Photo Source: Lukas Lehotsky via Unsplash
Let’s set the stage by imagining we’re creating a new movie to be shot on location in Arizona in 2023.
The temperature has been above 103 degrees for 60 days now, creating hundreds of thousands of deaths from heat, which has never been seen before. Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is growing at twice the average amount of the world due to increased population and many people buying large fuel guzzling trucks that are exempt from most of the mpg rules.
Something has to be done or the area will revert to an uninhabitable desert within the next 15 years.
To the rescue comes… nuclear power! Fast forward to 15 years in the future and the area is booming once again. The CO2 in the area has stopped increasing due to electric trucks and air conditioning fueled by nuclear power.
Could this really be a reality? Well, if you look at some of the leading tech people and the incentives in the new green deal, then the answer is absolutely.
We have spotted three trends that reinforce this.
First, Europe has announced it will issue green bonds for nuclear, something that would have been impossible just a few years back. Additionally, earlier this summer, the European Union voted to add nuclear to its green energy alternative funding.
Second, many cutting-edge individual and institutional investors, such as Bill Gates and Google, are investing in this area. Here is one name that may surprise you: Chevron. Yes, Chevron, the fossil fuel company, may be making a bet to pivot to nuclear if it works out. Wouldn’t that surprise some green protesters!
Third, the new bill passed by the United States this month with green energy initiatives has money in it to fund government research on new designs for nuclear energy. Remember, this is how most technological break throughs have happened in past government research projects, especially in defense and health care doing the heavy lifting at the beginning for the major scientific breakthrough then private enterprises taking it to produce and market. Will this be the same for nuclear energy now?
Finally, according to Forbes, nuclear power could play a role in limiting global CO2 emissions in the future. However, a challenge to this is that only a handful of countries have concentrated nuclear power, and few are fostering its production and growth.
Photo Source: Robert Papier via Forbes; “2019 nuclear power consumption.”
The United States is the top global nuclear power producer and hasn’t built new nuclear units in more than three decades. That’s changing this year with the commission of two more units.
Hope springs eternal in many optimistic thoughts, but maybe, just maybe, the future in energy is safe nuclear power; cheap and abundant!