There are conversations we would rather not have. Certain realities, like the inevitable existence of death, tend to frighten us and our initial instinct is to avoid facing that reality altogether. With similar logic, whenever someone hints at something nuclear, there is a sense of anxiety that sparks within an audience.
Clearly, previous encounters with nuclear catastrophe have led to traumas and general displeasure towards nuclear energy. As countries commit themselves to a future powered by renewables and a global effort to decommission the remaining nuclear powerplants, the way forward has been set. The future is renewable, people may say. But it is not.
As the ‘climate crisis’ we are living in gains momentum in the media, there is another crisis that coexists with the climate one and is not getting the attention it deserves. It is accurate to say that we are living in a ‘climate crisis’, but this is all because we are living in an ‘energy crisis’. In a world where more people are gaining access to electricity, it is crucial for its generation to be as clean as possible. This is not the case in most developing countries.
Essentially, energy exists stored in matter and can be readily supplied through the breaking of a chemical bond, the splitting of a nucleus or the pairing of a particle and its respective antiparticle.
In a global consensus towards a carbon-free future, most nations have committed themselves to doing away with the practice of breaking chemical bonds.
The burning of fossil fuels is a classic example, one that unfortunately releases little energy per unit of raw material as well as a by-product – carbon dioxide. On the other end of the spectrum, the pairing of matter and anti-matter is still a vague concept to use practically. That leaves nuclear as a compromise – an ‘in-between’ option.
What makes nuclear desirable is its sheer energy density and low by-products per unit of raw material. Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide, take up a small land footprint and while being relatively expensive to implement, they are cheap to operate in the long term.
Therefore, it seems that nuclear gives the best of both worlds: high energy yield for a small input while having a carbon footprint of nought. A person’s energy demand in a lifetime is equivalent to hundreds of barrels of oil. However, if the metric is changed to Uranium-235, the energy demand drops down to the size of a Rubik’s cube.
However, with all these factual advantages, one cannot help but contemplate nuclear catastrophes. News broadcasts of Fukushima and maybe even Chernobyl are still somewhat fresh to us.
Trying to comprehend the ‘invisible killer’ that is radiation can be terrifying. However, I’d argue that there is another invisible killer, one which is causing far more damage and is given much less attention.
We need to change our attitude towards nuclear energy
For every terawatt hour of energy produced, 100,000 people die from coal and 4,000 from natural gas. Only 90 people die from nuclear energy per terawatt hour, giving it a safety record that exceeds that of most renewables. Therefore, nuclear energy is statistically a safe technology.
If nuclear energy scarcely claims the lives of hundreds of people, fossil fuels kill up to two million people every year. While, nuclear energy kills people tragically, fossil fuels kill people through literal thin air. For some reason, we have convinced ourselves that this reality is somewhat acceptable.
The reputation of nuclear power plants has been on the shoulders of 1980s-era technology. Most nuclear powerplants these days run on outdated technology and still boast an impressive safety record.
Chernobyl lacked major safety features that would have concealed the reactor after meltdown. Had this been the case, Chernobyl wouldn’t have been a disaster but an accident, and the surrounding biodiversity wouldn’t have been contaminated.
Next-generation nuclear powerplants are yielding very promising results. Reactors are made to be concealed underground with active and passive safety features.
If an anomaly does occur, it is detected early by advanced automated systems and the fuel is expelled to a cooling enclosure where neutron absorbers terminate the nuclear reaction for good.
Furthermore, unlike previous generation nuclear fission reactors, the system is neither water-cooled nor placed under high pressure, eliminating the possibility of meltdown in the first place. Instead, liquid metal or salts are used, which allow the system to operate at high temperatures, significantly promoting higher efficiency.
Previous generation nuclear reactors had a very low efficiency, analogous to opening a bottle of water, taking a sip and throwing the remainder away. Higher efficiency implies more energy produced for less input. It also means less nuclear waste which, even in old generation powerplants, didn’t amount to much after years of use.
In a way, it is desirable to contain the waste rather than to release it into the atmosphere like most fossil fuel powerplants do. A Small Modular Reactor (SMR) the size of a small house can power the entirety of Malta for up to 30 years without the need for fresh input. That amounts to 30 years of safe and clean energy with minimum requirements of operating staff and a very small land footprint.
Clearly, we need to change our attitude towards nuclear energy. Though a relatively scientifically underinformed public may push forward renewables such as solar and wind, the science suggests otherwise.
Because of their very low energy density, renewables require a greater land footprint to operate with the necessity of expensive maintenance and operation costs. It is said that if the world were to be strictly powered by solar panels, an area the size of Spain would have to be cleared out from biodiversity to make space for photovoltaics.
To put it in another way, we would have to build four million wind turbines, that is assuming a constant flow of air.
In either case, both solar and wind, not to mention hydroelectricity, severely damage the ecosystem, landscape and wildlife.
This ambition towards renewables is ultimately delaying or disrupting research on safer and more efficient nuclear plants. Countries we think of as innovative leaders are in fact contributing to this the most. Germany is discouraging the use of nuclear both domestically and through the rest of Europe while investing heavily in solar and wind.
The harsh reality about renewables is that if the weather is not active, they are not producing energy. If they are producing a surplus of energy, it cannot be stored.
Had Germany devoted its funds towards nuclear instead of renewables, it would have met its energy requirements by now and in excess. Instead, more than half of Germany is still powered by fossil fuels, registering a net increase in emissions each year.
With a commitment to reach 10 per cent renewables by 2020, Malta is undoubtedly finding it difficult to reach such a target, let alone become 100 per cent renewable.
Malta on its own would have to devote its entire land area to photovoltaic panels to produce the energy it requires. Malta’s small size and large population does not provide enough space to produce energy renewably, nor enough land to plant trees and cancel the emissions out.
Being a small member state of the EU, Malta should take advantage of its notable influence on foreign leaders and devote more attention towards the development of cheaper and safer nuclear options. The science is there and what is left is a matter of engineering and implementation.
We may choose to solve the energy crisis the easy way or the hard way. So far, it seems we have chosen the hard way and the consequences speak for themselves.
Matthew Curmi is an engineering student.