🔋Nuclear Renaissance

Public and political sentiment toward nuclear power is shifting in front of our eyes and is poised to play a key role in a cleaner energy future.

Mar 01, 2023

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The renaissance; a cultural movement that shaped things like art and technology which was rooted in the social changes that occurred. The post-pandemic (bubonic plague) world was filled with beautiful works of art still admired today, a heightened sense of spirituality, and a long list of noteworthy literature. It also was filled with breakthroughs in medicine, navigation, astronomy, and the “birth” of modern science.

Is the nuclear energy industry poised for a period of social change leading to its prosperity? From a deeply rooted skepticism due to past nuclear disasters and political influence, public sentiment toward nuclear energy has been shifting in recent years to optimism not seen since before I was born.

Interestingly enough we are in our own post-pandemic world. While we have not yet seen many of the other positive social changes, at least not yet, one of the small little changes is nuclear sentiment. For Europe in particular, over the last 6 years the amount of people opposed to nuclear dropped from 41% to 15% according to Századvég.

Some European countries have shifted policy on nuclear. Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden have entered a “nuclear alliance” which will be supportive of the power source moving forward.

Mark Nelson @energybants

EU "NUCLEAR ALLIANCE" BEING PREPARED: France is now fully defecting from Germany's suicidal energy policies. Remarkable turnaround after 2 decades of self-sabotaging energy appeasement. Energy ministers from 12 EU countries reliant on nuclear energy will discuss forming a bloc!

EURACTIV France @EURACTIV_FR

Paris prépare une « alliance du nucléaire » en Europe https://t.co/jSHMi0XEEl

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows for European nuclear power though. Belgium and Germany are among some large countries committed to shutting down nuclear powerplants. Germany held its remaining nuclear plants open temporarily during this crisis, but they are slated to close April 15th. Belgium closed a large plant last month but others remain open.

Mark Nelson @energybants

TIHANGE, BELGIUM Tonight, enough power for one million people, or about a tenth of the population, will be lost. The reason: a nuclear phaseout law passed in 2003 wasn't reversed in time. But now the phaseout isn't even happening: 2 reactors are being extended. An awful waste

Even in Germany where there has been an attack on nuclear in favor of renewables (as part of the Energiewende), public sentiment has shifted to support of nuclear power. Perhaps the energy crisis contributed to this. Things like the return to an increased share of coal as an energy source which is the antithesis of the goals of Energiewende and the hoarding of firewood due to energy fears among citizens are likely factors for the change in sentiment.

Elsewhere in Europe, there is a large fund supporting nuclear in Denmark and investment into small modular reactors in Estonia. These are two other examples of nuclear support in the region. Some analysts don’t have quite as rosy of a picture for nuclear in Europe due to the Russia/Ukraine war for two reasons. 20% of the uranium for EU nuclear comes from Russia and many of the power plants are Russian-made. As long as the conflict persists, it could be harder to source enriched Uranium and build new powerplants unless they are willing to do business with Russia.

Nuclear has been making a comeback in other ways too, potentially politically. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes recently visited a nuclear meltdown site in Japan and is now a supporter of the energy source which may come as a surprise. This is just one example of a noteworthy politician changing stance, or at least supporting nuclear power. Nuclear was even portrayed in a positive light in a US newspaper recently.

Mark Nelson @energybants

Massive cultural shift: superstar Democratic congresswomen @AOC describes how she safely visited a triple-meltdown site in Japan. She further describes French nuclear waste recycling as a good thing. She has 9 million followers, many of whom are young women. This is wild:

"Howare you keeping safe in the exlusion zone? What dose of radiation are you receiving during your visit? Be safe and thank you for your service!"

"Thank you! I had an individual geiger counter strapped to me the entire time, which monitors the cumulative radiation a person is exposed to...

There are Geiger counters on everything, everywhere. Nuclear operators were timing how long we were in different respective zones... We got pretty close [to] the reactor - close enough to see the explosion site and rubble - but there was also a defined zone where we did not cross.

At the end we went through all sorts of protocols and technologies to measure... exposure. At the end of the tour, my final Geiger counter measure was 0.2 mSv - the equivalent of roughly two chest X-Rays. I decided for myself beforehand that that level of exposure was worth the information and policy expertise from the experience. For me, understanding + studying the science and scale of radiation puts me more at ease"

"France uses nuclear power. How do they manage it differently? They don't have earthquakes..."

"I can get into more detail later, but one key difference in France's nuclear technology is that France recycles their nuclear waste.

When we discuss the risk and controversial parts of nuclear, a lot of it centers on nuclear waste and what to do with it. Nuclear waste is radioactive, and needs to be securely taken care of.

France recycles their waste, increasing the efficiency of their system and reducing the amount of radioactive waste to deal with. The US does not recylce our waste, whch means ift builds up and gets stored on-site. Japan sends its waste to France and the UK for recycling but does not presently have recycling facilities of its own [sic]"

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has been in staunch opposition to nuclear power. With increasing costs of importing liquefied natural gas, energy supplies have become more burdensome for the island. Public sentiment has actually shifted positive and there has been big moves in support of new reactors in the country. This to me is a big one since the nation was directly effected by a disaster related to the technology.

Stephen Stapczynski @SStapczynski

Twelve years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan‘s public and policymakers are moving to embrace nuclear energy 🇯🇵 ☢️ This comes as the nation looks to boost energy security and hit ambitious green goals (Amazing report from @shoko_oda. Please follow!) bloomberg.com/news/features/…

bloomberg.comBloomberg - Are you a robot?

Globally, nuclear power represents around 10% of total energy production. It is especially important in the European region when compared to the rest of the world. The Asian region is also expected to get a boost in nuclear power activity, as China has plans to build the most new plants of any country. In total around the world there are 60 new reactors planned and 85 getting lifetime extensions.

INTERACTIVE - global nuclear energy — Aljazeera

Overall, I think the energy crisis in Europe expedited a sentiment shift that was in the works regardless of more nuclear power support. When energy and capital are cheap, it is easy to think that solely renewables can easily pave our path forward. It seems like people are realizing that a more sensible policy includes nuclear power which can provide a lot of clean baseload power to the grid. Fear about nuclear is often fabricated through inadequate information, but as those who visit meltdown sites and do research realize, there are solutions. We are seeing in front of our eyes a shift in sentiment toward nuclear power generation, and dare I say we will see a nuclear “renaissance.” Until next week,

-Grayson

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