The Coming Surge

An expert compares renewables and nuclear power as sources of low-carbon energy for the electric grid

As the earth warms and we hurtle toward a climate reckoning, many nations are seeking low-carbon, greener ways to generate electricity. Electrification promises to power our vehicles, devices, and infrastructure in a decarbonized future. But, as Peter Wynn Kirby reminds us in The Coming Surge, electricity is only as green as the means used to produce it. Kirby sets up a head-to-head comparison of the two top contenders in the race to produce low-carbon energy for the electric grid: renewables and nuclear. Along the way, he makes predictions about technological development, from AI to automated traffic systems and grid sensor expansion, and considers how political shifts could influence energy policy and environmental outcomes. Through it all, perhaps improbably, he remains optimistic about human resilience and the fate of the planet.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork and research conducted in France, Japan, China, Puerto Rico, Finland, the Netherlands, and Germany, Kirby explores the way different countries are grappling with such issues as global warming, energy-sucking data centers, unsteady grids, infrastructure gigantism, extractive ideology, and carbon culture deprogramming. He finds that, rhetoric aside, nuclear power has fared poorly in a number of countries, including the United States, because it has been unable to compete on the basis of cost. As solar and wind costs have plummeted in recent years, renewables now appeal to municipal governments and utility companies even in deep red states like Oklahoma, Kansas, and especially Texas-the country's top wind producer. In the end, he suggests that the future of low-carbon power may hinge less on grand technological achievements than on which systems are quickly scalable and can survive the tumult of markets, politics, and time on a planet running out of leeway.