OPINION & EDITORIAL
Nuclear power worth risks
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Also by Nathan Braun:
- Few controversial issues clearly right; but gay rights one of them (November 1, 2007)
- Nuclear power worth risks (October 18, 2007)
- Humans must evolve, realize climate change is real (October 4, 2007)
- Life after Bush: Holding candidates to a higher standard of rhetoric (September 20, 2007)
- Taxes cost-effective energy solution (September 12, 2007)
Related Stories:
- President charts promising course on energy policy (February 10, 2006)
- U.S. has no right to regulate nukes (February 7, 2007)
- Iran's policy on nukes flawed (March 26, 2007)
- Beyond cogen (October 17, 2003)
- Thumbs up to nukes (September 27, 2004)
by Nathan Braun
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Last week, Musicians for Safe Energy — America’s leading anti-nuclear-energy musical group — released the long-awaited follow up to their 1979 debut album, No Nukes. While it would be hard to top most of the songs off No Nukes — "Plutonium is Forever" is my personal favorite — the new release might come pretty close. The video features Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Ben Harper, among others, all singing about the new energy bill.
Jackson Browne sums it up nicely; "Language has been inserted in the bill which supports nuclear power, which is not clean and not safe." Ben Harper adds, "You can’t protect this stuff, there’s no way. It’s been proven."
While it is admirable to see celebrities and potential role models passionate about a cause, these statements demonstrate what’s wrong with anti-nuclear sentiment in America. They could be described as misinformed at best, fear-mongering at worst. Nuclear power is not perfect, but under the right circumstances it can be not only clean and safe, but also practical — the United States already gets 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power; France gets 80 percent, mostly because political opposition isn’t as strong.
One of the biggest advantages of nuclear power is that it doesn’t emit any carbon and therefore doesn’t contribute to global warming. This is a big deal; electricity production by conventional sources — coal, petroleum and natural gas — accounts for 39 percent of our country’s total CO2 emissions in the most recent figures. Nuclear energy also produces essentially no sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide or particulates, all of which make up the smog found in our cities today. Shifting toward cleaner sources of power like nuclear energy — and other, renewable sources — would be a huge step in our battle to combat climate change.
But limiting the emissions in electricity production is not going to be enough to combat climate change. A big part of the problem is all the oil and gasoline we burn up driving around every day. A way to address this could lie in electric plug-in vehicles, which have a traditional gasoline motor onboard only to recharge a battery once it runs down. GM recently unveiled the Chevy Volt, which runs purely on electricity for about 40 miles before the gasoline motor kicks in to recharge the battery. The Department of Transportation says that 78 percent of all commuters drive 40 miles or less to and from work each day. If they could recharge their vehicles every night, 78 percent of Americans would emit zero pollutants on their daily commute.
This isn’t a pipe dream — the Volt is expected to be on the market in 2010 and GM says it hopes to sell it for about $30,000. Some reports say as many as 60,000 may be built. This isn’t the only option, either; next year Tesla Motors will begin selling the Tesla Roadster, a fully electric sports car that accelerates from 0-60 mph in under four seconds, gets 245 miles on a single charge and costs about $100,000. Notable owners include Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney and Black Eyed Peas lead singer "will.i.am."
It’s an exciting time for innovation, and nice to see Detroit leading the way on this. But running 100 percent of our transportation off the grid won’t mean anything if we don’t have some way of producing mass quantities of clean power. At this point, nuclear energy is the best option for doing just that.
The real problem with arguments by the Musicians for Safe Energy and other critics is that they don’t offer any real workable alternatives. Most opponents are in favor of dumping nuclear power altogether in favor of renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power — which sounds fine — but these sources are intermittent, meaning they have problems when it isn’t windy or sunny. Scientists are working on the technological obstacles that prevent renewable energy from being viable in the short term, and it’s important that they do so, but we need to address climate change now, in large part by switching to technologies that already exist.
This isn’t to say nuclear power doesn’t have unique challenges and drawbacks; it produces radioactive waste, which is toxic for long periods and needs to be stored safely. There are also legitimate concerns about terrorism and nuclear proliferation, although I would point out any practical plans to reduce our dependence on foreign oil will necessarily have to involve an increase in nuclear power.
A common argument given by many critics of the nuclear industry involves its high start-up and capital costs. You can see this in the music video. "Why should the American people be subsidizing [this]?" Bonnie Raitt asks.
Ideally they wouldn’t have to. If people had to pay the true costs of other energy sources — the cost of cleaning up soot and sulfur from coal, the risk of conflict that comes with oil and the greenhouse gases associated with both — we wouldn’t have to subsidize anything. Two options would effectively address this problem: a carbon tax or a cap and trade system. Due to a monumental failure in political leadership, we are doing neither. Nuclear power is inherently different in that it involves far fewer externalities: The costs of building safe reactors, storing waste and even decommissioning the plant are already built right into its price. This is why nuclear power seems relatively more expensive than it really is.
Subsidizing clean energy, such as renewable or nuclear power, is a second-best alternative behind taxing or capping carbon, but in today’s political climate, it might be a choice we have to make.
Nathan Braun (braun@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in economics.
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 8:34am):
How sad is it that the uninformed, fearmongering Musicians for Safe Energy get to voice their ignorant opinions on the front page of CNN.com while a well-reasoned, intelligent rebuttal like this one is relegated to the opinion page of a publication with much smaller exposure? The idea of listening to a group of musicians who are stuck in the 1970s over someone who actually knows what they're talking about is moronic.
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 9:23am):
Those against nuclear power should stop using any energy - no oil, no electricity, nothing - because all energy is fungible.
But they probably just want the proles to stop using energy, as the elite they are subject to differnt expectations. They probably all flew in on carbon spewing private jets.
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 11:04am):
Poor Nate, the people you are trying to convince don't think with their head, they think with their heart. And their heart says nuclear power is dangerous, toxic and harms our environment.
Truthiness always beats the truth.
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 11:41am):
You're right, Nathan. Nuclear power has been getting a bad rap. Let's glow!
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 12:02pm):
He's also looking for green nuclear engineers, and says he feels guilty that he and his fellow environmentalists created so much fear of nuclear power. Alternative energy and conservation are fine steps to reduce carbon emissions, he says, but now nuclear power is a proven technology working on a scale to make a serious difference.
"There were legitimate reasons to worry about nuclear power, but now that we know about the threat of climate change, we have to put the risks in perspective," he says. "Sure, nuclear waste is a problem, but the great thing about it is you know where it is and you can guard it. The bad thing about coal waste is that you don't know where it is and you don't know what it's doing. The carbon dioxide is in everybody's atmosphere."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/earth/27tier.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
G.R.L. Cowan (October 18, 2007 @ 1:10pm):
The musicians and others like them often say one of their objections is to public <em>subsidy</em> to nuclear power. That, I think, is an insinuated falsehood. For many years, nuclear power has advanced in many countries, always <em>without</em> subsidy.
If the sneaky assertion of subsidy were true, what would it tell us about what kind of opposition to nuclear energy is likely?
Well, anything that takes money from the public purse is offensive to all <em>other</em> takers of money from there. Civil servants would be expected both to surreptitiously oppose nuclear energy, and to seek by many other surreptitious means to divert its subsidy to themselves.
What's remarkable is that in the real world, where nuclear power is not subsidized, exactly the same behaviour can be expected if, compared to alternatives, it is <em>taxed less</em>.
And with this in mind, the answer jumps right out: nuclear pays less fuel tax.
It can hardly do otherwise because, next to its cleanliness, the extreme cheapness and abundance of its fuel is the point. Where nuclear reactors are forbidden, $200 kilograms of uranium cannot be burned, and in their place, natural gas-fired electricity plants burn $4,000 natural gas equivalents.
Some of this is royalties, probably in themselves much exceeding the $200 uranium alternative. Also, the extra demand helps keep natural gas prices up in all markets, and in some of them it brings in additional tax money, beyond the $4,000 base price.
So when they tell you government might lose money by guaranteeing loans to new nuclear construction plants if those constructions get started and then fall through, you should understand that the alternative, for government, is to lose about the same amount of money in fossil fuel revenue.
The loan guarantees have the very good effect of making it unprofitable for government to red-tape the new projects to death.
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 1:12pm):
What risks are you talking about. Nuclear power is the most reliable type of generation out there - there has been but one single unscheduled shutdown of any of the 100-odd U.S. reactors in the past 10 years. They operate at 90 plus percent capacity, some as high as 98%, and now provide the cheapest pwoer at 1.72 cents per kilowatt hour. They cost 8 times less to build than wind power on a power produced/ lifespan basis. Anti-nukes are responsible for global warming by preventing nuclear from supplying the 50% power that it would be had construction not been blocked by shortsighted and ignorant anti-nuclear crusaders. Aside from hydroelectric, nuclear is the only significant source of carbon-free power at 22% of the megawatthours produced. Wind generates less than 1%, when it feels like it, and photovoltaic produces
very miniscule amounts of very expensive
electricity. If you are against nuclear, you are against reducing carbon emissions. It's no more complicated than that.
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 4:35pm):
If the USA had put the money spent in Gulf Wars I and II in developing and building pebble bed nuclear power plants we would no longer need to import any oil.
This would have also reduced carbon emissions by a huge amount. Electric cars would be MUCH cheaper to run ($.02/mile).
Just read "Crunching the Numbers on Alternative Fuels"
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2690341.html
Vehicles that operate only on electricity require no warmup, run almost silently and have excellent performance up to the limit of their range. Also, electric cars are cheap to "refuel." At the average price of 10 cents per kwh, it costs around 2 cents per mile. Electric cars can be recharged at night, when generating plants are under-utilized. Vehicles that run on electricity only part of the time and on internal-combustion power at other times--hybrids--have even greater promise. As hybrids gain in popularity, there is a growing interest in plug-in hybrids that allow owners to fully recharge the vehicle's batteries overnight.
A strong appeal of the electric car--and of a hybrid when it's running on electricity--is that it produces no tailpipe emissions. Even when emissions created by power plants are factored in, electric vehicles emit less than 10 percent of the pollution of an internal-combustion car.
Anonymous (October 18, 2007 @ 4:39pm):
http://media.popularmechanics.com/documents/Fuel_of_the_Future-e852.pdf
Think electic car, but pebble bed nuclear instead of coal.
Anonymous (October 19, 2007 @ 3:48pm):
"Nuclear power is inherently different in that it involves far fewer externalities: The costs of building safe reactors, storing waste and even decommissioning the plant are already built right into its price. This is why nuclear power seems relatively more expensive than it really is."
There are unreclaimed uranium mines and mills all over the Western US, and taxpayers have been paying the price for cleaning them up. There is no long-term solution to storing the waste. To increase nuclear power there has to be an incredible investment in new infrastructure, most of which is subsidized by government.
The truth is uranium extraction and radioactive waste disposal has hinged and continues to rely on corrupt political processes, government secrecy, suppresion of scientific study, suspension of civil rights and environmental injustice. And that's just in the United States. A lot of new uranium development is occurring in third world countries and in countries ruled by corrupt and power-hungry dictators. We'll just be moving from one brand of resource dictators to another, with the wars that follow.
Anonymous (October 24, 2007 @ 10:53am):
"We'll just be moving from one brand of resource dictators to another, with the wars that follow."
That's unlikely if we embrace breeder and pebble bed reactors.
Anonymous (October 25, 2007 @ 12:33pm):
Answer to: Don't we need uranium to fuel cheap, clean nuclear power?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) 2003 study and a 2004 University of Chicago study concurred that nuclear power is much more expensive than natural gas or coal for electrical production (MIT's estimated cost of electricity for coal was 4.2kWh/ natural gas 3.8-5.6 kWh/nuclear power 6.7kWh). The MIT study concluded "The potential impact on the public from safety or waste management failure and the link to nuclear explosives technology are unique to nuclear energy among energy supply options. These characteristics and the fact that nuclear is more costly, make it impossible today to make a credible case for the immediate expanded use of nuclear power."
Brice Smith's book "Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of Using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change" (http://www.ieer.org/reports/insurmountablerisks/bricestmt.html) offers facts, figures, reports, and studies that show uranium and its radiation cannot be an answer to greenhouse gas reduction. In addition, for all the potential dangers nuclear energy will expose us to, it will have little effect on global climate stabilization.
Peter Bradford, a former Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reports that, even if we were to triple today's worldwide nuclear capacity, it would only be equivalent to one third of what we can currently do to decrease greenhouse gas omission through energy efficiency and conservation. (See the nuclear power debate between Bradford, Patrick Moore, and Jim Riccio of Greenpeace USA at http://www.nirs.org/videodebate.htm)
Dr. Helen Caldicott writes in her book Nuclear Power is Not the Answer on page viii: "Nuclear power is not "clean and green," as the industry claims, because large amounts of traditional fossil fuels are required to mine and refine the uranium needed to run nuclear power reactors, to construct the massive concrete reactor buildings, and to transport and store the toxic radioactive waste created by the nuclear process. Burning of this fossil fuel emits significant quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2)-- the primary "greenhouse gas"- into the atmosphere. In addition, large amounts of the now-banned chlorofluorocarbon (as CFC gas) are emitted during the enrichment of uranium. CFC gas is not only 10,000 10 20,000 times more efficient as an atmospheric heat trapper ("greenhouse gas") than CO2, but it is a classic "pollutant" and a potent destroyer of the ozone layer."
Jim Blair (March 26, 2008 @ 3:07pm):
Anonymous (October 25, 2007 @ 12:33pm) says:
"Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) 2003 study and a 2004 University of Chicago study concurred that nuclear power is much more expensive than natural gas or coal for electrical production (MIT's estimated cost of electricity for coal was 4.2kWh/ natural gas 3.8-5.6 kWh/nuclear power 6.7kWh)."
Hi,
In deriving those figures, how much was added to the cost of coal and natural gas to compensate for the CO2 they emit? That is, how much do they think climate change will cost?
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