Is Nuclear Power Part of the Climate Solution?

Investing in the next generation of nuclear reactors could give the world an important tool for reducing carbon emissions

By Gernot Wagner. He teaches climate economics at Columbia Business School (on leave from New York University). He writes the Risky Climate column for Bloomberg Green and is the author of “Geoengineering: The Gamble” (Polity Press, 2021). Excerpts:

"Nuclear plants don’t depend on a steady supply of coal or gas, where disruptions in commodity markets can lead to spikes in electricity prices, as has happened this winter in Europe. Nor do nuclear plants depend on the weather. Solar and wind have a great deal of potential, but to be reliable energy sources on their own, they require advanced batteries and high-tech grid management to balance varying levels of power generation with anticipated spikes in demand. That balancing act is easier and cheaper with the kind of firm power that nuclear can provide.

The level of carbon emissions generated by nuclear power is on par with solar and wind, especially when considering the complete life cycle of a plant. Both solar and wind produce entirely carbon-free electricity once they are up and running, but they require a significant carbon investment up front. Solar panels rely on metals that need to be mined, and the average wind turbine is now large enough to contain around 200 tons of steel or more. It will eventually be possible to produce this steel without generating carbon emissions, but not yet.

Nuclear power’s biggest environmental challenge is the waste it produces, which requires thousands or tens of thousands of years of safe storage. But there isn’t a lot of it: All of the nuclear waste produced in the U.S. since the 1950s adds up to about 85,000 tons of material. Compare that with the tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide that would have been produced had that electricity come from fossil fuels instead.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the nation’s total nuclear waste would cover a single football field, 10 yards high. By contrast, carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless gas, is typically released into the atmosphere, affecting the climate of the entire globe.

The physical footprint of a nuclear plant is small compared with dams, strip mines and arrays of solar panels. Nuclear might even have large greenhouse-gas advantages compared with “bioenergy,” which can emit a lot of carbon dioxide to produce fuel from organic material, and hydropower, which generates tons of carbon dioxide from the construction of large dams and can release large quantities of methane due to decomposing plant matter in reservoirs."

"Other countries have explicitly rejected nuclear power, sometimes at a considerable economic and climate cost. Austria derives 60% of its electricity from hydro plants along the Danube River and in the Alps, and it is well-integrated into the European electricity grid, which derives its stability in part from nuclear plants just across the border. The country built its only nuclear reactor in the 1970s, but in a hard-fought referendum in 1978, Austrians voted against turning on the plant. Instead, Austria built a coal-fired power plant, which became one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the country and a major source of air pollution for over three decades. It was converted to burn gas in 2019."

":Unlike Chernobyl, which caused significant loss of life and long-term health problems—including in children exposed to radiation in utero as far away as Sweden—Fukushima resulted in no loss of life and “no adverse health effects among Fukushima residents” from radiation exposure, according to a 2021 U.N. report. In 2018, one former worker at the Fukushima plant died from cancer possibly linked to radiation, but no such link has been established for residents of surrounding communities, even those close to the reactors. 

In the wake of the accident, Japan’s decision to shut down its nuclear plants instead of phasing out coal resulted in increased consumption of fossil fuels, generating air pollution that can be statistically linked to thousands of deaths."  

"Even the Fukushima accident, or the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979, could be considered a success on the safety front: Some safety features failed but others worked, containing the fallout."

"In 2020 Germany derived around 10% of its electricity from nuclear energy, down from 25% before Fukushima; the country’s last three reactors are scheduled to close this year. As a result, Germany emits more than 8 tons of carbon dioxide per person, compared with less than 5 tons for France, with its large fleet of nuclear plants."