Posted on 12/14/2024 9:19:09 PM PST by SeekAndFind
After decades on the outs with environmentalists and regulators, nuclear power is being heralded as a key component for a “net zero” future of clean, reliable energy. Its promise is likely to fall short, however, due to some hard realities.
As North America grapples with the challenge of providing secure, affordable, and sustainable energy amidst soaring electricity demand, it is time to accept this fact: Natural gas remains the most practical solution for powering our grid and economy.
Nuclear power’s limitations are rooted in its costs, risks, and delays. Even under ideal circumstances, building or restarting a nuclear facility is arduous. Consider Microsoft’s much-publicized plan to restart the long-dormant Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. This project is lauded as proof of an incipient “nuclear revival,” but despite leveraging existing infrastructure it will cost US$1.6 billion and take four years to bring online.
This is not a unique case. Across North America, nuclear energy projects face monumental lead times. The new generation of small modular reactors (SMRs), often touted as a game-changer, is still largely theoretical. In Canada—Alberta in particular—discussions around SMRs have been ongoing for years, with no concrete progress. The most optimistic projections estimate the first SMR in Western Canada might be operational by 2034.
The reality is that nuclear energy cannot scale quickly enough to meet urgent electricity needs. Canada’s power grid is already strained, and electricity demand is set to grow significantly, driven by electric vehicles and enormous data centres for AI applications. Nuclear power, even if expanded aggressively, cannot fill the gap within the necessary time frames.
Natural gas, by contrast, is abundant, flexible, low-risk—and highly affordable. It accounts for 40 percent of U.S. electricity generation and plays a critical role in Canada’s energy mix. Unlike nuclear, natural gas infrastructure can be built rapidly, ensuring that new capacity comes online when it’s needed—not decades later. Gas-fired plants are cost-effective and capable of providing consistent, large-scale power while being capable of rapid starts and shut-downs, making them suitable for meeting both base-load and “peaking” power demands.
Climate-related concerns surrounding natural gas need to be put in perspective. Natural gas is the lowest-emission fossil fuel and produces less than half the carbon dioxide of coal per unit of energy output. It is also highly adaptable, supporting renewable energy integration by compensating for the intermittency of wind and solar power.
Nuclear energy advocates frequently highlight its zero-emission credentials, yet they overlook its immense challenges, not just the front-end problems of high cost and long lead times, but ongoing waste disposal and future decommissioning.
Natural gas, by comparison, presents fewer risks. Its production and distribution systems are well-established, and North America is uniquely positioned to benefit from the vast reserves underlying all three countries on the continent. Despite low prices and ever-increasing regulatory obstacles, Canada’s natural gas production has been setting new records. Streamlining regulatory processes and expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity would help revive Canada’s battered economy, with plenty of natural gas left over to help meet growing domestic electricity needs.
Critics argue that investing in natural gas is at odds with the “energy transition” to a glorious net zero future, but this oversimplifies the related challenges and ignores hard realities. By reducing reliance on dirtier fuels like coal, natural gas can help lower a country’s greenhouse gas emissions while providing the reliability needed to support economic growth and renewable energy integration.
Europe’s energy crisis following the recent reduction of Russian gas imports underscores natural gas’s vital role in maintaining reliable electricity supplies. As nations like Germany still phase out nuclear power due to the sheer blind ideology of their left-wing parties, they’re growing more dependent on natural gas to keep the lights (mostly) on and the factories (partially) humming.
Europe is already a destination for LNG exported from the U.S. Gulf Coast, and American LNG exports will soon resume growth under the incoming Trump administration. Canada has the resources and know-how to similarly scale up its LNG exports; all we need is a supportive federal government.
For all its theoretical benefits, nuclear power remains impractical for meeting immediate and medium-term energy demands. Its high costs, lengthy timelines, and significant remaining public opposition make it unlikely to serve as North America’s energy backbone.
Natural gas, on the other hand, is affordable, scalable, and reliable. It is the fuel that powers industries, keeps homes warm and provides the stability our electricity grid needs—whether or not we ever transition to “net zero.” By prioritizing investment in natural gas infrastructure and expanding its use, we can meet today’s energy challenges head-on while laying the groundwork for tomorrow’s innovations.
* * *
The original, full-length version of this article was recently published in C2C Journal.
Molten salt reactors and Thorium are the energy sources of the future. Natural gas is now, hydrogen is coming. Still lots of black gold.
All of the above.
Where are you going to drill for hydrogen?
Nuclear is the fuel of the future. But there needs to be massive attitude adjustments in the general population. We have enough spent fuel to reprocess for a long time without the need to mine anything else.
Nat Gas is the best interim solution.
Wind and solar are nice shining illusions, but not a real answer.
Natural gas is plentiful right now and it may be being generated deep in the earth right at this minute. The problem is not availability but instead it is rate of production. Depletion of natural gas is like letting air out of a steel tank of a compressor with the compressor turned off, the more you let out the slower it comes out. The future rate of natural gas production will not be able to meet demand long before the supply in the earth runs out.
Thorium reactors or some form of dispersed small nuclear plants are the answer for our future electric power needs and we need to quit screwing around and get on with it.
Every time natural gas is burned for heat a Chemical Engineer screams in anguish that such a valuable feed stock is being wasted for mere heat. Natural gas is only a bridge fuel and not a long term solution.
I sold natural gas for $9.00 a thousand cubic feet 40 years ago and pipeline companies and burner tip suppliers were lined up to get it at whatever price it took. When I was a kid 25 years before that I saw natural gas going for 20 cents a thousand cubic feet on the high side. I retired contracts for less than a nickel a thousand when I went to work. In the 60s the local gas company giving away really nice natural gas fueled yard lights just to sell natural gas. The burned 24/7/365. In just less than 20 years the tide had turned from waste to treasure in availability and pricing. We will see the same thing again. That is why this article is stupid ans short sighted.
Everybody reaches for a simple solution. There isn't one. There also isn't such a thing as a free lunch.
FTA:
“North America is uniquely positioned to benefit from the vast reserves underlying all three countries on the continent.”
.
Mexico is one of those three countries, and Mexico City’s air is polluted by poor management of distribution.
Just how much do we owe Jane Fonda for our energy dependence? The US has (had) “enough coal for the next two hundred years”...
BTW, the author of this article was former CEO of Encanna Oil and Gas Company. Nope, no bias there. People like this make me puke. At least he does give some lip service to gas as a sort of, kind of bridge fuel.
There are about 16.7 trillion cubic meters of natgas in the US.
The US currently produces a little over 1 trillion cubic meters per year.
That’s not what anyone should call abundance.
Will more be found? Yes. Will production (let’s call it consumption, regardless of if some is frozen and shipped as LNG) also increase? Yes. And if both of these parameters, finds and burns are at roughly the same amount of increase, then it’s hard to see how that’s not 15 years.
This is not abundance.
Oh, bias is presumed.
What should also be presumed is there’s no magic transition.
The opposite of abundance is scarcity.
It’s not a wave of the hands and a choice to do something else.
Until we build nukes, coal is King.
Trump needs to kill the CO2 Endangerment Finding. End this farce.
Obama’s EPA killed dozens of base load coal fired power plants across the united states. He also created rules that put restrictions on natural gas and oil fired engines for demand side management of our grid.
All they have to do is kill one bullshit co2 rule.
BTTT
Thirty years ago “they” were saying it takes “10 years too long” to build a nuke. Well, guess what? We could built dozens and had them on line since then.
“Every time natural gas is burned for heat a Chemical Engineer screams in anguish that such a valuable feed stock is being wasted for mere heat.”
This Mechanical Engineer, too. Ever since I started up power plants for a living 50 years ago, I understood that fuel utilization should are prioritized according to the fuel’s value. Natural gas is too valuable to burn for heat. But, if you MUST burn NG for heat, use it for residential and commercial heating. It should never be used for electric power production because you can make electricity from abundant coal.
But if we must reduce CO2 emissions for political reasons, then molten salt small modular reactors are the way to go.
Jupiter.
Gas is the way to go....absolutely.
Does that apply when the wet gases like butane, ethane, propane, etc are stripped leaving mostly methane?
The citizens of Washington State had to reverse a House Bill 1589 passaed in the middle of the night which limits natural gas use in the state. No natural gas heating in new homes and the use of natural gas in restaurants. Burger King will no longer be able to flame broil their hamburgers.
Voters passed Iniative 2066 to repeal HB 1589. Now the DemonKKKrats want to overturn the vote. Very few citizens are aware of that effort. The DemonKKKrats have even voted to take out hydroelectric dams on the lower Snake River. They want to increase the salmon population on the Columbia River for the benefit of the Indian tribes. I bet the Indians are lining Dem pockets.
Keep Pennsylvania gassy.
Nuclear and nat gas. Nukes don't throttle up and down very well so use them for base load. Nat gas can respond immediately to peak demand.
I remember when extraction was proposed for ANWR. One fallacious argument against was it would take10 years to get any product. That was well over 10 years ago.
The real delay and expense for nukes is the endless greenie lawsuits
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