Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Sources – Climate Nuclear
Our World In Data supported us with great insight when putting this script together. They have many interactive charts on various topics. The two we especially referred a lot in this video are the ones on energy and electricity mixes:
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix
https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix
We also thank the following experts for their critical reading of the script and input:
Dr. Bob Brecha
Professor of Sustainability in the Hanley Sustainability Institute, University of Dayton
Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno
Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT
Member of the MIT Energy Initiative
Sources:
– More and more voices from science, environmental activists and the press have been saying so in recent years – but this comes as a shock to those who are fighting against nuclear energy and the problems that come with it. So who is right? Well - it is complicated.
#Climate Scientists for Nuclear, CNN, 2013
https://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists/
Quote. “Climate and energy scientists James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel and Tom Wigley have released an open letter calling on world leaders to support development of safer nuclear power systems.”
#Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-2/
This is a special report from the IPCC on the impact of climate change and the methods for avoiding a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures. Most of the methods proposed involve an increase in the share of nuclear power in the overall energy mix.
Quote. “Nuclear power increases its share in most 1.5°C pathways with no or limited overshoot by 2050, but in some pathways both the absolute capacity and share of power from nuclear generators decrease (Table 2.15).”
– To slow rapid climate change the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that to limit a global average temperature increase to less than 1.5ºC target, global emissions need to reach net zero by 2050.
#Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, IPCC, 2018
Quote: “Limiting warming to 1.5°C implies reaching net zero CO2 emissions globally around 2050 and concurrent deep reductions in emissions of non-CO2 forcers, particularly methane”
#OWID, Annual total CO₂ emissions, by world region, 2020.
– In 2018 three quarters of global emissions were released through energy production, namely by burning fossil fuels. Energy is a wide term that describes all sorts of stuff, from moving things and people around, to putting things, big and small, together or to heat our homes.
#ClimateWatch, Global Historical Emissions, 2020
In 2018, energy took up 76% of all greenhouse gas emissions. It encompasses the emissions from Electricity/Heat, Buildings, Manufacturing and Construction, Fugitive Emissions, Transportation and Other Fuel Combustion.
In the last 20 years, the emissions from energy production were always around 75%.
#Trends in Total CO2 and Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions, J.G.J. Olivier and J.A.H.W. Peters, 2019
Quote: “ In 2018, globally, oil made up 29% of Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES), for coal this was 25%, renewables plus nuclear was 24% and natural gas was 21%. In other words, 76% of the world’s energy supply still consisted of fossil fuels.”
Since renewables and nuclear don’t emit greenhouse gases in a significant amount, almost all emissions by the energy supply are coming from oil, coal and natural gas.
Our World in Data did a nice chart on the breakdown of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016:
#OWID, Greenhouse gas emissions by sector, 2020.
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#energy-electricity-heat-and-transport-73-2
– Currently, 84% of the world’s primary energy comes from fossil fuels – 33% from oil, 27% from coal and 24% from gas. Around 10% of the global oil supply is just used to burn in boilers to make our homes cosy and warm. Only about 16% of global energy is from low-emission sources: almost 7% from hydroelectric, 5% from solar, wind, bioenergy, wave, tidal, and geothermal combined and about 4% from nuclear.
We speak of primary energy if we refer to unconverted forms of energy, which includes petroleum, gas, coal and biomass, but also wind and solar radiation – so sources of energy that can be harnessed directly from nature. Secondary energy must be converted into other forms of energy before it can be used. Electricity can not be harvested or mined, but needs to be converted from other forms of energy, such as burning oil or gas.
So primary energy is the broadest category of energy.
#Statistical Review of World Energy, BP, 2020
Please note: slight deviations from these numbers may occur in the infographics shown in the video due to rounding of the decimals.
#Trends in Total CO2 and Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions, J.G.J. Olivier and J.A.H.W. Peters, 2019
Quote: “Globally, CO2 emissions from the residential and commercial buildings sector are only 10% of global total CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and almost one quarter of global gas consumption is used in this sector.”
#Peter Zeihan, A Look Under the Hood: Oil and COVID, 2020
https://zeihan.com/a-look-under-the-hood-oil-and-covid/
Quote: “Greens the world over have a reputation for going for big, splashy, high-tech, high-dollar, PR-friendly topics: Electronic vehicles, fields of solar panels, forests of wind turbines. That’s all well and good, but some 10% of global oil supply is burned in boilers to make heat and power for buildings. It is wildly inefficient, wildly expensive and not particularly safe.”
– So we pretty much rely on coal, oil and gas to keep our civilization going, which means it is actually very hard to transition away from them. To have a chance to escape fossil fuels without throwing humanity back into the stone age, one of the most impactful things we can do, is to electrify as many sectors as possible. Electricity is the stuff that appears like magic when you plug something into a socket so you can watch youtube. Every industry that can switch from burning fossil fuels to electricity needs to do so, from electric cars to electric heaters.
#Electrification 101, Resources for the Future, 2019
https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/electrification-101/
Quote: “Electrification refers to the process of replacing technologies that use fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) with technologies that use electricity as a source of energy. Depending on the resources used to generate electricity, electrification can potentially reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the transportation, building, and industrial sectors, which account for 63 percent of all US greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing emissions from these sectors is critical to decarbonizing the economy and, ultimately, mitigating the impacts of climate change.”
– Why do we need to bet so hard on electricity? Because we can produce electricity with low emission technologies, like solar, wind or nuclear. So Electricity is a real lever for a radical transition.
#Getting to Zero Carbon Emissions in the Electric Power Sector, 2018.
Quote: “The electric power sector is widely expected to be the linchpin of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Virtually all credible pathways to climate stabilization entail twin challenges for the electricity sector: cutting emissions nearly to zero (or even net negative emissions) by mid-century, while expanding to electrify and consequently decarbonize a much greater share of global energy use.”
– But there are a few problems making this transition really hard. First of all, in most places of the world electricity is still generated mostly by burning fossil fuels.
Most countries still depend on fossil fuels to produce their electricity:
#OWID, Share of electricity production from fossil fuels, 2019
The values in the video come from the following chart:
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, World, 2020
#OWID, Electricity production by source, World, 2020.
(Based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy and Ember, 2020)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?stackMode=relative
– And not only that, in the last 20 years the world's electricity usage increased 73% in absolute terms.
In 2000, total electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables combined was ~15 PWh. It increased to ~26 PWh when we came to 2019. So it corresponds to an increase of 73% approximately. (26-15)/15 = 0.73
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, World, 2021
Please note: slight deviations from these numbers may occur in the infographics shown in the video due to rounding of the decimals.
– While we are installing renewables at record speeds, at the same time the amount of fossil fuels we’re burning for electricity still keeps rising year by year. Renewables have, so far, not been able to catch up with the demand for new electricity and so despite our progress, emissions from electricity are still rising world wide.
The global electricity production from Renewables increased from 2,877.33 TWh in the year 2000 to 7,040.77 TWh in 2019.
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, World, 2021
At the same time, electricity from fossil fuels increased as well: From 9,694 TWh in the year 2000 to 16,500 TWh in 2019
#OWID, Electricity Generation from Fossil Fuels,
OWID has a chart that shows the trend by country. Below, a few are picked and plotted as examples.
#OWID, Electricity Generation from Fossil Fuels,
– The other alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear, and even though it is not renewable, its greenhouse gas emissions are tiny compared to burning stuff. But in the last twenty years nuclear has basically stagnated. Countries like China, India and South Korea built new reactors while Germany and Japan have been actively taking their nuclear plants offline.
In the last 20 years, electricity production from nuclear energy has barely changed compared to fossil fuels.
#OWID, Nuclear Power Generation, Nuclear Energy, 2021
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, World, 2021
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, China, 2021
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, India, 2021
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, South Korea, 2021
Countries such as Germany, Japan and the UK have been dismantling nuclear power plants since 2000:
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, Germany, 2021
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, UK, 2021
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, Japan, 2021
– Which seems a bit weird if we look at the countries with the most low-carbon electricity in the world that get most of their juice mainly from two sources: nuclear or hydropower!
#OWID, Share of electricity production from Fossil fuels, 2019.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-fossil-fuels?time=earliest..latest
#OWID, Share of electricity production from Hydropower, 2019.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-hydro?time=earliest..latest
#OWID, Share of electricity production from Nuclear, 2019.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear?time=earliest..latest
This interactive chart plots the breakdown of electricity production by source:
#OWID, Electricity production by source, 2020.
(Based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy and Ember, 2020)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?stackMode=relative
– Take France and Sweden: In France, only around 10% comes from fossil fuels, while 67% comes from nuclear and 23% from renewables, primarily hydro. In Sweden almost 30% comes from nuclear power, and almost 45% from hydro. So we know that nuclear energy can work at scale.
#OWID, Electricity production from fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables, France, 2021
#OWID, Electricity production by source, Sweden, 2021
In the German version of this video, there is an addition about the fact that France also has some issues surrounding nuclear energy production.
The passage reads like this:
– In Frankreich läuft zwar bei der Atomenergie auch nicht alles rund – viele Reaktoren sind alt und wie jede in die Jahre gekommene Technik anfälliger für Störungen. Auch müssen Reaktoren teilweise im Sommer abgeschaltet werden weil der Rücklauf des Kühlwassers in die Flüsse diese zu stark erwärmen würde. Trotzdem zeigt uns das Land dass Atomenergie auch im großen Rahmen funktionieren kann. /
In France, not everything is running smoothly with nuclear energy - many reactors are old and, like any aging technology, more susceptible to malfunctions. Some reactors also have to be shut down in the summer because the return flow of the cooling water into the rivers would heat them up too much. Nevertheless, the country shows us that nuclear energy can also work on a large scale.
Most French reactors are around 40 years old.
#Country Nuclear Power Profiles, France, International Agency, 2020
https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/France/France.htm
Quote: “The majority of the 58 nuclear reactors in EDF’s historic fleet have reached or will reach 40 years of operation within the next 15 years. Each reactor will then be required to pass a periodic and comprehensive safety assessment (due every 10 years of operation) to be authorized to extend its power generation activities.”
#France's EDF halts four nuclear reactors due to heatwave, 2018
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-nuclearpower-weather-idUKKBN1KP0EV
Quote: “High temperatures registered in the Rhone and Rhine rivers, from which the three power plants pump their water for cooling, led to a temporary shutdown of the reactors, the spokesman said.“
#Hot weather cuts French, German nuclear power output, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwave-idUSKCN1UK0HR
Quote: “EDF’s use of water from rivers as a coolant is regulated by law to protect plant and animal life and it is obliged to cut output in hot weather when water temperatures rise, or when river levels and flow rates are low.”
– On the technical side, because of the lack of investment and innovation in the last few decades, the majority of the world's nuclear reactors are pretty old technology that is very costly to replace. In most western countries, building nuclear reactors has become very expensive for a variety of reasons like a loss of know-how in constructing them, policy changes and increased regulatory constraints so it can take a decade or longer just to finish a power plant.
#Economics of Nuclear Power, World Nuclear Association, 2020
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
Quote: “The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s (NEA's) calculation of the overnight cost for a nuclear power plant built in the OECD rose from about $1900/kWe at the end of the 1990s to $3850/kWe in 2009.”
Quote: “The French national audit body, the Cour des Comptes, said in 2012 that the overnight capital costs of building nuclear power plants increased over time from €1070/kWe (at 2010 prices) when the first of the 58 currently operating PWRs was built at Fessenheim (commissioned in 1978) to €2060/kWe when Chooz 1&2 were built in 2000, and to a projected €3700/kWe for the Flamanville EPR. [...]
In 2019 EDF estimated that the cost of building six EPR2 units in France in the late 2020s would be at least €56 billion, hence around €5700/kW”
In countries where fewer reactors are being built or they’re being retired, construction costs are increasing rapidly. The United States is an example of this phenomenon:
#Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors, Jessica R.Lovering et al, 2016
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106
– In contrast, countries like South Korea, China, India and Russia are able to build new nuclear reactors comparatively quickly and at a competitive cost.
The majority of new nuclear reactors are being built in countries like China, India and the UAE.
#Technology Roadmap Nuclear Energy, International Atomic Energy Agency, 2015
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/46/027/46027300.pdf
In countries where many new reactors are being built, construction costs are actually decreasing over time. South Korea is an example of this:
#Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors, Jessica R.Lovering et al, 2016
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106
– Still generally in the West, the current generation of nuclear power plants are more expensive to build and maintain than most fossil fuel alternatives. There are also the concerns about nuclear waste and the fear of accidents, but we cover those in other videos in more detail.
#Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors, Jessica R.Lovering et al, 2016
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106
Quote: “Yet the high cost of nuclear power in developed countries has slowed its deployment, as low-carbon nuclear power cannot compete with cheaper fossil fuels, especially in deregulated power markets.”
#US nuclear power: The vanishing low-carbon wedge, M. Granger Morgan et al., 2018
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6048520/
Quote. “Existing large light water reactors in the United States are under economic pressure from low natural gas prices, and some have already closed. Moreover, because of their great cost and complexity, it appears most unlikely that any new large plants will be built over the next several decades.”
The Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) takes into account multiple factors such as construction cost, maintenance cost, capacity factors and so on, to calculate the price of electricity produced by an energy source.
Using the United States as an example, we find that the LCOE of nuclear reactors is higher than that of natural gas burning ‘combined cycle’ power plants.
#Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy
Outlook 2021, U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2021
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
These figures from a diverse range of studies (follow the link to mouseover each point) show that while the LCOE of nuclear power can be pretty low, the LCOE of natural-gas burning power plants can be even lower:
#Transparent Cost Database, OpenEI, 2021
https://openei.org/apps/TCDB/#blank
In the German version of this video, there is an addition about the fear of accidents.
The passage reads like this:
– “Größere Bedenken gibt es aber wegen der Unfallgefahr und dem Atommüll Problem. Nach Fukushima und Tschernobyl ist die Angst nachvollziehbar – tatsächlich ist die Bedrohung durch einen Unfall aber viel geringer als die garantierten Folgen des Klimawandels wenn wir weiter noch mehr fossile Brennstoffe nutzen. /
But there is greater concern about the risk of accidents and the nuclear waste problem. After Fukushima and Chernobyl, the fear is understandable - but in fact the threat of an accident is much smaller than the guaranteed consequences of climate change if we continue to use more fossil fuels.
The accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima were horrible disasters. But if you put the general death toll connected to nuclear energy in perspective, the numbers tell us that other energy sources can be considered as much more dangerous; especially fossil fuels that kill more than hundred times more people per terawatt hour of energy production. The pronounced fear concerning accidents from nuclear power generations thus seems unjustified.
#What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?, OWID, 2020
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
We made a whole video on the consequences of accidents at nuclear power plants and the death toll of different energy sources that tells you all the arguments in more detail.
The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM&t=422s&ab_channel=Kurzgesagt%E2%80%93InaNutshell
The sources:
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-nuclear-death-toll/
In the German version of this video, there is an addition about the fear of accidents and the concerns about nuclear waste.
– Ähnlich ist es mit dem Atommüll, der für hunderttausende Jahre radioaktive Strahlung abgeben wird. Von den Ideen für Wiederaufarbeitung und Endlagerung ist bisher keine richtig befriedigend. Allerdings lässt sich die Gefahr durch den Müll wenigstens lokal begrenzen, während der Ausstoß von CO2 durch fossile Brennstoffe weltweit jedes Jahr bis zu vier Millionen vorzeitige Tode verursacht.” /
The situation is similar for nuclear waste, which will emit radioactive radiation for hundreds of thousands of years. Of the ideas for reprocessing and final storage, none is really satisfactory so far. However, the danger from waste can at least be limited locally, while CO2 emissions from fossil fuels cause up to four million premature deaths globally each year."
A survey from 2005 showed that 79% of Europeans think radioactive waste is very dangerous.
And just as many people thought that there is no safe way of getting rid of radioactive waste:
#Radioactive waste, 2005
https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_227_en.pdf
As the authors of the survey emphasize the public opinion on nuclear energy contradicts the scientific consensus:
#Radioactive waste, 2005
https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_227_en.pdf
Quote: “First of all, eight out of ten respondents wrongly believe that all radioactive waste is very dangerous (79%). Next, 74% of respondents consider the disposal of low-level radioactive waste to be very risky and 71% perceive the same high level of risk for the transport of this type of waste.“
#Radioactive Waste Management, 2020
Quote: “Safe methods for the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste are technically proven; the international consensus is that geological disposal is the best option.”
Like all energy-producing technologies, nuclear energy results in some waste products. There are three different types of nuclear waste, classified by their radioactivity: Low level waste, intermediate-level waste and highly contaminated waste.
Around 90% of the total waste volume is composed of tools and work clothing that is only lightly contaminated and contains only 1% of the total radioactivity. It loses most or all of its radioactivity within 300 years and is mostly stored on the power plants, where it doesn’t require special shielding such as concrete walls or protective clothing for the nuclear workers.
Roughly 7% is intermediate-level waste, such as used filters and steel components from the reactors. This kind of waste has been exposed to alpha radiation or contains long-lived radionuclides in concentrations that require isolation beyond several hundred years. This kind of waste needs to be solidified in concrete or bitumen and is mostly buried in shallow repositories on the site.
So we can handle 97% of the nuclear waste quite well, but the real trouble starts with the remaining 3%. These 3% consists of the highly radioactive materials produced as a byproduct of the nuclear reactions that occur inside the reactors.
They come in two forms: Used reactor fuel and waste materials that remain after spent fuel is reprocessed. In total there have been 370,000 tonnes of used fuel worldwide by 2013, of which one third has been processed. Each year 12,000 new tonnes are added to this stack:
#Radioactive Wastes - Myths and Realities, 2016
Quote: “HLW is currently increasing by about 12,000 tonnes worldwide every year, which is the equivalent of a two-storey structure built on a basketball court or about 100 double-decker buses and is modest compared with other industrial wastes.“
#Radioactive Waste - Myths and Realities, 2020
Quote: “To the end of 2013, a total of about 370,000 tonnes of used fuel had been discharged from reactors worldwide, with about one-third of this (120,000 t) having been reprocessed.”
#The World Nuclear Waste Report 2019, 2019
https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2019-11/World_Nuclear_Waste_Report_2019_Focus_Europe_0.pdf
Quote: “As of 2013 approximately 370,000 tons have been generated worldwide since the first reactor was connected to the grid, of which roughly one third (124,000 tons) has been reprocessed”
Ok, but still: What are we doing with all the radioactive waste?
Right after the nuclear material can’t be used anymore for fission, the waste products can be stored in a pool or in dry casks. In so-called spent fuel pools the material is put 12 meter deep underwater, where the short-lived isotopes are able to decay, reducing the ionising radiation. The water isolates the radioactive material and cools it down at the same time. But since the materials in the pools have been observed to degrade severely over time, the waste needs to be moved after 10 to 20 years.
Next the nuclear waste can be put into huge casks made of concrete and steel. Some argue that it can be stored in those casks for up to 100 years, but the casks could start cracking within 30 years or less.
After the nuclear waste has been cooled down, some of it can be reprocessed. In a series of chemical operations, plutonium and uranium can be separated from the nuclear waste and reused, but that is so expensive that it is only economically valuable when the uranium supply is low and prices are high.
All of these temporary solutions don’t solve the problem of long-term storage. Depending on which radioactive elements are used the half-life of this waste is between 24,000 years and 2 million years. In order to keep all the waste safe for such a long time, there have been several technologies suggested.
One is to put it on the ocean floor, where it is unlikely to be disturbed. Even if the casks were leaking the radioactive material could only diffuse through the dense clay on the ocean floor it is buried underneath, which could potentially take millions of years.
But there are some problems with this idea. One is that it is very difficult to find the waste again if it is necessary for some reason. The other is that it is very unlikely to find an international structure and regulation for deep sea disposal.
At the moment, the safest method we have is the so-called deep geological repository.
Hundreds of meters below the surface, the radioactive waste is put into huge drums of steel and concrete and is isolated by a combination of engineered and natural barriers like rock, salt and clay.
Still, there are many hazards regarding long-term storage. One of the biggest concerns is that the waste might affect the surrounding ecosystems. If not stored well, leaking radioactive waste can cause genetic problems for many generations of animals and plants. But several studies have shown that, if stored properly, no nuclear waste is able to leak into the environment.
#Deep Geological Repositories: A Safe And Secure Solution To Disposal Of Nuclear Wastes, 2000
https://www.onepetro.org/conference-paper/ISRM-IS-2000-015
Quote: “There is a common solution to the challenges of ensuring long term safety for spent fuel and of preventing weapon grade materials being illegally diverted and misused. Deep geologic repositories are the answer. The paper describes the specific engineering, geological, hydrogeological and geotechnical challenges involved at each phase in the development of a geologic repository.”
#Deep geological repositories, 2020
https://www.ensi.ch/en/waste-disposal/deep-geological-repository/
Quote: “The concept of final storage in deep geological formations has become established as a means of safe radwaste management in order to ensure lasting protection against radioactive waste for people and for the environment. This method allows the radioactive waste to be kept away from human living environments in the long term – i.e. for many millennia. “
So, while we can be very confident that deep geological repositories will remain safe for millions of years, there will remain a very tiny portion of uncertainty, since we don’t have nuclear waste that is stored for millions of years to examine it.
Another problem that might occur: If there would be a new ice age in the future, the thick rock shield that covers the nuclear waste might not withstand the pressure of thick ice resting on top of the rock and could affect the groundwater flow. Countries, in which new glacial periods are likely to happen, like Sweden, Finland and Canada take this in consideration:
#Geological problems in radioactive Waste Isolation, 1996
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/28/076/28076961.pdf
Quote: “Glacial cycles associated with ice sheet expansion and permafrost conditions beyond are believed to have had a major impact on the groundwater flow patterns and hence subrosion rates. In order to approximate this impact, a time-dependent, thermo-mechanically coupled flow line model has been developed in the EC-funded project and applied to a supra-regional transect fromSouth Sweden to northern France, so as to match the inferred Weichselian and Saalian glaciations (Boulton &Van Gijssel, 1996). ”
So while we’re in theory able to store high-level nuclear waste safely, the question remains, what would happen if radioactive material would leak from such a repository? So far only one high-level nuclear waste disposal has been in operation.
# Nuclear Waste Report, Focus Europe ,2019
https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2019-11/World_Nuclear_Waste_Report_2019_Focus_Europe_0.pdf
Quote: “"So far, and with exception of WIPP, no repository for high-level waste is in operation an-ywhere. All projects for final disposal or deep geological disposal of nuclear waste worldwide are mostly at an early planning stage."
In 2014 a leak was detected in a repository in New Mexico. 13 workers tested positive for radiation and even though every radiation level above zero is worth investigating, the radiation exposure was ten times less radiation than that delivered during a typical chest X-ray.
#Radiation levels fall after nuclear waste leak in New Mexico, 2014
https://www.nature.com/news/radiation-levels-fall-after-nuclear-waste-leak-in-new-mexico-1.14778
Quote: “The agency estimated that a person at one of its above-ground monitoring stations would have sustained a cumulative radiation exposure of 1 millirem – ten times less radiation than that delivered during a typical chest X-ray.”
While this sounds indeed worrying, the negative effects for human health is a) limited to workers at the site and b) still not as dangerous as byproducts of burning fossil fuels.
The WHO has estimated that about 4.2 million people die each year from air pollution.
#Ambient (outdoor) air pollution, Key facts, 2018
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health
Quote: “Ambient (outdoor air pollution) in both cities and rural areas was estimated to cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2016.“
Some even argue that the amount of ash generated by coal power plants emits 100 times more radiation than nuclear power plants.
#Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste, 2007
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
Quote: “In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. *”
But this is highly debated among scientists and not entirely safe to say.
But what we can say, taking all this into consideration is that air pollution from burning fossil fuels is of far greater threat for public health than deep geological repositories for nuclear waste, if a safe storage over a long is presupposed/assumed.
– We have designs for nuclear reactors that solve many of their problems. Small reactors that take less time and money to get started, or next generation technologies that turn radioactive waste into new fuel. But so far, they have not been deployed at a scale where they can have a significant impact on the nuclear sector.
If we do decide to build new reactors, they don’t have to be the same giant installations that cost billions. Small Modular Reactors are another option. They are much cheaper and use the latest technologies to improve their safety.
#Benefits of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), Office of Nuclear Energy, retrieved 2021
https://inl.gov/trending-topic/small-modular-reactors/
Quote. “A small modular reactor (SMR) is a nuclear fission reactor with power-generating capacity under 300 megawatts. About 1/3 to 1/4 the size of a traditional nuclear energy plant, SMRs feature compact, simplified designs with advanced safety features. ”
An example of a SMR that got approved by the US regulatory commission is NuScale’s reactor design:
#The Little Reactors That Could, Adrian Cho, 2019
http://jupiter.chem.uoa.gr/thanost/papers/papers5/Science_363(2019)806.pdf
There are also designs that promise to consume nuclear waste and convert it into more fuel. They’re known as ‘breeder’ reactors. We have had a lot of experience in developing and operating this waste-burning technology, but the economic situation was never quite right for reactors using this technology to be deployed in large numbers.
#Fast Neutron Reactors, World Nuclear Association, 2020
Quote: “They offer the prospect of vastly more efficient use of uranium resources and the ability to burn actinides which are otherwise the long-lived component of high-level nuclear waste”
#Concept Concept of Molten Salt Fast Reactor, Elsa Merle, 2017
https://www.gen-4.org/gif/upload/docs/application/pdf/2017-05/07_elsa_merle_france.pdf
– It is not always windy, and the sun doesn't always shine, especially in the mornings and evenings when humans need the most electricity. The variations between seasons do not make this issue easier. To make renewables reliable and not risk blackouts we need massive storage capacities, where we can save energy collected when the sun or wind are at their peak, and release it later when we actually need it.
# Challenges and solution technologies for the integration of variable renewable energy sources—a review, 2019.
Quote: “These variable renewables (VRE) differ in various aspects from conventional generation technologies. Mueller et al. summarize those aspects in six characteristics: VRE generator output (1) varies due to its primary resource variability and (2) is unpredictable; (3) VRE generators are modular and small in size; (4) they are location-constrained; (5) unlike conventional generators, VRE generators are mostly non-synchronous types; and (6) they have low short-run costs. These characteristics create challenges in existing power systems.”
This figure shows the monthly differences in the generation of hydro, wind and solar electricity in California in 2019:
#Annual report on market issues & performances, California ISO, 2020
http://www.caiso.com/Documents/2019AnnualReportonMarketIssuesandPerformance.pdf
– Eventually we will be able to do this with renewables but we need a lot of batteries or storage power plants. Right now, we simply do not have the tech and the capacities to make this transition fast enough to replace fossil fuels.
Globally, we have enough energy storage to cover our electrical needs for 1.5 hours each year. That’s 15 seconds per day.
#Electricity Storage and Renewables, IRENA, 2017
https://www.irena.org/publications/2017/Oct/Electricity-storage-and-renewables-costs-and-markets
Quote: “Today, an estimated 4.67 TWh of electricity storage exists. This number remains highly uncertain, however, given the lack of comprehensive statistics for renewable energy storage capacity in energy rather than power terms.”
Luckily, energy storage is growing very rapidly, and this concludes all types of energy storage, from batteries to dams filled with water (pumped hydro) and spinning flywheels.
#Energy Storage, International Energy Agency, 2020
https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-storage
– But even if we could, this still does not take another aspect into account: We are not just trying to kick out fossil fuels out of electricity. We are trying to replace energy with electricity! If we are going to electrify sectors that currently use fossil fuels, like cars or heating, we will need significantly more electricity than we are currently using, everywhere around the world. And if the electricity needs of the world population will continue to grow as they did in the last twenty years, we need even more.
In the year 2000 the global electricity production was at 15,444 TWh per year. In 2019 it increased by 73% to 26,771 TWh.
#OWID, Electricity production by source, World, 2020
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?stackMode=relative
Still, only a fraction of the total energy produced on Earth becomes electricity. Total primary energy sources added up to 167,716 TWh in 2018.
#World Energy Balances: Overview, International Energy Agency, 2020
https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-balances-overview
Quote: “World energy production was 14 421 Mtoe in 2018 – a 3.2% increase compared to 2017. It was mostly driven by fossil fuels: natural gas, coal and oil, increasing together by more than 370 Mtoe in 2018. All renewables and nuclear also increased, by 60 Mtoe and 19 Mtoe respectively. Fossil fuels ultimately accounted for more than 81% of production in 2018, as was the case in 2017.”
1 MToe = 11.63 TWh
– Should we give up nuclear immediately and at least temporarily accept higher emissions? Will we shut down the current generation of nuclear reactors, try to extend their life while solving the current shortcomings of renewables? Or will we invest in new nuclear technology to get new nuclear reactor types that are cheaper and safer? Or will we maybe do both?
There are different options for what to do with nuclear energy.
We could shut down nuclear reactors and focus solely on increasing the portion of renewable energy. Or, build new reactors with better technology that makes them cost less, operate more reliably or even produce less waste.
Alternatively, we could try to extend the allowed operating lifetime of existing reactors.
Of course, there’s also the option of doing a bit of everything. Shut down a few old reactors, extend the life of other reactos, build a few more all the while developing renewable energy.
#Nuclear Power, International Energy Agency, 2020
https://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power
Quote: “In France, the utility EDF is continuing its long-term operation programme to extend the lifetime of the French nuclear fleet beyond 40 years and expects generic regulatory approval for the 900 series in 2020.”
Quote: “In the United States, 88 of the 98 operating units have been granted a licence to operate for 60 years in total, and 6 applications for a second 20-year extension (subsequent licence renewals) have been submitted. ”