Renewables or Nuclear: Which Should Lead in Curbing Climate Change?

One of the most contentious issues facing policymakers in their efforts to curb climate change is the debate over whether renewable or nuclear energy should play a larger role, and to what extent both are needed, as well as how they can be integrated into electric grids. This book addresses these critical issues directly, providing balanced analyses and detailing the challenges these energy sources face. The primary challenges for renewable energy, particularly wind and solar, include intermittency, grid instability, and concerns regarding land use. Conversely, nuclear energy faces challenges related to high reactor costs and public concerns regarding accidents, waste management, and the potential for weapons proliferation. The book also explores other relevant energy forms, energy storage solutions, the potential of smart grids and artificial intelligence, and the necessity of electrifying transportation and other economic sectors to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Renewables or Nuclear: Which Should Lead in Curbing Climate Change? addresses the complex technical, economic, and political issues surrounding energy sources. The book is intended for a broad audience concerned about climate change, but lacking extensive knowledge of renewable or nuclear energy sources. It aims to explain the costs and benefits of each energy source and their roles in combating climate change. No technical background is required to understand the content, making this book a valuable reference for advanced high school or undergraduate college courses focused on climate change.

• Addresses the complex technical, economic, and political issues surrounding energy and climate change;
• Specifically examines one of the most contentious issues policymakers face—a debate over renewable and nuclear energy;
• No technical background is required to understand the material covered in the book.

Elmer Lewis, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. He received his B.S. (1960) in Engineering Physics and a M.S. (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps and then as a Ford Foundation Fellow and Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Northwestern's faculty in 1968. In addition to serving as Chair of Northwestern's Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1987 to 1997, he held appointments as Visiting Professor at the University of Stuttgart and Guest Scientist at the Nuclear Research Center at Karlsruhe, Germany. He has served as a consultant at Argonne, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, as well as for several industrial firms. His research has focused on the physics, safety, and reliability of nuclear systems. Professor Lewis has taught a wide range of mechanical and nuclear engineering courses and, for 15 years, organized a week-long industrial seminar, "Safety of Light-Water Cooled Nuclear Reactors." A Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, he received its Mathematics and Computation Distinguished Service, the Eugene P. Wigner Reactor Physics, and the Arthur Holly Compton Awards. He has chaired the OECD/NEA Experts Group on Three-Dimensional Radiation Transport Benchmarks and was a member of the Science Council for the Department of Energy's Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors. Professor Lewis has held several offices in the American Nuclear Society, including Chair of its Mathematics and Computation Division. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Nuclear Science and Engineering. He has been the primary supervisor for more than twenty Ph.D. students. His work has been cited over 8,000 times in the science and engineering literature.Seven books are among his more than 200 publications.