Innovative Atomic Is The Only Viable Solution To Climate Change

Clean, safe…affordable nuclear technology.

CANDU reactor. Fun fact: 1 kg of coal can generate 8 kWh of heat, whereas 1 kg of uranium 235 can generate 24,000,000 kWh of heat.

Atomic was always pretty reliable, relatively speaking, but now scientists overwhelmingly agree today’s nuclear is clean, safe and affordable. Climate change can be solved with innovative atomic, without requiring new global treaties or socialist trade policies. Spread the word!

Did you know only 31 (45 by some accounts) people died in the top 3 nuclear disasters? And that only 1 of those 3 had any deaths at all. Can you guess which accident that was? Find out below.

“The World Needs to Quit Coal. Why Is It So Hard?” Because of the dread and taboo surrounding nuclear power…when nukes close, coal, not solar or wind, takes up the slack. — Steven Pinker

Fun Fact: In the U.S., hydropower is produced for an average of 0.85 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh). Nuclear comes in at an amazing 0.49 cents per emission-free kwh.

CLIMATE CHANGE MUST BE SOLVED!

This subject is top of mind as climate change destroys more lives every day. Even some of our favourite Hollywood celebrities like Steve Guttenberg are starting to pay attention to the nuclear option.

The Big 3 Meltdowns — The phantom menace of a distant past.

3 Mile Island March 28, 1979, Pressurized Water Reactor built in 1978. No one died as a result of the TMI-2 accident. No notable health effects in surrounding population. [2]

Chernobyl 25–26 April 1986, Light Water Graphite Reactor built in 1979. 31 people died as a direct result of the accident; two died from blast effects and a further 29 firemen died as a result of acute radiation exposure. Thousands of those who were children and adolescents at the time of the accident have developed thyroid cancer as a result of exposure to radioactive iodine. The majority of those cancers have been treated successfully. [3] [4]

Fukushima Daiichi 11 March 2011, Boiling Water Reactors built in 1967-1973. There were no deaths caused by acute radiation syndrome. Studies by the World Health Organisation and Tokyo University have shown that no discernible increase in the rate of cancer deaths is expected. [5]

Fun Fact: Chernobyl in 1986 was the last core meltdown before an earthquake triggered Fukushima in 2011. A gap of 25 years. It’s now been over 30 years since a nuclear accident caused a fatality.

Other core meltdowns have occurred at: [6]

*Experimental/Prototype

Eight Soviet Navy nuclear submarines have had nuclear core meltdowns or radiation incidents: K-19 (1961), K-11(1965), K-27 (1968), K-140 (1968), K-429 (1970), K-222 (1980), K-314 (1985), and K-431 (1985).

Fun Fact: France has the dubious distinction of having the only reactor to melt down twice.

Of all 14 reactor meltdowns and incidents to date, 3 major including the most recent Chernobyl(1986) and Fukushima(2011) and 11 incidental occurrences; 6 were experimental facilities.

I Bet You’re Hung Up On Subsidies…but think again.

Conventional technologies like nuclear and oil receive less than $2 per megawatt-hour. By contrast, wind received $57/MWh in 2010, falling to $15/MWh over our study period. Astonishingly, solar support stood at $876/MWh in 2010 but is expected to decline to $70/MWh by 2019. Solar is the worst and not so long ago had an actual loss of 5+ times the value of the energy it generates. Somewhat better now, thankfully.

Total Subsidy Spending on Electricity by Fuel and Year, US millions of dollars, nominal. Notice nuclear is subsidized much less than solar or wind and only slightly more than oil.

Fun Fact: 1 kW capacity of solar panels require approximately 100 sqft of space. 100,000 sqft for 1 mW capacity. It would take 58.2 million sqft in solar panels to match the output of America’s single smallest nuclear reactor.

Total Reactors Ever Built Anywhere: 615

Serious Meltdowns: 3

Total attributed deaths due to Meltdowns: 31 (All at Chernobyl)

Success Rate: 99.5% of reactors have operated without serious problem and 97.7% have had no incident whatsoever.

31 Countries Have Operational Nuclear Reactors of the 45 Capable

(Operational/Planned/Under-construction/Unfinished/Defunct) [1]

United States (98/14/2/3/36), France (58/0/1/0/13), China (42/45/15/0/0), Russia (36/24/7/17/6), South Korea (24/0/5/0/1), India (22/20/7/0/0), Canada (19/0/0/0/6), Ukraine (15/0/2/17/4), United Kingdom (15/11/0/0/26)

Japan (8/3/2/0/31), Sweden (8), Belgium (7), Spain (7), Czech Republic (6), Germany (5), Pakistan (5), Switzerland (5)

Finland (4), Hungary (4), Slovakia (4), Taiwan (4), Argentina (2), Brazil (2), Bulgaria (2), Mexico (2), South Africa (2), Romania (2), Armenia (1), Iran (1), Netherlands (1), Slovenia (1)

The R. E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in New York is the smallest nuclear power plant in the United States, and it has one reactor with an electricity generating capacity of 582 megawatts (MW). If the R. E. Ginna reactor operates at 582 MW capacity for 24 hours, it will generate 13,968 megawatthours (MWh). It cost 346.15 million to build. US average per MW value is $150.00. Ginna produces $2,095,200.00 worth of energy per day and costs around $700,000.00 a day to operate. Generated build cost in a year or so and has been operating for 48 years without incident.

The Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona is the largest nuclear power plant in the United States with three reactors and a total electricity generating capacity of about 3,937 MW.” [7] Or 94,488 MWh worth of emission free energy per day.

Fun Fact: 1 barrel of oil generates 1.69941 Megawatt Hours so Palo Verde is saving approximately 55,600.47 barrels of oil a day. There are 98 reactors in the US of various kinds.

So how about a summary of the entire nuclear output of the United States of America. Adding up all currently operational reactors, the US produces just shy of 100,000 MW(99,587 capacity as of this writing) which is 2,390,088 MWh a day. Or 1,406,422.23 barrels of clean oil alternative per day.

“U.S. oil production broke 10 million barrels a day for the first time in 48 years in November…” [8]

That means the US produces 7 times more energy in oil than in clean atomic and it needs to. The appetite for energy from the US consumer is out of this world. When we consider the US produces around 10 million megawatt hours of energy a day and consumes 11,745,252.76 MWh we begin to understand the imbalance.

“In 2017, the United States consumed a total of 7.28 billion barrels of petroleum products, an average of about 19.96 million barrels per day…imported approximately 10.14 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of petroleum from about 84 countries.” [9]

Fun Fact: There has never been a meltdown or associated incident in any reactor built from 1980 onward.

For comparison at a cost of $36 to produce 1 barrel; oil comes in at the best bang for the buck at 0.47 cents per kwh. Just barely better than atomic which is, however,…completely emission free! Isn’t that worth a difference of 0.02 cents?!?

Most of the US energy demand, 60% is being filled right now by polluting oil and clean Nuclear supplies another 20% or so. Renewables are around 17% with affordable hydro accounting for half of that. I hope the scale of the problem has been made clear. There is no affordable clean alternative to Nuclear at this point or within the foreseeable future that can handle the growing demand. We can’t keep increasing oil capacity AND fight climate change.

Science is the answer; embrace innovative atomic and save the planet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors

[2] http://www.ans.org/pi/resources/sptopics/tmi/faq.php

[3] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20403-25-years-after-chernobyl-we-dont-know-how-many-died/

[4] https://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/index.htm

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

[7] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=104&t=3

[8] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/us-oil-production-tops-10-million-barrels-a-day-for-first-time-since-1970.html

[9] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6