Nuclear Power: The Ultimate Energy Crisis Solution

“If all the ineffective ideas for solving the energy crisis were laid end-to-end, they would reach to the moon and back,” said Sir David J. C. McKay, a British physicist, mathematician, Regius professor of engineering at Cambridge University, and Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, as reported by Quotes Memo, Cambridge University, and Business Green, a green energy company. About 80% of the world’s energy needs are met by fossil fuels, according to data from the nonprofit organization World Bank. 

Fossil fuels spew thousands of millions of metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, which disrupts ecosystems worldwide and contributes to the deaths of seven million people every year, say the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and the World Health Organization. The current energy crisis is massive, and it is killing millions each year. Nuclear power is the best option to support everyone’s energy needs without polluting the earth or making a continuous contribution to its quantity of greenhouse gases. Nuclear reactors are energy sources that output electricity when unstable isotopes of heavy elements (ie Actinium, Thorium, Protactinium, Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, etc) split, releasing neutrons and tremendous amounts of heat energy. To ensure the reaction is safe and controlled, coolants and neutron moderators are added, generally in the form of water or graphite, and control rods. It is important to note that the preferred type of nuclear reactor is the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor. 

This is being heavily invested in by the Chinese, according to data from nonprofit organization World Nuclear as well as Thorium Energy World and Forbes. Thorium fuel is advantageous for many reasons. The preferred isotope of Thorium, 232Th, makes up more than 99% of earth’s naturally occurring Thorium, says the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Institute of Health. Additionally, Thorium is three times more plentiful than Uranium. This makes mining and fuel refinement much simpler because Thorium mining is three times as efficient as Uranium mining and the mined Thorium does not need to be enriched into fissile material (material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission reaction). Thorium does not decay into weapons-capable nuclear waste either. Thorium nuclear waste remains radioactive for just 5% of the time Uranium nuclear waste remains radioactive. 

Current Uranium reactors use between 95% and 97% 238U, which is radioactive but not fissile. The remaining 3%-5% is 235U, which is fissile. This means that only a tiny fraction of the fuel is used. The remaining 238U is enriched into 239U during the reaction and then becomes 239Pu, which is the nuclear waste that can be used in weapons. Thorium does not have this issue. Thorium is not fissile. It turns into 239Th when joined with another neutron, which then decays into 233U, a fissile Uranium isotope. This process removes 238U and 239U from the equation and ensures nearly all products are safe and fissile materials. The 233U is used in a fission reactor and splits into even more stable elements. Thorium reactors eliminate almost all the nuclear waste output and eliminate the potential for it to be the nuclear material in nuclear weapons. Another important detail going forward is the reactor type. 

The molten salt reactor uses molten salt as a depressurized coolant and dissolves nuclear fuel in the coolant salt. This prevents nuclear meltdown because the system is already liquid. This also prevents explosions because the coolant is kept at the same pressure as the atmosphere. If the reaction gets too hot, it forces the coolant mixture to expand, which moves the dissolved fuel particles away from each other, slowing down and cooling the reaction. This has proven so effective that a control rod (used to mitigate reactions) has been removed from an MSR while running at full power and the MSR increased its energy output by 12.5% percent and then leveled off all by itself, without any operator intervention. Thorium, when combined with the many advantages of an MSR, is the most optimal attainable nuclear energy system. All proposed nuclear plants here would be using TMSRs, greatly reducing the quantity and risk associated with nuclear waste. Due to its high efficiency, cleanliness, and safety, and the overwhelming incompetence of renewable energy sources, nuclear energy by TMSRs is the finest way to meet everyone’s energy requirements without incessantly adding to the carbon footprint.

An unfortunately common misconception regarding nuclear power is that it is inefficient. Nuclear power with traditional Uranium reactors requires lots of mining and fuel refinement, which lowers efficiency and poses a great risk to the health of humans working with Uranium. This is not the case for Thorium reactors. Thorium is three times as common as Uranium, and Thorium is more efficient to mine than Uranium, as stated by a report by Jason Ting at Stanford University. Thorium mining occurs in open pits, which do not require ventilation, whereas Uranium mines are closed off and have dangerous levels of Radon gas. This means it is not just more efficient to mine Thorium, but it is also safer. 

Thorium’s energy density is extraordinary, at a whopping 79,420,000 MJ/kg according to the engineers at What Is Nuclear. The US Energy Information Administration claims that the 2018 total US primary energy consumption per person per year was 309 million British thermal units. This means that a single kilogram of Thorium fuel is enough energy to fulfill all of an American’s energy needs for three lifetimes. Thorium reactors are a big improvement over Uranium ones, but they are also magnitudes better than renewable energies. According to solar energy company GreenMatch, as of 09/13/19, solar panels are between 15% and 22% efficient. Wind turbines do considerably better, averaging between 35% and 45% says Dr. Richard M Andres, a professor emeritus of Saint Louis University. Nuclear power tops both, with the efficiency of a molten salt reactor hovering between 48% and 59%, making it three to four times more efficient than solar energy and up to 168% more efficient than wind energy. The difference between the efficiencies of nuclear energy and wind energy may seem insignificant, but a nuclear reactor produces maximum energy at least 91% of the time it is running, which is 24/7 except for a break every two years for refueling, as stated by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Wind turbines are entirely dependent on wind, an energy source neither consistent nor powerful. Wind turbines produce merely an average energy output of about 40% of the time, and they produce little to no energy the other 60% of the time, as reported by the nonprofit organization National Wind Watch.

The average total capacity factor (percentage of time a wind turbine is producing peak power) of wind turbines in 2018 was 37.4%. A solar plant is not any better, and only reliably generates peak power for about four hours a day on average, according to the Australian company SolarQuotes. This means that a nuclear plant produces peak power three times more often than a wind turbine and 5.5 times more often than a solar plant. Simply put, nuclear plants are extraordinarily efficient, much more so than renewables, because of their high generation capacity factors, high energy density fuel, and high operating efficiency.

Not only are nuclear power plants fantastically efficient, but they also produce exorbitant quantities of energy. MSRs have already proven they are capable of producing at least nine megawatts. MSRs are being rapidly developed, and current plans are to release a one-gigawatt demonstration plant. California is commonly regarded as the energy leader in the United States, and they have 4.2 gigawatts electrical of grid storage, according to the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems. This means that just four reactors of this size are enough to supply the entirety of California’s grid storage. Not only can they supply California’s grid storage, but they can also run California’s entire electric grid, which has a capacity of 76,414 megawatts as of the 2017 California Electricity Profile. A one GWt reactor could supply at least 13 times California’s grid capacity. 

Most nuclear power plants have two reactors, so even if an MSR only achieves a mere 4% of the one GWt goal, it would still be capable of powering the entirety of California. Solar does not even come close to this target. As stated in an article by Solar Energy Research and Power Analyst Ben Zientara, the average 2018 solar panel produces a maximum of 320 watts of electricity with perfect weather. To meet California’s grid capacity, 238,793,750 solar panels would be required. The largest solar farm in the United States, Solar Star, has a maximum power output of 579 megawatts, claim solar power companies Alba Energy and SunPower. California’s grid would require another 131 solar farms the size of Solar Star. Due to the insane quantities of solar panels and land necessary for this to work, solar energy is not feasible here. Wind energy does not fare much better. A single wind turbine produces 2.5-3 megawatts of energy at its peak power capability, according to the European Wind Energy Association. Given that it is only at this level of power 37.4% of the time, and creates almost no power at all for 60% of the time, 2.5-3 megawatts of energy is much higher than the typical output. A wind turbine using those statistics (and generously rounding up the peak power time to 40%) will average between 1 and 1.2 megawatts of energy output. This means that about 70,000 wind turbines would have to remain spinning at the typical energy output 100% of the time to reach the same generation as California’s grid. This will not and can not happen. The nuclear option is the only one out of wind energy, solar energy, and nuclear energy that is capable of creating steady, high energy output 100% of the time (with the exception of refueling, which only happens once every two years).

Another common issue with nuclear energy is nuclear proliferation. Nobody wants more nuclear weapons, especially not in the hands of nations that currently lack nuclear technologies. Michael Shellenberger, a 2008 Time Magazine Hero of the Environment and founder of Environmental Progress clearly stated that “if there was any chance that more nuclear energy increased the risk of nuclear war, he would be against it”. Fortunately, Michael Shellenberger is a major proponent of nuclear energy and obviously does not think that it increases the risk of nuclear war. For the past 49 years, the deal has been that if a nation wants nuclear energy technology, they have to agree not to create nuclear weapons with it. 191 of the 195 UN-recognized states have signed this treaty, as published by the United Nations. South Korea followed this deal with success; they have nuclear power and lack nuclear weaponry. South Korea is not the only nation this has succeeded for. The Nonproliferation Treaty only recognizes five nuclear weapons states, but there are at least 31 states with nuclear power plants according to the Arms Control Association and the International Atomic Energy Association. There is no strong positive correlation between receiving nuclear energy technology and using it as a means to make weapons. Nuclear energy technologies are fantastic with regard to nuclear arms because they do not increase their quantity, rather, they decrease it. The only way to destroy nuclear weapons is to destroy the fissile material that makes their nuclear reactions possible. This is done by either detonating the nuclear weapon, which is precisely what everyone wants to prevent, or by burning the fissile material in a nuclear reactor. The only way to get rid of nuclear arms without setting them off is to burn them in a nuclear reactor. Nuclear energy technology does not increase the number of nuclear arms, instead, it vastly increases the potential for disposing of them.

Nuclear power is not any ordinary means of supplying energy; it is an extremely clean one. Nuclear power is the only kind of power that actually has a plan for waste disposal. The waste from fossil fuel plants as well as from solar panels and wind turbines goes right back into the environment, which defeats the purpose of “clean energy.” Nuclear power is actually the best kind of power in terms of CO2-eq/kWh (the sum of all greenhouse gas emissions by the power source expressed as CO2 per kilowatt-hour), having a mere quarter of the CO2-eq/kWh that residential, utility, and concentrated solar panels have, per the publication released by Dr. Joshua Rhodes, a postdoctoral researcher with the Energy Institute of the University of Texas at Austin. Nuclear energy also beats wind energy, with about 15% fewer carbon emissions than wind power. Nuclear power is also cleaner with its waste. Nuclear waste is carefully handled and minimized. If all the nuclear waste ever produced in the entire world was stacked on a football field, it would only reach twenty feet high. And there is a storage plan for all of it. The UK, Spain, France, Sweden, Finland, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and the US are only a portion of the nations currently operating nuclear waste disposal facilities. Nuclear power also requires far fewer materials than other green power sources. Nuclear power (unsurprisingly) comes in at first place with just 930 tons of material per TWh. Geothermal comes in second, but is far worse, with 5,261 tons of material per TWh.