This past spring I visited Los Alamos National Labs while on a trip in the United States southwest. Though it was a pit stop1 in a larger vacation, visiting the laboratory that was the center point of the Manhattan Project was more than enough to scratch my nuclear technology itch.
One of the books I recently read touched upon the Manhattan Project — Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! includes anecdotes from Richard Feynman’s time at Los Alamos. The pure genius of Feynman and the others that worked on this project is nearly incomprehensible. Maybe just as interesting as the scientific accomplishments are the societal impacts of those achievements.
☢️ ☢️ ☢️
One of the outputs from Los Alamos is nuclear energy, which is currently part of the mix of sources used in the United States. As of 2021, nuclear energy was 19% of the U.S. overall capacity.
Our energy consumption is a perpetual hot topic these days — some people want to be more “green” through use of renewable energy sources. Other people have commentary to provide on the price associated with their consumption, e.g., gas prices in recent months. How we consume energy is a very personal thing.
However, where this energy originates gets lost in translation transmission.2 Is the electricity I am using to power my EV renewable? What is the actual, precise mix of sources? Wind? Solar? Biomass? What is biomass? Is the wind energy imported from another state? How do you “import” wind anyway? Is the energy from another country? What are the geopolitical ramifications?
As long as the light switch works, for now few care where the wires behind it lead. That changes if flipping that light switch becomes a tough cost-benefit decision due to rising prices. The end user will also suddenly get curious if that switch does not work at all.
☢️ ☢️ ☢️
The way I’ve been thinking about our energy utilization is shaped by the Kardashev scale — a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to harness. The measure was first introduced by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev.
A quick summery–
Type 1 Civilization: Defined as one that can harness all the energy that reaches its home planet, such as our Earth, from its parent star.
Type 2 Civilization: Defined as one capable of using and channeling the entire radiation output of its star, such as our Sun.
Type 3 Civilization: Defined as one having access to power comparable to the luminosity of its entire glaxay, such as the Milky Way.
Michio Kaku is one of the modern physicists that has discussed and revised Kardashev’s framework. He wrote:
…a Type I civilization is a truly planetary one, which has mastered most forms of planetary energy. Their energy output may be on the order of thousands to millions of times our current planetary output. Mark Twain once said, ”Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.“ This may change with a Type I civilization, which has enough energy to modify the weather. They also have enough energy to alter the course of earthquakes, volcanoes, and build cities on their oceans.
Currently, our energy output qualifies us for Type 0 status. We derive our energy not from harnessing global forces, but by burning dead plants (e.g. oil and coal). But already, we can see the seeds of a Type I civilization. We see the beginning of a planetary language (English), a planetary communication system (the Internet), a planetary economy (the forging of the European Union), and even the beginnings of a planetary culture (via mass media, TV, rock music, and Hollywood films).
By definition, an advanced civilization must grow faster than the frequency of life-threatening catastrophes. Since large meteor and comet impacts take place once every few thousand years, a Type I civilization must master space travel to deflect space debris within that time frame, which should not be much of a problem. Ice ages may take place on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, so a Type I civilization must learn to modify the weather within that time frame.
Artificial and internal catastrophes must also be negotiated. But the problem of global pollution is only a mortal threat for a Type 0 civilization; a Type I civilization has lived for several millennia as a planetary civilization, necessarily achieving ecological planetary balance. Internal problems like wars do pose a serious recurring threat, but they have thousands of years in which to solve racial, national, and sectarian conflicts.
Eventually, after several thousand years, a Type I civilization will exhaust the power of a planet, and will derive their energy by consuming the entire output of their suns energy, or roughly a billion trillion trillion ergs per second.
It’s wild to think, but, we are not even a Type 1 civilization. And it’s even more wild that we might not even be close. While we can comprehend the various ways we could use the entire energy that our Sun is providing us, we cannot literally harness the entire radiation output of the Sun.3
I would suggest that it is in our best interest to work towards becoming Type 1. If we want to get to that point, we should work to harness all available energy that is (a) within our technical abilities while (b) balancing our emission goals.
That, like it or not, is where nuclear energy could come in to play.
☢️ ☢️ ☢️
In a deep dive into the US electric grid last year, nuclear energy certainly reared its controversial head. It should be noted; that post isn’t exactly “pro-nuclear.” That was not the point.
It should also be noted that nuclear does have the highest capacity factor4 of any of our current energy sources. It produces not only reliable power but carbon-free power.
Last year the current White House released a long-term strategy document that put in writing the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. The projections look like this:
The document also projects how the US can get there:
Currently, the US produces approximately 800 billion kWh of electricity through renewables. The White House projections contemplate over 3 trillion kWh produced by 2050.
It’s good to have a BHAG.
In the U.S., the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is meant to provide independent statistics and analysis of U.S. energy production. That agency’s projections for 2050 differ from the White House projections.
Whereas the White House projection contemplates zero emissions of co2 in 2050, the EIA projects around 5 gigatons of co2 emissions in 2050.
What’s a gigaton or two amongst friends… But 5 gigatons!? Something has to give.5 It seems technology is going to have to save us.
☢️ ☢️ ☢️
Just this past week the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) certified the first small nuclear reactor design.6 The company behind this design is NuScale Power.
First, nuclear innovation7 has been lauded for years and, for years upon years, it doesn’t materialize. Red flag? This past May, NuScale completed a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) transaction to go public. Red flag. In 2015, the formerly largest investor in NuScale turned out to be a Ponzi Scheme. Red flag!
Any nascent technology company could end up pushing vaporware. NuScale has not fully proven its utility, but that doesn’t obscure the broader point.
It is going to require investment and innovation to produce new technologies that can get us to a place of not only less emissions, but more power.
Additionally, the potentially bigger news in the NRC announcement could be that the NRC is helping moving the industry forward at all.
Between 1996 and 2016, exactly one reactor came online in the U.S. This includes the period in which the time sensitive nature of climate change began to hit peak acceptance.
Yet U.S. nuclear electricity generation capacity peaked in 2012 at about 102,000 MW when there were 104 operating nuclear reactors. At the end of 2021, there were 93 operating reactors with a combined generation capacity of about 95,492 MW.
Currently, various European nations are in the midst of their mea culpa moment. The largest, Germany, decided to pivot from nuclear to natural gas years ago.8 Germany specifically uses Russian gas. Putin is going to try to extract every dollar possible, so costs are rising. France is one of the nations that is most reliant on nuclear energy. However, it is currently on fire, and with waters levels dwindling, also finds its cost of energy rising.
To this point, the average person has not been impacted beyond higher fuel prices. Price increases, thus far, can be absorbed by the rich. It’s the poor directly hurting. If the broader citizenry are impacted in more meaningful ways, that could be a tipping point, which is starting to happen.
Earlier this summer the German economy minister told a large Germany news agency that he had shortened his showers to conserve energy.9 It’s one of those quotes that’s funny at first, until you really think about what it’s saying. If something like limited showers became a mandate, that could be a wakeup call for some. It’s one thing to have to pay more for fuel. If you are relatively rich, it’s a solvable problem. To have your shower limited through government regulation could be a problem money may not be able to solve.
Lastly, the latest happens in England tie these concepts together with a nice bow.
The U.K. announced a plan for “Great British Nuclear” to bolster nuclear capacity, with the hope that by 2050 up to 25% of the projected electricity demand can be generated through nuclear.
This investment comes just as London may face a ban on new housing projects until 2035 because the electricity grid has run out of capacity.
This demonstrates how energy is interconnected with other key facets of life. Housing has become more expensive, partially due to supply constraints due to poorly thought out government policies, and a lack of proper infrastructure such as the grid can have serious ramifications. This also demonstrates the less than ideal timelines involved in ensuring abundant energy in the future.
☢️ ☢️ ☢️
The situation in Europe is a stark reminder of what short-sighted thinking and a complete lack of thoughtful planning gets you. At best, these types of stories will help shift the window of discussion on the path forward.
Although the technical work in the coming years is daunting, there is a such a universally positive message that could be harnessed around energy — strive for more abundant energy10 through technological innovation.
For those that think we can satisfy our future energy requirements, in carbon free manner, by sticking to our current trajectory — well, what can I say besides — “I don’t think so, Tim.” All the cold showers in the world won’t move the needle.
We may have to “go nuclear” in order to solve one of our world’s greatest problems.