Does global warming = nuclear power comeback?

Why Hollywood is wrong, and France is right, about energy from the atom

Greta Thunberg was just arrested in Sweden for protesting the inclusion of an Israeli contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest. Disfavored groups should not be allowed to sing! Nevertheless Thunberg often has her finger on the pulse of the times. Lately she’s been saying nice things about nuclear power as a greenhouse-gas antidote.

Other signs are propitious for a nuclear power comeback. Large reactors opened in Georgia in 2023 and 2024, the first new reactors in the United States in nearly a decade. The decommissioned Palisades reactor in Michigan is being brought back online, with the active support of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who is from Michigan and a favorite of environmental lobbies.

Solar is doing surprisingly well – more in a moment. But for long-term global warming solutions, all roads lead to nuclear.

Michael Douglas (left), Jane Fonda in the anti-atomic-power classic The China Syndrome. Image courtesy Columbia Pictures.

James Hansen of Columbia University, among the first to warn of global warming, has become a strong backer of nuclear, which produces electricity without greenhouse gases and is not impacted by the weather, as are solar and wind: and which -- the hidden factor -- needs little land.

The invaluable Doomberg notes

The Last Palisades

that producing the kilowatt output of the Palisades station using solar would require about 29,000 acres – versus 423 acres for the reactor complex.

The Indian Point reactor station on the Hudson River, closed 2021, was providing 25 percent of New York City’s power from just 240 acres. Uranium is a “dense” source of power. In energy policy, dense is good.

Microsoft plans a nuclear reactor to power its AI complex.