Deadly Heat, Congress is in for Nuclear Power

Thumbnail photograph is the nuclear power plant at Hires sur Amby, Saint-Vulbas, Bugey, France (alamy)

As I write this on June 24, 2024, we are going through record-breaking heat all around the globe. June is set up to be the 13th month in a row to set a record for highest monthly global average temperature. Out of context, a given spell of bad weather is not climate. Climate is defined as changes in weather patterns over decades (some use 30 years as the standard), and that has clearly been the case for increased global temperature. There are attribution studies, and one suggested that events like this are at least twice as likely with climate change, though some scientists estimate as high as five times more likely. From the Washington Post, June 22, 2024: “Billions of people just felt the deadly intensity of climate-fueled heat waves. Scorching heat across five continents set 1,400 records this week and showed how human-caused global warming has made catastrophic temperatures commonplace.”

People are dying, right now. For example, as of this writing over 1,300 people have died from extreme heat at the haj in Saudi Arabia. This tragedy made the news. Data will be available for other areas later.

Not unexpectedly, in some areas, wildfires are currently raging, and in others there is flooding. In some areas, as in New Mexico, there have been both.

Please take care of yourself and others. If you don’t have a cool place to stay, look into shelters. Don’t be proud! Don’t push it! Stay inside or in the shade and be sure to be well hydrated. The elderly, the sick and the very young are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of heat. If you are in charge of laborers who work in dangerously hot conditions, please be kind, however cruel the laws of your state allow you to be (some states do not mandate water/shade breaks!). Take a look at our page on Heat and Health and the section on heat on the Clinicians Corner page for some more information and tips and resources.

Speaking of climate change: Congress just overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill, the Advance Act, favoring nuclear energy. Such clearly bipartisan efforts are exceedingly rare!

This is notable given that nuclear power is not popular across the political spectrum. A poll by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication released in June 2024 found that having a neighborhood nuclear plant was unpopular across the political spectrum in the United States:

“Majorities of registered voters support climate-friendly energy production and distribution infrastructure in their local area, including solar farms (65%), wind farms (58%), high-voltage power lines to distribute clean energy (54%), and electric vehicle charging stations (51%)…

“Fewer registered voters support building nuclear power plants in their local area (35%), including 42% of conservative Republicans, 39% of liberal Democrats, 32% of liberal/moderate Republicans, and 31% of moderate/conservative Democrats.”

This brings up a very important topic, one that I find difficult to wrap my head around in an objective and dispassionate manner: is there a role for more nuclear energy?

There are good reasons a nuclear power plant is not a popular thing to have in your neighborhood, and why nuclear energy is not easy for environmentalists to embrace. Nuclear energy is problematic to say the least: price over-runs in new plants, the cost of decommissioning them, corruption, industry pushback against safety regulations, the terrible local environmental impact, water use, the long time it takes to build a plant, the security risks (e.g., radioactive materials for terrorists) and the risk not only of devastating nuclear plant accidents but also of shipping and then storing the waste for vastly long periods of time.

Smaller, modular, nuclear power generating installations are likely safer with less environmental impact and no fissionable material for terrorists, but they are also very expensive and of limited scale by definition.

Further, the Advance Act has come under criticism by environmental groups for not providing for enough real regulatory power and oversight. We know we can’t trust those who make huge profits to have our health and welfare in mind as a top priority! They will manipulate, gaslight, cheat and lie to save their profitable business models, people be damned, as they have proven time and again.

Sure, it would be nice to have a magic bullet, a deus ex machina, say fusion or real ability to draw CO2 down from the atmosphere, or fantastic batteries that don’t use exotic metals, truly green/clean hydrogen, but while they may be viable someday, they are not on the horizon as far as anyone can tell.

And the clock is ticking.

From the point of view of climate change, what are the trade-offs, the risks, the benefits, if we really want to get on top of climate change in the next couple of decades?

This is one of those long-term questions that it would be nice to have a crystal ball for. Some engineers and scientists say we can combat climate change without nuclear plants. Certainly, we have made great strides with solar and wind generated power, something to rejoice in, and there is room for more. But will we have enough of those clean energy sources up and running in time to make enough of a difference at the rate we are going? Can we move faster?

I don’t know the answer. I have long been against expanding nuclear power and trusted that clean alternative sources of power besides nuclear would be enough.

My first discussion that led me to reconsider my anti-nuclear power position was with a top physicist in France who thought we in the United States obviously didn’t care about climate change given that we refused to embrace nucelar power to generate electiricity. And lately, Luc Lewitanski, my podcast partner who is part of this website, and is French, has been challenging me.

After all, as far as the long-term approach to climate change (there are a lot of greenhouse gases produced in building a huge nuclear plant, so not great short-term), nuclear energy is effective.

Nuclear energy can lead to a lower carbon footprint. Can’t deny it.

Besides not producing greenhouse gases when generating electricity, nuclear energy could wean us off our addiction to methane (“natural gas”) for power generation, preventing methane leaks (methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas) and the health and environmental harm from fracking and gas pipelines.

France relies heavily on nuclear energy. About 65% of their electricity is generated by nuclear power, versus a bit less than 20% for the United States. France has a developed nation’s economy and lifestyle, but they produced 4.6 tons of CO2 per person in 2022 while in the United States we produced 14.9 tons per person (per the wonderful site: Our World in Data). There are other factors (France has a much better railway system, for example), but that is a huge difference in CO2 production! The United States is contributing over 3 times more to climate change year after year than France (and other European countries). Canada, Australia, Russia and Saudi Arabia are similar to the United States.

Even the activist Greta Thunberg thought Germany was crazy to open up coal plants while decreasing nuclear plant output.

We have to think hard and deeply about this. What risks are we willing to take in order to fend off devastating and deadly climate change, which is already here and will get worse?

This is not doom and gloom, we can and will make progress on this, we can do it, and we have to do it, but we do have decisions to make. In the English-speaking world in particular, we have to consider whether we have made the right risk/benefit calculations.

With the bipartisan Advance Act passing so overwhelmingly, the United States government is clearly shifting toward more nuclear energy.

Stay cool, stay safe, stay informed and stay positive.