Why would climate publications disrespect nuclear fission?
Here is another instance of climate reporting that treats nuclear fission as if it barely exists.
Before COP28, Cipher published an “Exclusive” that led off with “The United States is working behind the scenes to ensure nuclear power is not excluded from an expected global pledge to boost renewables at the upcoming climate summit in Dubai, Cipher has learned.” (Emphasis added)
Anca Gruzu’s article, Exclusive: U.S. pushes to ensure nuclear “is not forgotten” in COP renewables pledge describes the diplomatic effort craft a broad COP agreement to mitigate climate change, including tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency. She also mentioned a stretch goal of including language expressing the need to halt new coal plant construction.
The article includes a dismissive quote about nuclear fission energy.
“Despite its important role reducing emissions, nuclear energy is a controversial topic around the world, with concern persisting about safety, radioactive waste and the risk it could be co-opted for use in weapons. In the EU specifically, several member countries hold anti-nuclear positions.”
The article failed to mention that the broadly supported effort to ensure that nuclear was “not excluded” involved almost 2 dozen countries in addition to the United States, even before COP.
It also didn’t mention that the real, achieved goal, was to achieve a broadly supported declaration expressing a goal of tripling nuclear FISSION generating capacity.
A search of Cipher conducted this morning (DEC 16, 2023) revealed that its COP coverage included an extensive article by Bill Spindle about how nuclear fusion had made its “first ever appearance” at a COP during COP28. That 22 paragraph article describes the “universal fanfare over nuclear fusion” while including the following dismissal of nuclear fission.
“Fission got plenty of attention at this COP, as well, with 22 countries pledging to triple the capacity of the technology, which produces no global warming gases.
Fission plants — the hulking towers that have rarely, but at times spectacularly, struggled with safety issues in the three-quarters of a century they’ve been around — unleash massive amounts of energy by splitting atoms apart. This creates radioactive waste and requires controls to avoid the sort of runaway chain reaction that melted down the infamous Chernobyl facility in the former Soviet Union in 1986.“
Aside: Though some nuclear power plants have “hulking” cooling towers, those are not the fission part of the plant. They’re not any part of the plant for a large portion of the world’s nuclear plants because they are located on large bodies of water and use those for condenser heat rejection. Many fossil fuel plant have the same “hulking towers.” End Aside.
Within its extensive COP coverage Cipher also mentioned the 24 country agreement to triple nuclear energy capacity in a two sentence “Hot Take” titled “Nuclear Renaissance?”
The fusion article and the “hot take” seem to be the extent of Cipher’s nuclear energy coverage from a 2-week meeting that some attendees called “the nuclear COP.”
(My site search also found a pre-COP article about “Gulf petrostates” with the following sentence mentioning “nuclear.” “The UAE operates the world’s largest single-site solar farm and started up three nuclear reactors since 2020.” )
The first three reactors at the Barakah nuclear power station now produce more than 18% of the USE’s electricity. When the 4th one of the project starts commercial operation in the next month or so, the total will increase to 25%. It’s a somewhat bigger deal than Cipher made it out to be.
Why is this nuclear fission disrespect from Cipher important enough for such a long post?
Cipher’s “About” page includes this self-description “Cipher covers the technological innovations we need to combat climate change and transform our global energy systems.” The publication’s executive editor is @AmyAHarder Cipher is sponsored by Breakthrough Energy.
Cipher’s fission “coverage” slows global progress in combating climate change. Fission is an incredibly powerful natural reaction that serves as an easily controlled heat source for the most productive, cleanest and safest power plants on Earth. It will play an increasingly important role in addressing energy sufficiency for all, energy abundance for most, energy security and energy cleanliness.
Of course nuclear is a “controversial topic.” People have been carefully taught to fear fission. They have rarely been taught much about the technological details of the power plants. Publications like Cipher that point to accidents almost never mention the statistical evidence accumulated over >6 decades that shows nuclear fission is one of our safest forms of energy production.
It’s logical to have some trepidation and concerns about the unknown, especially when fear messaging has been so prevalent.
There is also the competitive factor. Nuclear energy production takes markets away from all other power sources. No business likes to lose sales and revenues. All businesses strive to beat their competition. Talking trash and going negative are frequently used techniques.
But journalists shouldn’t pick sides.
Cipher should adhere to its mission of covering [all of] “the technological innovations we need to combat climate change” and the rest of our energy challenges.
I’m sure this disclosure at the bottom of Spindle’s fusion article has nothing to do with Cipher’s editorial or journalistic decisions about technologies worth covering.
“Editor’s note: Commonwealth Fusion investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a program of Breakthrough Energy, which also supports Cipher.”
After all, Bill Gates is a major part of Breakthrough Energy. He is widely known in the fission world as the primary backer for TerraPower, a leading fission system developer working on both liquid metal cooled reactors and molten salt reactors.
Image credit – International Atomic Energy Agency
I understand Bill Gates’ support for nuclear power is through his personal investments. Although Gates founded Breakthrough Energy, some of its other investors are dead set against nuclear power.
The dangers of excess CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere is a scientific reality that has gradually been embraced by the extreme left. And since commercial nuclear power has been demonized by the extreme left, many publications try to be politically correct when mentioning nuclear energy as a climate change solution.
In Atomic Insights of 18 Dec 2023, Rod Adams asks, “Why would climate publications disrespect nuclear fission?”
Evidently, the reason is that antinuclear disinformation is still thriving, now stronger than ever.
I think the main problem is that understanding and acceptance of nuclear energy are determined by whether or not fear and ignorance have been replaced with basic understanding, e.g., by STEM education. AFAICT, that is still controlled by politics. For example, there are several good science museums in the SF Bay Area that love to go on about climate and biology, but they all steer clear of basics like chemistry and physics, either by silence or in some cases, by opting to leave students in an impossible are-you-for-it-or-against-it dilemma[1].
I think that a better solution would be to teach basics of physics and chemistry of atoms, emphasizing the science in its own right, and not jumping into arguments about the rightness or wrongness of what people do with it. Just the facts, please[2].
(Aside: Rod’s blog and discussions contain many of the best examples of leading STEM advocates towards understanding the science of nuclear reactors and away from public fear and ignorance, e.g., distinguishing “prompt” neutrons from “fast” neutrons and explaining that “delayed” neutrons are critical to the operation of both fast and slow neutron reactor designs. End aside).
The best article I’ve ever read on how nuclear reactors work is one on Lithium Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs), written by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir[3]. Among other things, it includes a table graphically comparing the decay chains of the Th232->U233 and U238->Pu239 fuel cycles. Goodness, how I wish that schoolkids in the USA could be taught what constitutes the differences between the two fuel cycles, and at least some of what the differences mean, by the time the kids graduate from high school!
Notes:
[1] California Acadamy of Sciences, “Flipside Science, Exploring Energy: Designing a Brighter Future” (URL: https://www.calacademy.org/educators/nuclear-energy-is-fission-the-future). This unit falsely equates “clean energy” with “renewable energy”. It provides an overview of fission energy as too risky and costly to be practical, ignoring the details, instead cynically rooting for fission or fusion to provide a perfect solution for sometime in the indefinite future.
[2] Albuquerque, NM has an excellent science and history museum that offers an after-school class on basics of nuclear chemistry, physics, and reactor engineering; the course is open to middle and high school students. See “Project Atom” at URL: https://www.nuclearmuseum.org/educate/project-atom
[3] “Lithium Fluoride Thorium Reactors” by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir, in American Scientist July-August 2010; URL: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/liquid-fluoride-thorium-reactors
@Chris Aoki
I can’t speak for the SF area science museums, but I recall a visit to Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) when my children were young.
There was an extensive display about electricity and electricity generation complete with stations where one could assemble various electricity circuits, Van Der Graff generators, and some great photos of power plants. Wind, solar, gas, coal, geothermal and even tidal were mentioned as sources or potential sources of power. Even though there used to be a nuclear unit about 1.5 hours north of Tampa at Crystal River, there wasn’t a single mention of the word nuclear in the entire exhibit.
Tampa Electric Company (TECO) was the exhibit sponsor. At the time, TECO generated about 90% of its electricity by burning coal, with the rest being gas speakers. (This was in the early 1990s.)
Wow! What a biased description given about fission power. The choice of words was negatively excellent while being just at the edge of going over the top.
It was a grudging acknowledgement that nuclear fission exists. It was like the author was forced to mention it and it held the same smell for him as removing week old garbage that has been under a hot sun. As odd as it sounds, I think it’s an improvement over most. I’ve seen many pieces that rave about renewable energy with not a mouse peep mentioned about the power source that provides almost 20 percent of the US electricity.
Is the reluctant acknowledgement a hidden expression of ignorance or is it real disdain for nuclear fission? Yet, nuclear fusion is often touted as a panacea for the world’s energy problems when a real example of an operating facility has yet to exist. We really don’t know all the waste by products of these envisioned facilities.
The US will, no doubt, be building more nuclear plants. However, many will be dragged kicking and screaming along that future energy path.
With regards natural draft cooling towers being indelibly associated with nukes, I think you can thank “The Simpsons” for that. The geothermal station at Ohaaki, New Zealand has one. More than a few tourists have complained that we can’t have a nuclear free status because they have seen the Ohaaki tower. When quizzed, they reference Homer.
Though technically, I suppose one can claim geothermal stations are nukes. The radioactivity in the earth produces a lot of the heat.
Not to derail any discussion, but does anyone know why South Texas unit 1 is offline? I noticed this morning in the ‘Fuel Mix’ web data on ERCOT that total nuclear power generation for Texas was down, and checking the NRC website it showed “South Texas 1” at 0%.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/reactor-status/ps.html#R4
Jim
Thanks for asking. I had the same question yesterday but have not yet found an answer. I’ll keep trying and will respond here if I find anything.
Rod
South Texas unit 1 seems to have ramped back up. About 400MW early this morning (sometime after 1 AM when I checked) and looks like they are almost full power as I checked a few minutes ago (12:34 PM EST).
ERCOT nuclear fuel mix (output) shows over 4900MW today versus about 3700MW each day for the previous week.