Let's Talk About Energy
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Energy is a subject I’ve been tracking with great interest for a few years now. Everyone in modern industrialized societies uses a lot of it, every developing nation is trying to scale it as fast as they can, it is the largest industry on the planet, and of course emissions from power generation are at the bedrock of fear around climate change.
Since the demand for energy and electricity is only going up due to the increased use of electronics and developing nations working to supply power to all, we need to find the cleanest way to produce energy for 7+ billion people. Despite the Paris Climate Accord and the doom-saying around the world ending, humanity is burning more fossil fuels than ever before. In fact, fossil fuel use increases globally each year.
What do we do?
To my mind (and I’ve thought a bizarre amount about this over the past several years), the only answer is nuclear power. Before you scream, “No way!!” check it out.
Types of Fuel Used in Energy Production
Fossil Fuels
US infrastructure is geared around fossil fuel energy production
Natural gas and coal account for roughly 60% of US power generation
Mining and emissions kill hundreds of thousands of people around the globe each year via air pollution, spills, and waste dumps
The supply chain - mining, refining & transport - is long, dirty, and expensive
Renewables
Solar accounts for 2-3% of US power generation and wind is at 8% in 2023 after hundreds of billions of dollars in investment the past decade.
Renewables harvest energy from sun and wind, which don’t require mining to replenish, but …
Solar panels and windmills need to be manufactured by the millions, which means mineral mining, industrial manufacturing, transport, and installation. The supply chain is also long and dirty, and disposal is an issue.
Renewables need large land areas on which to put solar and wind farms.
The fossil fuel industry is in favor of renewables (whaaaaaat?). Yep.
Renewables do not supply consistent power, which means they need fossil fuel backups - or - batteries. But batteries have a horrific supply chain of their own (Check out Cobalt Red for the story on human exploitation and slave labor in the Congo to mine cobalt for phone, car, and home battery systems) and cannot scale to support city size energy needs, let alone the needs of entire continents.
Renewables as of yet have not proven they can come close to providing the scale of power we need for modern industrial society.
Biomass
Also known as burning wood.
Clearcutting forests is not ideal and growing them back takes decades. Then we’re still burning a fuel that emits pollution into the atmosphere.
Extremely low power output.
Hydrogen
A clean burning fuel, but you need a power source to generate the necessary elements to even consider using hydrogen at scale.
Currently the power source is mostly in the form of fossil fuels, specifically natural gas.
Fusion
Amazing in theory, but has to get off the drawing board.
Finally we come to - Fission
Also known as nuclear.
Nuclear involves mining uranium. Relative to every other mineral energy source, a fractional amount of uranium is necessary to produce power for the life of a power station.
One pellet of uranium the size of a golf ball is equal to two tons of coal in energy output.
Nuclear energy plants give off zero emissions. The nuclear reactor creates heat, which creates steam, which turns a turbine to create electricity. Same as every other large scale power generating source - hydro, coal, natural gas, etc.
What about the dangers of nuclear energy plants?
Guess how many people died from the meltdown at Fukushima? Zero.
(I was shocked to learn this)
Guess how many people died from the meltdown at Three Mile Island? Zero.
Chernobyl - the worst meltdown disaster in history. Fifty deaths and four thousand people affected by radiation. No containment dome. Cleanup crews were sent in without proper protective gear (It was the last days of the crumbling Soviet Union, after all).
Nuclear is the most highly regulated energy production supply chain. Storage of nuclear material is under intense supervision by the IAEA and US gov’t.
Who even uses nuclear energy plants anymore?
Well, the US. 20% of our power comes from nuclear plants in 2023.
Russia also attains 20% of its power from nuclear plants in 2023.
France gets a whopping 70% of its power from nuclear in 2023 and is the global leader.
China is building advanced nuclear plants at an intense speed in order to meet its goal of being carbon neutral by 2060.
India is building advanced nuclear plants to offset its reliance on coal.
Other useful facts
Uranium fuel is replenished approximately every 3-4 years.
All the spent nuclear fuel containers in the US since the 1960’s would fit on three football fields.
Tens of thousands of Navy submariners have lived underwater in the same metal tube as a small scale reactor since the 1960’s and don’t have three eyeballs.
Advanced nuclear and SMR (small modular reactor) technologies are currently being developed to both use more of the uranium fuel loaded into a reactor and to lower the barrier of cost entry / size needed to set up a reactor.
Nuclear produced energy can be used to make hydrogen fuel for industrial uses such as aviation, construction, etc at scale.
Ultimately the industrial world relies on affordable, reliable, and available power. We can track the growth of humanity and modern society in tandem with energy growth and availability for the entire 20th century.
If you are reading this, you likely live in what is considered a developed nation, but there are many developing nations that want and indeed demand the same affordable, reliable, and available power. What is the UN going to do? Tell them they can’t have what more prosperous countries have had for decades - supply of energy that has created previously unforeseen wealth and lifted billions out of poverty? In an age where inequality is top of mind, that stance would seem to be decidedly against the goal of global equality.
To sum it up - energy is required for modern life. We need it. Developing nations demand it. Humanity is not going back to candles, postcards, and corded phones, and as much as some people fantasize about it, the population is not going to shrink anytime soon, so we better figure it out.
I would calculate, based on the above, that we have the solution to our problems of reliable power for all of humanity and atmospheric carbon reduction, and we’ve had it for 60+ years. Now we need a plurality of people to come to the understanding that nuclear power is not only not dangerous, but is a vital necessity to a cleaner and more stable future.
UPDATE June 21, 2023
Currently in Mexico and just lost power for 2 full days. Modern life does not run without electricity. You’re either in 2023 or you’re in 1850. No internet, no refrigeration, no TV, no AC, no fans, no laundry, no cooking if you have an electric stove - literally nothing. It’s candles for light, non-perishable food, and to bed when the sun goes down. The importance of available electricity cannot be overstated.
BONUS CONTENT
There is some seriously dense literature out there regarding nuclear energy, but for some easily consumable stuff check out the following:
Bret Kugelmass, CEO of Last Energy speaks about the future of nuclear and SMR’s (small modular reactors) on The Realignment podcast in a tight 45-minute segment.
Nuclear Now is a new documentary that revisits the perceptions of nuclear from the 1960’s in post WWII America and how advanced nuclear and SMR’s are paving the way for the future of clean energy.
A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow is a book detailing similar information to Nuclear Now if you prefer to read.
NuScale Power out of Oregon is building an SMR (small modular reactor) called Voyagr that has been approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I’ve been tracking the company for some time. Lots of informational resources on their site to check out.
Also to reiterate, I highly recommend Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara. The author went to the DRC, risked life and limb to bring back the story of what’s really going on there, and what is happening in the name of mineral mining for batteries is truly unbelievable. You’ll never look at your smartphone or electric car the same again.