This essay was first published in the 2021 edition of Voices and uses MLA documentation.

IN 2019, THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) released a special report where they argued that if the governments of the world did not significantly lower carbon emissions that the world was at high risk of severe effects to the climate. While not proposing policies that could correct the climate, they instead set a threshold of temperature increase. If governments can lower emissions enough to keep global temperature increase below 2º Celsius, they reasoned that a majority of climate change harms could be avoided. While the agency left it up to individual countries to lower their emissions, other countries and the IPCC have looked to the United States as key to lowering emissions. Responsible for 14% of global emissions, the U.S. has the financial stability and the industrial power of a developed nation to create a large enough dent in overall emissions (Plumer). A particularly interesting resolution that was recently stalled in government has called for the sweeping change that is needed to meet IPCC’s goal. The “Green New Deal,” offered by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, does not make a financial plan. Rather, it demonstrates a commitment toward avoiding climate change harms and giving particular attention to how climate change legislation might affect minorities and low-income families. Since both the introduction of the IPCC report and the Green New Deal there have been countless legislative proposals for the Green New Deal. While all of these proposals differ, they all seem to agree to intentionally exclude the use of nuclear energy. This controversial topic has stirred some resentment within the academic community.  Some scientists and organizations, including members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) have even concluded that nuclear energy is required to avoid climate change, arguing that its global production must double by 2050 or the effects of climate change would soon materialize, such as 40 million deaths, a 60% worldwide crop failure, and a 50% global GDP crash (Magill). Arguing that new technologies and upscaling current reactors could be the way to avoid these disasters, pro-nuclear advocates have aggressively lobbied for nuclear to be included in green policy proposals. Despite the case for implementation, the Green New Deal and climate change legislation must continue to exclude nuclear. From its long construction time, high cost, and polluting fuel supply, nuclear shows itself to be a financially risky and climate-damaging bet on the race to a clean future.

The first harm of nuclear energy stems from its construction and retirement. Stefan Rahmstorf, a German climatologist, has gamed out scenarios where world governments effectively lower carbon emissions enough to reach the IPPC’s goal and avoid climate change harms. He found that in any realistically financial scenario, 2020 has to be the peak year for emissions. While Rahmstorf’s model frames the case globally, it does have direct implications on the U.S. and the use of nuclear power. The average construction time for nuclear reactors is 7.5 years, and while that may not seem that long, it limits the amount of time clean energy is actually in use (Mearns). In an extreme example, the U.S. took 43 years to build one reactor (Groskopf).  The long construction time to build nuclear reactors creates two problems. First, waiting around 7.5 years to put energy on the grid could potentially mean facing climate change harms before effective action could be taken. Second, energy creation and consumption do not drop to wait for the creation of new sources, and pre-existing coal, oil, and natural gas plants will continue to emit carbon emissions during those 7 years. In fact, even retiring nuclear reactors run into the same problem. When nuclear reactors close, the default energy source that replaces the loss in capacity is natural gas. Because renewables are not fast enough to scale up production, the life and death of a nuclear reactor are almost always enveloped in cheap carbon-emitting energy sources. Recently closed nuclear reactors, like Crystal River, SONGS, Kewaunee, Vermont Yankee, Fort Calhoun, and Oyster Creek, were nearly all replaced by natural gas production, which is creating over 25 million tons of CO2 every year (Conca).  Fulfilling Rahmstorf’s model is a matter of speedy production; the argument against nuclear becomes less about the quantity or longevity of a source and more about the rate at which that source can be produced.

One argument that is offered by pro-nuclear advocates in response to long construction time for nuclear reactors is increasing the lives of pre-existing reactors by using power uprates that require minimal construction time and give reactors anywhere from 20 to 40 years of extra production. In fact, the Nuclear Energy Institute found that if the 73 nuclear plants in the U.S. that haven’t had substantial uprates did, 8.5 to 10 GWE would be added to the grid, which is the equivalent to building 8 to 10 reactors (Davis). Historically, uprates have proven to be successful in keeping the equivalent energy capacity in the U.S. despite a drop in the last few years in nuclear reactors. While this sounds like a solution, uprates are still not significant enough to save nuclear energy from the scrutiny of its slow construction time considering that 8.5 to 10 GWE would add less than 2% of the national share of energy production (“Levelized Cost and Levelized Avoided Cost”). Doubling nuclear production to avoid climate change harms is going to require building new reactors, which run into the consequences of those seven years of construction.

The second problem nuclear runs into concerning its creation is cost and investment. Nuclear power costs significantly more money than other energy sources. In 2019, Lazard did an energy report on the levelized cost of different kinds of power generation, or in other words, the average revenue per unit of electricity generated that is required to recover costs of creation and production (“Levelized Cost and Levelized Avoided”). It finds the price of nuclear at $118 per megawatt, which is far more expensive than other energy sources, like solar at $36, wind at $28, or gas at $44 (“Levelized Cost of Energy and Levelized Cost of Storage 2019”). While the Green New Deal and other significant climate change proposals have indicated that the cost of a green future doesn’t matter as much as it does the desire to obtain one, paying more money for less energy is not ideal. In fact, the cost of nuclear has only increased. The 2019 World Nuclear Industry Status Report indicates that over the last decade, the levelized costs for utility-scale solar have dropped by 88%, for wind by 69%, and while for nuclear, it has increased by 23% (Froggatt 15). The high costs of production not only demonstrate the need for climate methods that are cheaper, faster, and more efficient, but it shows a compounding problem with nuclear reactors and investors. With higher costs, an investor’s opportunity cost decreases, meaning they have less to lose if they don’t invest in the construction of a nuclear plant (Hayes). Energy Post writes that the average return on investment on a new nuclear plant is only around 1.3%.  An investor has no incentive to spend money with such a diminished return unless they increase their profits, which means that they increase prices for nuclear energy, which in turn factors into the levelized costs of production. This cycle of investors and costs has culminated in an overall failure of current reactors. The Union of Concerned Scientists in 2018 points out that one-third of existing nuclear plants in the U.S. are unprofitable even while the government offers $85 billion per year to the industry (“Nuclear Power & Global Warming,” “Nuclear Power Subsidies”). The fact that subsidies are given is not important. Rather, it is important to note that nuclear reactors are still unprofitable even with subsidies.

Nuclear energy’s high cost also has a direct consequence on low-income individuals and families. EIA’s residential energy consumption survey found in 2015 that “about one in five households reported reducing or forgoing basic necessities like food and medicine to pay an energy bill” (United States, Congress, Senate, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources). This means that fluctuating costs of power have significantly more weight on low-income families’ financial stability. A study was done by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that calculated that for every 10% increase in home energy costs, 840,000 Americans would be pushed below the poverty line (United States, Congress, Senate, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 5). Because of the high levelized costs and painful cycle of inflation of price, it has the potential to force low-income groups into poverty and into unwanted sacrifices to their health and nutrition. If climate proposals did not exclude nuclear energy for being too slow to create, they excluded it based on its failure to produce an energy source that is cheap enough to support low-income individuals and families and commercially viable enough to attract enough investors.

Advocates of nuclear energy have a harder time justifying its use after factoring in the high cost of production. However, they do offer one argument claiming that new nuclear technology has the chance to revolutionize the cost and boost the incentive to invest. Propping up hypothetical technologies like non-light water or thorium nuclear reactors as poster children, advocates argue that if the size of reactors can be decreased, they can create a sort of grassroots investment system that would make nuclear power significantly cheaper and more energy-efficient. These technologies could save nuclear from exclusion from green legislation. However, instead they highlight another issue with government subsidies. The government has provided $2 billion since the 1990s for some of these technologies. However, as IOP Science writes, most of these technologies have made no significant progress to market deployment (Abdullah et al.). Even those that have made progress, they are so far from deployment that conservative estimates project another 25 to 30 years before these nuclear reactors could employ these technologies (Barnard). Considering that the world cannot wait for clean energy for another 30 years, it is imperative to focus on other energy sources instead of investing in hypothetical imaginings of nuclear grandeur.

While the slow construction time and low return on investment should be reason enough to exclude nuclear energy from green proposals, there’s a lot to be said about nuclear fuel and its direct consequences on the climate and consumers. Nuclear fuel can take many different forms. The most common source is uranium, a highly radioactive element that can produce tons of energy. Despite uranium fuel and nuclear reactors being labelled as a clean and sustainable source of energy, they still produce a significant amount of CO2 and other carbon pollutants through uranium’s intensive mining process. From uranium’s initial identification to its mining and extraction from ore, processing requires significant energy to power tools and supplies, and as Keith Barnham writes, a majority of that energy comes from fossil fuels (Barnham). With this factored in, the numbers speak for themselves. Benjamin Sovacool writes that over an analysis of more than 103 lifetime studies of nuclear power plants, the average grams of CO2 per kWh comes out to be 66 grams or the amount of CO2 produced for a kilowatt of energy (2941). This CO2 production is significantly higher than all renewable sources, with hydropower creating 10, biogas creating 11, wind creating 34, and solar creating just under 50 grams of CO2/kWh. If high emissions are not a reason to exclude nuclear, green legislation excludes it because it is only projected to get worse. While renewable energy sources are expected to decline their already low CO2 emissions, nuclear is expected to increase as the quality of uranium ore is expected to decline. Research from Storm van Leeuwen has pointed out that 37% of the identified uranium reserves have an ore grade below 0.05% and is slowly increasing as higher ore grade uranium is used up (Barnham). While initially insignificant, van Leeuwan further explains that a nuclear plant using uranium ore grade below 0.01% has the potential to have a carbon footprint larger than a natural gas electricity generator and may not produce any net electricity over its lifecycle.

Factoring in van Leeuwen’s extensive research into quantifiable impacts on citizens, the results become even more striking. The World Health Organization shows that about 7.1 million people die from air pollution each year, with more than 90% of these deaths from energy-related combustion (“Air Pollution”). As uranium takes more and more fossil fuel energy to procure, it is furthering air pollution and effectively responsible for thousands of people’s deaths. These deaths are even more prominent in minority and low-income communities. The American Lung Association explains that housing discrimination and redlining has forced minorities or low-income communities into particular areas that have consistently increased their risk of premature death from fine particle pollution (“Disparities in the Impact of Air Pollution”). These disproportionate effects potentially caused by nuclear energy use represents the biggest contrast from the Green New Deal and green legislation.  Green legislation is all about targeting marginalized groups and giving them a voice in clean energy, while nuclear is taking advantage of an already discriminatory system to disadvantage the marginalized. This represents the most significant reason why nuclear simply does not fit the Green New Deal and the policies it advocates for.

Storm van Leeuwen’s findings are damning for pro-nuclear advocates. Counterarguments would not justify an energy source that may be just as bad as the status quo. Despite new technologies, despite uprates, there is nothing that can offset the pollution that nuclear energy adds and will continue to add as uranium quality decreases. There is nothing that can change the regressive system that nuclear uses. There is nothing to be done with nuclear and for that, it must be excluded from green legislation.

No matter how much climate change legislation is debated or considered for its potential effects, it won’t stop the looming clock on climate change. Taking effective action as soon as possible is a priority for correcting decades of neglect. Nuclear energy, despites its future potential in new technology, cannot increase fast enough to produce energy on the levels that the climate needs; it cannot produce cheap and efficient energy on the levels the people need, and most of all, it cannot produce clean energy on the levels the world will need. The Green New Deal is ultimately just a stepping stone into a new era of clean technology because the future of energy is up to every single person on this imperfect planet to act and make change happen.

Works Cited

Abdulla, Ahmed, et al. “A Retrospective Analysis of Funding and Focus in US Advanced Fission Innovation.” IOP Science, Environmental Research Letters, 10 Aug. 2017, iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7f10.

“Air Pollution.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution.

Barnard, Michael. “Why Thorium Nuclear Isn’t Featured on CleanTechnica Redux.” CleanTechnica, 31 Oct. 2019, cleantechnica.com/2019/10/30/why-thorium-nuclear-isnt-featured-on-cleantechnica-redux/.

Barnham, Keith. “False Solution: Nuclear Power Is Not ‘Low Carbon’.” The Ecologist, 5 Feb. 2015, theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-power-not-low-carbon.

Conca, James. “U.S. CO2 Emissions Rise as Nuclear Power Plants Close.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 18 Jan. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/01/16/u-s-co2-emissions-rise-as-nuclear-power-plants-close/?sh=1ff8a94e7034.

Davis, Will. “Nuclear Power Uprates: What, How, When, and Will There Be More?” American Nuclear Society, 26 June 2014, www.ans.org/news/article-1589/nuclear-power-uprates-what-how-when-and-will-there-be-more/.

“Disparities in the Impact of Air Pollution.” American Lung Association, 20 Apr. 2020, www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/disparities.

Froggatt, Antony. “The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2019.” World Nuclear Report, Sept. 2019.

Groskopf, Christopher. “The United States’ Newest Nuclear Power Plant Has Taken 43 Years to Build.” Quartz, Quartz, 11 May 2016, qz.com/681753/the-united-states-newest-nuclear-power-plant-has-taken-43-years-to-build/.

Hayes, Adam. “Understanding Opportunity Cost.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 28 Aug. 2020, www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.

“Levelized Cost and Levelized Avoided Cost of New Generation Resources.” Eia.gov, EIA, Feb. 2020. www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/electricity_generation.php.

“Levelized Cost of Energy and Levelized Cost of Storage 2019.” Lazard.com, 7 Nov. 2019, www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019.

Magill, Bobby. “Nuclear Power Needs to Double to Curb Global Warming.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 30 Jan. 2015, www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-needs-to-double-to-curb-global-warming/.

Mearns, Euan. “How Long Does It Take to Build a Nuclear Power Plant?” Energy Matters, 27 July 2016, euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-anuclear-power-plant/.

“Nuclear Power & Global Warming.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 22 May 2015, www.ucsusa.org/resources/nuclear-power-global-warming.

“Nuclear Power Subsidies.” Taxpayers for Common Sense, July 2009.

Plumer, Brad. “Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit a Record in 2019, Even as Coal Fades.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Dec. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/climate/carbon-dioxide-emissions.html.

Sovacool, Benjamin K. “Valuing the Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Nuclear Power: A Critical Survey.” Energy Policy, vol. 36, no. 8, 21 Apr. 2008, pp. 2950–2963., doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2008.04.017.

United States, Congress, Cong. Senate, Energy and Natural Resources, et al. Plenty at Stake: Indicators of American Energy Insecurity, 2014, pp. 5–5. 113th Congress, report.

United States, Congress, U.S. Energy Information Administration. EIA, 2020. www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php.