The New Nuclear – Jessica Lovering, Director of Energy at The Breakthrough Institute – How Efficient Nuclear Power Might Help To Mitigate Climate Change

Jessica Lovering, Director of Energy at The Breakthrough Institute, delivers an interesting overview of the current state of energy production, considering the advantages of nuclear power.

As Director of Breakthrough's Energy program, Lovering has contributed to significant research considering new innovative avenues in nuclear energy that could reduce costs and increase efficiency, while helping to alleviate climate change. For over a year, the groundbreaking, peer-reviewed paper entitled, Historical Construction Costs Of Global Nuclear Power Reactors, which Lovering was the lead on, was hailed as the top paper in the field of energy policy. Additionally, Lovering authored and co-authored an assortment of other significant policy papers such as

Atoms for Africa: Is There a Future for Civil Nuclear Energy in Sub-Saharan Africa? as well as many others on energy innovation and clean energy. Lovering has been featured in many outstanding news outlets and papers, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vox, Forbes, Wired, and others.

Lovering talks about her background and explains how it was a concern about climate change that motivated her to focus on nuclear energy. Coming out of a master's program in environmental policy, Lovering knew that energy was the principal driver behind greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear offered a way to provide a significant amount of power with less plant construction than other forms of power. Lovering discusses the energy generation output of nuclear plants versus coal plants, natural gas, solar, and wind. Lovering recounts how she was impressed that nuclear accounted for approximately 20% of US power production and its carbon footprint was low as well.

The nuclear expert talks about safety and transparency in nuclear power management today. She explains that there are many safety features that make the future of nuclear even more appealing. She discusses small, modular reactors that are cheaper, and faster to build. She explains that these smaller reactors can rely on natural convective cooling if an accident were to occur, which provides additional safety in a worst-case scenario.

Lovering explains various reactor designs and how they work in regard to energy production. And she explains how each rate in regard to sustainability and safety. She delves into the benefits of efficiently utilizing the fuel. And she discusses how some of the newer reactor designs will be coming to the market in the near future.

Lovering is a sought-after guest speaker in energy circles and for conferences and events globally. Lovering's expertise in the nuclear energy field has created a demand and she is happy to share all that she has learned in an effort to educate the public and improve nuclear energy.