nuclear Power Help Save Us from Climate Change?” Chemical &

Engineering News, American Chemical Society, 26 Sept. 2019,

cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-help-save-us/97/i37.​ Accessed 6

Oct. 2019.

“Steep Decline in Nuclear Power Would Threaten Energy Security and Climate Goals.”

International Energy Agency,

www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/may/steep-decline-in-nuclear-power-would-th

reaten-energy-security-and-climate-goals.html​. Accessed Oct. 6, 2019.

Murdock, Andy, and University of California. “The Fight to Rethink (and Reinvent)

Nuclear Power.” ​Vox,​ Vox, 17 May 2017,

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www.vox.com/videos/2017/5/17/15650406/nuclear-power-university-of-california

. Accessed Oct. 30, 2019.

Long, Zak, et al., directors. The Fight to Rethink (and Reinvent) Nuclear Power.

YouTube, University of California in Partnership with Vox, 17 May 2017,

youtu.be/poPLSgbSO6k.​ Accessed Oct. 30, 2019