meltdown mentality: nuclear round 2
why net zero can’t happen without splitting a few atoms... watt a waste.
Some Statistics on Clean Energy
In 2016, per-capita renewable energy spending was just $144 for the U.S., $81 for Europe, $56 for China, and between $6-19 for the rest of the countries in the world
Germany’s solar generation capacity exceeds that of any other European country, producing 40 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2017; to stay on track with global energy demand, 14x as much solar capacity as Germany would have to be installed each year — and that’s relying on 2020 data that ignores AI generation’s energy toll
Between 2025–2027, global electricity demand will have the greatest acceleration yet, with the equivalent of a Japan being added to annual electricity consumption
Meeting 2019’s “US electricity consumption…would require 12 percent of the continental US land area for wind [turbines]” (Keith and Miller) — which is the geographic area of more than two Californias
Why Net Zero is Bound to Fail
In 2020, energy journalist Robert Bryce published his book, A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations1, on electrification as the foundation for our society. He describes at length, seemingly unrelated subjects: from grid politics for military strategy to energy inequality, weed, and all types of renewables. I found particularly interesting his analyses of solar and wind generation, followed by his analysis of nuclear energy, which shed light on the shortcomings of most renewables in fulfilling net-zero goals. The above statistics begin to explain why net-zero goals are bound to fail if we rely solely on wind, solar, and current spending on renewables.
To extrapolate further in Bryce’s words:
“Nuclear energy’s single greatest virtue: its unsurpassed power density, which, in turn, allows us to spare land for nature.” (pg. 219)
Let me elaborate with a tangible example.
Indian Point Energy Center, located in Buchanan, New York, used to power roughly 1/8 of New York City’s power (that accounts for 8.6 million residents). It was formed following FDR’s New Deal and WWII, when the government was focused on funding public works projects.
Central Park’s area is roughly 3.4 km2. To generate 16.4 terawatt-hours of electricity per year with wind energy, it would require a land mass approximately 400 times the size of Central Park, at 1,335 km2 (515 mi2). To generate that same quantity of power with nuclear, however, it would take only about 1 km2 of land mass (i.e., one Indian Point facility), or about 30% of the size of Central Park. In other words, using just wind energy, 1,300x as much territory would be required to generate the same amount of power as Indian Point.
Sadly, however, Indian Point ceased power generation on April 30, 2021. Environmentalists in favor of the closure claimed that the plant was polluting the Hudson River and its biodiversity. Then-Mayor Andrew Cuomo and many others asserted that Indian Point would eventually be susceptible to radioactive meltdowns similar to Chernobyl and Fukushima due to earthquakes (which are extremely abnormal for the region). However, investigations show that these claims fall apart upon closer analysis. Nonetheless, the issue is rather in the effect of the closure. In the wake, NY’s natural gas generation skyrocketed from 35% to 39%, mirroring a broader trend across the U.S.; fossil fuel usage rises substantially whenever nuclear plants are shut down.
I believe that much of the resistance toward nuclear energy stems from a lack of knowledge and analysis.
What really happened at Chernobyl & Fukushima?
Media often tends to amplify certain sentiments with a bias toward perspectives that will increase viewership and traction. While the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima were tragic disasters, their effects are quite severely exaggerated.
Chernobyl is at fault due to an unauthorized experiment, performed by inexperienced staff, and due to a major design flaw. At Chernobyl, steam accumulated in the reactor vessel, leading to a feedback loop of increased steam and radioactivity (aka, the runaway reaction). In the U.S., however, an accumulation of steam actually decreases the amount of radioactivity. Warranted paranoia has also led the U.S. to become a world leader in nuclear safety, with its reactors being encapsulated in concrete/steel domes to shelter meltdowns. It has been estimated by studies at the Chernobyl Tissue Bank that only 160 people or fewer will die from radiation poisoning at Chernobyl (compared to the initial prediction of thousands).
In 2011, the accident at Fukushima was considered to be the next worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, with the earthquake triggering the onset of seven tsunamis, causing the plant’s backup diesel generators to fail (i.e., the mechanisms for keeping the cooling water pumps operating). This resulted in the hydrogen explosions. The Japanese government shut down all nuclear plants, and organizations in the U.S. instilled a great degree of radiophobia across the nation. A 2013 study conducted by the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, comprised of 80 scientists from 18 countries, announced that “no radiation-related deaths have been observed among nearly 25,000 workers involved at the accident site,” and that thyroid cancer resulting from radiation exposure was unlikely. The Japanese Government says that only one worker’s death can be attributed to radiation. In fact, more deaths occurred from the electricity price hikes in Japan, resulting in 1,200 deaths of residents financially unable to heat their homes.
Anti-Nuclear Sentiment
While the U.S. once led the world in the nuclear energy race since the dawn of the Manhattan Project, we have increasingly pivoted 180˚ to be lagging in the nuclear energy sector. Activists from large environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace continuously strongly advocate anti-nuclear sentiments, having led to the shutdowns of many prevalent reactors across the nation. Between 2013 and 2018 alone, American utilities closed 15 nuclear plants, which, Bryce notes, “accounted for 70 percent more zero-carbon electricity than was produced by all of the solar facilities in the United States in 2017.” Planned reactors or those previously in production were forced to halt development in premature shutdowns.
Ironically, the environmentalists who counter nuclear’s role in achieving net zero ignore the IEA’s (International Energy Agency) statement that the amount of global nuclear generation from 2018 (375 GW) must be doubled by 2050 if we are to have any hope of limiting atmospheric temperatures to the acceptable 2˚C upper-bound. It’s not that wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal are not useful renewable sources that should not be leveraged; they should be utilized, but it won’t be enough to reach net-zero, especially with the severely increased energy consumption of AI computation (n.b., keep a look out for a future post on AI computation’s carbon footprint!). As a teaser, a Bloomberg study showed that by 2030, the world’s data centers are set to consume more energy than all of India (the most populous country).
While the U.S. cowardly recedes from all things nuclear, other nations are stepping up to the table by proceeding with nuclear with caution and regulation. As of 2019, France has the highest degree of standardization according to the World Nuclear Association for reactor standardization. China has plans to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035. Even Japan is set to have 20% of its energy supply sourced by nuclear power by 2040. Europe and the East are making strides to meet difficult sustainability goals, while fear and media inaccuracies hold us back in the U.S.
SMRs & Nuclear Startups
(small modular reactors)
So even if we’re afraid of full-scale nuclear reactors, we can still make advances with a relatively new concept called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). These smaller nuclear-fission reactors are generalized to have storage capacities less than 300 megawatts and are able to be deployed individually as single units or small multi-units. They are meant to be cheaper, allow for faster production, and easier disposal of nuclear waste (theoretically, thereby resolving the fear factor).
The SMR industry has been permeating as a niche in the sustainable startups sector, with many up-and-coming companies developing their own models.
X-Energy emphasizes a safety-first approach, with their Xe-100 SMR units having a capacity of up to 80MW; between 2024-2025, they have secured $1.2 billion in seed funding and have partnered with Amazon to power a grid-scale power plant in Texas by 2039.
TerraPower, founded by Bill Gates and partnered with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, aims to balance nuclear and renewable energy with their advanced chemical reactions; their Natrium reactor uses sodium as a coolant and utilizes a molten-salt-based storage system to power a 345 MW base capacity. They aim to begin operations by 2030 to power 400,000 homes using their $3 billion in combined private and public funding.
Westinghouse Nuclear is spearheading stability with its AP300 SMR, a 300 MW water-pressurized reactor. The AP300 serves as a complement to their earlier AP1000, which has undergone diligent testing and verified output of up to 1,100 MW. Their 80-year intended longevity will hopefully make an impact for many years as they begin building in the U.S. and U.K. with private funding.
NuScale Power, taking a more conventional route to startup culture, is leading the U.S. industry with their 77 MW SMRs that can be factory-fabricated; they were the first to receive NRC (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission) design approval, received millions in grants from the DoE, and are transitioning to wide-scale commercialization for deployment.
Oklo is taking pride in being affordable and safe, taking strides with partnerships and agreements with data center operators; they have made a 750 MW commitment and signed a framework to produce 12 GW of nuclear power by 2044. They are currently securing environmental permits to build at the Idaho National Laboratory for their commercial plant, pioneering the way for new sustainable energy infrastructure with data centers.
These are just a few of the many SMR startups hoping to make a break in the nuclear industry without the fear of large-scale plants. Other companies use other techniques, like ThorCon, which hopes to build on shipyards to deploy on ocean hulls and partner with fuel-oil-fired ships in Iraq, Lebanon, and Southeast Asia. ThorCon, however, has not received the $1 billion in funding they require to build a prototype of their design, although they claim to begin building by 2030.
This leads into the primary issue with SMR startups; while they intend to be commercial, safe, and accessible, they still remain a FOAK (first-of-a-kind) climate technology. Put more plainly, if these start-ups do not receive the funding they require to demonstrate their proof-of-concept from risk-taking investors and VCs, they will be difficult to implement and take advantage of. Climate Drift has a great article on FOAKs [read here].
How to talk about [redacted]
During NY Tech Week, I attended the Urban Future Lab Forum (in partnership with NYU Tandon), aimed at accelerating climate-tech startups for urban sustainability. In a project development workshop I attended, I worked with a small group to generate solutions for a hypothetical green steel startup that was facing issues. Everyone there had different experiences in the climate-tech industry: one worked with venture debt for early-stage climate startups at JP Morgan; one was transitioning from management consulting at Deloitte through a fellowship at Climatebase; one was an energy & grid utilities consultant; one worked in the German Embassy’s office; and so on. Their varied experiences proved to create a thought-provoking discussion, but one comment particularly caught my attention:
Half jokingly, one of the members mentioned that some small nuclear plants are not publicized; if people ask, it’s just some “small factory.” This remark was made as part of a broader commentary on how we can no longer speak freely about sustainability, ESG, and especially, nuclear. In the changing landscape, it has become a race to speak with buzzwords and terminology such as “efficiency” and “acceleration” so that sustainability initiatives are not opposed. These very buzzwords have proven prevalent in the broader startup space, in addition to all those pertaining to AI, and it is no exception that they have made headway in the sustainability space to secure funding.
Conclusion
Wind and solar are vital players in the net-zero race, but electricity is at the foundation of society, in the fabric of the grid that powers our daily lives, and in the small system generators that are helping provide energy to rural areas still in the dark. With renewables, people want stability, knowing they have access to energy at any second of the day, year-round, at prices they can afford. Solar and wind are based on chaotic systems, which is precisely what makes harnessing them so difficult, not to mention the backlash on aesthetics and noise pollution.
In 2016, global investment in renewable energy projects amounted to approximately $242 billion (with the U.S., Europe, and China comprising 75% of that). The good news is that in 2025, that amount is set to rise to $3.3 trillion, according to the IEA.
At the end of the day, the question is not whether wind and solar are good, because they are. The question is whether they are enough. And if not, can we truly afford to let fear stand in the way of nuclear?
Yet, beyond fear, if we can’t talk candidly about nuclear, from the science and startups to the statistics and trade-offs, then we risk leaving our energy future to an illusory all-renewable vision. It has become increasingly clear that no single energy solution is perfect, but ignoring the one with the highest power density, lowest emissions, and most safety oversight seems less like caution and more like denial. And if that sounds familiar... well, maybe it should.
Buy Robert Bryce’s A Question of Power [here] and subscribe to his Substack [here]