Net Zero Needs Nuclear

"Rather quietly, a new age of atomic energy may be approaching. Splitting atoms may not be as exciting as fusing them, or as modish as wind and solar projects. Yet old-fashioned fission is poised to make a comeback thanks to innovative new reactor designs. The world will be better for this revolution — if policymakers allow it."

So begins an online article in the Washington Post with the unflinching title "Net Zero Isn't Possible Without Nuclear." This piece is described as "Analysis by The Editors | Bloomberg."

[Aside: This is an amazing piece of writing—which we entirely agree with and truly admire—but it is all highly unusual. Newspapers typically do not publish "analysis." Also, newspapers typically will not publish opinion pieces from "The Editors" of other organizations. Yet, here it is, Bloomberg Editors (might that include Michael Bloomberg?) have effectively placed an OpEd in the WaPo on the last business day of the year that is, we suspect, going to serve as the exclamation mark for the year. End aside.]

This piece packs a punch. It's not too long. It's not too technical. It just makes the case that we need tons more nuclear energy if we hope to reduce emissions and yet our progress in that direction is blocked by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission that is effectively disfunctional and unable to understand relative risks.

Sadly, we agree. The NRC as it is now, is not well-suited for supporting the success of an innovative nuclear tech sector. Today's NRC could remain the regulator for the traditional industry, which is used to slow and plodding and isn't building all that much. But what the Advanced Nuclear sector needs is a new, more innovative regulatory body which operates at the pace of technology and which can be empowered to use different methods and objectives to provide suitable guidelines and support for innovators but which doesn't stop them from innovating and commercializing good designs, simply because those designs haven't been tested for decades. This group should be empowered to use probabilistic risk assessments, advanced technologies, modeling and even AI to help launch the advanced nuclear sector and ensure that we get the commercial reactor designs we need to prevent climate change from destroying humanity.

The NRC, as it exists now, does not recognize that climate change is barreling down on the world with an absolute certainty, if we don't eliminate emissions. For the sake of zeroing out risks so miniscule that they don't pose a realistic threat, the NRC is standing in the way of important, planet-saving climate solutions.

Read more at the Washington Post, "Net Zero Isn't Possible Without Nuclear," by The Editors, Bloomberg, December 30, 2022.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, History-making, Investor activity, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, Politicians supporting nuclear, Private companies, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

March 22, 2022

Tech Billionaires Rally around Nuclear

Billionaires are rallying around nuclear, according to a recent report from Pitchbook on venture investments in 2021. Notably, some of these billionaires, Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen, have spoken out about the need to both preserve existing nuclear and to "build 1,000 new state-of-the-art nuclear power plants in the U.S. and Europe right now."

This isn't exactly new, since billionaires like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have been both investing and advocating for nuclear for years but, nevertheless, 2021 was a banner year for nuclear venture fundraising. Not just are billionaires excited about the prospects for nuclear energy to solve climate, a lot of non-billionaire investors are as well.

According to Pitchbooks, which tries to track all venture investment deals, a record $3.4 billion was plowed by investors into nuclear ventures, which was more than the amount invested in the prior decade combined. Fusion ventures were a major beneficiary of this growing investor interest, despite yet having progressed past the "science project stage" with Commonwealth Fusion raking in $1.8 billion by itself and Helion Energy raising $500 million, but the majority of the 28 deals that were closed were likely in fission.

There is clearly a trend around an increased level of investor interest in next generation nuclear and a willingness by investors to jump in to the sector. Nucleation Capital was also launched and made its first investments in 2021—which were reported to and presumably included in the analysis by Pitchbook. Our ability to do so a function of the same factors that have stimulated the rise in venture activity, which include:

1. Widespread recognition that nuclear energy deserves inclusion in green taxonomies and is a critical rare source of firm, clean power that competes against fossil fuels, not renewables.

2. 60+ years of commercial operating experience provide ample evidence that the risks of a nuclear accident are grossly overplayed by the press and nuclear's opponents.

3. Overly hyped radiation fears have been muted by a broader understanding of the beneficial effects of background levels of radiation that occur naturally in our environment.

4. Mastery of next-gen nuclear technology is vital to both national and international security so that Russian and Chinese providers do not succeed in supplying the world's future energy needs and thus being in a position to apply geopolitical pressures on developing nations.

5. Grassroots climate and clean energy advocacy has made its mark on the world stage at COP 26 and demanded not just to protect existing nuclear power plants but also to deploy next-generation designs.

6. Fast-growing wind and solar development have not proven an ability to deliver the level of decarbonization needed to meet climate goals, due to their intermittency and dependence on natural gas.

7. Longer term decarbonization goals will require energy abundance that is not feasible with current dilute sources of energy but require nuclear's ability to repower coal plants with clean energy.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the geo-political issues have risen to the top and have increased interest among many countries in eliminating dependence on natural gas even faster than previously planned. If there is a silver lining to the war being fought in Ukraine, it may be the added impetus that it has given to the global urgency to reduce gas dependence and build (or restart) nuclear energy. This reverses the prior trend, where gas (with externalized emissions) replaced nuclear energy, since the only fuel that really competes with nuclear is natural gas (so long as emissions can be externalized).

Learn more at Bloomberg, Tech Billionaires Rally Around Nuclear as Energy Crisis Looms, by Lizette Chapman, March 22, 2022. [PDF]

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate innovation fund, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Investor activity, LINKS, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, US technological leadership, Venture capital support for nuclear, Zero emission energy

August 24, 2020

Exxon Mobil booted off the Dow Jones Industrial Index

Exxon Mobil Corp., the most prominent U.S. fossil fuel company, and one widely reviled for four decades of stonewalling action on and deliberate, deceptive obfuscation about the risks of climate change, has been booted off the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In one of the most significant and revealing of moves in the last seven years, the Dow dropped Exxon, Pfizer Inc. and Raytheon Technologies Corp. replacing them with Salesforce.com, Amgen Inc. and Honeywell International, which are now posed to enter the 124-year old equity gauge on September 1st, 2020.

This major rebalancing, supposedly triggered by the share split planned by Apple, muffles the very stark rejection of Exxon as a leading industrial player. Not only has Exxon seen its market cap shrink, its profoundly unethical behavior, its clouding of scientific evidence and its refusal to take action to address the climate impacts of its fossil fuel products, have made it the darling of divesting shareholders, a movement that has become increasingly mainstream, especially as fossil fuel returns falter in the face of diminishing demand.

The DJIA has probably been looking for the right opportunity to dump Exxon for a while, avoiding the appearance of disfavor by doing so in proximity to a major extreme weather event or fossil fuel accident. Instead, the DJIA took advantage of the Apple split to justify what has likely been the plan to remove the fossil major, so prevent its decline from impacting the Dow Jones average.

Read more about this move at Bloomberg: "Exxon Booted from Dow Industrials in Major Embrace of Technology."

Published by Nucleation Capital in Capital reallocation, Carbon emissions, Future of Energy, History Timeline, History-making, International support for nuclear, LINKS, Public companies

July 3, 2019

Michael Liebreich talks about nuclear power

Michael Liebreich, founder and senior contributor to BloombergNEF, takes a hard look at the decisions that we need to make about how we plan to transition our energy systems to eliminate emissions over the next 11 years and conducts what might be called a "come to Jesus" discussion with his readers, demanding that they review the data and get real about nuclear power.

First Liebreich provides some very compelling evidence that it would be utterly unrealistic to believe that wind and solar alone could grow at rates that are multiples of their historic rates in order to provide enough zero-carbon power to decarbonize the economy in the near term, even with their low prices.

Among the easiest, cheapest and most impactful actions nations can take to ensure their decarbonization pathway remain headed in the right direction—the "no brainer" decisions upon which any number of countries are already failing—would be to set an "overwhelming priority is to keep existing nuclear plants open."

Liebreich takes exception when it comes to the question of building new traditional nuclear power plants, and makes the case that the Gen III generation of plant designs won’t cut it on based upon economic grounds—given the failure of the industry to deliver Gen III projects on time or on budget. However, he is willing to be convinced that Gen IV nuclear, once developed, might be what we need assuming we can get these designs out within a reasonable time frame—something yet to be determined. But, given the likelihood that we will miss our targets, Liebreich calls for getting "serious about developing SMRs and researching the generation of nuclear technologies that might even follow them."

Read Michael Leibreich's "get real" talk in "Liebreich: We need to talk about nuclear power," published at BNEF.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Carbon emissions, Climate policy, Construction costs, Future of Energy, LINKS, Solving climate