There comes a time when — regardless of how passionate we are about our opinions, or how lofty our ideals — pragmatism rules the day.
We settle for the office-brewed sludge over a fancy, barista-intensive slow-drip concoction. The luxury model is downgraded to an economy car when we’re faced with the cost of financing the deal.
At the same time, this pragmatic settling for what is best instead of what we want is a collective, society-wide phenomenon.
Boston acknowledges the economic reality of hosting the Olympics and the city chooses far more logical uses for tens of billions of dollars over a short-lived euphoria of prestige.
Though poorly managed and extremely politically charged, the U.S. government has steadily pared back on deficit spending for years now, greatly improving long-term outlooks.
The simple fact is, what is proven to work best for us overall — not what we’d prefer most — becomes the only clear choice when the time to talk ends and the time to act begins.
We’re at one of those overarching, global scope moments right now, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
In this moment of clarity, drastic expansion of nuclear power is becoming the only pragmatic choice, even for those who have spent years looking for something better.
Environmentalists Switch Sides
Late last year, a mass defection, if you will, from the largely anti-nuclear green camp went public with a splash.
It is a very large and influential group, with 75 ecologists and conservation researchers — all professors or doctors — signing an open letter.
The purpose of this letter is to implore public policy influencers and makers to face the facts, simply put.
Here are the main points:
The full gamut of electricity-generation sources—including nuclear power—must be deployed to replace the burning of fossil fuels, if we are to have any chance of mitigating severe climate change.
Given the historical antagonism towards nuclear energy amongst the environmental community, we accept that this stands as a controversial position… We entreat the conservation and environmental community to weigh up the pros and cons of different energy sources using objective evidence and pragmatic trade-offs, rather than simply relying on idealistic perceptions of what is ‘green’.
Although renewable energy sources like wind and solar will likely make increasing contributions to future energy production, these technology options face real-world problems of scalability, cost, material and land use, meaning that it is too risky to rely on them as the only alternatives to fossil fuels. Nuclear power—being by far the most compact and energy-dense of sources—could also make a major, and perhaps leading, contribution.
And this is hardly the first of these calls for pragmatic action. Not long before these 75 influential academics signed on, four top climate researchers wrote their own letter.
Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, Kerry Emanuel of MIT, Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and James Hansen of the Earth Institute of Columbia University defended the deployment of what they described as newer, safer nuclear power technologies.
As they noted, “In the real world there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power.”
It Ain’t Just Scientists
While I believe these scientists, researchers, and professors are absolutely correct, the scope of the pragmatic push towards nuclear goes well beyond the ivory towers of academia.
When it comes to the economics of moving away from dirty, carbon-based fuels, wind and solar just can’t go it alone.
They need a third component to provide a baseline of reliable, on-demand power.
Solar and wind are characterized by spikes in generation that cannot be smoothed out on the local or regional levels our electrical grids are based on.
One solution is battery storage. Unfortunately, existing technology cannot handle the extremely large current requirements.
Nor can they provide a reasonable total cost for consumers while heavily investing in replacement power generation while also buying capital-intensive batteries that quickly degrade as power is cycled in and out.
This has left natural gas generation as the de facto replacement for coal for this baseline capacity. While this is an improvement, it does nothing to mitigate past and future pollution from massive energy consumption growth.
Then there is the developing world, which can hardly afford to provide consistent power now, let alone shoulder additional costs.
Already In Motion
The point where lofty best case scenario hypotheticals need to yield to pragmatism has come and gone in these nations. Here are the results:
- India is pushing to get 30% of its energy from nuclear, which could result in a $1 trillion price tag.
- China will have to build 1,000 nuclear power plants, spend $2.4 trillion, and expand use by 6,600% to meet its targets.
- According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 437 nuclear power plants in operation. 60 more are being built now, expanding the number by almost 14%. 160 more are planned and 300 are proposed, bringing the potential expansion to almost 120%.
This is with natural gas prices at far more modest prices than we saw several years ago, and with coal so cheap that the big four domestic producers are falling apart.
Alpha Natural Resources had to file for bankruptcy. Since April 2011, Cloud Peak Energy shares are down 86.7%, Peabody Energy Corp. shares are down 98.34%, and Arch Coal shares are down and 99.96%
Now, the point where pragmatism is necessary has fallen on us as well.
Obama’s new climate agenda, for all its flaws, finally recognizes nuclear power as a zero-carbon generation technology and makes nuclear eligible to meet pollution reduction targets and receive compliance credits worth billions.
The president was even active in pushing and supporting massive energy overhaul agendas in India and China that will result in $3.4 trillion in future spending.
Wind, solar, battery technologies, and other renewables will all keep pushing forward and it is for the best. But reality is setting in and pragmatic choices are being made that acknowledge how renewables are far from a silver bullet.
A liberal President beholden to environmental activists is on board. Academics who strongly advocated alternative power sources are on board, and the two most populous nations in the world (along with many others) have gone a step further and put their money where their mouths are.
As the dust settles and our society starts making decisions that make sense, nuclear power is the clear winner across the spectrum of politics, environmentalism, and economics.
