THE SECOND COMING OF NUCLEAR POWER
THE U.S. AND 80 OTHER COUNTRIES agreed in November at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, to convert most of the world to green energy in a few decades. It’s a necessary step to curb greenhouse gases that cause climate change, but it comes with a daunting challenge: how to simultaneously meet a worldwide demand for energy that is expected to rise as fast as the temperatures.
A new generation of nuclear reactors is emerging as a potential solution. These are not the troubled giant reactors of old, with their big cooling towers and mazes of cooling pipes that guard against the possibility of a China-syndrome meltdown. The new reactors are designed to be simpler, safer, cheaper and much, much smaller.
One tiny reactor the size of a school bus could supply power to a nearby town or factory. Or many of them could be strung together to equal the output of a giant nuclear plant. Not only are they expected to be safer and to produce electricity more cheaply than conventional nuclear plants, they also do so without releasing so much as a puff of greenhouse gas.
In the switch to renewable energy, tiny nukes could play an enabling role. Solar and wind power alone may not be enough to meet the soaring demand for energy in the coming decades. In 2019 and 2020, nations around the world added 270 gigawatts of solar and wind power to their grids, but these renewable sources still need to be supplemented at times of peak demand or when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. At present, natural gas, a fossil fuel, usually fills that role. COP26, however, takes that option off the table.
Several new high-tech tiny reactors are
