A trillion-dollar contradiction
A Picture Paints a Thousand Words: Electricity is becoming the most valuable commodity on earth. The AI revolution will drive demand to levels that intermittent power from breezes and sunshine cannot meet. The data center boom has already forced the world's most sophisticated technology companies to sign long-term nuclear power supply agreements, restart dormant reactors, and fund advanced reactor development.
The picture that paints a thousand words is a chart of Electricity production by source, World that should settle the electricity debate once and for all. The chart shows an increasing reliance on coal and natural gas generated electricity over the last 30 years, i.e., fossil fuels, and highlights the challenges in transitioning to non-fossil fuel electricity sources.
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For thirty years, the world has poured trillions of dollars into more than 350,000 wind turbines, millions of solar panels, other so-called "renewable" electricity systems and the support structures to run them (that is trillions with a "T").
The result after three decades and trillions of dollars? The share from nuclear for emission-free, continuous, and uninterruptable electricity has narrowed.
This is not a scientific mystery. It is a political one. And it raises an uncomfortable question that politicians in every wealthy nation have been dodging for years: if you truly believe that carbon dioxide emissions are cooking the planet, why have you spent three decades systematically blocking the one proven source of electricity that is both emission-free and always on?
"Renewable" electricity is only intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine. It has in turn been supported by substantial expansion in coal and natural gas to support the variability of the technology, which requires 100% back up all the time.
Wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture any of the more than 6,000 products and transportation fuels for the eight billion people on this planet, and they certainly cannot power a civilization that is about to demand dramatically more electricity, not less.
So, while trillions of dollars have been poured into a clean electricity transition, the real elephant in the room is where has all the money gone? Certainly not alleviating the cost of living in the developed, nor the developing world. And certainly not into substantial material success in achieving electricity security.
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The coming electricity crisis
The demand surge is no longer theoretical. Data centers and artificial intelligence systems consumed an estimated 2% of global electricity in 2022, The combined electricity consumption of just four companies, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta, more than doubled between 2017 and 2021, reaching roughly 72 terawatt-hours.
The electricity demand increase is clear:
The political blind spot on nuclear
French President â Emmanuel Macron said in his keynote speech at the World Nuclear Energy summit in Paris in March this year that France offers the clearest answer. It is the world's largest net exporter of clean electricity, generating over €3 billion annually from exporting surplus low-carbon, nuclear-powered electricity to its neighbors. France gets roughly 70% of its electricity from nuclear power. The lights stay on. The emissions stay low. Bills for electricity remain manageable.
In France, last ​year, they exported 90 terawatt-hours of decarbonized electricity. Thanks ​to their nuclear ​plants, they have the ability to â open data centers, to build computing capacity, to be at the ​heart ​of â the artificial intelligence challenge.
Preaching zero-emissions, blocking zero-emissions power
The contradiction at the heart of modern energy policy is this: politicians who loudly demand zero-emissions electricity have, in practice, enacted the policies most hostile to the one source that reliably delivers it.
California is the most dramatic example. The state has ambitious zero-emissions electricity targets. It has also opposed natural gas plants, coal plants, and nuclear plants. Essentially every form of continuous, dispatchable electricity generation. It sends large delegations to COP climate conferences while depending on neighboring states to keep its grid stable. The state is becoming a national security risk for the entire country.
'Net zero' leaders in California have even pushed to shutter the States' last remaining zero-emissions electricity-generating plant, a nuclear facility at Diablo Canyon, while simultaneously lamenting the absence of clean power on the grid. The green line for nuclear power in the Energy Institute's global chart didn't expand because political leaders never supported electricity wisdom conversations. The political narrative moved from nuclear to wind and solar, and thirty years of investment followed the consensus narrative rather than the physics.
Electricity is a service, not merely a product. It must be available on demand 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at the correct frequency, voltage, phase, and current. This is the physical reality governed by the laws of thermodynamics and electromagnetism. Supply and demand must balance instantaneously, or the grid collapses.
What the AI boom demands
Intermittent electricity from breezes and sunshine does not meet the specification for the 99,999% uptime requirements needed for the technological future. These are not ideological decisions. They are engineering decisions. Speed, reliability, and 24/7 availability are what data centers require. Nuclear power is fundamental to a secure electricity future. It is by far the best electricity choice. The biggest obstacle is government.
China appears to have understood the need for continuous and uninterruptible electricity. It is forecast to become the world's largest nuclear power market. China's HTR-PM, the world's first commercially operating small modular reactor (SMR), has been generating electricity at Shidaowan in Shandong Province since December 2023, having passed world-first inherent safety demonstrations that confirmed the reactor can cool itself passively with no human intervention and no emergency systems.
The small modular reactor (SMR) project was led by Tsinghua University's Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, drawing on decades of pebble bed research that included a formal cooperation agreement with South Africa's PBMR programme, a reminder that nuclear knowledge is cumulative, international, and hard-won.
While Western politicians debate whether to permit new reactors, China is already operating them. Just like Japan did when we invented transistors, China will take our invention and make it work, both practically and economically.
The questions politicians cannot answer
History tells us political leaders will continue to cling to the political safety of climate-framing while avoiding electricity-reality conversations. But the AI and data center boom is making that avoidance untenable.
The question is whether government policies will catch up, or whether politicians will continue preaching zero-emissions while blocking the only power source that reliably delivers. Continuous power is needed; politicians that have stymied nuclear-generated electricity will have to provide the answer as to where the electricity will come from.
Basic "electricity wisdom" questions that demand straight answers from politicians
- If you support zero-emissions electricity, why have government policies spent three decades blocking nuclear energy, the only proven emissions-free source of continuous, uninterruptable power?
- With data centers requiring electricity that is always on, which generating source do you support: coal, natural gas, or nuclear? And if nuclear, what specific regulatory and policy changes will you make to enable it?
- With electricity demand set to rise by more than 40% over the next decade, and with AI and data centers accounting for a growing share of that demand, where specifically will the electricity come from, and who pays when it is not there?
These are not gotcha questions. They are the most consequential electricity infrastructure questions of the next century. The bidding war for electricity between data centers and ordinary households, hospitals, schools, businesses, and families are already beginning. Without a competing supply of continuous power, there will be no good outcome for either side. So we all need to ask these questions of the leaders we elected, over and over again.
Time for electricity wisdom
America has a track record of nearly 70 years of nuclear power plant operation without injuries - alongside more than 70 years of nuclear Navy reactor operations for ALL their submarines and ALL their aircraft carriers without a single nuclear related casualty. For more than seven decades, nuclear power has proven to be the safest, most compact, emissions-free, and most cost-effective way to produce continuous, uninterruptable, and dispatchable electricity.
Physics has not changed. The safety record has not changed. Technology is established. What has changed is the political willingness to talk about it honestly. Electricity is becoming the most valuable commodity on earth. The AI revolution will drive demand to levels that intermittent power from breezes and sunshine cannot meet. The world market is voting for continuous, uninterruptable, and zero-emissions electricity from nuclear.
It is time for electricity wisdom to replace electricity theatrics. NOW is the time to start building nuclear power for the continuous, emission-free, uninterruptable electricity that civilization requires.
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Ronald Stein
Olivia Vaughan
Steve Curtis
