California is one of the most progressive, productive, and innovative economies in the world. Yet we are ceding our clean energy leadership because we have put blinders on about nuclear power. We are petitioning to change this anachronistic paradigm because nuclear waste hasn't hurt anyone but climate change is going to destroy our future. There are plenty of solutions to nuclear waste but just a few types of energy that can compete with fossil fuels and nuclear is one. California needs to deploy more nuclear power if we want to succeed in achieving zero-carbon energy by 2045 while also providing abundant and reliable power to our economy. This petition seeks to get the CEC to determine that there are a plethora of safe solutions to nuclear waste as well as reprocessing capabilities coming online to satisfy the terms of the existing laws, such that the CEC can begin issuing permits again and preparing to bring California into the 21st Century on energy.
Bill Gates discusses what he calls the Green Premium, which is the extra costs that it takes for us to transition all the way to clean energy, from dirty energy that doesn't pay for the pollution that it causes. The concept is important because while there are cheap types of clean energy, such as solar and wind, they don't get us all the way, since they are intermittent. The Green Premium speaks to the types of investments that we have to make to develop the technologies that can address not just converting our grid but also industry, transportation, agriculture, buildings and everything, everywhere. The "last mile" is the hardest and most expensive parts of the project.
Looking at the costs of the Green Premium for addressing all facets of the transition to clean energy, points to where we need to innovate and invest in better options for reducing the total Green Premium. That is what advanced nuclear ventures are doing: they are competing with that Green Premium as it exists for decarbonizing more broadly across all aspects of our economy and enabling us to transition at a much lower average cost.
Read more at "A Green Premium: Where we should spend money on climate innovation," an article printed in Time Magazine, which is an essay adapted from Bill Gates' book "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster."
The US International Development Finance Corporation has ended a ban on financing nuclear power projects and "will prioritize the support of advanced nuclear technology in emerging and frontier markets," the federal agency said in a statement July 23, 2020. The revised policy "recognizes the vast energy needs of developing countries as well as new and advanced technologies such as small modular reactors and microreactors that could be particularly impactful in these markets," DFC added.
Intriguingly, the policy shift reflects a change to DFC's Environmental and Social Policy and Procedures (click to download a PDF of this document dated July 2020) to enable the support of nuclear power projects and align the definition of renewable energy with the United States Energy Information Administration's (EIA) definition. Which raises the question: How does the EIA define "renewables?"
The statement further reads: "Modernizing DFC’s nuclear energy policy will help deliver a zero-emission, reliable, and secure power source to developing countries in order to promote economic growth and affordable energy access in underserved communities. This change will also offer an alternative to the financing of authoritarian regimes while advancing U.S. nonproliferation safeguards and supporting U.S. nuclear competitiveness."
Read the DFC's announcement entitled "DFC Modernizes Nuclear Energy Policy" on its website, where there are links to further information about the public input process. See the S&P Global Platts report here.
Bill Gates' TED talk in 2010 provided a huge amount of inspiration to us, when we first began this journey exploring the potential of investing in Advanced Nuclear. In this video of his presentation, Gates unveiled his vision for the future of energy, describing why he is funding development of a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor in pursuit of the "miracle," that we are in desperate need of: zero carbon emissions globally by 2050. You can click the video below to watch the the talk "Innovating to Zero!" or click the link to watch one of the versions that has been translated into 38 languages.
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