The resurgence of nuclear power: a conversation with M. V. Ramana

Professor Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia. His latest book is Nuclear is Not the Solution. I put some questions to him on what is causing a resurgence of nuclear power and whether it is a good or a bad idea.

Faruqui. What is causing the resurgence? The sudden arrival of data centers, driven by the quest for AI? Or climate change?

Ramana. I would first dispute the idea that there is an actual resurgence in nuclear power. What we are seeing is a resurgence in talk about nuclear power. We have seen similar waves of talk about nuclear power, most recently during the first decade of this millennium when there was much talk about a so-called nuclear renaissance. It was during that period that the US government introduced the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which provided significant incentives to utilities to build nuclear plants.

Utilities proposed building more than thirty reactors, but of these only four nuclear reactors proceeded to the construction stage, and two of these reactors in the state of South Carolina were abandoned mid-project following huge cost and time overruns, after over 9 billion dollars were spent. Only two reactors were actually built, at the Vogtle power plant in Georgia, and these ended up costing over $36 billion, much more than the $14 billion estimated when construction of those reactors started, and even more than the roughly $5 to $6 billion figures that were suggested when the Energy Policy Act was passed. It is in light of this history that we should consider the talk about new nuclear plants today. Coming back to your question, what is causing this talk about resurgence: I would argue that this is mostly motivated by the nuclear industry’s struggle to stay alive and viable. Many nuclear plants today are operating only because of government subsidies of one kind or the other. So, if the industry has to build anything new, it has to resort to hype and artificially induced panic about running out of power.

Faruqui. For years, public sentiment toward nuclear power in the US was quite negative. Are we witnessing a turn around in that sentiment? Why?

Ramana. Public sentiment has always waxed and waned. When nuclear advocates tell the public that nuclear power is the only way to deal with climate change or meet the demands of data centers, support goes up. In contrast, following catastrophic accidents like the multiple reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant in Japan in 2011, support naturally declines. It has been closed to a decade and a half since then, and the propaganda from the nuclear industry has been continuous. That’s what I would attribute changes in public attitudes.

Faruqui. Japan, which had shut down its nuclear power plants after the 2011 incident at Fukushima, is now planning to expand it rapidly to meet its climate goals. Does that surprise you?

Ramana. Once again, I would separate the rhetoric from reality. The Japanese government has continuously supported nuclear power. Back in December 2013, the Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japanese newspaper, revealed that “the industry ministry began working to continue promoting nuclear power even immediately following the disastrous meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant” and produced a confidential internal document titled, “Toward the Renaissance of Nuclear Energy,” which was compiled in late March 2011. The pressure increased after Shinzo Abe came to power. Despite the strong support from the Japanese government to restart nuclear reactors for over a decade, Japan got just 5.6 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants in 2023. That does not suggest that nuclear power will expand “rapidly”.

Faruqui. What is the status of nuclear power in Germany?

Ramana. Germany has shut down all of its reactors over a long phaseout process starting with a law passed in 2000. At that time, Germany’s nuclear reactors produced a little over 150 TWh of electrical energy. That has declined to zero in 2024. This decline in electrical energy has more than been compensated by renewables. In 2024, wind power contributed 136.4 TWh, biomass contributed 36 TWh, and solar photovoltaics contributed 72.2 TWh. Altogether renewables provided 62.7 percent of Germany’s electricity, and emissions from the power sector have declined by 58 percent between 1990 and 2024.

Faruqui. Why is it that several developed nations do not have a single nuclear power plant? These countries include Australia, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, and Poland?

Ramana. It is not just these nations that do not operate nuclear plants. Most countries around the world do not operate nuclear plants. The existing nuclear plants are heavily concentrated in a few countries. Out of the 417 reactors listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency as operational, 279 were in seven countries with nuclear weapons.[1] It is hard to come up with a single reason to explain why many different countries built—or chose not to build—nuclear plants. But in many cases, the problems with nuclear power, in particular its high costs and risks of catastrophic accidents, played an important part in decisions by countries to not build nuclear plants. Or, as in the case of Germany, to shut down plants that had been operating.

Faruqui. What are the main barriers to nuclear power: costs, delays in construction and activation, or inability to safely handle nuclear waste?

Ramana. I would say that the main barrier is cost; delays in construction and commissioning also translate into financial losses for the utilities building nuclear plants.

Faruqui. Are small modular reactors (SMRs), which are being put forward by tech billionaires such as Bill Gates, going to solve the problems associated with large, conventional reactors?

Ramana. I do not think so. As I mentioned earlier, one of the main challenges confronting those promoting nuclear power is poor economics. This problem is worse for small modular reactors. If they are ever built, SMRs will generate lower amounts of power, which means less revenue for the owner. But the cost of constructing these reactors will not be proportionately smaller. Therefore, electricity from SMRs will be more expensive than power from large nuclear plants. Remember that these large nuclear plants themselves are not competitive with renewables, which have become the cheapest ways of generating power. So, there is no way SMRs will be commercially viable. The failed attempt by the Utah Associated Municipal Power System to build NuScale SMRs is a real life illustration of the poor economics of such reactors.

Faruqui. Can nuclear fusion get around the problems faced by nuclear fission energy?

Ramana. In my opinion, generating electrical power from nuclear fusion is unlikely to ever be economically viable. Three basic challenges confront using nuclear fusion to generate electricity.  First, there is the “physics challenge”: to produce more energy than is used by the facility as a whole. Current nuclear fusion experiments are far from meeting this challenge. Second, there is the “engineering challenge” of converting what works in an experimental set up and produces energy for a microscopic fraction of second into a continuous source of electricity that operates 24 hours/day, 365 days/year. The third is the economic challenge of having this incredibly complicated process compete with other simpler and far cheaper ways of generating electricity.

Faruqui. Many nuclear plants have been shut down over the years in the US. What were the reasons? Are those concerns still valid for functioning power plants, such as Diablo Canyon in California?

Ramana. Most nuclear plants that were shut down in recent years were closed because of economic reasons. For example, when Entergy Corporation decided to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, the company announced that the reactor was “no longer financially viable”. Likewise, when NextEra Energy, owner of the Duane Arnold nuclear plant, announced plans to shut it down, it projected that using wind energy will “save Iowa customers nearly $300 million over 21 years” even after including shutdown costs.

In the case of Diablo Canyon, which is located in California, the plant’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) decided in 2016 to shut down the reactor because of economic reasons. Its current plan to keep it operational were only made possible by huge subsidies from the state of California and the Federal Government. It’s a well-kept secret that the price for this decision will ultimately be borne by consumers. It’s also worth noting that there are significant accident risks associated with running the plant because it is located in a seismic zone and next to a military base.

Faruqui. Some nuclear plants that were shut down are being reopened. In particular, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania which was shut down in 1979 after a major disaster. What risks are associated with its reopening?

Ramana. Again, I would like to see the plant actually start operating before saying that the plant is “being reopened”. But should that happen, much will depend on how carefully the utility and the regulators study all the risks and ensure that all old and at-risk equipment is replaced. Old nuclear plants are particularly susceptible to accidents, the likelihood of which can be described by something called the bathtub curve. The failure rate is initially high due to manufacturing problems and operator errors associated with new technology. Then curving like a tub, the failure rate declines with experience and rises again as aging related wear and tear starts increasing. In other words, the dangers of continuing operations are high and increasing.

Faruqui. Nuclear proponents argue that incidents such as Chernobyl in 1986 in what is now Ukraine and Fukushima in 2011 in Japan were caused by bad design and bad operations and are unlikely to occur in the US. Do you agree?

Ramana. While it is true that we are unlikely to have another severe accident exactly like the ones at Chernobyl and Fukushima, there are many different combinations of initiating factors and failures that can lead to another accident that results in radioactive materials being dispersed into the biosphere. All nuclear reactors, including small ones, are at risk for severe accidents because of two characteristics identified by organizational sociologist Charles Perrow decades ago—interactive complexity and tight coupling—that combine to make accidents a “normal” feature of the operation of some hazardous technologies. The first characteristic refers to the possibility of different parts of the system to affect each other in unexpected ways thus producing unanticipated outcomes, and the second makes it hard to stop the resulting sequence of events. For Perrow, “the dangerous accidents lie in the system, not in the components” and are inevitable.

In Japan, following the Fukushima disaster, commentators came up with the term “safety myth” for the comforting idea that accidents are not going to occur. I see the same sort of wrong-headed thinking in the United States too. The consequences of believing in that myth could be disastrous.