By: John Dennis
Winding down the energy industry’s dependence on fossil fuels will likely require a collective global effort to adopt and embrace nuclear energy. At last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28) held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, various nations engaged in talks regarding their dedication to developing nuclear power, recognizing the reality that a transition away from fossil fuels will require a global increase in nuclear energy.
The United States has made a concerted effort to promote the development of modern nuclear power plants that implement greater efficiency and safety parameters, evident in the United States House of Representative’s passage of the Atomic Energy Advancement Act and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (the federal agency in charge of regulating nuclear energy) revision of its rules regarding advanced reactors. Additionally, other countries like South Korea and Ghana have sought to promote nuclear energy development in their countries through laws, policies, and regulations. In doing so, the world is illustrating its commitment to mitigating anthropogenic climate change’s negative impacts by adopting an effective method of transitioning away from fossil fuel energy sources like oil and coal.
Nuclear energy offers various benefits that makes it effective in realizing an actual energy transition. First, it is a low-carbon-emitting energy source. Unlike oil and coal, nuclear power plants do not burn any sort of fuel source to turn water into steam. Instead, these plants rely on the heat generated from nuclear fission to power electricity-generating turbines. Second, nuclear energy is the most reliable energy source. Nuclear power plants consistently produce their maximum power more than 92% of the time during any given year, making nuclear energy roughly two times more reliable than natural gas and three times more reliable than wind and solar energy.
Advanced nuclear reactors implement new technology to help resolve two main issues that have curtailed nuclear energy development. First, advanced reactors implement safer cooling systems. Non-water-cooled reactors implement coolants other than water to cool the reactor temperature. These coolants include molten salt, a graphite and helium combination, and sodium. Unlike water, which must be kept at a high pressure, these other coolants can function at lower pressures, decreasing the potential release of chemicals that occurs with high-pressure coolants. In addition, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are smaller versions of traditional nuclear reactors. Although they produce less energy than traditional reactors, their small size makes them manufacturable in factories, “allowing for standardization and systematized security measures, as well as sealed transport.”
Second, advanced reactors are more efficient, producing less nuclear waste and decreasing the need to store spent nuclear fuel. Given advanced reactors’ increase efficiency, they mitigate nuclear by using less nuclear fuel to produce the same amount of energy. Also, advanced reactors are implementing new fuels that are less radioactive and adopting technology allowing the reuse of spent fuels.
Given these benefits, the United States has sought continued development of nuclear energy across the country. On February 28, 2024, through House Resolution (H.R.) 6544, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Atomic Energy Advancement Act. The Act’s main purpose is to make the review process more for advanced nuclear reactor applicants more efficient and decrease fees for these applicants. The Act received bipartisan support. Democrats supported the Act because of its clean energy production and 24-hour reliability compared to solar and wind energy. House Republicans believe that nuclear power could bolster the economy and the country’s energy security.
In addition to the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, on March 4, 2024, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission advised its staff to publish a proposed rule and draft guidance on a framework for approving advanced nuclear technology to be codified as Part 53 in the Commission’s Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations. While Parts 50 through 52 regulate traditional nuclear reactors, Part 53 provides a separate and less regulatory-burdened approach to approving new technologies, and addresses comments from key stakeholders within the nuclear industry. This proposed rule is in accordance with the 2019 Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), where the United States Congress directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish a new regulatory framework for advanced nuclear reactors by December 31, 2027.
The U.S.’s development of nuclear energy aligns with other countries’ efforts like South Korea. South Korea receives about one-third of its electricity from 26 nuclear reactors, and it plans to continue the development of its nuclear program. President Yoon Suk Yeol recently pledged more than $3 billion on nuclear research and development projects during his five-year term. This investment highlights a significant shift in South Korea’s perspective on nuclear energy. In 2017, the previous administration announced its intention to phase out nuclear energy.
But President Yoon reversed course, citing the need for a feasible and reasonable energy sector to phase out its coal industry. Specifically, South Korea plans on becoming a global leader in SMRs. An SMR Alliance was announced on July 4, 2023, where 11 government and public institutions, including South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry, & Energy (MOTIE), planned to establish business strategies to foster domestic SMR development and export SMRs to other countries. President Yoon has announced plans to create SMR manufacturing hubs in cities like Changwon. And the MOTIE intends on promoting additional SMR policies. doing so, South Korea seeks to be a global leader in SMRs, a new and relatively untapped market.
Similarly, many countries within Africa, such as Ghana and Nigeria, have shown great interest in developing nuclear energy programs and implementing SMRs to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. In Ghana, population growth and increased industrialization will strain the country’s current power supply. Thus, Ghana has invested in nuclear energy because its addresses the country’s goals of transitioning to a cleaner energy source and ensuring sufficient power generation capacity. According to Ghana’s Energy Minister, the government has contemplated developing an SMR in the near future. In addition, in 2023, Ghana’s Nuclear Power Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy, hosted the first U.S.-Africa Nuclear Energy Summit, where both countries explored mutually beneficial options to promote nuclear energy.
The nuclear energy progress being made in United States, South Korea, and Ghana highlight the global effort to transition away from fossil fuels. This effort was evidenced in the first-ever Nuclear Energy Summit held in Brussels, Belgium, held on March 21-22, 2024. Leaders from countries around the world, such as Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Turkey, and came together to “highlight the role of nuclear energy in addressing the global challenges to reduce the use of fossil fuels, enhance energy security and boost economic development.” These leaders also discussed the status of nuclear power in their respective countries, and emphasized promoting technology neutral laws and regulations that do not favor one clean energy source over another.
Fears of nuclear energy have stymied its development in various countries. Disastrous nuclear meltdown and explosion events like at Three Mile Island in 1976, Chernobyl in 1986, and Fukushima Daiichi in 2011, have been engrained in society’s psyche and come to mind during discussions about nuclear energy. In fact, after Fukushima Daiichi, Germany completely phased out its nuclear energy program by April 2023.
However, given the potential of nuclear energy to provide extraordinary amounts of clean power, and the advancements that have been made to improve its efficiency and safety, countries around the world are beginning to accept the necessity of nuclear power to effectively transition away from fossil fuels. “[R]elative to the risks of climate change fallout, or, for example, the health risks of burning fossil fuels or inhaling combustion engine exhaust,” these countries are signaling that the status of nuclear technology makes nuclear power’s negative aspects more acceptable. Nuclear energy may just be a transition energy source until renewable energy sources like solar and wind become more efficient and reliable as primary energy sources. Or nuclear energy may become a primary energy source for years to come. Regardless of nuclear energy’s future, currently, countries like United States, South Korea, and Ghana, along with other nations, are conveying that adopting nuclear power is essential to mitigating climate change.
