Nuclear energy suffers from a mainly negative public perception thanks to its often-dramatized portrayal in popular culture and to major historic nuclear accidents such as the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island incidents. This view of nuclear energy, however, is far from the reality, and nuclear power is becoming more and more important in the search for clean energy and in our fight against climate change. Nuclear energy provides significant advantages to traditional energy sources like fossil fuels and to other renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power. These advantages include higher output, lower costs, lessened environmental impact, and increased reliability. The implementation and use of nuclear energy have been made incredibly safe and secure thanks to heightened regulations across many countries, including Canada, and the concerns with nuclear waste management have also been alleviated by significant innovation in recent years.
There are understandable safety and security concerns surrounding the use of nuclear energy, yet the industry is highly regulated, and safeguards have been put into place in most countries that take advantage of this source of energy. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, initially to address the fears related to advancements in nuclear technology. Since then, the IAEA has evolved into a wide-ranging agency tasked with surveilling nuclear technology and applications, safety and security, as well as safeguards and verifications. It has put into place an effective global network of states who cooperate to ensure that nuclear energy remains as safe and secure as possible. Canada is also a world-leader in nuclear regulation and safety; the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) works to protect Canadian’s health and safety as well as the environment by regulating the use of all nuclear energy and nuclear substances. Members of the CNSC have even collaborated with the IAEA to help put in place France’s system of nuclear waste management in 2018, demonstrating the expertise of Canada in the field of nuclear energy and its concern with safety and security.
Waste management is another aspect of nuclear energy that faces criticism and leads to apprehension in the increased implementation of nuclear power. France is a model example of an effective and comprehensive system of nuclear waste management. By either recycling or reprocessing spent fuel, it is able to reuse radioactive materials like uranium, thus reducing the volume of waste generated by their use of nuclear energy. Finland, who has sworn to stop using coal by 2030, has invested in waste disposal sites which allows their power plants to operate and dispose of their waste while avoiding the dangerous outcomes that are typically expected. These storage alternatives to recycling include disposing of waste in dry storage deep underground, in salt disposals, or under water. Even China, who is known to be incredibly reliant on fossil fuels, is considering building an underground depository for its nuclear waste management following significant investments in nuclear power.
One of the most crucial advantages of nuclear energy is its incredibly low environmental impact in contrast with other industries such as coal, which emit carbon and other harmful substances contributing to global warming into the atmosphere. Coal mining and burning releases concentrated uranium into the air and also dispose of it in landfills, which causes environmental degradation in the surrounding areas. On the other hand, nuclear energy is produced via nuclear fission, which is low carbon in nature. NASA even estimates that this nuclear energy has prevented 15 times more global carbon emissions than it has caused since the 1970s.
Nuclear energy is also more efficient and reliable than other clean energy alternatives. In 2007, a single nuclear power plant in the United States was able to generate more than ten times the energy produced by the entire U.S. solar industry, coming in at over 10 billion kilowatt hours. Nuclear power plants also operate at an average capacity of over 90%, meaning they are able to consistently supply power almost year-round. In contrast, clean energy sources such as hydroelectric, wind, or solar power are only able to operate at less than 40% capacity. Nuclear energy is therefore not only more efficient, but also much more reliable than other sources of clean energy.
Another compelling aspect of nuclear energy that is often overlooked is its cost efficiency and economic advantages. Although the construction of nuclear power plants is expensive, this type of energy is not subject to the same added costs such as carbon taxing, emissions standards, or fuel prices faced by the coal and natural gas industries. This allows the production of nuclear energy to be more cost efficient in the long run. As well, smaller nuclear reactors can be built to service smaller regions or for private use, which also comes with lower costs yet the same high efficiency. Reliance on fossil fuels is evidently detrimental to the environment, but the pollution it creates can also lead to negative economic impacts. In 2015, over 70% of China’s energy was produced from fossil fuels, predominantly coal. Due to the increase in air pollution in China’s major urban areas, the World Bank has evaluated the economic loss incurred by China to be about 6% of its GDP.
The rising demand for energy combined with the search for alternatives to fossil fuels places nuclear energy as a core component of the future of clean and efficient energy solutions. With countries around the world demonstrating that nuclear energy can be implemented safely, effectively, and reliably, and with the urgency of our climate crisis growing more and more every day, nuclear power and its many advantages can no longer be understated or misinterpreted.
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