MLA Babio, Guadalupe. Nuclear, A Climate Opportunity: Investigating decentralized energy networks for new urban environments. Diss. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2021.

Abstract

 Humanity is paying the consequences of the technical and technological progress of the past decades. As societal challenges, climate change and urban migration,  become more obvious, this phenomenon calls for urgent action. The only path out requires immediate efforts to bring net-carbon emissions to negative numbers.

We must provide reliable and clean energy for everyone, including lower-income countries that still lack proper access to it, while removing the carbon dioxide emitted over the last years. To do so, carbon sequestration will require as much energy as was previously used to create those emissions. 

We need power sources that provide close to unlimited energy without harming the environment, and renewables won’t solve this problem. Ultimately, nuclear power will provide the world’s need for clean energy security. The reality is that nuclear power is the safest form of energy humanity has ever used, the one that requires the lowest land use and produces the least toxic waste, until fusion becomes available. A world where we would have infinite power, at zero cost and zero climate impact. Imagine.