Done With Fossil Fuels? Meet The Better and Greener Alternative. The Case For Nuclear Energy!

US energy production has had quite a remarkable recovery in the last couple of years. Long story short, the US currently is the number one producer in oil and natural gas and that is no small feat. For years now the US has produced the majority of the world's natural gas but as I mentioned before, allies like Germany still seem to like to get it from countries like Russia, a non-NATO country which the EU has called a threat. Maybe because they offer it cheaper.

Whatever the reasons were for some of our allies to fill their energy needs from an outsider, it showed the first crack in the perfect glass bubble the American oil and gas dominion had become. Let me explain, President Trump was very much involved in making the US the top producer of energy and it was very forceful. We about doubled our oil production from 2016 to 2019, from 8,852 per day to 12,248 per day in 2019 respectively, the price was keeping steady as demand kept up with that supply.

Other major energy producers kept up and Saudi Arabia and Russia ramped up the production causing the price to get cheaper as supply increased while the demand only continued to steadily increase. There was some cooperation between the three countries, and output was adjusted to get the price under control to keep it from freefalling and it appeared that Trump was keeping a lid on things while keeping the US on top. Then COVID-19 happened. Global demand for oil and gas tanked as economic activity almost came to a standstill. Oil during covid became pretty confusing as prices even reached negative territory! Despite all this. The countries worked together and agreements were made and the price recovered, still rising.

At the same time, we have been witnessing an evolution in mobilization, that being Electric Vehicles (EV). We all know that EV’s have a bright future and if you are not convinced yet you just haven’t seen enough. No worries, you can keep your lifted Diesel, it’s more about preference. But, EV’s are quite capable, they are the fastest production cars on the planet hands down, the Triple motor Tesla CyberTruck is advertised as having a 14,000+ LBS towing capacity. An F150 has around 5,000-11,000, an F250 has a towing capacity of below 13,000 LBS! Are EV’s fully ready to take over yet? No. Reasons for this are numerous but are not anybody’s fault, change takes time. In the meantime, we are looking at a few very good companies that are bringing some alternatives into the mainstream. Like Tesla who has become the world's most valuable carmaker by market cap.

The Biden administration wants to increase infrastructure to make EV’s a more viable option by building more charging stations. There has also been discussion of investing in solar energy and increasing offshore windmills. All these things are wonderful, and debatably create enough sustainable clean energy for large parts of the country after a long time and much tax money spent. But first, we have to build it, the required infrastructure doesn’t exist yet. There is nothing wrong with moving us towards using more renewables as supplementary energy sources in the future, but what is wrong is destroying the means to produce our current energy. The Biden administration has “canceled” the Keystone XL pipeline, a pipeline that was meant to mostly transport oil sands from Canada to the US, a venture with tremendous positive economic impact for both countries and the regions. This move is a clear sign that the current administration will not support the US energy-producing dominance, but give up this strategic advantage.

Where does that leave us?

Well, let’s sum up the situation and get some facts straight:

Oil is debatably bad and we want to get away from it. But we need a source of energy that is capable of the same magnitude.

We need an alternative source of energy, and the new source should be greener than what we have used hitherto.

We preferably need to have this new source of energy as fast as possible and not after we have built the infrastructure for it, since we are already stopping to drill and mine for gas and oil on federal lands.

How can we possibly solve this conundrum? If you remember the title of this article you already know where this is going. The only possible answer is Nuclear energy. Before you roll your eyes let's see if we can check some boxes.

• Nuclear energy is the only source of energy known and available to humans at this point in history that could rival the output of oil.

• Nuclear energy is much cleaner than any of the sources of energy we have used before including oil, gas, and coal.

• The infrastructure for Nuclear mostly already exists and an entirely new grid would not be needed.

Interested yet? Let's talk about what nuclear energy is and how nuclear plants produce energy, it's quite simple actually.

In the reactor of a nuclear plant, Uranium atoms are smashed together which splits them in a process called nuclear fission. This process releases energy in the form of heat. The reactor is located underwater and every time fission occurs the water around the reactor is heated to around 520 degrees Celsius or 968 Fahrenheit. The water boils and releases steam, the steam blows into a giant turbine that spins to create energy into a generator like a dynamo. Below is a diagram of the process from Howstuffworks.

Check out more about nuclear plants here.

Now is it Green you ask? Nuclear power does NOT emit any greenhouse gases, it also does not emit ANY carbon! 0 carbon, it produces mostly water steam. Yeah, you might hear some people say something like, “But when a nuclear plant is built, trucks that bring the materials release carbon, so some carbon was produced to make it.”..” or when the uranium was mined”. Yes, but I am probably emitting carbon right now just writing about nuclear plants, to me it is more important the plant doesn’t create carbon when it is producing energy, rather than when it is built. You can't build anything without emitting carbon! Not even a windmill or a solar panel.

Is Nuclear energy Capable? One pound of Uranium-235 can produce two to three million times as much electricity as one pound of coal or oil. An average-sized single nuclear plant produces as much energy as 3.125 million 320 watts solar panels, or 431 offshore windmills, and can power 100 million LEDs! If you do some digging you find many incredible facts about nuclear energy that are not commonly known, for example, Nuclear energy production and jobs have resulted in fewer deaths than coal, oil, and gas.

But it can’t all be good right? What are the downsides? Four common areas of concern.

1. Accidents

2. Radiation

3. Nuclear waste storage

4. Nuclear waste transport

1. Accidents

In the totality of human existence, we have only seen three major nuclear reactor accidents. The most known is Chernobyl in modern-day Ukraine, and most recently Fukushima in Japan, which was damaged by a massive Tsunami. The other lesser-known accident happened on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and resulted in 0 injuries but there was a small release of radioactive material into the surrounding area. The area was decontaminated to the extent possible and people still live on the island and experts say that the area is safe today and is continuously monitored.

2. Radiation

Radiation is not easy to understand but it can be summed up nicely. Most things release some form of radiation. The sun, your body, a banana! Some form of radiation can interact with DNA and cause it to malfunction which can lead to cancer. For radiation to interact with DNA it must first “reach” it, remember we are talking about atoms here. A great analogy I found that explains the probability of getting cancer from radiation. Getting cancer from radiation is like shooting at a powerline (DNA) with a rifle (Radiation atoms) from very far away. The chance is very small that you hit it, but the longer you try the more likely is it that you will hit it. But it's important to remember that nuclear energy plants do not emit radiation. The radiation is safely contained behind massive walls and underground, and the only exposure possible would be if the plant would meltdown like Chernobyl. Even then, only the ground surrounding the plant and people in the immediate area would be exposed.

3. Nuclear waste storage

What we consider Nuclear waste is the “spent” uranium that is hot and radioactive. After the Uranium exits the reactor, it is a liquid, so we are talking about liquid radioactive metal that remains radioactive for 1,000 to 10,000 years. The waste is stored according to regulations of several organizations and associations like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in facilities like decommissioned mines deep underground or in mountains far away from civilization, ideally places like Yucca Mountain repository. Currently, we store our nuclear waste in pools in similar facilities spread across the US.

President Biden signed an executive order to stop the renewal of leases for drilling and mining on federal lands which will create unused abandoned sites and mines that could be converted for storing nuclear waste.

4. Nuclear waste transport

A contentious point in many countries that use a lot of nuclear energy like France and Germany is transporting the spent Uranium to its final storage facility. In small countries with a shortage of rural areas, the transport of this waste can easily rub the local population the wrong way. A train filled with radioactive waste rolling through the neighborhood is rightfully concerning to some. There is, of course, a host of regulation that governs how nuclear waste can be transported, they are not just put on regular truck and trains. The containers used to transport the waste are specifically made for that purpose and designed to keep people and the environment safe should an accident occur.

Alright, let's put it all together:

A more powerful, greener, tested method to produce energy exists and we are actively using it, currently, 98 reactors in 58 power plants are operational in the US, 440 reactors worldwide. The method is statistically safer than current primary methods to produce energy and it creates zero of the stuff some people claim creates climate change, carbon. Is nuclear energy completely without worry or downsides? No. You would be hard-pressed to find any source of energy that is. Other powerplants emit greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere and other sometimes hard detectable toxins that make their way into the environment.

My point is this, instead of abandoning all we have known and plunge headfirst into the future without a parachute we should make sure we are secure along the way. Using Nuclear energy as we distance ourselves from fossil fuels and build up our infrastructure to incorporate renewable energies like wind, solar, and hydro is a rational alternative that should be explored.

Thanks,

The Punkrock Capitalist