Will the world fall in love with nuclear power once more?

This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration

The Simpsons did nuclear power dirty. With towers looming over Springfield, three-eyed fish swimming the lake, and an inept Homer running things, the show’s nuclear power plant is a perpetual existential risk. It’s a reliable running gag to be sure, but also a reflection of a society that’s soured on what used to be the bountiful energy of the future.

That turn has put human civilization in a pickle. The costs of renewables like wind and solar have fallen so sharply in recent years it’s caught even researchers off guard. Day by day, electric utilities around the United States are finding clever ways to store that energy, like tapping into idle electric school buses and using the Earth itself as a giant battery. Still, humans can’t make the sun always shine and the wind always blow, so currently utilities have to burn planet-warming natural gas in power plants when renewables aren’t available.

Nuclear power plants generate electricity cleanly and reliably, but the technology has fallen out of favor. “When nuclear power burst on the scene, it was the first time that we would break with scarcity that we had known throughout human history,” said environmental journalist Marco Visscher, author of the book The Power of Nuclear: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Our Mightiest Energy Source, publishing today. “This abundant energy source bloomed, and this was nothing less than a revolution.”

Through the early 1980s, operators started construction on an average of 19 new reactors a year. But as Visscher recounts, a variety of factors conspired to turn nuclear power from a miracle technology into a villain — and the butt of Simpsons jokes — thanks in large part to Chernobyl and other accidents. By the 1990s, new projects dropped to just a handful each year. Now, though, nuclear is once again having a moment, potentially working alongside renewables to accelerate the decarbonization of the grid, or even power data centers and artificial intelligence models. Grist sat down with Visscher to talk about the technology’s roller coaster history. 

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q. Going back to the early history of nuclear energy, it started with the horrific use of atomic weapons against Japan. It transformed into this technology that in its early days, people really did think was going to be the future of energy. 

A. When the first nuclear plants opened in the 1950s and early 1960s, there were these grand promises: It’s clean, it’s cheap, it’s modern. It could power plants for desalination, so there would be plenty of clean water around the world. It could produce fertilizer on a large scale, so that yields would be much higher. Nuclear energy could provide the fuel for trains and ships and airplanes. 

Q. A section of the book talks about regulation becoming a problem, but not in the way people might think. Perhaps there was an overabundance of caution that started to turn nuclear power into something the public should worry about.

A. Regulation of nuclear power came through fears of exposure to radiation. These fears had originally everything to do with fear of nuclear war and the fear that people would get sick from the fallout. When nuclear plants were being built, people started to wonder: Isn’t that a source of radiation as well? Couldn’t their radiation somehow escape? Or if an accident occurs, what if it could explode like a bomb? In the ‘50s and 1960s, there was a call for more regulation, and the regulation was all about keeping radiation as low as reasonably achievable.

The focus became on safety, and the safety limits for a safe dose got lowered over and over again. Meanwhile, the coal industry, for instance, didn’t have all these regulations, nor did natural gas plants. So those industries could innovate, they could become more effective. But the nuclear power industry seemed sort of paralyzed by this narrow focus on bringing down any possible exposure to radiation.

Q. On top of that, we have a few disasters — Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. But you argue in the book that among energy disasters — especially considering the ravages of climate change, brought about by the burning of fossil fuels — they were used to further beat down the nuclear industry.

A. Chernobyl was, of course, a unique design, in unique circumstances. But those reactors have no similarities to the reactors used in the U.S. at that time, but still, reactors in the U.S. had to go through multiple safety updates. It brought in money for some companies working in the nuclear sector, but it didn’t make the nuclear power plant any safer.

All these fears and all the suspicions gave rise to the idea that any accident in a nuclear power plant must be some kind of apocalypse. But the reality is much more mundane. It’s nothing like the fantasies that we have in our heads. You just called Three Mile Island a disaster, but really the radiation that was leaked into the environment was so low it didn’t cause any health effects. 

In Fukushima, nobody died of radiation. Nobody will die of radiation. This is the scientific consensus on Fukushima: There’s no discernible increase in cancer or in birth defects or heart attacks or deformities in coming generations. 

But these accidents didn’t help the nuclear industry to move on. After Fukushima, Germany decided to close down its nuclear reactors one by one. Japan did the same. Accidents rarely happen, but they have a huge impact.

Q. As the world turned on nuclear power and started decommissioning plants, we had to get that electricity somehow, and it was largely from natural gas. Can you talk about that missed opportunity, that transition, and our doubling down on natural gas as we’re waiting for renewables to ramp up?

A. What typically happens when a nuclear plant closes, a natural gas plant opens later on. Nuclear is a competitor to coal and natural gas, not so much to renewables, and this is simply because a nuclear power plant can be turned on and off, just like a coal plant and a natural gas plant. They work when you want, basically, and this is different with renewables like wind and solar that are dependent on the weather.

Q. You write that renewables can’t provide reliable power on their own. But utilities are finding more ways to store that energy in battery banks and other long-duration energy storage systems. Is there not a future where we can rely on renewables exclusively? Do we need nuclear?

A. Maybe one day it will be possible to run the entire world on renewables. I think it makes so much more sense to look at a proven technology that is available and that has shown that it can decarbonize the economy of a modern society. 

Of course, nuclear power and wind and solar can work together, right? All societies, all economies, need base load power so there is a continuous, available, reliable source of energy that ensures there is enough electricity to meet demand. There is energy poverty in the world, and there will be such a rising demand for electricity in the next decades.

Q. Unlike fossil fuels, which are stagnant — there’s really no improving natural gas or coal — many companies are working on things like small modular nuclear reactors. Do you think that will help nuclear power grow once again?

A. Some of these designs are intended for remote areas. Others are designed for coastal cities. All of them are said to be cheaper, of course — more efficient, easier to build. They’re safer. Some say they require less uranium and produce less waste.

But I was thinking: Why exactly do we need innovation? And it seemed to me that many of these innovations are designed to comfort people. Reactors should be smaller because we don’t like things to be big — small is beautiful, that’s an environmental credo. We love hearing that it is safer — at least some of the startups think so — because we think that nuclear power is so dangerous. 

I don’t want to be too cynical or skeptical about small modular reactors. I think they serve a purpose. They may have a psychological effect, because small modular reactors may allow long-time critics of nuclear power to ease up, to open up. Those are reactors I’m okay with.

Q. What, in your opinion, does the world risk by not going all in on nuclear?

A. We are going to have to live with climate change anyway. I don’t think nuclear or any technology can stop global warming, to the extent that we do not feel the consequences anymore. That doesn’t mean that we’re screwed, and that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to do anything. It means we’ll have to step up and do much more. 

It would be ridiculous not to use nuclear power. It would be a crime to close down nuclear power plants that function perfectly fine, as they have done in Germany, but also in other countries. And I think there should be much more of an awareness eventually in politics that we can beat the fossil fuel industry if we really expand our nuclear fleet.