The holidays are coming up which means, for many of us, there are family dinners on the horizon. I don’t know about you, but my dinner table tends to be animated—filled with lots of laughter. But amid the lightheartedness, we also manage to talk about every hot button topic currently on America’s mind. This year, we’re seeing a combination of events centering nuclear energy as one of these topics.
Russia’s tragic invasion of Ukraine has caused geopolitical upheaval and emphasized the importance of energy security. A reliable energy grid is more important than ever given the rising energy demand and threat of rolling blackouts. Extreme weather conditions worsen, and international calls to decarbonize the global economy are even more urgent. With inflation, what you see on your monthly utility bill makes a big difference.
These pressures have put nuclear energy in the spotlight because it is the most reliable, affordable, carbon-free solution at our disposal. Existing plants have been powering our communities for decades, and as the industry prepares to deploy new nuclear reactors, the potential for clean energy—for everyone—could be a reality.
And as soon as someone around your dinner table says, “but what about___,” here are some facts you can share.
But what about the waste?
- When most people talk about nuclear waste, they’re referring to fuel that’s been used in a reactor once, before it is removed and safely stored. All of the used fuel ever produced by the commercial nuclear industry since the late 1950s would only cover a football field to approximately 10 yards high.
- Nuclear is the only large-scale, energy-producing technology that takes full responsibility and accounts for its waste.
- Nuclear energy has high energy density. The amount of energy contained in a pellet of uranium fuel the size of a gummy bear is equivalent to 149 gallons of oil and 2,000 pounds of coal, and it could power a home for two and a half months. If you got all of the energy to power your entire life for a year from nuclear energy, the amount of waste it created could fit inside a Coke bottle.
- Used fuel can still be used for energy. More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after five years of operation in a reactor. Some countries like France reprocess and recycle nuclear fuel, extracting elements still capable of generating energy for use in new fuel and encasing the radioactive byproducts in solid glass logs for permanent disposal. Some advanced reactor designs in development would even be able to run on used fuel.
in which I talk about the density of uranium pic.twitter.com/42downmuMx
— isabelle 🪐 (@isabelleboemeke) September 6, 2020
But what about the safety issue?
- America’s 92 nuclear power plants are among the safest and most secure industrial facilities in the world, and nuclear is the only source of energy that has its own dedicated regulatory body, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
- “Nuclear energy, in terms of an overall safety record, is better than other energy,” said Bill Gates.
- According to Our World in Data, nuclear energy results in 99.9 percent fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8 percent fewer than coal; 99.7 percent fewer than oil; and 97.6 percent fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.
- According to the expert, John Kotek: “When you look at the full life cycle of what goes into producing energy—from the mining, fabrication, construction that goes into building facilities, through the operations and maintenance and ultimately through the decommissioning of that plant—what studies in the U.S. and abroad have found is that nuclear is on par with things like wind and solar in terms of the lowest safety impacts to both workers and the public.”
- Nuclear has had such an outstanding record of safety performance over these past 60 years, and we expect the next generation of nuclear to be even better. New designs will not need access to offsite power to support plant functions, and they will incorporate passive safety features that don’t require active systems to ensure that the reactors, the workers and the public stay safe.
We know #nuclear helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect our earth, shielding us from the worst effects of #climatechange, but it also has a proven power plant safety record. Let’s ask the expert, @JohnKotek about just how safe nuclear power is.https://t.co/mO2G3NCzJj — Nuclear Energy Inst. (@NEI) May 16, 2022
But what about renewables? If we have them, why do we need nuclear?
- Nuclear plants operate 24/7/365, rain or shine, making them the ideal carbon-free complement to wind and solar, which are intermittent forms of energy.
- What makes nuclear power so reliable is its high-capacity factor, which measures how often a power plant runs for a specific period of time. Nuclear energy facilities have an average capacity factor of 90 percent, meaning the average nuclear plant remains online, generating electricity, more than 90 percent of the time. By contrast, wind farms had an average capacity factor of 34.6 percent in 2021, and solar farms had an average capacity factor of 24.6 percent in 2021 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
- With our current energy system, energy dense fuels like nuclear are easily moved from place to place. Because wind and solar are spread out, they require more transmission lines to bring the electricity that powers homes and businesses.
- Nuclear also complements renewables because it generates more power with less land—31 times less than solar facilities and 173 times less than wind farms. To generate the same amount of electricity as a 1,000-megawatt reactor, a wind farm would require over 140,000 acres, which is more than 170 times the land needed for a nuclear reactor.
The most important fact is that nuclear has a strong climate track record. Right now, the United States’ reactors generate half of our nation’s carbon-free electricity. This avoids more carbon emissions annually than 100 million passenger vehicles, which is 97 percent of all passenger vehicles on the road every year in the U.S. Conservative estimates show that there is demand to double our nuclear capacity, avoiding at least twice the amount of carbon emissions the industry currently bypasses.
Good luck at the dinner table this season!
