In April, Spain suffered a nationwide blackout that lasted nearly a full day. It was a traumatic event for one of Europe’s fastest adopters of solar power, tripling capacity in just five years. The outage sparked a big question: Was solar to blame? And what will it take to avoid blackouts in the renewables era? Bloomberg Green’s Laura Millan joins Akshat Rathi on Zero to unpack the lessons from the Iberian Peninsula and the technologies that could make such blackouts a thing of the past.

Explore further:

• The Fix for Solar Power Blackouts Is Already Here
• Past episodes of the Bottlenecks Series
  • The Green Transition Needs More Workers
  • There Aren’t Enough Cables to Meet Growing Electricity Demand
  • The One Device Throttling the World’s Electrified Future

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to Eleanor Harrison Dengate, Siobhan Wagner, Sommer Saadi and Mohsis Andam. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Electricity demand is soaring, and some think the answer isn’t building bigger, but smaller. That’s the idea behind small modular reactors (SMRs): take a large-scale nuclear plant that’s hard to build, and shrink it down to something that’s more manageable, cheaper and easier to replicate. Instead of one huge nuclear plant, you build 10 small ones.

Right now these kinds of small modular reactors are in the startup phase, with only two in commercial operation in Russia and China. So how viable is the business for these small modular reactors? And will SMRs ever become a scaled up solution for our energy needs? Rachel Slaybaugh joins Akshat Rathi on Zero to discuss.

Explore further:

• What Are Small Nuclear Reactors and How Do SMRs Help Solve Climate Change?
• Canada to Build $15 Billion Modular Nuclear Plant, First in G-7
• UK Selects Rolls-Royce to Build First Small Modular Reactors
• China is Home to World's First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to Eleanor Harrison Dengate, Siobhan Wagner, Sommer Saadi and Mohsis Andam. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Electricity demand is booming, and it’s not just because of artificial intelligence. So much so that many are ready to revisit the idea of nuclear power. Microsoft signed a $16 billion deal to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power their data centres for the next 20 years.

But developed countries haven’t built more than a handful of new reactors in decades. When they have tried, the cost of those nuclear plants and the time to build them has been extraordinary. Will this renewed interest yield different results? Nuclear scientist and partner at venture capital firm DCVC Rachel Slaybaugh joined Akshat Rathi on Zero to discuss how these new dreams of growing nuclear power can become a reality.

Explore further:

• Nuclear Fusion Is Unlimited Clean Power. So When Can We Have It?
• Long-Unloved Nuclear Power Is Staging a Comeback
• UK Inks Investment Deals on £38 Billion Nuclear Plant
• Three Mile Island's Nuclear Reboot Moves Into the Fast Lane in Win for Microsoft

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to Eleanor Harrison Dengate, Siobhan Wagner, Sommer Saadi and Mohsis Andam. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.