Outside forces
How a star-crossed series of events continues to hamper present day deep decarbonization efforts
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Today’s post originally appeared as a tweet thread here:
I was inspired to write on this topic, as I always am, after reading a passage in Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now. I encourage everyone to add it to their reading list if you haven’t already.
This was so fun to write and research that I thought I would also post to the newsletter. For subscribers, I also add in some additional resources on what companies and organizations are tackling deep decarbonization and nuclear energy development.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Is deep decarbonization a viable pathway to solving the climate crisis? Do you think we are ready for nuclear energy? Please leave a comment or reach out directly!
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Sam
Editor’s note: This was originally written for Twitter.
1/How a star-crossed series of events, including world changing scientific research, a nuclear power plant accident, and pop culture may have stifled our present day (and future) efforts of achieving deep decarbonization. A thread.
2/Deep decarbonization is in part, a parallel effort to significantly reduce ghg/CO2 release while also capturing the carbon already in the atmosphere.
3/Most experts agree we need to do both to have any chance at lowering the temp. It’s also an increasingly practical solution as Nan Ransohoff from Stripe explains so eloquently here
4/The main culprit of CO2 release can almost always be traced back to energy. The energy we need to do all the things we do, the things we make and the things we want. This energy is still, predominantly made up of fossil fuels.
5/One not-so-secret-solution-to-our-energy-problem and a pathway to decarbonization is shovel ready: nuclear energy.
6/Paraphrasing from Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: nuclear energy is the world's most abundant and scalable clean energy source. The return on investment is incalculable. Without it, there is no clear path to true decarbonization. We have to address the source of the problem..
7/But nuclear power development has plateaued or declined in the USA since the 80’s. Mainly due to a perception that it is unsafe, and the chain of events that led to a generation of nuclear fear/misunderstanding is, well, understandable!
8/The nuclear bias was solidified by the partial core reactor meltdown at 3-mile island, Pennsylvania in 1979. But the events leading up to it, a “trinity”, if you will of doom, human error and pop-culture is what imperiled nuclear energy development.
9/Nuclear energy was mysterious at the time, but science, doing it’s thing, had proven it to be safe and an effective means of producing energy to an increasingly energy hungry society. The 80’s were coming and coming fast. Consumption was exploding.
10/The baby boomers had been through a lot. They heard awful stories of devastation in WW2 as kids, the result of breakthrough science of the Manhattan Project. Add the Cuban missile crisis, fierce activism of the 60’s and nuclear energy had a PR problem, right or wrong.
11/The anti-nuclear movement had taken hold and the risks simply didn’t outweigh the benefits in the eyes of what would become one of the most influential generations of our time.
12/Skip to March 16, 1979, Hollywood released “The China Syndrome”, led by an all-star cast of Jack Lemmon, a young Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda. The plot? Dogged journalists uncover a story of gross negligence, leading to a catastrophic accident at a nuclear power plant
13/It was wildly successful, earning the top spot at the box office for 3 weeks, grossing $51M and earning several academy award nominations. It was a bona fide hit.
14/The movie threw surplus gasoline on the anti-nuclear movement. But, in the end, it was art and fiction. Which made what happened on March 28, 1979 (exactly 12 days after the film’s release) so monumental. Yep, the partial core meltdown at 3-mile island.
15/Today, it’s clear how pop culture and online media can sway public opinion virtually overnight. But this story happened pre-internet while baby boomers were forming their world views, jaded by nuclear technology used for destruction rather than saving the planet.
16/The “China Syndrome” was a real term. Used to describe a hypothetical reactor meltdown that would burn so hot it would sink through the earth’s surface, “all the way to China”. In the eyes of many, this was happening at 3-mile island, just days after the movie predicted it.
17/Even though the movie, and subsequent investigations into the disaster at Chernobyl demonstrated human error was to blame rather than design flaws in technology, the seeds of doubt were firmly planted.
18/And while no deaths were directly attributed to the accidents at 3 Mile or more recently at Fukushima, the deaths from all other non-renewable energy sectors have risen ever since. Editor’s note: indirect deaths caused by nuclear accidents surely exist.
19/Scientists, deep tech entrepreneurs and years of research have united around exceedingly safe and fail proof “generation 4” technologies. *Chernobyl was Gen 1* But decision makers of yesterday and today, the baby boomers, have a jarring bias stuck in their psyche about safety.
20/Science and technology are ready. But it will take a massive effort from policy makers and regulatory changes to incentivize private and government investment for the next generation of nuclear energy. And to be fair, many are currently working on this.
21/Some have called for a “Manhattan Project” type of effort to combat climate change that would presumably follow some form of deep decarbonization and nuclear energy as a solution theory. We might just indeed come full circle.
22/BTW, 1979 was a great movie year: Superman, Aliens, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Star Trek and Kramer v. Kramer all hit #1.
23/Thanks as always to @ourworldindata for the graphs!
Who to watch in deep decarbonization and nuclear energy development
Deep Decarbonization Pathways Initiative
The Deep Decarbonization Pathways (DDP) initiative is a collaboration of leading research teams currently covering 36 countries. Their aim is to help governments and non-state actors make choices that put economies and societies on track to reach a carbon neutral world by the second half of the century.
Carbon Engineering
At Carbon Engineering, we’re focused on the global deployment of megaton-scale Direct Air Capture technology so it can have the greatest impact on the huge climate challenge.
Climeworks
One of the few companies to develop the first commercial direct air capture machines.
MIT center for advanced nuclear energy systems (CANES)
The Center aims to create concepts for nuclear energy systems that promise favorable economics, reliability and environmental sustainability. The Center's programs involve development and application of methods, materials and technologies for the design, operation, and regulation of current and advanced nuclear reactors and fuel cycles. This requires advances in knowledge about traditional scientific and technical disciplines, modern methods of systems reliability, probabilistic safety analysis and decision analysis, and human interactions and management science.
Terrestrial Energy
Generation IV nuclear energy production using integral molten salt reactor (IMSR) technology. Slated to be ready for the market in the 2020’s.
Oklo
The company’s tagline says it all: What could you do with a MW-decade of always-on, emission-free power?
Commonwealth Fusion
Did you like this thread? I’d love to hear from you. If you have suggestions for articles or topics drop a comment or DM on twitter. What are some of your ideas for advancing deep decarbonization?
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