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Thesis: Many of the misconceptions surrounding nuclear significantly impact public perception of nuclear energy. This drives less innovation as people don’t feel it is necessary to devote resources to a technology surrounded by controversy.

If you haven’t read my Introduction to Nuclear, I’d highly recommend it before reading this article as some of the terminology associated with this subject may be difficult to understand.

Credit The Omega

Nuclear Controversy

Ever since World War II, the entire world has been on edge when it comes to powerful technologies that are associated with weaponry.

Unfortunately, nuclear energy has been caught up in that unsure attitude and hasn’t figured out a way to get out of the negative limelight yet. This negative perception has only been furthered through the Three-Mile Island disaster in 1979, the rapid development and threat of deployment of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and most recently, the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Along with this, as nuclear energy is often associated with weaponry, the information present about the development and deployment of nuclear energy can sometimes be censored by governments.

The dawn of the internet dramatically worsened this problem as everyone now could voice their own opinions and “research” as facts, even if they were completely incorrect.

Bring this idea full circle, the whole nuclear industry has been suffering from under informed bias, a lack of proper public information, and a negative public perception. This has driven many advocates away from nuclear as the necessary effort to inflict proper public perception change is simply too much.

This has culminated in many myths about nuclear that consistently get perpetrated through the media, even though a person could simply disprove them with a little bit of research.

Admittedly, shedding more light on these myths won’t fix everything wrong with nuclear, but it’s a start. Innovation always begins directly where we’re at.

Credit World Atlas

Myth #1: Nuclear Power Plants are Dangerous and Prone to Accidents

Let’s start with the facts. In the whole history of nuclear energy, there have been 3 major disasters. Wikipedia will tell you there have also been 23 other minor disasters.

As they say, this myth does have a ground in fact. There have been accidents, and there will probably be more (especially if we plan to triple nuclear capacity by 2050).

But, this isn’t a totally accurate statement.

Consider the following example: The United States Navy has operated a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines since the 1950s, achieving over 6,200 years of reactor operation. As of 2019, the total number of nuclear reactor years for the entire world for the entire history of nuclear has been over 18,300.

Yet, the United States Navy has a spotless record.

If we were to extrapolate from the data, they should have around 1 major accident and 7 other minor disasters by now. But they don’t. Especially considering that these reactors operate on submarines and aren’t immovable on stable land, this is a feat.

Or is it?

I think it shows the potential of nuclear power. Nuclear can and is safe. These plants aren’t dangerous, and when operated completely correctly, are not prone to accidents. It helps when you have trained people who know how to operate them and have operated them before.

When you have countries experimenting with nuclear power as we’ve seen throughout history, you get these major problems. It’s when they don’t know what they’re totally doing.

Isn’t it a sign that we haven’t even had a minor disaster since 2011? The countries operating these reactors have figured out how to operate one safely and effectively, the regulations have caught up, and we now have safe, efficient sources of energy.

Myth #2: Nuclear Power Plants Emit Large Amounts of Radiation

Especially when it comes to nuclear power, the “not in my backyard” principle comes heavily into play. Many people are deathly afraid of the technology being close to them out of fear of a disaster or radiation.

Major disasters aside, this simply is a bogus claim.

As humans, we’re surrounded by naturally occurring radiation in everyday life. You see in the movies how actors have those radiation meters that tell them how much radiation is in the environment around them.

Let’s say you wore one of those every day for a year, just living your normal life. You would experience around 0.3 mSv in radiation. How much of that would be from nuclear power? 0.0002 mSv (0.06%).

Yet, you experience more radiation by eating a banana (around 0.1 mSv). The Department of Energy highlights that eating a banana gives you more radiation exposure than if you were standing right next to a dry cask full of nuclear fuel or a nuclear power plant itself.

So, nuclear reactors do emit radiation, but not in large amounts, and definitely not anywhere close to enough to hurt you.

Credit Harvard University

Myth #3: There is No Solution for Huge Amounts of Nuclear Waste Being Generated

Humanity has been searching for an effective long-term solution for years. Currently, the top contender seems to be Finland.

Finland created a plan to bury their nuclear waste underground in a mine around 400+ meters deep. The waste is first encapsulated inside copper containers and then buried. Yet, doubts still remain about whether this is truly a long-term solution. Because nothing similar to this has been tried before, there are large technical uncertainties and many unpredictable factors that could go wrong for us or for future generations.

Unfortunately, no country in the world has come up with a reliable permanent solution to store nuclear waste. Finland’s plan, while potentially good, has many downsides and is extremely expensive.

Granted, only around 0.5% of nuclear waste actually needs to be stored in these places as the rest is low-level waste that can easily be stored or repurposed.

The nuclear industry has developed and implemented most of the necessary technologies required for the final disposal of this nuclear waste. The international scientific community does agree on the methodology behind deep geological repositories. The remaining issue is public acceptance, not necessarily of technological feasibility.

Myth #4: Nuclear Energy is the Least Expensive Type of Energy

In the energy industry, to measure the cost of energy, we use the LCOE (or Levelized Cost of Energy) metric. The LCOE is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation over that generator’s lifetime. It’s used to compare the different methods of electricity generation consistently.

Here’s a graph of the current LCOE:

Credit Wikipedia

As you can see, nuclear power is now the most expensive type of energy out there.

Myth #5: A Nuclear Reactor Can Explode Like a Bomb

I’d say this is the most “out there” myth on this list.

The easy answer is that it’s structurally impossible for a nuclear reactor to explode like a nuclear weapon. The configurations of the two are highly different.

Most reactors don’t have enough uranium to be truly explosive. Along with that, reactors have many layers of safety systems and automatic shutdown capabilities.

So even if a person wanted to, it would not be possible for them to intentionally modify a commercial nuclear reactor to cause an explosion.

Credit The Conversation

Myth #6: Nuclear Energy is not Safe

Safe is an interesting concept here. Let’s approach it a bunch of different ways. As I’ve stated, nuclear reactors are safe in the fact they don’t emit large amounts of radiation when operating properly, as well as they can’t and won’t explode like a nuclear weapon.

So, what else safety-wise do people care about?

I’m not sure. It’s safe to be inside, outside, and upside down in these reactors. In addition, the construction and operation aren’t truly different from any other construction job, so there isn’t added risk there.

The only time nuclear energy is not truly “safe” is when there are major failures, which, as we’ve seen historically can happen. Granted, in most countries the regulations on nuclear energy are so high for fear of being the next site for disaster. This significantly improves the likelihood of safe operation.

Myth #7: Nuclear Energy is Bad for the Environment

With the global push for sustainability and environmentally friendly products and energy production, nuclear has fallen under intense scrutiny.

The facts:

• Nuclear reactors emit no greenhouse gasses during operation (no CO2)
• Nuclear energy requires less land than most other forms of energy (for the amount of energy it produces with that land)

So, the only things bad for the environment are the production of the inputs that go into making and operating a nuclear reactor and the outputs that come out after, nothing during the reactions themselves.

We’re talking lots of concrete, steel, mining, etc., all of which produce large amounts of carbon dioxide. In addition, there’s further carbon dioxide produced when nuclear power plants have reached the end of their lifecycle and need to be decommissioned.

But, in actuality, that isn’t a lot of CO2 given how much energy nuclear power plants produce. The World Nuclear Association details this further in the graph below:

As you can see, nuclear power isn't bad for the environment in comparison to other technologies that are heralded for their low impact on the environment (half as little as solar or hydropower).

Myth #8: Nuclear Energy Can’t Reduce Our Dependence on Foreign Oil

Many of the opponents to solar and wind power often cite the fact that their capacity factors aren’t 100%, meaning that they aren’t generating energy 24 hours a day (solar doesn’t generate energy at night, wind doesn’t generate energy when it isn’t windy).

Nuclear, however, does generate energy 100% of the time. As do hydropower and fossil fuels.

So, in practicality, a society built on nuclear power would drastically reduce its need for foreign oil. As would a society based largely around any type of renewable energy source.

Does this mean the need for foreign oil production goes away? Nope, as there will always be niche uses for it, but a shift to alternative forms of energy dramatically reduces the dependence on foreign oil.

Credit AZPM News

Myth #9: Nuclear Power Plants are Aging and Inefficient

In the United States, most of our nuclear power plants were built decades ago, meaning that on paper, they would be aging and the assumption that they would then become inefficient isn’t unreasonable.

Nuclear power plants are very similar to classic cars. In order to maintain performance, equipment is continually evaluated to determine whether it needs to be upgraded or replaced. If you were to go inside a nuclear power plant, you would probably be surprised by how modern it looks.

As for the inefficient part, most reactors operate around 90%+ capacity, which means that they are producing power over 90% of the time. Seems pretty efficient to me.

Myth #10: Most Americans Don’t Support Nuclear Power

You would think this would be the case with all of the negative press surrounding nuclear in the last couple of years, but the data suggests otherwise.

Data from the Pew Research Center states that around 57% of United States adults favor more nuclear power plants:

To back this claim up, the data from Gallup also exhibits similar traits:

If that wasn’t enough, here’s data from Bisconti Research by Nuclear Newswire:

As you can see, overall American public perception of nuclear power is positive, to say the least.

So, what’s preventing more nuclear power development in the United States?

I think Bisconti sums it up best:

Positive messaging will remain ineffective if negative misperceptions are too strong, according to Bisconti. For example, at the beginning of the 2022 survey—before education on the matter was provided—64 percent of participants believed that living near nuclear power plants exposes people to harmful levels of radiation. After this misperception was corrected by the survey, 51 percent of participants still believed it. “That’s an improvement but hardly the shift one would hope for,” Bisconti said. “The association of radiation with nuclear power plants is so strong that it persists with many people, even after they see persuasive messages.”

Anywho, that’s all for today.

-Drew Jackson