The discovery of nuclear energy has allowed humanity to generate huge amounts of energy without worsening climate change. Nuclear power generation does not produce greenhouse gas. Furthermore, throughout its life-cycle, nuclear produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per unit of electricity as wind, and just one-third of the emissions per unit of electricity versus solar.
Despite these advantages, why isn't nuclear energy being used as much as it should? While the cost to set up is definitely a major reason, another factor contributing to the lackluster acceptance of nuclear energy is deeply held misconceptions stemming from the Cold War era.
During this era, the whole world lived under the threat of nuclear warfare, which meant the annihilation of most of the world's population. Various geopolitical situations came very close to nuclear war, instilling a fear of nuclear energy amongst the public. The mushroom cloud was an ever-present image in everybody's minds, especially those who grew up in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and a breakdown in diplomacy among the superpowers could lead to an incredible catastrophe.
With Baby Boomers and Gen X in charge of politics and business, it's no wonder that attitudes towards nuclear energy mostly range from lukewarm to mostly hostile. While most people from the US begrudgingly understood the need for the country to possess nuclear weapons to protect itself, the fear and disdain towards the word "nuclear" became redirected towards nuclear energy and concerns about nuclear waste.
However, as the post-Cold War generations are now coming to the fore, attitudes towards nuclear energy are beginning to change. Instead of nuclear war, the specter haunting everyone is now climate change, which can only be mitigated by greatly reducing carbon emissions. Thus, more people are now open to exploring the potential of nuclear energy, resulting in a nuclear renaissance of sorts. In recent years, changing US government regulations on the commercialization of nuclear power have also allowed a growing number of companies to explore the market.
According to David Hanson, Chief Executive of Flibe Energy, a company developing and producing solutions towards a sustainable, nuclear-powered future, the climate crisis is now a worse and more tangible threat to humanity. He argues that there are two ways to solve this crisis – either reduce consumption to pre-industrial levels or adopt clean energy sources. The first option is practically impossible, as people are unwilling to give up their current standard of life. This leaves clean energy as the only viable solution, and nuclear is one of the most viable energy sources, but it remains mostly untapped due to the stigma associated with it.
Hanson says that the energy industry is unique, because it is the only one where everyone can succeed, and more energy is always better. Furthermore, a mix of energy sources, such as solar, wind, and nuclear, is better, as they are complementary and make up for each other's shortcomings.
Hanson estimates that with a pure solar grid, a peak consumption of 10 GW would need a grid that has the capacity of about 40-80 GW, due to a small window where power can be generated during daylight. "Think of it this way, If you need 10 GW for the day, 10 GW for the evening, 10 for a cloudy day, and 10 GW for emergency situations, all of this energy must be generated in the same limited window of time,"
This is incredibly expensive and will cause people's energy bills to spike massively. However, by implementing nuclear energy for baseload supply, with solar and wind supplementing for periods of high demand, utilities will be able to ensure an adequate supply of clean energy to meet the population's needs.
Additionally, nuclear energy is the only clean energy source that can be stockpiled on-site, similar to coal. Natural gas, on the other hand, is prohibitively expensive to stockpile for long durations as it is limited by tank size. Being able to stockpile energy is important for a country's energy independence, which may be threatened by supply chain problems and geopolitical tensions.
Hanson brings up the contrasting examples of France and Germany when it comes to clean energy policy. France embraced nuclear energy, while Germany went with solar and wind, with natural gas piped in from Russia providing baseload power. When NATO imposed sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine, the gas pipelines were turned off. This left Germany in a more vulnerable state than France, and Germany had to scramble to find alternative energy sources to keep people's homes warm in the winter of 2022.
"Countries that are not energy-independent need to have an adequate stockpile of fuel to reduce dependence on foreign sources of energy," Hanson says. "A country that has 18 months of energy within its borders is in a far better geopolitical position than one that only has six days of energy reserves."
Flibe Energy, founded by former NASA engineer Kirk Sorensen, concentrates on Lithium Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) technology, a thermal-spectrum, molten-salt reactor with a scalable and sustainable fuel cycle. This type of reactor is different from conventional nuclear reactors, providing more efficiency and eliminating concerns about toxic nuclear waste. LFTR technology has been around since the 1960s, but it wasn't given much attention because it could not be used in the nuclear weapons program. Flibe takes its name from the chemical symbols of the elements in salt used in the molten salt reactor – Fluoride (F), Lithium (Li), and Beryllium (Be).
"Flibe's LFTR is based upon Molten Salt Reactors (MSR), we modernized it and took it to the next steps of development. Now we seek to bring it into commercial deployment," Hanson says. "MSRs have been thoroughly demonstrated with over 20,000 hours of operation with an excellent safety record. It has outstanding passive safety features, virtually no waste, and high-cost efficiency. Truly putting the necessary steps in place to make energy both green and abundant."
