Nuclear energy is the
short-term solution to
the energy problem
Gordon J. Aubrecht, II
OSU PERG
Context XIX
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oerifkin29sep29,0,1897167.story
The Los Angeles Times
Nuclear Energy: Still a Bad Idea
Solar power is a better investment than a dated technology
that’s too expensive and dangerous.
By Jeremy Rifkin
----------JEREMY RIFKIN is the author of “The Hydrogen Economy:
The Creation of the World Wide Energy Web and the
Redistribution of Power on Earth.”
----------September 29, 2006
SUDDENLY, NUCLEAR power is in vogue. ... Bush argues
that the future energy security of the United States and the
world will depend on increasing reliance on nuclear energy.
A technology that for years suffered ignominiously in scientific
purgatory has been resurrected. ... Now, facing rising costs of
oil on world markets and real-time global warming, nuclear
technology has been given a public relations face-lift and is
touted, by some, as the energy of choice in a post-oil era. ...
First, nuclear power is unaffordable. With a minimum price tag
of $2 billion each, new-generation nuclear power plants are
50% more expensive than putting coal-fired power plants
online, and they are far more expensive than new gas-fired
power plants. The cost of doubling nuclear power’s share of
U.S. electricity generation — which currently produces 20% of
our electricity — could exceed half a trillion dollars. In a
country facing record consumer and government debt, where
is the money going to come from? Consumers would pay the
price in terms of higher taxes to support government subsidies
and higher electricity bills.
Second, 60 years into the nuclear era, our scientists still don’t
know how to safely transport, dispose of or store nuclear
waste. Spent nuclear rods are piling up all over the world. In
the United States, the federal government spent more than $8
billion and 20 years building what was supposed to be an
airtight, underground burial tomb dug deep into Yucca
Mountain in Nevada to hold radioactive material. The vault
was designed to be leak-free for 10,000 years. Unfortunately,
the Environmental Protection Agency concedes that the
underground storage facility will leak.
Third, according to a study conducted by the International
Atomic Energy Agency in 2001, known uranium resources
could fail to meet demand, possibly as early as 2026. Of
course, new deposits could be discovered, and it is possible
that new technological breakthroughs could reduce uranium
requirements, but that remains purely speculative.
Fourth, building hundreds of nuclear power plants in an era of
spreading Islamic terrorism seems insane. On the one hand
the United States, the European Union and much of the world
is frightened by the mere possibility that just one country —
Iran — might use enriched uranium from its nuclear power
plants for a nuclear bomb. On the other hand, many of the
same governments are eager to spread nuclear power plants
around the world, placing them in every nook and cranny of
the planet. This means uranium and spent nuclear waste in
transit everywhere and piling up in makeshift facilities, often
close to heavily populated urban areas.
Nuclear power plants are the ultimate soft target for terrorist
attacks. On Nov. 8, 2005, the Australian government arrested
18 suspected Islamic terrorists who were allegedly plotting to
blow up Australia’s only nuclear power plant. The U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission found that more than half of the
nuclear power plants in this country failed to prevent a
simulated attack on their facilities. We should all be very
worried.
Finally, nuclear power represents the kind of highly
centralized, clunky technology of a bygone era. In an age
when distributed technologies are undermining hierarchies,
decentralizing power and giving rise to networks and opensource economic models, nuclear power seems strangely oldfashioned and obsolete. To a great extent, nuclear power was
a Cold War creation. It represented massive concentration of
power and reflected the geopolitics of a post-World War II era.
Today, however, new technologies are giving people the tools
they need to become active participants in an interconnected
world. Nuclear power, by contrast, is elite power, controlled by
the few. Its resurrection would be a step backward.
Instead, we should pursue an aggressive effort to bring the full
range of decentralized renewable technologies online: solar,
wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass. And we should
establish a hydrogen storage infrastructure to ensure a
steady, uninterrupted supply of power for our electricity needs
and for transportation.
Our common energy future lies with the sun, not with uranium.
Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
Okay, let’s recapitulate Rifkin’s five arguments:
• nuclear power is unaffordable
• scientists still don’t know how to safely transport,
dispose of, or store nuclear waste
• known uranium resources could fail to meet
demand, possibly as early as 2026
• building hundreds of nuclear power plants in an era
of spreading Islamic terrorism seems insane
• nuclear power represents the kind of highly
centralized, clunky technology of a bygone era
nuclear power is unaffordable
Ask yourself why nuclear energy is so expensive. It
arises from two different causes—
(1) Almost every nuclear plant is “one up”
(2) Plants are heavily regulated by the NRC
nuclear power is unaffordable
While current nuclear plants are “one up,” the
newest plants are modular, for example, at
1200 MW. Modular plants can be (mostly)
built in a factory, and transported to the site.
This reduces construction costs considerably.
nuclear power is unaffordable
The NRC is supposed to err on the side of
caution. That by itself is not a problem. The
problem is that nuclear electricity is not
treated the same way as fossil fuel electricity
as regards citizen risk from production of
electricity.
nuclear power is unaffordable
If air pollution were to decrease to
minimal levels, the premature
death rate in the United States
would be reduced by 38%.
nuclear power is unaffordable
nuclear power is unaffordable
The pernicious role of particulates was not fully recognized
until the 1990s. In an experiment in Utah, C. Arden Pope
checked hospital admissions before, during, and after a
steel mill strike in Provo, Utah, and compared them to a
measure of particulates, PM10 (the concentration of particles
having diameters less than 10 m). Admissions to hospitals
jumped 50% to 90% when PM10 was above 50 g/m3, which
is below the legal limit. Pope found that the death rate
increased by 16% per 50 g/m3 of PM10. Given this
“smoking gun,” research went on to identify even smaller
particulates, those with diameters less than 2.5 mm, PM2.5,
as even more important to control. The EPA has responded
by regulating PM2.5.
nuclear power is unaffordable
Putting pollution control devices on fossil fuel electricity is
expensive. If we asked for a death rate for coal guaranteed
to be comparable to nuclear electricity, it would cost utilities
much more than current coal plants (or even nuclear
ploants). (And think about how the utilities bought off new
source review, which would enforce much milder standards.)
Enough said … Rifkin’s first objection is specious.
scientists still don’t know how to safely
transport, dispose of, or store nuclear waste
Transportation containers have safely withstood collisions at
100 km/h with concrete walls. Each state EMA has to have a
tested plan for road and rail transport of nuclear waste.
Every nuclear plant has a spent fuel pool and some have dry
cask storage. These storage modes modes work much
better than would have been thought. There have been no
safety issues involving either of these. (You could ask me
about the dry cask weld problem.)
scientists still don’t know how to safely
transport, dispose of, or store nuclear waste
There are several storage possibilities. WIPP stores highlevel defense wastes in New Mexico. No problems have
been encountered yet.
The controversy swirls about the disposal site in Yucca
Mountain, Nevada (now envisioned for 2017
commissioning). The plan is to sequester the wastes for
10,000 to 100,000 years, at which time they are essentially
less radioactive than the surroundings.
Could water infiltrate? What would happen to future
populations? What about groundwater contamination? Etc.
scientists still don’t know how to safely
transport, dispose of, or store nuclear waste
I think the concerns are specious. There are two
possibilities: civilization has ended, or NOT.
If civilization’s ended, there will be essentially no people and
so no problem.
If civilization continues, we may expect technology to
continue to advance.
scientists still don’t know how to safely
transport, dispose of, or store nuclear waste
The important advance to look for is the ability to drill into
and seal a path between the lithosphere and its underlying
magma ocean.
My guess is that this will be feasible in under 50 years.
Certainly, it should be feasible in under 200 years. Let’s be
pessimistic and say it’s a 1000 year feasibility.
In this case, we can dispose of the wastes into the magma.
This would cleanse the surface and the magma (which is
highly radioactive).
scientists still don’t know how to safely
transport, dispose of, or store nuclear waste
So, looked at from this perspective,it’s not really a
100,000 year problem (all that groundwater
concern, flooding worries, etc.).
It’s a
1000 year worry.
So I think Rifkin’s second objection is essentially specious.
known uranium resources could fail to meet
demand, possibly as early as 2026
Assuming that discovery and mining proceeds as in the
past, Rifkin would be correct. However, since the fall of the
USSR the US has bought and brought here uranium and
plutonium from many former Soviet weapons.
This can be used to make metal oxide (MOX) fuel for
reactors. Depending on whether we begin decommissioning
our own weapons as well, this can extend fuel resources at
least several decades.
known uranium resources could fail to meet
demand, possibly as early as 2026
Actually, countering my own argument here, Rifkin should
have focused on the mining process. Mining of any material
produces a lot of waste (for example, it takes 10 t of bauxite
at 10% concentration top make 1 t of aluminum, 50 t of iron
ore to make 1 t of steel, etc.
It takes 10 t of low-grade uranium ore to make 1 t of
uranium (a lot less than with high-grade ore). That’s a lot of
radioactive mine tailings, and these tailings must be treated
carefully to make sure they don’t contaminate the
environment.
known uranium resources could fail to meet
demand, possibly as early as 2026
So, overall, Rifkin’s third argument is somewhat suspect,
and would have been far stronger should he have focused
on mining wastes rather than a lack of resource because of
large amounts of high-level supplies from weapons that
could be diluted into usable fuel.
In addition, were breeder reactors built, these supplies
could be extended indefinitely.
So I think Rifkin’s third objection is also essentially
specious.
building hundreds of nuclear power plants in an
era of spreading Islamic terrorism seems insane
Well, we must give Rifkin’s fourth argument credit. Nuclear
energy is problematic from this point of view.
The problem is that so is the entire chemical industrial
infrastructure of the nation. And it is virtually impossible to
penetrate a nuclear energy facility (except with inside help),
while it is very easy to penetrate a chemical facility or to
cause disaster from outside (virtually impossible for nuclear
energy—except for nuclear plants that must cope with
detonation of a nuclear weapon on top of the plant!).
Attacks on these unprotected chemical plants could well kill
millions of people virtually immeditely.
building hundreds of nuclear power plants in an
era of spreading Islamic terrorism seems insane
In addition, as former Secretary of State Powell’s (overall
incorrect) testimony to the United Nations about Iraq
showed, farm implements such as portable fertilizer
installations could be used to brew truly dangerous
biological weapons that could kill also kill people virtually
immediately—certainly a lot faster than cancers from fallout
from destruction of a nuclear energy plant.
building hundreds of nuclear power plants in an
era of spreading Islamic terrorism seems insane
So, while Rifkin is technically correct, there are truly
much more dangerous risks than civilian nuclear
energy from conventional chemical and biological
attacks.
I find Rifkin’s fourth argument essentially specious.
nuclear power represents the kind of highly
centralized, clunky technology of a bygone era
Rifkin’s’s partly correct and partly wrong. It is true
that generation has become more decentralized (at
least partly due to PURPA and other government
programs).
However, large-scale generating plants are not dying
soon.
If nuclear energy plants are not built, coal-fired
plants will be built with all their deleterious
consequences for health.
nuclear power represents the kind of highly
centralized, clunky technology of a bygone era
Rifkin’s’s argument is totally misleading when
applied to the short run.
Again, this final argument by Rifkin is specious.
So, why do I think nuclear energy can be a shortterm solution to the energy problem
Let me deal with the “short term” part of the answer
first.
Nuclear energy is thermal energy—as with fossil
fuels, too. Thermal systems work by taking thermal
energy from a high temperature reservoir and
expelling thermal energy at a low temperature
reservoir.
The energy expelled is known as waste heat.
So, why do I think nuclear energy can be a shortterm solution to the energy problem
Waste heat is energy released to the environment. It
goes into the environment and stays there, raising
the local temperature … and so the globe.
This is global warming of a sort much more
dangerous than “conventional” global warming.
Stop release of greenhouse gases, and
“conventional” global warming ceases.
You can’t ever stop releasing thermal energy from
thermal engines! Thermal engines mean waste heat.
So, why do I think nuclear energy can be a shortterm solution to the energy problem
In the long run, we MUST use solar energy from
some source.
Energy from the Sun will fall on Earth no matter
whether it’s used to generate energy or not. We may
redistribute where it is absorbed to the environment,
but it does not add thermal energy.
The future—in the long run—has to be electricity
supplied by renewable energy. So ultimately I agree
with Rifkin’s argument that in the end electricity must
be from renewables. “Our common energy future
lies with the sun, not with uranium”
Why nuclear energy?
Again, in the long run, we MUST use solar
energy from some source.
We need to preserve our species and the
environment in which we can flourish.
We need to stop releasing carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases.
No other currently feasible thermal system can do
this.
And so it’s nukes
—in the SHORT RUN.
That’s all folks
… the end …