A Powerful Culture
The Nuclear Question, long the bane of climate and environmental discourse, is having a bit of a moment right now. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought newfound attention to the risks of nuclear reactors, both past and present, while also making nuclear power more appealing as an electricity source (especially in Europe) due to the effects the war has had on fossil gas prices. And, most recently, the results of a nuclear fusion experiment have generated hyperbolic hope about a limitless energy future.
Fusion is the combining of atomic nuclei, and the energy generated from this reaction is what powers the Sun. It has long been the holy grail of energy here on Earth and a mainstay of science fiction because of its theoretical potential to generate abundant power with relatively little waste. Last week, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made headlines because they generated more energy than they used in a fusion reaction experiment for the first time ever. However, the experiment itself actually used far more energy than it produced (around 273 times as much) because of all the power that went into charging the lasers that created the necessary heat and pressure to make it happen. And, of course, this experiment actually had nothing to do with electricity—it was nuclear weapons research. So while this “net gain” is scientifically interesting, it is a far cry from being able to actually use nuclear fusion as an energy source, which is not even close to possible yet and may never happen.
Actually existing nuclear reactors run on fission, the splitting of atomic nuclei, which has been used as a (mostly) stable source of emissions-free energy generation since the 1950s. In the US, we have by far the most nuclear reactors in the world (92) and nuclear power currently makes up about 19% of US electricity produced, but its future is somewhat uncertain here. The average age of our reactors is around 42 years, and only one new reactor has come online here in the last 26 years. There are two reactors currently under construction as part of a long-delayed power plant in Georgia, but there are no other large-scale nuclear plants on the horizon in the US for the foreseeable future.
Nuclear energy’s reputation has struggled after several high-profile meltdowns and recent corruption scandals in Ohio, Illinois, and South Carolina. More importantly, cost has been a significant barrier to both building new reactors and keeping existing ones online; since 2009, 19 US reactors have been retired early. However, last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act both provided billions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear energy, primarily to make existing reactors more economically viable—like California’s Diablo Canyon, a plant that was set to retire early in 2025 but will now stay online for a few more years in lieu of (probably) more fossil gas generation.
But while certainly preferable to fossil fuels, conventional nuclear power plants have a number of unique downsides which Samuel Miller McDonald examined in an excellent and comprehensive article. Beyond the (low but impossible to entirely mitigate) risk of a meltdown contaminating the surrounding area for thousands of years, McDonald detailed Earth’s very limited supply of uranium, radioactive pollution from uranium mining (especially in Indigenous territory), high water usage, the under-studied potential cancer risk for nearby residents, the relatively high cost and long construction time, the need to safely store radioactive waste on a geologic time scale, the negative operational effects of a hotter climate, and the way that nuclear energy is intertwined with militarization.
In an attempt to mitigate some of these issues, the trendy nuclear power design is the small modular reactor (SMR), which is exactly what it sounds like, with several demonstration projects in the works in the US. Proponents argue that SMRs are easier to build and safer to operate (particularly types that use passive cooling systems) than traditional reactors, although they may generate more radioactive waste. In addition to or in conjunction with SMRs, there are also a number of “advanced” nuclear fission reactor types being actively explored, like molten salt thorium reactors. These technologies still have serious safety concerns and/or have not been proven at scale, but there is a great deal of public and private money around the world going towards researching them.
Given all of this, how should we approach the Nuclear Question? Let’s start with the immediate practical considerations. Because of the urgency of the climate crisis and the corresponding need to swiftly eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, the high cost and long construction time for reactors in the US mean that nuclear energy will probably not be able to play an increased role in a successful energy transition, whether we like it or not. It does seem clear to me that our existing nuclear power plants should be kept running for their full operating lifespans, lest the electricity they generate be replaced on the grid by fossil gas or coal. Better yet, we can negotiate a global treaty to start dismantling nuclear weapons and use their fissile material to power said reactors—which even has a precedent from 30 years ago.
But while cost is a serious constraint in the near-term future that affects nuclear energy’s viability, it is a political construct that in the long run need not be a factor. So what role should fission (or fusion?) energy have in the world we seek to build? Even with reductions in overall energy usage from improvements like more energy-efficient buildings, less car-centric cities, and the elimination of harmful industries (e.g. weapons), we are probably going to need to generate significantly more electricity to replace the oil and fossil gas used for gasoline and heating (not to mention getting electricity to people who do not currently have it). This is one reason why nuclear energy can be so enticing—constant energy requiring less land and resource extraction than wind turbines or solar panels, plugging right in for coal and fossil gas. Or, as environmental historian Kate Brown more cynically put it:
The reason why nuclear power is so popular with certain parties is because it requires the least amount of changes to our economic structures, to our distribution of [political] power, and distribution of wealth.
There is definitely some truth to this (e.g. Bill Gates), but it is not alone a logical reason to reject nuclear energy. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing fission power going forward is that it requires the utmost long-term stability and control to be utilized in a relatively safe manner, a particularly tall order in a century that is going to be increasingly unstable—socially, politically, ecologically, and climatologically. Even the most wildly successful transformative movements of our dreams will not be able to entirely mitigate this variance and risk. Regardless of how we view the expected value of such bets in that context, it makes sense to conduct publicly funded and owned research into fusion and other advanced nuclear designs—for energy, not weapons—without assuming they will be available.
More important than precise prescriptions, we need to view and operate in the world in a truly materialist way that does not fetishize technologies. All forms of energy generation have limitations and trade-offs, and it is not helpful to pretend otherwise. What, where, and how much we use and build is a political determination with many important socio-ecological considerations. Politics is not about our personal opinions, it’s about distribution—of resources, energy, time, suffering.
If we start from the premise that both electricity and freedom from exploitation are global human rights, only a clear-eyed analysis of entire supply chains, life cycles, and networks of interdependence can properly orient us. We might think of this as a spatial and temporal conception of energy democracy that considers the entire system, from mine to factory to end user to waste and everything in between. Such a solidaristic approach to viewing and acting in the world is itself a technology, and one that is dramatically undervalued and underutilized—for now.