Why Is It Impossible For Nuclear Energy To Completely Replace Oil And Gas?

Nuclear energy has often been proposed as a potential replacement for oil and gas, which currently supply most of the world’s energy needs. However, there are several key limitations that prevent nuclear power from fully displacing fossil fuels. This article examines the technical, economic, and practical challenges that constrain nuclear energy’s ability to supersede oil and gas. While nuclear can play an important role in the global energy mix, ultimately it cannot serve as a complete substitute due to issues around intermittency, high costs, safety regulations, waste management, suitable sites, public perception, and long construction lead times.

Different energy uses

Oil and gas have some fundamental differences in use cases compared to nuclear power that make it challenging for nuclear to fully replace them. As explained in this article, oil and natural gas can be used directly for transportation through internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, ships, and planes. They can also be used directly for heating homes and businesses. In contrast, nuclear power must be converted to electricity which limits its applications. While electric vehicles are growing, most transportation still relies on liquid fuels. Additionally, many industrial processes rely on the direct use of fossil fuels for high temperature heat generation which cannot easily be electrified.

Intermittency challenges

Nuclear power plants provide steady baseline power, but they cannot easily ramp production up and down to meet peaks and troughs in electricity demand. Nuclear reactors are designed to run at a constant power output, which makes them less flexible than sources like natural gas that can quickly adjust to changes in demand (1). While nuclear contributes around 20% of U.S. electricity, it provides only about 5% of power during peak demand periods and up to 40% during low demand periods (2). This inflexibility makes it challenging for nuclear to fully displace fossil fuels, which can more readily match fluctuating demand. Utilities rely on gas “peaker” plants to provide power during daily peaks and throughout the year when electricity use surges during hot and cold weather. Firming up a mostly nuclear and renewable grid would require overbuilding capacity or extensive storage (3), driving up costs. Nuclear’s steady baseline is beneficial but insufficient to fully replace flexible fossil fuel generators.

(1) https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close

(2) https://nordsip.com/2022/01/04/intermittency-and-the-appeal-of-nuclear-energy/

(3) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516302063

High upfront capital costs

Nuclear power plants are vastly more expensive to construct than natural gas or coal plants. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the typical overnight cost (the cost if built overnight and excluding interest/financing costs) for a new nuclear plant is $6,000 per kilowatt of capacity. In comparison, a natural gas-fired power plant costs around $1,000 per kilowatt and a coal plant around $3,000 per kilowatt (1).

For a typical 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor, construction costs can easily exceed $6 billion. The new Vogtle 3 & 4 reactors under construction in Georgia have a total project cost of $27 billion (2).

These immense upfront costs make financing nuclear plants very difficult, especially when natural gas and coal plants can be built much more cheaply. Utility companies have limited budgets and the expense of constructing just one nuclear plant may use up their capital for decades.

Safety concerns and regulations

Nuclear power plants must adhere to strict safety regulations and oversight due to concerns over radiation risks and nuclear proliferation. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) imposes stringent design, construction, operation, and decommissioning requirements on nuclear reactors.

According to the American Action Forum, the average nuclear plant bears an annual regulatory burden of around $60 million—with $8.6 million going towards NRC fees and the rest related to paperwork compliance [1]. Annual ongoing regulatory costs range from $7.4 million to $15.5 million per plant [2].

These strict regulations and oversight lead to substantially higher costs and longer construction times for nuclear plants compared to other power sources like natural gas or renewables. Satisfying safety requirements often involves major design modifications and delays that can add billions in extra costs and push timelines out by several years.

The significant regulatory burden makes it very difficult for nuclear power to compete economically with other energy sources. Even existing nuclear plants struggle to remain economically viable and recoup their high fixed costs under tight regulations.

Waste disposal difficulties

One of the biggest challenges with nuclear energy is the issue of radioactive waste disposal. Unlike the byproducts of burning fossil fuels, radioactive waste from nuclear energy can remain harmful for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years [1]. The United States currently has no long-term disposal site for this dangerous waste, which must be securely contained and isolated essentially forever [2]. Instead, radioactive spent fuel rods are kept stored on-site at nuclear plants initially, and later transferred to centralized but still temporary storage facilities. Storing nuclear waste safely is tremendously expensive, requiring constant monitoring and maintenance for many generations to come.

Without a permanent geologic repository for nuclear waste, costs will continue mounting as temporary storage at nuclear plants and other sites requires ongoing supervision. The political challenges involved in siting, approving, and opening a permanent nuclear waste disposal site mean this issue is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. As long as nuclear energy generates new radioactive waste without an endpoint for safe disposal, it cannot be scaled up indefinitely to replace fossil fuels.

Limited suitable sites

Nuclear power plants require access to enormous volumes of water for cooling, which severely limits where they can be located. The reactors generate a tremendous amount of heat that must be continuously removed to avoid overheating and potential meltdowns. This is typically done by pumping large volumes of water from oceans, rivers, or lakes to absorb the thermal load.

According to the World Nuclear Association, 45% of nuclear plants use seawater for once-through cooling, 15% use lakes, 14% use rivers, and only 26% use closed-cycle cooling towers. Pumping and discharging so much water has negative environmental impacts, so nuclear plants are best sited along coastlines or very large bodies of water.

Inland sites without access to such water supplies are unsuitable for conventional nuclear plants. Even existing plants are sometimes forced to temporarily shut down or reduce output during drought conditions due to insufficient cooling water. The availability of suitable sites with abundant water is a major limitation on scaling up nuclear power.

Public perception challenges

While public support for nuclear power has been increasing over the past decade, with a majority now in favor according to recent polls (Pew Research, Gallup), public opposition remains strong after major nuclear accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. These high-profile disasters undermined confidence in the safety of nuclear technology and created deep-seated fears about radiation risks.

Overcoming negative associations and skepticism from past nuclear incidents represents an ongoing public relations challenge. While the nuclear industry points to improved safeguards and technologies that reduce the chances of catastrophic failures, it has struggled to fully reassure the public. Segments of the environmental movement also oppose nuclear power. Additionally, spent fuel storage and nuclear waste disposal remain politically contentious issues.

Given the public is a key stakeholder, lack of widespread social acceptance limits the potential for nuclear power to scale up sufficiently to replace fossil fuels. Public perception issues reduce political will for aggressive nuclear expansion. Thus overcoming negative attitudes and risk perceptions remains a major hurdle for the industry.

Long construction times

New nuclear power plants take significantly longer to construct compared to plants that run on fossil fuels like natural gas. According to median statistics, nuclear reactors connected to the grid in 2022 had a median construction time of 89 months, or almost 7.5 years. In contrast, natural gas power plants can be built much more quickly, with construction times averaging around 2-3 years.

The lengthy construction timeline for nuclear plants is due to the stringent design, testing, and regulatory requirements involved in building and commissioning a nuclear reactor. Safety reviews, permitting, construction of robust containment structures, and complex nuclear components all contribute to the multi-year timeline. This makes it very difficult for nuclear power to rapidly replace existing oil and gas capacity when power needs change or grow quickly.

Conclusion

In summary, there are several key reasons why nuclear energy cannot fully displace oil and gas.

First, nuclear power plants are best suited for providing baseload electricity, not for meeting variable demands or fueling transportation. Oil and gas are still heavily relied upon for transportation, industrial uses, and meeting peak energy demands.

Second, nuclear power requires enormous upfront capital costs and long lead times for permitting and construction. This makes rapidly scaling it up very challenging. Oil and gas extraction already has established infrastructure.

Third, concerns around safety, waste disposal, and finding suitable sites have limited the growth of nuclear power in many regions.

However, nuclear can still play an important role in a clean energy future. Nuclear produces large amounts of carbon-free electricity. Paired with renewable energy sources and emerging storage technologies, nuclear can provide steady baseload power to enable the transition away from fossil fuels for electricity generation.