The Case for Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future by Robert Zubrin
In The Case for Nukes, Robert Zubrin explains that more energy will enable “a radical improvement in the quality of life for billions of people.”
Lakewood, CO: Polaris Books, 2023
310 pp. $19.95 (paperback), $8.95 (Kindle)
The important thing to know about nuclear power is that it is far and away the greatest energy resource available to humanity today, exceeding all others combined thousands of times over. —Robert Zubrin
Since the 19th century, energy has transformed people’s lives. From lightbulbs to computers, washing machines to airplanes, it has powered an ever-expanding range of life-enhancing technologies.
But as we continue inventing new ways to improve our lives, the amount of energy we need will increase. Population growth and the industrialization of poorer countries further expand the amount of energy we need. “To raise the whole world to current American standards [of living],” says aerospace and nuclear engineer Robert Zubrin, “will require multiplying global energy use at least fivefold—and probably more like tenfold once population growth is taken into account” (6).
At the same time, scientists, politicians, and journalists are telling everyone to reduce energy consumption and replace fossil fuels with “renewable” sources such as wind and solar power that produce less energy, less reliably than fossil fuels. In The Case for Nukes, Zubrin opposes this approach: “Far from contracting our energy use,” he says, “human progress must and will inevitably entail continued exponential growth of human power generation” (2). He explains that an increase in energy production will enable “a radical and necessary improvement in the quality of life for billions of people” (6). Is there an energy source that can deliver this exponential growth safely, cleanly, and reliably?
Zubrin provides a detailed comparison of the energy-generating capabilities of various energy sources. His figures indicate that existing fossil fuel reserves (the known oil and coal in the world) are enough to meet our current energy consumption for approximately seventy-five years—potentially more than two hundred if we include estimated undiscovered reserves.1 (Energy expert Alex Epstein points out that fossil fuel reserves often grow as usage increases, due to improvements in fuel efficiency and increased demand for exploration and drilling.)2 Zubrin doesn’t include a direct comparison for “renewable” sources, but throughout 2021, solar and wind generated enough energy globally to power the world for about four days.3
Current reserves of uranium and thorium for nuclear fission, on the other hand, could meet our current energy needs for twenty thousand years. Extracting uranium and thorium from seawater would push the combined potential of the two fuels up to 850,000 years. Even with a tenfold increase over today’s energy consumption, these fuels would last longer than the entire history of human civilization to date. This is thanks to the vastly greater amount of energy released in nuclear reactions compared to chemical ones, such as burning oil. According to Zubrin, nuclear fusion technology, still in development, could meet our current energy consumption levels for more than ten billion years (53). He recognizes that fossil fuels, wind, and other sources have roles to play in specific applications to which they’re better suited, but his message is clear: We need nuclear power to deliver the kind of energy revolution required to continue growing human flourishing.
But the word “nuclear” sets off alarm bells for many. Fears of radiation leaks and memories of Chernobyl spring to mind for some. Others worry about how to store nuclear waste. Zubrin thoroughly addresses these concerns.
On nuclear safety, he explains how reactors that use pressurized water as the reaction moderator cannot melt down. A moderator slows down certain subatomic particles, an essential process for sustaining a nuclear reaction. If a reactor using pressurized water overheats, the water boils, causing the reaction to stop. This is an example of how “passive” safety systems can make a reactor incapable of catastrophic failure.
Zubrin also shows that the radiation people experience from living directly next to nuclear plants is tiny compared to the levels we get from innocuous sources every day—only 0.01 millirems, compared to 20 from our own blood and 70 from the cosmic rays that constantly rain down on us from space. Coal-fired power plants, he notes, leak more radiation than nuclear ones. The world’s coal plants emit enough radioactive uranium and thorium that, if captured, could power all the current nuclear plants on Earth (103).
He analyzes all three major nuclear accidents to date—Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl—showing that these are not cause for future concern. Neither of the first two caused any radiation-related deaths. People living near Three Mile Island received less radiation than they would have by taking a five-day skiing holiday in Colorado.4 Three Mile Island, Zubrin notes, was the only supposed “major disaster” in world history “in which not a single person was killed or even injured in any way” (107–8). At Fukushima, people did die: The government imposed an unnecessary exclusion zone around the plant that caused countless people, who might otherwise have been rescued, to die—not from radiation but directly from the tsunami that damaged the reactor.
Chernobyl, Zubrin notes, was the only true nuclear disaster in world history—but it would have been impossible in a Western nuclear plant. Chernobyl lacked the containment structure found in Western plants that would have prevented such a radiation leak. It used graphite instead of water as a moderator, so the reaction did not naturally slow down when the core overheated. The disaster was caused by negligence in the design and operation of the plant, not by any danger inherent in nuclear power. “Those who died at Chernobyl,” says Zubrin, “weren’t victims of nuclear power, they were victims of the Soviet Union” (111).
He also shows that nuclear waste storage is not the insurmountable problem that many think. Nuclear plants produce far less waste than traditional power stations, and the facilities required to store it take much less space than vast solar or wind farms. This waste can be safely sealed in concrete to contain the radiation and could even be stored underground for extra insulation. Unfortunately, antinuclear politicians such as Al Gore block such projects, which is why energy companies store waste close to populated areas.
Zubrin’s ideas are refreshingly rational, not just in his appraisal of the merits of nuclear power, but in his underlying philosophy as well. He approaches every question with the framework that human life is good, we should seek to enhance it, and technology is our means of doing so. He contrasts his pro-human philosophy with Malthusianism—the idea that human population growth will outstrip the available resources and that governments should, therefore, curtail consumption and/or reduce population. In contrast, Zubrin argues, “humanity is not running out of resources. We are exponentially expanding our resources. We can do this because the true source of all resources is not the earth, the ocean, or the sky. It is human creativity” (269). Oil, he notes, wasn’t a resource before anyone knew what to do with it.
If human creativity is the source of all resources, then the more humans there are, the more resources we can create. Only through freedom and the continued harnessing of energy, Zubrin holds, can we continue on the right path. This goes against the views of environmentalists who regard human prosperity as a threat to nature and who subordinate human well-being to “protection” of the natural environment. This view, Zubrin argues, leads many to oppose nuclear power precisely because it will enable humans to flourish more (104–5, 129).
Knowing he risks incurring the wrath of climate alarmists and climate-change deniers alike, Zubrin takes a fact-based, pro-human position on the environment. He recognizes that climate change is real, that there is compelling evidence that carbon emissions have an impact on it, but this does not constitute a “climate emergency” or support the myriad alarmist predictions about climate change. Many pushing such claims, he notes, are funded by companies or governments whose interests are threatened by nuclear power. He rejects the idea that humans should limit our impact on the environment, describing how we evolved to survive and thrive by changing the world around us, and that this is how we should address the future challenges that climate change will present:
The immediate energy problem is to continue to provide enough power for a growing and ever-advancing human civilization. The global warming, air pollution, and ocean acidification problems will need to be addressed eventually. . . . But it is simply not true that we only have two years, or ten years, or twenty years. (19)
Part of Zubrin’s case for nuclear power is that it will enable us to expand our energy use without__increasing the pollution from fossil fuels (which, he notes, causes thousands of deaths around the world every year). He doesn’t call for an end to fossil fuels—rather, he recognizes that they are essential to improving living standards, especially in less-developed countries. But he argues that fossil fuels cannot deliver the huge increase we will need in energy in the future without increasing carbon emissions by orders of magnitude, potentially resulting in far more pollution and perhaps a greater impact on global warming than the small one they’ve had to date. He also explains that the current war on carbon emissions ignores the positive effects they can have, such as increased vegetation growth. Humans can benefit from these effects and offset the negative ones, such as increasing ocean acidity. As he says, “‘Pollution’ is simply the accumulation of a substance which is not being put to good use. Carbon dioxide emissions are neither good nor bad in themselves. They are good for parts of the biosphere that are ready to make use of them, and bad for those that are not” (244).
Zubrin makes clear that The Case for Nukes is intended for a rational, active-minded reader. In his introduction, he says “If you are a person who needs to fit in with any established political tribe, [this book] will make you uncomfortable. . . . Party line opinions put reason to sleep, and, as recent history has amply shown, the sleep of reason produces monsters” (1). With that established, he shows his respect for his audience by providing the evidence, reasoning, and clarity that an active-minded reader would expect. If the book has a flaw, it is that the sheer volume and detail of this information is sometimes overwhelming. Zubrin tries his best to simplify the physics, but the complex nature of the subject makes some of the more technical parts of the book a challenge to understand.
He also provides a detailed analysis of the history of nuclear power, including its obstruction by governments and activists. This fascinating material highlights the heroic struggle of the early developers and proponents of nuclear power, such as Enrico Fermi, who worked tirelessly to create the world’s first stable nuclear reaction; and Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, whose steadfast resolve and no-nonsense attitude were essential in developing nuclear power for the U.S. Navy’s submarines.
After outlining how Western government-run nuclear programs have ground to a halt, Zubrin manages to end on an optimistic note by turning to the private sector, highlighting twelve exciting projects to develop nuclear technology. Some are researching nuclear fusion, while others are developing new small-scale thorium reactors, the waste from which can be reused as fuel for other reactors. These units could be mass-produced to reduce costs, then purchased individually by consumers to provide virtually unlimited on-site power for homes and businesses or purchased in bulk by energy companies and used in groups to drive the turbines in power stations.
Zubrin finishes by turning his gaze skyward, describing how nuclear energy (especially fusion) could radically accelerate the human colonization of space, making the dream of humans living on Mars and exploring the outer planets realistic in our lifetimes.
But this optimistic future can be achieved only if citizens and politicians adopt a more rational philosophy, one based on improving human life, and stop blocking the development of nuclear technology:
Ideas have consequences. Humanity today faces a choice between two very different sets of ideas, based on two very different visions of the future. On the one side stands the antihuman view, which, with complete disregard for its repeated prior refutations, continues to postulate a world of limited supplies, whose fixed constraints demand ever-tighter controls upon human aspirations. On the other side stand those who believe in the power of unfettered creativity to invent unbounded resources and so, rather than regret human freedom, demand it as our birthright. The contest between these two outlooks will determine our fate. (282)
The Case for Nukes is a refreshingly rational overview, not just of the merits of nuclear power, but of the potentially wonderful future of the human race and the ideas we must embrace and reject if we want to create that future for ourselves and our descendants. Whether you are a staunch advocate of nuclear power or are unfamiliar with the many arguments for and against it, you can learn a great deal from this book.