Why nuclear energy is essential to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission rates

Abstract

Abstract. Reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is advocated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To achieve this target, countries have opted for renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar. These renewables will be unable to supply the needed large quantities of energy to run industrial societies sustainably, economically and reliably because they are inherently intermittent, depending on flexible backup power or on energy storage for delivery of base-load quantities of electrical energy. The backup power is derived in most cases from combustion of natural gas. Intermittent energy sources, if used in this way, do not meet the requirements of sustainability, nor are they economically viable because they require redundant, underutilized investment in capacity both for generation and for transmission. Because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, the equivalent carbon dioxide value of methane may cause gas-fired stations to emit more greenhouse gas than coal-fired plants of the same power for currently reported leakage rates of the natural gas. Likewise, intermittent wind/solar photovoltaic systems backed up by gas-fired power plants also release substantial amounts of carbon-dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas to make such a combination environmentally unacceptable. In the long term, nuclear fission technology is the only known energy source that is capable of delivering the needed large quantities of energy safely, economically, reliably and in a sustainable way, both environmentally and as regards the available resource-base.

Silver Buckshot or Bullet: Is a Future “Energy Mix” Necessary?

“…Ironically, empirical studies found that a policy attempt at expanding renewables might not even reduce coal-based electricity and embedded greenhouse-gas emissions (e.g., [57]). Ultimately, as the urgency of climate change mitigation mounts and as requirements for sustainable growth in developing economies and the replacement of aging infrastructure in the developed world come to the fore, pragmatic decisions on the economic and logistical viability of all types of non-fossil technologies will have to be made rationally and with consideration to their respective benefits and limitations [58].…”

“…It has all of the crucial attributions required of a clean-energy "techno-fix", in that: (i) it offers the feasible prospect of a "plug in" replacement for coal-and gas-fired electricity; (ii) its process heat or excess electrical output can be used for synfuel manufacture and other industrial applications to replace oil; and (iii) this next generation of nuclear power systems avoids many of the real and perceived problems of current-generation reactor technology [31,[58][59][60][61].…”

“…This can most certainly be done at a far faster rate than France converted their country to nuclear generation, considering that they evinced no great sense of urgency and were building far more complex, non-modular systems. France was able to shift from approximately <20-80% nuclear electricity in just 11 years [58] and Sweden had similar success with a mix of nuclear and hydro [81,82]. For another comparison, being a simple and replicable design, the factory production of IFR PRISMs would be of comparable complexity to building heavy bombers during World War II.…”

Electric Power and Natural Gas Synergism

“…When the sun doesn't shine and the wind won't blow, we all know we need reliable on-demand electric power at a reasonable cost. As Alonso, et al [5] point out, averaged over a year, wind/solar systems deliver 25% to 45% of their nameplate production capacity. Thus backup power plants (with rapid startups) or adequate energy storage facilities (which do not currently exist) would have to deliver the remaining 55% to 75% of electricity, based on the renewable nameplate deficit.…”