An energy source that is emission-free, continuously supplies electricity, and advances our society? It's nothing new. Right now. It's atomic.

The advantages of nuclear energy go well beyond producing electricity without carbon emissions. Nuclear energy supports medical equipment sterilization, desalinates seawater to produce potable water, powers space travel, and much more.

While the operation of nuclear power plants is relatively similar to that of coal and gas-fired ones, the science involved in producing nuclear energy is far more sophisticated. Nuclear fission, which involves firing a particle at an atom to split it into two smaller atoms, is the process that powers reactions in nuclear reactors (and some additional neutrons). When the neutrons struck other atoms, they split, releasing further neutrons. This process, known as a chain reaction, generates a tremendous amount of heat. In nuclear reactors, heat is produced, which a circulating fluid, like water, removes and converts to pressurized steam. After being driven through turbines, this steam is used to turn electrical generators, which eventually generate energy.

The fact that most of humanity's energy demands cannot be met by burning coal, gas, and oil must be accepted by everybody. Numerous energy technologies may be taken into consideration in the inevitable process of gradually replacing fossil fuels, and the majority will be used in certain applications. However, in the long run, we contend that nuclear fission technology is the only energy source that has been developed that is capable of supplying the enormous amounts of energy that will be required to run contemporary industrial societies in a manner that is safe, affordable, dependable, and sustainable in terms of both the environment and the available resource base. As a result, nuclear fission must play a significant part in the transformation of the energy supply system for the twenty-first century that is required.

The focus should be on switching the majority of the world's electrical energy generation capacity from fossil fuels to nuclear fission in the first phase of this critical global energy shift. As was done in France in the 1970s and 1980s, this can feasibly be accomplished within a few decades. The global emissions of carbon dioxide would be drastically reduced as a result of this energy transition, along with other key greenhouse gases like methane. The transformation should be led by industrialized nations. Even with very modest rates of natural gas leakage into the atmosphere, switching from coal-fired generating stations to gas-fired ones won't always reduce the pace of greenhouse gas emissions because methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.

The so-called "renewable" energy sources (such as wind and solar) will struggle to provide the world's energy needs in a sustainable, cost-effective, and reliable manner. They are naturally sporadic and rely on energy storage or backup power if they are to be employed to supply base-load electrical energy to the grid. This backup power must be adaptable and is often generated by the combustion of fossil fuels (mainly natural gas). When used in this way, intermittent energy sources are neither economically feasible nor fit the criteria for sustainability because they ask for redundant, underutilized investments in capacity for both generation and transmission.

Atoms are divided in a nuclear reactor to produce electricity by spinning a turbine and heating water into steam. Nearly 20% of the country's electricity is produced by 92 nuclear reactors spread across 28 states, all of which emit no carbon dioxide because they run on uranium rather than fossil fuels. The grid is supported round-the-clock by these facilities, which are well-run to prevent outages and equipped to endure extreme weather.

References:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214993714000050

https://www.nei.org/fundamentals/what-is-nuclear-energy