It's 2019, it's already midnight, and I just wanted to get some sleep so I'd be fit for work the next day. Then I found a video on YouTube that really got me thinking. So much that I'm writing this article in the middle of the night, even though I should have been in bed long ago.
But see the video for yourself, because afterwards I'm going to explain what exactly blew me away.
Why I changed my mind about nuclear power — Michael Shellenberger, TEDxBerlin
Wow, this guy is good. If I ever needed a lawyer, he'd get me out of trouble even if I was 100% guilty. Well done Michael, well done. He almost got me with those persuasive charts and the picture of an old lady showing even more charts.
But nuclear power is bad, full stop. That is what I learned from my peers, my family and friends for decades. Then he compared the human toll of catastrophic nuclear events to the long-term effects of air pollution, and I noticed something uncomfortable: he had a point.
The video tried to convince me that nuclear power is not that bad, maybe even superior to other energy sources. But that is not what it did to me. What it did was expose a deep inner belief I had never questioned: nuclear power is bad. I had discovered my own unconscious bias. That shocked me more than any chart, because not questioning yourself leads to ignorance, intolerance and bad decisions. It is the reason diverse teams make better decisions, and why communicating always beats not communicating: asking the right questions leads you to the best possible answer. So why did I not want to listen to him?
The answer is simple: it was inconvenient. It's easy to blame others and see things in black and white. Most of the time that is just a convenient excuse to avoid the effort of thinking critically, a way to sidestep the complexity and nuance that real understanding requires.
What a dilemma, so where to go from here?
Am I right, is he right? Maybe neither of us, because in this case it's not about being right or wrong. It's about forming an educated opinion. So I started asking myself questions and digging up answers (thank you internet, it is now 2 AM by the way).
What are the facts? Yes, nuclear power is a massive source of energy generation with almost no air pollution. But for me, three points speak against using it.
- Nuclear waste will be here for thousands of years. That is a bad thing in itself, because we rely on humans who aren't even born yet to handle the waste we produced.
- If there is any chance of a Super-GAU, the risk seems questionable. Large areas become uninhabitable for hundreds or thousands of years because of the radioactive fallout.
- Uranium is mined in only a handful of countries, which creates unnecessary dependencies.
One point Michael missed entirely is the economic perspective. The whole movement towards renewable energy in Germany was not an emotional act by the government but a deliberate industrial policy: pointing science funding and private capital at a set of technologies early, on the bet that being first would pay off later. It is a bet you can actually check. Employment in the German renewables sector has grown to roughly 436,000 people, a record, on 37.5 billion euros of investment in a single year. That is a real industry, built on purpose. Whatever you think of the nuclear phase-out that came bundled with it, the economic half of the decision does not get discussed nearly enough.
What is the outcome, what is my opinion?
Nuclear energy can only be a viable option for the energy mix of the future if scientists solve the waste problem, build more secure power plants at much lower cost, and make them agile enough to cope with the growing fluctuations of demand and supply in our energy grid. There are promising studies and companies like TerraPower and NuScale advancing rapidly in this field, trying to solve exactly these challenges. That work shouldn't be dismissed, because it may end up solving a real part of our carbon emissions problem.
So yes Michael, you have a point: inside the anti-nuclear movement there are ignorant people, and we should not let them define opinions for a whole society. But next time you want to convince me, please shed some light on the questions you did not ask yourself, and please use unaltered charts.
In the end you did not convince me to be pro nuclear energy (at least not in its current state). But you achieved something much more valuable: you made me rethink my beliefs. For that I want to thank you.