The Case For Nuclear:
11 March 2009
In recent years, as concerns over global warming have grown, experts around the world have asked the question. Is nuclear power the answer for a warming planet, or is it too expensive and dangerous to satisfy future energy needs.
As the hunt intensifies for green alternatives to traditional energy, scientists report that greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, are building up in the atmosphere and contributing to a gradual increase in global average temperatures at alarming rates. At the same time, making electricity accounts for about a third of USA greenhouse emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels to produce power. And governments from India to Britain to the USA are considering whether to make more use of a long standing, but controversial energy source nuclear power.
However, some scientists and other experts are beginning to raise a different question about nuclear power. Is it really as clean as supporters contend. A report, released by a British nongovernmental organization called the Oxford Research Group, disputes the popular perception that nuclear is a clean energy source. It argues that while nuclear plants may not generate carbon dioxide while they operate, the other steps necessary to produce nuclear power, including the mining of uranium and the storing of waste, result in substantial amounts of carbon dioxide pollution. As this report shows, hopes for the climate protecting potential of nuclear energy are entirely misplaced.
Environmental groups like Greenpeace, the Rocky Mountain Institute and Germany's Oko Institut have argued in recent years that nuclear power comes with hidden carbon emissions. But the Oxford Research Group study is the most quantitative and up to date advancement of this assertion, as its authors look to steer the fierce policy debate stirring in Britain.
Supporters of nuclear power dismiss these arguments as disingenuous. It's an argument environmentalists against nuclear power have concocted to make it sound like nuclear is not a carbon emission free energy source, when in fact it is. And based on such an approach even wind or solar power create carbon emissions.
Nuclear power, of course, isn't the only answer. We need to get more energy from other nonpolluting sources, and conservation is crucial. So is using technology to make more efficient use of fossil fuel power, but we have to be realistic about the limits of these alternatives. As it is, the 104 nuclear power plants in the USA generate about a fifth of the nation's energy.
Wind accounts for about 1%, and solar even less than that. Any increase in the number of nuclear power plants can help even if they won't solve the whole problem. More important from the standpoint of displacing fossil fuel, nuclear can meet power demand 24 hours a day. Solar and wind can't do that. Nuclear is the only current technology that fits the bill.
It's precisely this kind of overall approach that's necessary to understand the carbon impact of new energy sources. The British report says that nuclear's carbon emissions lie somewhere between renewable energy sources and fossil fuels. The report estimates that while coal, the primary source of electric power in the USA, produces 755 grams of carbon per kilowatt hour, the range for nuclear is between 10 and 150 grams per kilowatt hour. Wind power is 11 to 37 grams.
So, what's the case against nuclear power. It boils down to two things: economics and safety.
First, economics. Critics argue that the high cost of building and financing a new plant makes nuclear power uneconomical when compared with other sources of power.
But that's misleading on a number of levels. One reason it's so expensive at this point is that no new plant has been started in the USA since the last one to begin construction in 1977. Lenders uncertain how long any new plant would take because of political and regulatory delays are wary of financing the first new ones. So financing costs are unusually high. As we build more, the timing will be more predictable, and financing costs will no doubt come down as lenders become more comfortable.
Loan guarantees and other federal incentives are needed to get us over this hump. They are not permanent subsidies for uneconomical ventures. Instead, they're limited to the first half dozen of plants as a way to reassure investors that regulatory delays won't needlessly hold up construction. It's important to remember that although nuclear energy has been around a while, it's hardly a mature industry, as some critics say. Because of the lack of new plants in so many years, nuclear in many ways is more like an emerging technology, and so subsidies make sense to get it going.
It's also true that a shortage of parts and skills is raising the cost of new plants. But if we start building more plants, the number of companies supplying parts will increase to meet the demand, lowering the price.
Most important, nuclear power appears economically uncompetitive primarily because the price of cheaper fossil fuels, mainly coal, don't reflect the high cost that carbon emissions pose for the environment. Add those costs, and suddenly, nuclear power will look like a bargain.
That's likely to happen soon. Governments are expected to assign a cost to greenhouse gases, through either a direct tax based on the carbon content of a fuel or a so called cap and trade system, which would set a limit on emissions while allowing companies whose discharges are lower than the cap to sell or trade credits to companies whose pollution exceeds the cap.
Suddenly, big carbon polluters like coal produced electricity are going to look a lot more expensive compared with low carbon sources in particular, nuclear, wind and hydropower.
Second, safety. We're still living in a world whose viewpoints have been warped by the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine, as well as by the anti nuclear movie The China Syndrome.
The truth is that there's little doubt that in the USA, at least, plants are much safer now than they were in the past. Those accidents led regulators and the industry to bolster safety at USA nuclear plants. There are more safety features at the plants, plant personnel are better trained, and reactors have been redesigned so that accidents are far less likely to occur. For instance, every USA plant has an on site control room simulator where employees can hone their skills and handle simulated emergencies, and plant workers spend one week out of every six in the simulator or in the classroom.
The next generation of plants is designed to be even safer, using fewer pumps and piping and relying more on gravity to move water for cooling the hot nuclear core. This means fewer possible places where equipment failure could cause a serious accident. And even if a serious accident does occur, USA plants are designed to make sure that no radiation is released into the environment. Reactors are contained inside a huge structure of reinforced concrete with walls that are as much as four feet thick, the Chernobyl reactor lacked such a structure.
Furthermore, look at safety more broadly from an environmental perspective. The death and destruction stemming from global warming far exceed what is likely to happen if there is a nuclear accident. And yet, when we talk about safety, we seem to focus only on the risks of nuclear power.
The long term disposal of nuclear waste is also a problem but it's mainly a policy issue, not a technical one. Most experts agree that the best way to dispose of waste is deep underground, where radioactive materials can be prevented from entering the environment and where it can be guarded against theft or terrorist attack.
In the USA, the Energy Department picked Yucca Mountain in southwestern Nevada for a repository, but political wrangling has so far blocked proceeding with the site, and final approval is considered a long shot. Even if approved, it won't be able to begin accepting waste for a decade or more.
In the meantime, interim storage in deep pools next to nuclear plants is considered sufficiently safe to meet the industry's needs until well into the future. The amount of waste produced is relatively small, all the waste produced so far in the USA would only cover a football field about five yards deep. Older, cooler fuel can also be stored for decades in dry casks. Longer term, advanced fuel recycling and reprocessing can reduce the amount of waste that needs to be stored. While reprocessing wouldn't eliminate the need for a long term repository, it can reduce the amount, heat and radioactivity of the remaining waste.
While nonproliferation is an important consideration, the proliferation problem won't be solved by turning away from nuclear power. To curtail these risks, governments need to strengthen current international anti proliferation efforts to, among other things, give the International Atomic Energy Agency more information about a country's nuclear related activities and IAEA inspectors greater access to suspect locations. Further, current fuel reprocessing techniques are limited and new processing technologies are being developed to limit the amount and accessibility of weapons-grade materials.
One final point about security. One of the biggest dangers to our security is from oil nations providing support to anti USA terrorist groups. The faster we can move away from carbon based energy, the faster we take away that funding source. Nuclear energy offers the fastest and most direct path to that safer future.
Nuclear power producers are hoping the tide of public fear and environmentalist opposition is turning. While not voicing outright support, a handful of environmental groups have recently expressed openness to at least consider nuclear power as part of the energy mix of the future. The Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Defense are among those expressing cautious openness. The Union of Concerned Scientists said in a position paper that atomic energy should be considered as a longer term option if other climate neutral means for producing electricity prove inadequate, though it opposes new capacity until problems like waste disposal are resolved. The USA Chamber of Commerce has also expressed support for exploring ways to get more nuclear plants on line.
If nuclear power really were able to make a big dent in greenhouse emissions, then it would be worth the time and resources necessary to address all these problems. And proceed cautiously with plans to expand operations.
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