Tag Archives: nuclear power

Electricity.

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Electricity went from being a cute pet trick in the 18th Century to being the vital energy of the later 19th and 20th Centuries.  Electricity could power factory machinery in a far more flexible and efficient fashion than could steam-engines.  Electricity came to play a direct part in the transformation process itself (steel, aluminum).  Electricity could light cities and homes, and made possible telegraphs and telephones.  Demand soared as more and more applications were created.  Think about air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, televisions.  The 1950s and 1960s coincided with the growth of electricity consumption.  Moreover, electricity became a politically-contested industry.  It ended up being highly regulated.[1] 

Then, about 2000, electricity generation plateaued.  Electricity-consuming goods became more efficient; population growth slowed, and no new major consumers of electricity were created.  Electricity consumption slowed to a crawl, rising only about 1 percent per year. 

One effect of the plateauing is that electrical generators and transmitters cut back on physical plant and human capital, while shifting their energies into new ventures. 

The electricity itself came from one of two sources.  Some of it came from hydropower (damming rivers).  First and foremost, it came from generators that burned carbon (wood, coal, oil, gasoline, natural gas).  So electricity was “clean” at its end-point, but very “dirty” at its point of origin.  So what?  So environmental concerns grew increasingly powerful.  No one quarreled much with the end-stage electricity.  The creation-phase (generation) electricity caused great concern.  Burning lots of carbon released greenhouse gases and promoted global warming. 

The pursuit of efficiency has slowed, even stalled, the growth of carbon burning in many areas.  The consumption of gasoline, jet fuel, and heating oil have all stopped rising since about 2000.  No, it hasn’t made it go away. It’s just that the damage inflicted has been limited.   

Now we seem on the cusp of a new expansion of electricity consumption.  Things like data centers, new factories, and the response to global warming itself (electric cars, heat pumps) promise to push up the demand for electricity.  The environmental concerns are increasingly pressing as a long-term concern. 

What are the requirements of and constraints on non-carbon electricity generation?  Non-carbon electricity generation means solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power.  Generation, transmission, distribution, and storage all cost a lot of money and pose technical problems. 

The shift of the industry toward stability twenty years ago now impedes rapid expansion.  Even building capacity.  Things might go a different way.  Then, the extensive regulations and shortage of workers also limits rapid expansion.  A utility that has bet big on renewable energy faces a fight year wait before it can connect to the electrical power grid.  A company can go bankrupt during the wait. 

It seems unreasonable to suppose that outmoded political and social beliefs can hold back science and technology for very long.  It also seems unreasonable to believe that lots of regulation can go hand in hand with lots of innovation. 

[1] Greg Ip, “Electricity, Not Oil, Is Growth’s Engine,” WSJ, 28 March 2025. 

Climate of Fear XXI.

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If the world does not cut carbon dioxide emission by 45 percent by 2030 and by 100 percent by 2050, then we can expect many extreme weather events.  These will include droughts, forest fires, floods, and storms.  Thus says the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).[1]  However, experts believe that it will take decades to raise wind and solar energy sources to a level where they can supplant carbon-burning energy sources.

Wind and solar currently provide about 8 percent of America’s energy.  Expanding its infrastructure could encounter difficulties.  For example, in California, the amount of land needed for a solar farm is vast: 450 times the space needed for a nuclear plant.  Yes, but solar and wind infrastructure is cheap!  Well, no.  The infrastructure (cement, wiring, panels) cost about the same to produce about the same amount of electricity.

Germany swore off nuclear power in favor of renewable energy sources.  Today, Germany derives 38 percent of its energy from renewable sources.  Germany switched to burning more carbon during the transition period away from nuclear in order to prevent a huge slump in energy supply and a huge price spike.  As a result, its carbon emissions haven’t fallen and Germany’s electricity prices are higher than any country in Europe.

If you compare the cost in human lives between nuclear power and carbon-burning, you find that no one died from Three Mile Island, one person died from Fukushima, and sixty people died directly from Chernobyl.[2]  In comparison, experts suggest that seven million people die every year as a result of burning carbon.

So, why not use nuclear energy?  Nuclear already provides about 20 percent of American energy.  Today, Sweden gets 40 percent of its energy from nuclear power.  It is a proven technology, while wind and solar face a bunch of problems.  The initial investment is high—about $7 billion—but the subsequent maintenances costs are very low.  It could be rapidly scaled-up by building reactors in Maine.[3]

Nuclear waste constitutes the main road-block to using nuclear power.  Spent fuel rods from reactors can continue to emit dangerous radiation for tens of thousands of years.   The pre-terrorist solution was to cool the rods in water, then to seal them up in concrete lockers.  The current solution is to bury them underground.  However, NIMBY[4] resistance put a stop to the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada States.  Barack Obama needed Nevada’s electoral votes to wind the presidency, so he promised to stall the ball.  Ultimately, he killed it.

Still, America is a country with a relatively stable energy demand.  What about Still-Industrializing Countries (SICs) like China and India?  Nuclear power appears to offer the only alternative to carbon-burning in these countries.  At the same time, the world’s worst nuclear accident—Chernobyl in the Soviet Union—resulted from an Actually-Existing-Third-World-Country betting on nuclear power.  This is a cheap, scary alternative to the “Green New Deal.”

[1] “Nuclear power and climate change,” The Week, 15 March 2019.

[2] Several thousand emergency personnel died from their heroic efforts to contain the disaster.  The heroism of the then-Soviet first-responders needs to be acknowledged.

[3] Hardly anyone lives there; the prevailing winds would carry any accident-produced waste over the Canadian Maritimes and the North Atlantic.  OK, that’s cold on my part.  What’s your solution?  Eastern Montana?

[4] Not In My Back Yard.