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September 28, 2007 4:00 AM PDT
Perspective: Giving the nuke option a fair shake
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So it was that after he became an engineer, my uncle later worked on the construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power reactor near San Luis Obispo, Calif. It was, no pun intended, always a hot topic of debate at family gatherings.
Since I was a "no nukes" kind of guy, there was no way I would ever trust The Man to do right by the environment. To me, Diablo Canyon and all the other nuclear energy plants going up around the country constituted an invitation to inevitable disaster. My heart was with the green movement. Back then, anti-nuclear sentiment was running high--especially after the accidents at Three Mile Island in March 1979 and Chernobyl seven years later.
"Do you have any idea what you're talking about?" Uncle Harold said.
Well, that was a bit fresh. After all, I had watched The China Syndrome. OK, even though it was a movie, what if the scenario played out for real?
Uncle Harold, who was having none of it, refused to buy into any emotional arguments. He ticked off with lapidary precision a long list of benefits from nuclear energy and explained the safety mechanisms that accompanied the construction of modern plants. That was so unfair of him to use facts in an argument where it was clear that I was on the side of the angels.
Of course, I wasn't alone in making the popular mistake of twinning opposition to the spread of nuclear weaponry with nuclear energy. As if they were forever joined at the hip. My uncle died a couple of years ago. I don't know whether I've become any wiser over the years but with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I sure wish I could get a do-over with him.
Fast-forward three decades after those conversations and this country--along with the rest of the word--is locked in a noisy debate about how best to reduce fossil fuel consumption. It's been a slow haul.
The overhang from the no-nukes era still casts a shadow. Any proposal to put more investment into nuclear energy always presents the risk of political suicide. So it is that the last time federal regulators in this country allowed work to begin on a new reactor was the same year as Three Mile Island (though the plants never got built). In fact, the U.S. has not brought a new commercial reactor on line since May 1996.
Even so, about 20 percent of the country's electricity gets generated by nuclear. Sounds impressive until you compare that statistic against France's 78 percent. (Not surprisingly, France's carbon dioxide output is one of the lowest per capita in Europe.)
Yet resistance to nuclear energy may be receding from its high water mark. In an interview with CNET News.com, Frank Bowman, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said that some of the industry's once sternest critics are giving nuclear another look. The list includes the likes of Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog (you don't get more crunchy that that), and Pulitzer-winning author Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel). The most notable one-time opponent to change his mind about nuclear is Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. In the current issue of Chief Executive magazine, Moore says nuclear energy now has to be part of any solution to the nation's energy challenge.
That's not a switch that has gone down well with his former colleagues. In fact, Moore told the magazine, some within the environmental movement now treat him with "considerable disdain."
"It's quite ironic that the very people who are most concerned about climate change are generally the same ones who are against the solution that, from a technical point of view, is straightforward," he said.
After all the angst and questioning that attended my own about-face, I understand why it's so difficult. But the greens may find themselves increasingly isolated. Earlier this week, NRG Energy asked the government for permission to build a couple of reactors in Texas. Another company called Constellation Energy is also rumored to be close to applying for a license.
Forget saving the world--though that's an appealing idea--the growing global competition for increasingly scarce energy resources has turned the search for alternatives into a national security priority. I don't want to re-argue the pros and cons of the debate over climate change, global warming and greenhouse gas concerns but the time is long past for fresh thinking.
And that means giving nuclear a fair shake.
Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.
See more CNET content tagged:
nuclear power, Diablo, France, CEO, Europe
104 comments
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Moreover, the nuclear waste can be recycled and reused witch greatly reduces waste. However, it costs more than throwing it into the mountain for next generation to worry about.
BTW the Chinese licensed the graphite ball technology while Germany is shutting theirs down.
Go figure....
The old facts versus fiction issue I assume...
What we should be doing, even more extensively than nuclear, is applying other power sources, such as wind and solar, and in as many places as possible, right down to individual rooftoops. The more energy generated by each home (and the more conserved through energy efficiency), the less we'll need nuclear generation (or coal, oil, etc). Reducing the need for more plants, and more emissions of all kinds, is what we need.
In the long run, Nuclear as it is today, is not sustainable. We will run out of fuel for nuclear plants just as we will run out of fossile fuel.
The time we get is what we need to make solar, wind, perhaps fusion,. and other power sources economical.
Despite what I've said above, I do believe that both solar and wind power should have a place in our country's energy plans. However, neither of these options have the potential to shoulder as much of the load of this country's energy needs as nuclear. The fact that so many "greens" are so vehemently against nuclear power is just more evidence that the whole "global warming" movement is largely a fraud, meant more as a money-transfer mechanism than one that actually solves a problem.
kept nuclear energy from making a larger contribution to our
energy supplies.
Google Integral Fast Reactor and see a solution to the nuclear
waste issue, the nonproliferation issue, and reactor safety issue.
A solution whose various facets have been tested in a real,
operating system over a 40 year period with little public notice.
Ironically, it was public notice and the resulting knee-jerk fear
that got that program cancelled in the early days of the Clinton
administration.
Solar has an inherent global heating problem that would be
noticeable if it became economic and widely used (100 percent
absorptive of light vs 70 percent for the earth as an average).
Wind? Could be more benign, hard to tell until that source is
multiplied.
My point is not to avoid using various sources, but to recognize
the drawbacks and benefits and use them appropriately.
Until fear of solutions to energy supply problems is overcome by
a realistic view of both the problems and their solutions, we will
continue to be driven by fears and trendiness.
As for the author, thanks for nothing, bud. You're about 30
years too late.
Na... Forget about nuclear...
waste that is left becomes less dangerous than uranium ore after
500 years. Plus, the fuel is used so efficiently in such a case that
just the depleted uranium we have hanging around as waste from
past uranium refining and enriching would power the entire U.S. for
4,000 years. Google "Integral Fast Reactor" sometime.
more development need to be done in order to find a nuclear method that is clean.
you always have to tie the threat of nuclear winter to nuclear energy, "the bomb" is so simple to make.
The uranium used to make power is not the same isotope needed to make a bomb. While the other isotope is generally produced inside the fuel rods during operation, separating the isotopes is NOT a trivial task and it is NOT something you can do in your basement. Newer technologies like pebble ball reactors encapsulate each tiny fuel grain inside a super hard, super strong "ball", making the reprocessing of fuel even more difficult.
The whole nuclear power issue is so clouded by F.U.D. it's amazing. Oh well. When the Greenies' lights start going off for days at a time, they will have a very sudden conversion to the joys of clean nuclear power.
you always have to tie the threat of nuclear winter to nuclear energy, "the bomb" is so simple to make.
Did you just pull this out of your butt? First off, the nuclear winter theory is tied to detonation of nuclear weapons, *not* nuclear power. Second, if making "the bomb" is so easy, why have the Iranians been trying to do it for some time now without success? I guess they're just stupid?
People point to Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl as major warnings of the danger of nuclear power. But the TMI accident resulted in NO DEATHS OR INJURIES.
While Chernobyl really was a big disaster, it wasn't all that exceptional, compared with various non-nuclear disasters. (And is also not a useful model for how safe nuclear is/would be in the US.) According to Wikipedia, 56 people died from the accident, and up to 4,000 more are estimated to possibly die later from cancer. Sounds bad. But what about coal? Look at <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters" target="_newWindow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters</a> and search for "coal". I total something like 1800 people killed in coal mining operations since 1913. And how many die as a result of poullted air? I bet US annual asthma deaths related to coal pollution are probably greater than lifetime deaths estimated for Chernobyl. (I expect there are far more CANCERS related to coal pollution than nuclear, as well.)
And remember Bhopal? That (non-nuclear) disaster killed around 15,000-22,000 people.
In addition, by continuing to resist nuclear-related funding, people postpone the arrival of solutions that could reduce nuclear waste from future plants to less than 10% of its current amount, maybe to as little as 1% (also reducing the amount of uranium that needs to be mined to generate the same amount of electricity) and that could even reduce EXISTING stores of nuclear waste by reprocessing it and using it as fuel for the new plants. (With the right kind of reprocessing, it need NOT result in weapons-grade material ever being generated.) In addition to being a far smaller amount, the resulting waste may also be less radioactive (or for a much shorter period of time). The best solution to even our existing nuclear-waste problem seems to be to go forward with constructing more advanced plants (though probably more "ordinary" plants that don't help solve the problem will also be constructed in the meantime).
This is sort of like when protestors goaded McDonald's to change from styrofoam coffee cups to paper. It turned out the paper cups used more energy, water, trees (obviously), and maybe even petroleum to manufacutre (since they were coated to make them waterproof), and, unlike styrofoam, they were not easily recyclable. (They're much better today, but at the time it was an environmental net step backward, though it probably did reduce release of CFCs etc.)
I'm definitely an environmentalist, but people need to get their facts straight rather than use ignorant knee-jerk reactions to make decisions.
We need the nuclear winter to offset the global warming.
SAVE POLAR BEARS
However, in America, much of the anti-nuclear hysteria came from the highly educated segment of society (and Hollywood types who like to think of themselves as smart). Perhaps it was driven by guilt (i.e., "We are wasteful and therefore are not deserving cheap energy"). Obviously there was an anarchistic element to many of the anti-nuclear protesters as well.
But then again, few 60's hippies studied nuclear physics, so maybe ignorance was the root cause of the resistance, after all.
What is interesting is, the best treatise on energy transformation I ever read said it is the improvement in energy density of the fuel which enables energy transformation.
Our steam engines went from wood to coal not because we ran out of forests, but because coal was more dense (in terms of BTU/pound and BTU/cubic foot) than wood. This made the transcontinental railroad possible, because a train could carry a limited amount of fuel, and there was a desert (i.e., no trees) to cross. It also meant pure steamships could travel oceans, not just rivers.
Likewise, petroleum was more dense than coal, not only easing the carriage of fuel, but enabling the creation of a much less bulky motive source, the internal combustion engine. The result was automobiles and airplanes.
When one considers this, one realizes the energy density of hydrogen is problematic. By the same token, the energy density characteristics of biofuels are problematic, not so much in the end fuel product, but in the source material.
It was after reading this I realized, we were not waiting for the energy source transformation from oil, it had indeed already happened. Nuclear energy met the theory of energy density transformation, and had occurred fifty years ago. Certainly there are limitations when it comes to vehicles which carry their own fuel supply (note French and Japanese bullet trains do not carry fuel, they connect directly to the grid), but the concepts of energy density also apply to the transportation infrastructure for fuel.
The anti-nuclear Luddites were blind like a child is blind to the truths of the world. I'm glad to see some of them finally reaching intellectual adulthood.
Unfortunately that's not "touchy feely" enough for the greenies.
Same thing they told me in Jr. High School. We all know we must ultimately move in an alternative fuel direction that may include nuke, but short term 3-Mile Island and China Syndrome movie delivered an effective one-two punch to the American opinion on nuke power and brought new development to a stand still.
was a stroke of (evil) genius, when the nuclear industry and their
governmental mouthpieces decided to buy into the CO2
paranoia, and use it for furthering the dubious cause of nuclear
energy.
Everyone needs to do their own research, and look at the
scientific facts. The world's climate always changes. We are
currently coming out of a particularly cold period, and move into
a slightly warmer one. CO2 makes up around 0.04 percent of
Earth's atmosphere, the manmade part is less than 0.01 percent.
Yet, suddenly these less than 0.01 percent are supposed to be
responsible for 100 percent of global warming. Does this seem
reasonable?
Nuclear power is an old, obsolete, and failed technology. It
offers no promises for the future. It is expensive and extremely
dangerous. Nuclear power stations are health hazards - forever.
They are prime targets for terrorist attacks. In short, they are a
very, *very* bad idea.
We need to invest in clean and sustainable forms of energy only.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
That being said, I completely disagree with your assertion that nuclear power is an obsolete and failed technology. If a technology is obsolete, it means that another technology has been developed that can completely supplant it. Please name for me the new technology that can generate comparable amounts of energy for comparable costs as nuclear can. Also, what is your definition of "failed"? Nuclear energy hasn't even been given a chance in this country and it sure hasn't failed in France.
Finally, I think that your litany of the dangers of nuclear power are just as over-blown as Al Gore's claims of global warming.
Windmills and waterfall technology are still "hippie and sandal" --not serious enough to provide heavy industrial needs.
The waste can be placed in isolated remote areas so its not like everyone has to allot space in their basement for a cannister of nuke garbage.
Granted it stays around for thousands of years but maybe in the meantime something will develop to provide for its use as well.
Safety also improves over time so the danger element is also diminished as new ways of keeping it so are discovered.
Unfortunatly, unless we build more lots more coal plants, I don't see a practical solution for keeping everybodys air conditioning on and helping the polar bears.
There'll be pie in the sky, by and by
..."
Your "where there is a will" is pure wishful thinking.
Global Warming is real, it is here to stay, and nuclear power is just about our only practical option for survival.
http:/www.talkclimatechange.com
"If a young man isn't a little bit liberal he has no heart. If when he
is old he is still liberal he has no brain."
I'm sure the quote was not his own, but it really meant something
coming from him. He was an old liberal. You live and hopefully
learn.
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
system with a waste stream with a 500 year hazardous life, which is
probably shorter than will be the debate about what to do even
with it, vast improvement over the present situation that it is.
controlling those deadly potential weapons I say NO more cars.
More people die mining coal every year than have ever died because of a U.S. nuclear power plant. That's because no one has ever died because of a U.S. Nuclear power plant.
You are building a straw-man argument.
It is like people that don't want to fly because they feel that it would be safer to drive, even though the facts are the complete opposite.
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
Add wind power where there's enough wind, solar generators in the deserts. You just might have enough, but the cost is astronomical. Yet even then its not a solution, much of the materials to produce that generating capacity are not all that green.
Nuclear power uses less space (spelled green), its waste products can be stored in less space (green again). Once constructed it can be operated with few people. Most of all with today's technology nuclear power is safe. When space travel becomes cheaper a ready and safe disposal of nuclear waste is available - the sun.
The bottom line: Nuclear Power is cleaner, safer, cheaper and greener than coal, gas, wood, ethanol or anything else.
Stop thinking with your emotions and start using your head.
program, which showed that reactors can be made to run on
what we call nuclear waste presently, and emit waste that
becomes less dangerous than uranium ore in about 500 years.
In fact, I posted about it above under "A Wonderful Example..".
You might benefit by finding some new theoretical objections
instead of parroting the same decades-old one you used here.
Chances are the IFR solved a lot of other objections you may
have heard of, too, though. Google "Integral Fast Reactor" if you
are the least bit curious.
Once built geothermal power plants are very dependable. The problem is cost. In most parts of the country you have to drill very deep to get to hot temperatures needed. Drilling is the main expense. Nuclear energy is very expensive and dangerous. Geothermal is expensive and safe. Why would we even consider nuclear.
to use a nuclear fuel cycle for my energy
needs, the Integral Fuel Cycle, tho expensive,
does seem to consume its' own nucleides. I
have to wonder at the declaration that seems
to say that the purification process during
reprocessing removes All the transuranics
and actinides from the waste stream. Don't
take much Pu to mess up your day. And
before we commit to a 300 year fuel cycle,
can't we have another look at solar thermal
with phase changing salt energy banking for
the dark and cloudy times? Won't take more
than a few square miles. Doesn't have the
drama of a muffed nuke waste launch, I know.
I would think that research in all forms of technology is desirable. At least pilot plants should exist of any technology to be able to assess that particular technology and build a cadre of experienced personnel.
But in the end it will always be money ( and politics) that determines what we use, what we eat, how we live.
As far as shooting "waste" into the sun? I see that as a waste of resources...
are not being used as much as they could be? There are plenty
of alternatives, if one cares to look for them. To name but a
few: Hydro-electric, Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Tidal-wave,
Hydrogen. All of these are in use, right now, somewhere in the
world. For example, New Zealand covers most of its energy
needs by using renewable sources.
Don't say it can't be done. Do some research instead, and find
out what is possible.
I was in Europe when Chernobyl blew up. A year later, I went to
Greece on a holiday, and locals told me about the white, metallic
fallout from the accident, which covered their vegetable gardens
with a fine dust. They told that "nature went crazy" shortly after,
with plants mutating and flowering in winter. Never, ever, do I
want to live through such an experience again.
Nuclear power is madness.
This is insider's info. Can't tell you more about it, but wanted to keep up your hopes of solutions that only seem impossible to those who are not in the know. Things are looking good.
Time will tell, although I am rather skeptic.
I am sure the Chinese would copy it in a heartbeat if it was useable
2) Nuclear power is expensive. Most of the costs are hidden by the government which doesn't want you to know the hideous bills for disposal of waste.
3) Nuclear power is dirty. Processing nuclear fuel creates waste, using nuclear fuel creates waste, and low level waste is rapidly building up so fast nobody knows what to do with it. thats why we are considering hollowed out mountains and such. Other nations used to dump their radioactive water at sea....good plan! (idiots).
4) Nuclear power won't solve greenhouse gases. The problem is automobiles, and its getting worse every day.
safe neighborhood :)
FIY: I lived next to the Zion nuclear facility in Lake County, Illinois.
That said, reducing (eliminating!?) reliance on imported fuels is a GOOD thing. Nuclear energy has a bad history in this country, where the old Atomic Energy Commission's job was to promote it, not regulate it. So, we had unique, custom facilities designed from theory by folks who'd never done it before and operated with minimal oversight. This is no longer the situation.
Nuclear power is the only energy source at this time that survives quantitative analysis, but it requires a cradle-to-grave approach that eliminates endless litigation (50% of the cost of a nuclear plant). Waste storage: a heck of a lot less room than the square miles of solar panels (1 hp/square yard @ 100% conversion, 12 hrs/day) that'll be in someone's back yard. Also, it's past time to recycle tons of fuel rods that are 3-5% expended but too contaminated with hot isotopes to use (they mostly sit in ponds of water).
Alternatives so far amount to moonbeams and fairy wheels once the cost/watt is worked out, followed by requirements to reduce our energy use to that of preindustrial countries. Not going to happen.
So, can we re-create a relatively safe nuclear industry that's properly regulated but not inundated by bureaucracy, protected from gratuitous lawsuits but subject to criminal law? Sure, once gas costs enough, our politicians become technically competent, and the media is populated by journalists capable of analysis rather than just hyping for headlines. Maybe we should all move to France.
structured, solar collectors of all kinds trap more heat than the
earth does, since they reflect essentially zero light back into space,
while the earth reflects 30 percent on average. Build enough of
them and get a permanent warming effect. Could be cured by
painting a white border around them, though, or such like.
Some of your arguments have been nicely cherry picked as well.
There are some interesting scientific discussions on many of your points here:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://talkclimatechange.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=7" target="_newWindow">http://talkclimatechange.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=7</a>
which you may find useful, or interesting.
Suck it up and do what?s good for the collective stop being so nearsighted and fixated on what YOU want. Empty desert desolate mountain range in Nevada seems like a perfect spot to long term store 55gl drums of green radiation and irradiated gloves and tools.
To the zealot who says well why don?t you move near a nuke or lobby for a nuke to come to you, well that?s stupid. I live near the eastern seaboard megalopolis. I don?t foresee a NEW reactor near the NY, DC, Philly metro area. You put reactors in the desert or extremely low density areas. Not thriving high population developed areas.
Sure that doesn?t satisfy the non-nuke partisan but well have to buy compliance from NIMBY-ists with pork and cheese.
According to the Wikipedia Yucca Mountain site:
In March 2006, the majority staff of U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a 25 page white paper "Yucca Mountain: The Most Studied Real Estate on the Planet" [2] The conclusions were:
? Extensive studies consistently show Yucca Mountain to be a sound site for nuclear waste disposal
? The cost of not moving forward is extremely high
? Nuclear waste disposal capability is an environmental imperative
? Nuclear waste disposal capability supports national security
? Demand for new nuclear plants also demands disposal capability
station in Bumspittle, Nevada is the same as the stuff coming
out of ConEd in New York.
So, what you do is simply find those areas where no one lives.
The middle of Northern Nevada is perfect - large, empty, easy to
defend, and enough water to do the job. If something blows up
there, only Salt Lake City would see any potential danger
(incidentally, SLC is roughly 90 miles east of the Utah/Nevada
border with a few very large mountain ranges in the way).
You pick places like that. Sure, there was a lot of ******** and
moaning about Yucca Flats there, but that particular site was
only a short distance from Las Vegas... where I'm thinking about
is smack in the midst of Nowhere.
New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota... all of these places have
lots of sparsely-populated areas where a nuclear power cluster
could be built with only a minimum of complaint.
As a bonus, those states end up getting a shedload of income
from selling the electricity.
/P
Once built geothermal power plants are very dependable. The problem is up front cost. In most parts of the country you have to drill very deep to get to hot temperatures needed. Drilling is the main expense.
Geothermal is cost competitive over time with natural gas but the money is spent at the beginning of the project so it costs more to finance. Gas powered plants are cheap to build but the money adds up in fuel costs over time.
Nuclear energy is very expensive and dangerous. Geothermal is expensive and safe. Why would we even consider nuclear.