In life, there are just some things you can count on no matter what: the effects of gravity, the sun rising in the morning, and a new NCIS or CSI spinoff coming out every year. Seriously, those shows pop up two or three times a year and somehow everyone’s parents find time to watch them all. But I digress — you can add nuclear energy to that list of things you can count on.
As of 2022, the DOE had nuclear energy as America's most reliable energy source, with power plants operating at full capacity more than 92% of the time. Thanks to that reliability, nuclear energy is able to generate a larger share of energy in the U.S., which makes our nation’s energy production cleaner. For instance, in the week of 1/12/24, nuclear energy produced 15.9 TWh (according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration), which is the equivalent to about 18% of U.S. energy generation. With that much energy you could power 1.3 billion laptops for a week. I’m not sure why you’d do that, but you could. More importantly, you could power the equivalent of 76.8 million homes!
With 93 reactors across 28 states, nuclear reactors face their fair share of inclement weather from blizzards to hurricanes, but that doesn’t stop them from operating. Whereas other sources of energy are impacted by things like snow and low temperatures, nuclear just keeps going. A large part of this is due to a combination of the technology and the fact that plant operators are trained and tested in responding to extreme weather events. On the rare occasion that a nuclear plant isn’t operating, it is often due to a planned outage for refueling.
Last winter provided a good example of this: Winter Storm Elliott left 1.6 million people without power on Christmas Eve (in 2022). Gas-fired generation accounted for about 70 percent of that and coal for about 17 percent, with the rest being attributed to other sources. However, nuclear was not among those other sources — nuclear plants kept operating and providing energy. For some folks, nuclear energy was a holiday miracle.
With extreme weather events on the rise due to climate change, we have to be prepared for the possibility of more hurricanes, more heat waves in the north, and more blizzards in the south. These things are bound to cause more frequent outages from traditional power sources. Ironically, had we been using more nuclear energy in the past, we could have mitigated the effects of climate change. So now we have a golden opportunity to move to a clean energy future and have power sources that can withstand the nasty effects of climate change.
Just like how you can count on your mom to be watching the 18th iteration of NCIS tonight, you can count on nuclear energy to provide for you when you need it the most. Let’s just work to make sure nuclear plants pop up as frequently as those shows.
