Why nuclear power must be part of the energy mix for climate fight to succeed

Every renewable energy source must be aggressively pursued across the globe, be it wind, solar, hydro, tidal or geothermal
Nuclear power has long had bad press, but the urgency of the climate crisis and its safety relative to other power sources make it worth another look

Quentin Parker

Published: 1:30am, 12 Mar 2022

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The continued burning of fossil fuels, and even its growth in some countries, threatens us all. The evidence of human-induced global warming and climate change is incontrovertible to any scientist, with the debate shifting to the need for drastic action and how to limit the scale of the changes which are becoming more evident every day.

Last November’s UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow was merely the latest global talk fest and call for drastic action that seems to have petered out barely after the ink was dry on the signed agreements.

This is against the backdrop of damaging floods, more violent and frequent storms, drought and wildfires across vast swathes of the United States, Canada, Russia, Australia and even Europe.

We are in the Anthropocene era, where human activity has become the dominant force on our climate and environment. We are also in the associated extinction event where many species are suffering, declining or disappearing across the planet as human numbers grow, resources and habitats are consumed and the environment is trashed over what, in geological timescales, is the blink of an eye.

We are witnessing unprecedented summer temperatures, rain falling on the North Pole, melting ice caps and retreating glaciers, rising sea levels and disappearing island nations. Climate records are being broken somewhere nearly every day. A graph of global climate record-breaking events as a function of time would be a powerful image.

Is the problem simply too big to solve, human behaviour too entrenched, and vested interests too pervasive to change course and make a real difference in time? For all our sakes, I hope not.

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The recent film Don’t Look Up about an approaching apocalypse from the impact of a large comet is intended as a parody of the astonishing indifference and inaction to the existential threat posed by climate change.

Only with the collective will of all governments with the right policies, and each human making the right choices, can we hope to make a positive difference before the only options become some level of mitigation from the very worst outcomes.

Many scientists believe we are there already. Too many tipping points might already have been reached to prevent serious climate change, so even if we stopped emitting even a single molecule more of carbon dioxide today, certain negative outcomes are already baked in.

However, there are still many things the human race can and must do. For a start, every renewable energy source needs to be aggressively pursued across the globe to the maximum extent possible, be it wind, solar, hydro, tidal or geothermal.

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Governments need to build strong incentives to accelerate investment and uptake of these options and the technologies that support them. They must also stop subsidising the fossil fuel industry. Some governments are paying money to fossil fuel companies to pollute our planet at a cost per kilowatt-hour that is more than renewables are able to generate.

Fusion power is the holy grail of clean, limitless energy. China had a breakthrough in January in the development of a fusion reactor, sustaining a temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius for an unprecedented 17 minutes. Temperatures of more than 100 million degrees are needed to sustain nuclear fusion.

Nevertheless, the timescale on which fusion can make a real difference to our green energy generation capacity is still decades away. This is time we do not have, so what can we do now? I think nuclear power needs another look.

France is the world leader in the percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power and third in the total amount of nuclear power generated. This national policy has allowed France to become a leading exporter of low-cost electricity.

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Still, the total amount of electricity generated by nuclear reactors is only about 10 per cent globally. This compares with about 30 per cent being generated by renewable sources, leaving a massive 60 per cent from fossil fuels. There are only about 440 nuclear power plants globally across some 30 countries.

This compares to about 13,000 nuclear weapons, with about 12,000 of these just from the US and Russia. China has a similar number of warheads to France and Britain, the other designated nuclear states in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Interestingly, radioactive material from nuclear weapons can be used inside a nuclear power plant. Dismantled nuclear weapon materials have been fed into the energy production in US nuclear power plants. Is this not a good use for all such weapons if it can be done safely as a non-fossil-fuel contribution to the global energy mix?

Nuclear power from fission reactors has long had bad press thanks to Chernobyl and Fukushima. It is true that nuclear reactors can be dangerous and produce nuclear waste that needs to be carefully stored for long periods of time – one only has to see the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine and the risks of war around nuclear power plants to appreciate the dangers.

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However, are the concerns over nuclear power really justified in the bigger picture? This is especially in the context of current climate catastrophe. Death rates in coal and oil generation are orders of magnitude higher than that for solar and nuclear power.

We also all need to try to do more with less and strive for energy efficiency via emerging technologies and changes in behaviour. The switch to low-energy LED lighting and more efficient solar panels, for example, have shown is possible.

Efficient, effective public transport is also key while we are on the steep slope of the S-curve for electric car take-up. Electric vehicles with batteries charged by non-fossil fuel energy generation is a win-win for personal transport impact.

Quentin Parker is a professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Hong Kong and the director of its Laboratory for Space Research