Why nuclear fission is queen

Hey,

Today’s newsletter offers a first (surprisingly) for Keep Cool, namely a book review. Enjoy.

BOOK REVIEW

Over the course of the past two years or so, I’ve read a lot of climate non-fiction. A partial stack of which sits next to my main writing desk, as shown here:

I also regularly am sent and read galleys for new releases. I assume they’re sent to me in the hopes that I might review them. As of yet, I haven’t, mostly because my reviews of them wouldn’t be overwhelmingly positive, to put it nicely. Having not historically adhered to the axiom of “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it,” in my ever-increasing wisdom, I’m adhering to it more and more.

Perhaps especially because most of the more recent climate non-fiction that I’ve read hasn’t moved me to do so, I’m excited to offer a review and a recommendation today. I finally had the chance to read Isabelle Boemeke’s Rad Future and a) learned a good deal from it, b) found myself nodding along to much of it in approval, and c) think it does a very good job of most of what it, and Isabelle in general, set out to do. Which I’d describe in general as setting the record straight on nuclear energy after many decades of confusion.

From the opening text on the inside of the front cover slip to the details on pages numbered in the triple digits, Isabelle elegantly wades through the practical and factual data and storylines needed to understand why nuclear energy is, well, first and foremost, not the things many people have come to believe about it in recent decades. The words that most readily come to mind include dangerous, somehow less “green” than renewable energy, and inordinately complicated and hard to engineer or understand. I wasn’t surprised to find that the book did a good job dispelling misconceptions because Isabelle’s advocacy and influencing work, housed under the brand Isodope, has focused on much of the same for years. As such, this book will be valuable to anyone interested in appreciating a comprehensive argument around nuclear energy’s merits and/or doing some of the proselytizing work themselves. 

Specifically, the bulk of the book is devoted to:

• Offering a history of nuclear energy

• A simple, sophisticated analysis of energy generation options and why there’s a lot to like about nuclear energy (e.g., it provides clean energy with a high capacity factor, requires little land and material use, can produce heat, electricity, and motion, all three predominant forms of primary energy, etc…) 

• Discussion of the factors, especially but not limited to what largely amounts to negative PR, that have derailed progress in scaling nuclear fission in recent years (though the stall-out in new generation capacity growth globally now appears to be shifting again).

I also learned plenty of new things, which is not always the case when I read non-fiction at this point. I say this not because I’m a know-it-all, but because many books targeted at more general audiences truly don’t venture into new territory at all. For example, the fact that 43 reactors worldwide, ~10% of operating reactors globally, serve district heating alongside electricity production prerogatives (“cogeneration”) was a welcome learning for me. 

One ~core~ takeaway

Overall, the core insight that Isabelle illuminates again and again is that the public’s perception of nuclear energy has got caught in all sorts of nasty semantic games historically, ranging from misconceptions about how safe (or not) nuclear fission technology really is at this point to whether nuclear energy is somehow less valuable than renewable energy technologies like solar and wind simply because there theoretically is a limit, somewhere in the distant future, to how much uranium and other nuclear fuel is available to power reactions in perpetuity. For the practical purposes of the near-term energy transition, these dividing lines are pointless. Plus, Isabelle often delivers the necessary reframes nuclear energy deserves and requires with subtle panache that lands well. For example, here’s a quote that had me doggearing the page (page 85, specifically):

As a consequence, Isabelle’s really at her best when discussing why and how to remake global opinion so that it’s balanced, if not bullish, for nuclear energy. The book certainly accomplishes that and, in keeping with her years of influencing work, I’m confident it will change hearts and minds. Which is invaluable; again, cast in relief against the urgency of achieving near-term emissions reductions, we’d all do well to remember, as Isabelle often reminds us, that proliferation of nuclear energy historically is, to this day, still one of the most successful levers humanity has pulled to mitigate global warming and climate change.

I was reminded of the above conclusion independently myself when I drove past the Arkansas Nuclear One power plant near Ozark, Arkansas yesterday. The two-reactor plant has an annual net output north of 13,000 GWh, which is a lot of fossil-fired power offset.

Beyond that, I don’t want to tip all of the book’s content; go buy it and read it yourself!

Some choice counterpoints

Now, lest I spend the whole review here fangirling, it is worth noting there are some key questions I still have that the book could have done more to answer, as well as some quibbles, though they’re far from meltdowns. For one, while there’s plenty of discussion of it in Rad Future, I still don’t feel like I have a firm grasp on why the U.S. used to be able to build nuclear reactors at a cost of ~$1-2 per watt but now can’t for less than $15.

It’s not that I can’t vaguely gesture at some culprits like red tape and onerous regulations, but my understanding here still feels wholly insufficient; I certainly wouldn’t be ready to confidently explain this why to anyone else. So that’s one area I still feel underequipped on that I might have hoped to feel, well, more equipped on after reading this book.

Secondly, with respect to the overarching question of safety, Isabelle is good on setting the basics straight, especially with regard to how safety questions surrounding nuclear energy pale in comparison to the ongoing harms, both directly (think coal mining accidents) and indirectly (think air pollution and climate change), attributable to combustion of fossil fuels. That said, while on average it’s very straightforward to conclude that nuclear energy is one of the safest forms of energy generation bar none (see below), I think the public’s perception of nuclear energy is also ultimately informed by the subconscious intuition (correctly so) on many people’s part that risks associated with nuclear energy aren’t well characterized by averages.

Said differently, the real perceived risks with nuclear energy are all tail risk, by which I mean they’re best characterized by what’s possible in extreme skews of distributions. On typical days or in typical years, nothing untoward happens at nuclear power plants. But at the extremes, the risks that really capture minds are things like meltdowns. 

It may well be true that the horrors of past nuclear meltdowns have been overblown in media reimaginations thereof, and that meltdowns are already historically so rare so as to render the safety question moot regardless. Still, the best reset I could imagine for nuclear energy’s safety images would come by virtue of engaging with the public’s reasonable fear of what happens in a worst-case-scenario and explaining, for instance, how much safer reactors have gotten since the meltdowns at Chernobyl at Three Mile Island, and how meltdowns like the partial one at Fukushima as recently as 2011 are entirely avoidable with responsible plant siting. Arguing that Chernobyl wasn’t that big a deal is probably not it, regardless of how true that is or isn’t. 

Finally, while I am as convinced as ever after reading this book that nuclear energy is great, I’m not convinced (still) that it’s the best energy generation option. Safety isn’t my concern; my open questions on cost are. Especially with the ascendence of solar and battery storage, I’d be hard-pressed to argue that nuclear energy is the future leader of energy generation. I won’t be able to make that argument until the U.S. builds, say, ten new reactors, that’s for sure. I’m not saying solar and storage are a definitive white knight, either. All energy generation options have their merits and demerits; we can support several of them and will likely continue to use several, even after fossil fuels are phased out. I didn’t really catch Isabelle suggesting otherwise. I just figured I’d state my stance here, too.

Locating this book in the broader climate tech context

Due in no small part to Isabelle’s existing track record of influencing work, this book arrived at an interesting moment for nuclear energy in the broader context of energy transition efforts. Simply put, the ‘vibes’ have already shifted markedly for fission in recent years. I’ve shown the chart below before and will recycle here because it illustrates this point (source here).

Nor are the vibe shifts palpable in the public’s perception alone. While the most concrete progress in deploying more nuclear reactors is being made in China and elsewhere abroad (see below), the U.S. is also making significant strides in scaling up its pipeline for new reactors. 

See, for instance, the three headlines below, all of which have hit the wires in the past month:

• The U.S. government announced an $80 billion deal with Westinghouse to build at least eight new nuclear power plants using gigawatt-sized AP1000 reactors and SMRs. Link.

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued TerraPower its final environmental impact statement, bringing Bill Gates' next-generation sodium-cooled Natrium reactor in Wyoming closer to becoming the first US commercial reactor to use a coolant other than water, with a final safety evaluation expected by year-end. Link.

• Google signed a deal to back the restart of NextEra's Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa, following Microsoft's Three Mile Island restart project and the imminent restart of Holtec's Palisades plant in Michigan, which could soon become the first U.S. nuclear facility to return from permanent decommissioning. Link.

So, in a sense, Isabelle has already won, though I imagine in her mind the work is never done. While the following is beyond the content of the book, while I have you, I figured I’d discuss it. At this point, my concerns for the nuclear energy space in the U.S. have little to do with the public’s perception of the technology or whether there is or isn’t sufficient appetite to deploy more reactors. Clearly, there is.

Rather, my concerns hinge on whether we’ll collectively seize the moment, or whether a few high-flying startups might poison the now gushing well for others. The past few years have seen a veritable explosion of new small modular reactor companies, all of whom claim to have the best technology and that they’ll be able to deploy reactors quickly and cost-efficiently. As of yet, none of them have. Sure, these things take time, but my exact worry sits at the center of lofty promises and whether and what will actually be delivered. The worst possible use of the currently positive environment for nuclear energy would be for dozens of startups to fail to deliver on grand promises.

Indeed, some startups have already ventured into public markets and scored eye-watering valuations, all without deploying a single reactor. The last thing we need are flare-outs to dampen the newfound pro-nuclear spirit. So, to the startups, move quickly with equal parts great ambition and great responsibility.

Isabelle herself has done a ton to shift the memetics on nuclear power and outlines factual reasons why more people should continue to carry the flag well in this book. Further, she herself is a testament to a theme I’ve found myself thinking, writing, and talking about more, namely, how it’s both essential that we collectively home in on “high-leverage” solutions to climate change, of which nuclear energy is one, as well as personally home in on where we ourselves can offer higher leverage to critical efforts.

She has already accomplished a range of meaningful advocacy and influencing wins, starting with galvanizing a vocal minority to agitate in favor of keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor in California open—which it's now in better position to remain—to publishing this book, which is a good example of work that’s “one-to-many” insofar as it can empower lots of other people to appreciate, understand, and then evangelize the benefits of nuclear energy to their own networks and communities. Here’s to hoping the rest of us can find some inspiration here to find comparable ways to drive positive impact.

Feedback for me or Isabelle? Drop a response and I can pass it along or respond myself.

— Nick