Nuclear Reactor Lab

In an episode of GBH’s “The Curiosity Desk” focused on powering the future, host Edgar B. Herwick III learns from Prof. Christopher Knittel about “power flexibility,” and explores nuclear fusion and fission power with MIT’s Nuclear Reactor Laboratory Managing Director Gordon Kohse. “We can be more efficient in several ways; we could use more efficient appliances. We can change when we consume electricity. There’s a lot of levers that we can pull that would keep costs down, while at the same time growing demand,” says Knittel. Kohse notes: “Right now, we have a crisis with climate change. And so, for me, right now we need to develop everything that we possibly can.”  

Writing for Bloomberg Law, Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno, Elina Teplinsky of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and Jessica Lovering of Good Energy Collective make the case for nuclear power playing an important role in the transition to clean energy. “Because of the immensity of the looming crisis, no single energy source can be the climate silver bullet,” they write.