Canada Embraces Nuclear Energy Expansion to Lower Carbon Emissions
wsj.com
wsj.com
Still. I don't think it's realistic to expect to heat Canadian cities or produce plastics by the millions of tonnes, with just heat pumps and solar power. Some of the greatest promise in nuclear energy is in areas we haven't even really begun to explore. Carbon-neutral synthesis of liquid fuels and industrial chemicals. Direct process heating. District heating.
There is no cheaper source of direct heat. And even at its current rate solar will take several more decades to get there. And it isn't constant output. SMRs are near-ideal for such purposes, and it's been part of the discussion, which makes me excited. I'll breathe easier (figuratively and literally) when they're actually built, though.
The vast majority of Canadian electricity production is already zero-emissions (in excess of 80%, including nuclear generation, which delivers 60% of the energy for the largest province and 15% of the nationwide supply). 'Hydro' and 'electricity' are synonyms nationwide for a very good reason.
Natural gas is still generally used for heating, but most of the country typically sees winters too cold for heat pumps to work and insufficient volcanic activity for geothermal, so it generally makes sense to do this.
Canada has, or had, world-class nuclear engineering capabilities and a significant quantity of uranium to use; the time to put them to use is now, while the US nuclear industry is still buried under miles of red tape and misplaced anti-nuclear sentiment.
> Natural gas is still generally used for heating, but most of the country typically sees winters too cold for heat pumps to work and insufficient volcanic activity for geothermal, so it generally makes sense to do this.
It makes sense, but we still have to get rid of it. Domestic heating alone from natural gas accounts for roughly 10% of national emissions, which is more than the entire Danish output of GHG in all sectors. When you add in the natural gas for industry it comes to more like 30% of GHG output. Yes, it's certainly cleaner than coal. But it's not carbon neutral. Carbon neutral in practice means we will need to either increase the price of natural gas about 5x over current, or subsidize the cost of electric heating about 5x, or come up with some other form of relatively cheap heat. Otherwise people will not switch due to the cost. I hope that SMRs and district heating might offer an unconventional way out of this puzzle.
I think people are confused about what carbon neutral means, in a deep philosophical sense. It's a property of a list of numbers you add up. It's not a property of each of those items individually.
It's like profitability, whether something is profitable depends on what is under the umbrella. Berkshire Hathaway can be profitable while one business is making a lot of money and another is losing a lot. But, say, Mens Wearhouse, couldn't deal with covid, because it didn't have, like, a videoconferencing unit.
Because the issue is global climate change, caused by global CO2 levels, it makes no sense to talk about minute units of energy usage being neutral or not. It really feeds into the right wing trope about climate change being a religion, in my opinion. The idea that every facet of life should have equal carbon intensity is nutty.
Canada cannot control anything but its own emissions, really. It is possible to run Canadian society in a way with very low carbon emissions compared to right now, while maintaining a relatively high standard of living. Given the scale of impact, primarily on the poorest peoples of the world for our material benefit, it seems a strong moral imperative to me, yes.
If both are economically feasible, the choice between nuclear and natural gas for energy is not a trivial whim. It's more like choosing to strip-mine a third world country vs. a sustainable mining practice for our supply of a mineral, when both are fairly viable processes economically. It's quite blindly and unnecessarily injurious to others, just to realize a relatively small profit.
Dismissing it as "minute" amounts of energy is a fallacy. It's all minute amounts of energy. When you add up how much Texans use for recreational drives on Saturday, Albertans to keep their homes 24 °C in January, the folks on Okinawa to keep their air conditioners running, and the nouveau riche of Malaysia jet-setting around the world -- it really starts to add up. You can dismiss all emissions with "it's a minute amount" with this sort of argument.