Energy in the 2020s: a minority report
By Casey Handmer
This week will see a steady stream of advocacy for nuclear power. Many advocates are well-informed. But nuclear has already lost to solar photovoltaic power.
Arguendo, I concede that nuclear power is significantly less harmful to human health and causes far fewer deaths per kilowatt than any form of fossil fuel energy. Even end-of-life disposal costs and radioactive waste are much less harmful on a per-kWh basis than the waste products of, say, extracting and burning coal. Indeed, coal plants produce more radiation (because of naturally occurring radionuclides in the coal) than nuclear plants—to say nothing of coal’s pollution.
But despite the safety and technical maturity of nuclear power, solar PV power has prevailed. Because it is simple.
In 2020, the world had 880 GW of solar capacity. It had 400 GW of nuclear. It had 14 GWh of grid-connected storage batteries. Our total electricity generating capacity was about 6500 GW. Solar P…
