Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Is nuclear power the way forward to combat the climate crisis?
What does the world’s electricity mix look like? Over 60% of the world’s electricity is generated by fossil fuels, including coal, gas, and oil, around 25% by clean energies such as hydropower, wind, and solar, and a little over 10% by nuclear. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, these low or no carbon power sources need to be increased to keep up with the increasing demand for electricity and replace fossil-fuel power generation. And some countries are planning to build more nuclear power plants on a massive scale like China and France. Technically, nuclear power is generated by nuclear reactions that heat water to produce steam to turn turbines. Though the mechanism seems simple, is nuclear power a good power source from safety, environmental, and economic standpoints? First, it is not as safe as other power sources. Nuclear power plants in Chernobyl in Russia, Three-mile in the US, and Fukushima in Japan caused environmental disasters. Also, nuclear waste is toxic for thousands of years. So, environmentally, it releases no greenhouse gasses but is dangerous and hazardous. Economically, it is not so expensive to run but it is awfully costly and time-consuming to build. Even though small modular reactors (SMR) could be built more easily than the conventional massive reactors, the capital cost is still high and neither the technologies nor the supply chains have been established to build smaller reactors.
Decarbonization is indeed a challenging task.
Enjoy reading the article and learn about the pros and cons of nuclear power generation.
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