We all know the facts.
Climate change is fast becoming a catastrophe we can't control.
And Putin's war on Ukraine is squeezing out Europe's energy supplies.
There are so many reasons we need to move away from fossil fuels fast.
Even with the latest news about really promising nuclear fusion breakthroughs,
all experts warn that this technology
is no option for the near future: “probably decades”
And amid a heated discussion across all social media platforms and channels.
Some people seem to have the answer.
It's actually not just this guy.
“Nuclear power, nuclear power, ...”
Nuclear power is a big topic at the moment, and many news feeds
are filling more and more with the high profile supporters.
We even got nuclear influencers these days.
And they all say a version of the same thing:
“Safe, clean, clean and green.”
“Nuclear energy is cool.”
Nuclear energy is green, efficient and safer than you might think.
In short, it's our only way out.
So I started wondering: What if?
What if their arguments are all true?
And what if we say yes to nuclear energy?
Would we actually be able to do it?
Could we just simply switch to nuclear and could we do it in time to save us?
My first guess would be
that building a new nuclear power plant is extremely cost and time intensive.
Right.
And to get some context, we'll have to do some time traveling.
Just an hour drive away from Vienna,
there's a very unique nuclear power plant.
That's it. It got built in the 1970s.
But then at the very last minute, plans changed and it never got switched on.
Back then, the Austrian government, like so many others across Europe and North America,
wanted to tap into nuclear energy by building three power stations.
And they started with this one right here in a place called “Zwentendorf”.
It's about 50 kilometers away from Vienna, right next to the Danube River.
And it was planned to generate
700 megawatts of electricity when operating at full capacity.
The only problem was Austrians didn't want it.
There were massive protests against nuclear power
so much that the government eventually called for a national referendum.
The result was close, a difference of just 30,000 votes.
But the government and nuclear energy lost.
Protesters won. The “On-Button” for this brand new power station,
never got press pressed.
Now, with all the talks about the energy crisis and benefits
of nuclear, there's a pretty obvious question in my mind.
Could we turn it on today and more generally:
Could we use old decommissioned nuclear power plants
to help us move away from fossil fuels more quickly?
This is what I'm here to find out.
But first, a minute of nuclear history.
At the time, this was build nuclear power is still relatively new
and it was starting to become a pretty big deal.
Loads of countries were investing in nuclear technology
from Brazil to Russia to the US to Japan.
It was especially popular in Europe.
By 1985, France was already producing 65% of its electricity from nuclear fission.
Sweden 42, Germany 26 and the UK 20%.
At one stage in 1993, Lithuania got an amazing
88% of its electricity from nuclear energy.
It was a bit of a boom time for nuclear, you could say.
But then the accident started to happen.
Three Mile Island in 1997, Chernobyl in 1986
and Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.
The direct death tolls from these actions were actually pretty low,
but they were high profile events and unique.
Radiation was a massive threat, especially in Chernobyl,
where the UN estimates that it did later kill thousands of people.
Leaving behind a ghost town and the vast sealed off contamination area.
The fear around nuclear power grew
just like we're seeing it with the current conflict in Ukraine
and growing concerns in Europe that there could be another accident in the country.
This time in the war torn Zaporizhzhia.
And it's not just the process
of nuclear fission that people worry about but storing the waste as well.
Spent fuel from nuclear reactors has to be cooled in special ponds
for about 7 to 10 years, then stored and sealed in
concrete-and-steel containers for an interim period of another 50 years.
And after this, it still can pose a health risk for another thousands of years.
So the general idea is to bury deep underground.
This isn't exactly easy, and Finland
is the only country in the world with a permanent geological repository.
Most other countries reckon on
about 40 to 60 years to implement the long term storage plans.
Anyway.
Public opinion and political decisions started to have an impact
on nuclear energy, and it gradually declined in popularity.
Not everywhere.
France still got almost 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy,
and the US is the world's biggest nuclear producer,
generating 843 billion kilowatt hours.
About 30% of the global nuclear energy.
But in Germany in 2011, right after the accident in Fukushima,
Angela Merkel's government announced that it would phase out nuclear completely.
Three power stations were shut down in 2021,
with the remaining three planned for closure by the end of 2022.
Only now, with the current situation, there's a rethink going on.
Germany says it will close
just one reactor and keep the other two open till April ... at least.
Even Greta Thunberg got involved,
asking why Germany is facing out nuclear when its alternative is to focus on coal.
“It's a mistake to close them down in order to focus on coal.”
Coal fired power produces around 200 times more greenhouse gases than nuclear.
And as we're all aiming for net zero emissions, that's
obviously not a good thing.
On the other hand, coal seems safer, you would think.
But actually nuclear energy is estimated to cost
just 0.03 deaths per unit of electricity produced,
whereas coal is responsible for 24.6 deaths
and brown coal for 32.7.
The only thing safer than nuclear is solar, with 0.02 deaths per unit
and other statistics, like a study led by Harvard University,
estimate global deaths from fossil fuel production to be around 8 million a year.
So, yes, it's complicated.
But let's go back to the question from the beginning.
Even if we do decide that nuclear energy is the answer to all our energy problems,
can we invest in it soon enough to make a difference?
This plant was built in the 1970s, and you can probably see that.
So here in Austria's non-nuclear power plant,
the answer is basically: No.
This place showed me a really good but also really bad side to nuclear energy.
At least for now.
That's because technology moves incredibly quickly, not just computers.
Research institutes and global regulatory bodies invest heavily
in making nuclear power safer, more efficient and fit for the future.
We now have enhanced containment measures like thick concrete shells built around
reactors, and scientists are working
hard on making nuclear power plants more resilient to extreme weather events.
But of course, this all takes time and money.
China, which is planning to increase its nuclear electricity generation
by a whopping 533% before 2060
is a pretty fast build up nuclear power plants.
And even these take about nine years to be built.
And elsewhere, with all the permits and special materials,
it can take like 10 to 20 years.
Let's take Hinkley Point C, for example.
A new power plant with two reactors that's planned to provide
electricity for 6 million homes in the UK.
It was announced in 2010 and granted license in 2012.
Construction began in March 2017 and is now slated for completion in 2027.
That's a total of 17 years from start to finish, assuming all runs on time
and such a large scale construction project requires a really big workforce.
But given the
complex nature of nuclear energy, the work is often highly specialized,
and especially in the UK and the US, there's high concern within the industry
that we simply don't have enough skilled workers for a big expansion
into nuclear yet.
Yes, investment in education programs is increasing, but of course
this kind of thing can't be learned overnight.
And then there is money.
Hinkley Point C, for example, is expected to cost £25 billion,
so roughly $3 billion to build.
Some models put the levelized cost of generating electricity from nuclear energy
at about three times or more than solar or wind.
And this is even before you consider paying for all the waste disposal.
So if we're hoping to use nuclear to solve our energy crisis
or meet any of our 2030 climate targets, we've clearly got a problem.
It's costly and slow to build a nuclear power plant,
which means that this isn't a short term solution.
And the nuclear plants we do have can also cause problems.
This winter, 26 of France's 56 reactors have been out of operation
because they needed repairs
that were delayed by strikes, COVID and financial problems.
The timing was incredible.
Just when France needed its nuclear reactors the most, it ended up
becoming a net importer of electricity rather than selling it to other countries.
We should probably also take into account that not all countries have uranium,
which is the most widely used fuel for nuclear fission.
About 60% of the world's supply come from just three countries
Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.
And as we've all learned recently from the example of Russian gas and oil,
it can be risky
to make yourself dependent on just one or two countries for your energy needs.
All the same, we're definitely seeing a renewed interest in nuclear.
The UK government announced it will invest another £700 million
into a new power plant northeast of London.
Bangladesh and Turkey are building their first nuclear reactors
and even the UAE, one of the top producers of oil, is completing
a major nuclear power plant, which would meet 25%
of the country's electricity needs when it's fully operational.
If it does, it will reduce carbon emissions by 22 million tons
a year, the equivalent of taking 4.8 million cars off the roads.
And there are other ways we could see nuclear being used in the future.
Research is progressing into small modular reactors, or SMR,
which produced roughly a third of what a conventional reactor does,
but are much easier and cheaper to assemble and also have a smaller
environmental footprint.
These are still only in development, and while they're expected to cost less
to assembled, their economic efficiency hasn't been established yet.
According to the Atomic Energy Association, around 70 different
commercial types are being developed around the world, with the hope
being that these technologies can be used for the end of this decade.
Again, this is going to take time
and as we've seen, it's complicated.
What's clear is that nuclear fission won't save us from the energy crisis.
Neither will it help us to achieve any of the climate goals by 2030.
But maybe the answer is that nuclear
power could work for us in meeting the climate goals we've set for 2050,
as long as it's part of a broad and sustainable energy mix.
And the never turned on power plant in Zwentendorf nuclear is a no go.
But the site is covered by more than 2000 solar panels that do generate
electricity, though it's obviously only a fraction of what was originally planned.
And solar energy,
as we've seen, is clean and safe, only that the sun isn't always shining.
So, yes, that one is complicated, too.
Thank you for watching.
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There's much more coming up.
So see you next time.