Abstract
To displace fossil fuels and achieve the global greenhouse-gas emissions reductions required to meet the Paris Agreement on climate change, the prevalent argument is that a mix of different low-carbon energy sources will need to be deployed. Here we seek to challenge that viewpoint. We argue that a completely decarbonized, energy-rich and sustainable future could be achieved with a dominant deployment of next-generation nuclear fission and associated technologies for synthesizing liquid fuels and recycling waste. By contrast, non-dispatchable energy sources like wind and solar energy are arguably superfluous, other than for niche applications, and run the risk of diverting resources away from viable and holistic solutions. For instance, the pairing of variable renewables with natural-gas backup fails to address many of the entrenched problems we seek to solve. Our conclusion is that, given the urgent time frame and massive extent of the energy-replacement challenge, half-measures that distract from or stymie effective policy and infrastructure investment should be avoided.
Highlights
It is perceived wisdom that the world’s future energy supply must come from a diverse mix of sources
Supply from a mix of electricity generation sources is a key component of the “Energy Trilemma Index” [1]. This need for a “future energy mix” is a fundamental and essentially unchallenged axiom for energy experts [2,3], politicians, environmental advocacy groups, integrated assessment modellers [4] and authoritative organizations such as the Energy Information Administration [5], the International Energy Agency [6] and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [7]
How do we achieve the emissions reductions required to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference (DAI)? (Or as Prins and Rayner put it, “fire the ‘silver buckshot’”; [30]) Or is there a silver bullet after all? In this and the following sections, we argue that balanced and diverse “energy mixes” are probably unnecessary, or at least suboptimal, and that a completely decarbonized, energy-rich and sustainable future could be achieved through the timely deployment of next-generation nuclear energy and associated technologies for synfuel production and materials recycling alone
Summary
It is perceived wisdom that the world’s future energy supply must come from a diverse mix of sources. A problem with this “mechanistic” approach, is that, historically, forecasts of this kind have usually born little resemblance to what eventuated over subsequent decades [15,18,19] In their recently published papers, Jacobson et al [20,21] and others [22] argue that the entire energy demand of the United States, including transport, heat and electricity, can be supplied entirely by intermittent renewable energy sources (principally wind, solar and hydro). The forecast global energy pie in coming decades continues to have large slices of coal, oil and gas They often have an ambitious outlook for new fossil-fuel technologies (such as carbon-capture-and sequestration) when stabilization scenarios are modelled but with only small portions of nuclear and hydro and growing but persistently minor roles for wind, solar and other non-hydro renewables. A future energy system that delivers substantial and timely mitigation of carbon and other greenhouse-gas emissions, while providing abundant energy for human development, is essential [28,29]
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