A friend of mine on Facebook occasionally shares posts from groups like ‘Progressives for Nuclear Progress’. They generally argue that nuclear power is an obvious and necessary part of addressing climate change and that opposition to it stems from a small-minded, anti-scientific environmentalism. I’ve always been agnostic on the question of nuclear power so I decided to do some research and here are my first impressions:
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If you had asked me in the 50s whether we should have gone with nuclear or coal, knowing what I know now about both, I would have said nuclear without hesitation. While of course nuclear power generation carries a slight risk of a large catastrophe, coal-fired power has been causing death and disease constantly from air pollution the entire time. A recent study out of the University of Newcastle suggested there will be thousands of excess deaths from our current coal power stations before they end operation.
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However coal is nearing its end; the question we face today is between nuclear and renewables. Advocates of nuclear power say it is a necessary complement to renewables to provide base load power in the long run. But this ignores the possibility of large-scale energy storage. In Australia we have a lot of untapped pumped hydro potential and more generally, the price of batteries – like South Australia’s 100MW Tesla setup – is falling.
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The global nuclear power industry appears to be contracting. Countries are denuclearising, new projects are facing large delays and cost overruns, and long-promised next-generation technologies have not been forthcoming. Maybe this will turn around sometime in the future, but given that Australia would have to start a domestic nuclear power industry from scratch surely we should leave that gamble to the countries that already depend on nuclear power like France, the US, or Sweden.
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That said, those countries that already have nuclear power plants are moving to close them early. But I agree with this MIT report which argues that they should be kept open for their useful lives – even with government subsidies if necessary – in order to serve public goals of greenhouse emissions reductions.