Nuclear energy makes a comeback 15 April 05

Like most people with a humanities background, I am awed by the specialist hard science backround required – say the proponents of nuclear power – to understand the issues. I’m cautiously convinced by the safety record of the power stations. What I am not convinced about is the safe disposal of the waste from the power generation process. If this has to be stored in a secure place, with armed guards, constant monitoring to avoid overheating, free from earthquake risk and free of the possibility of human error for over half a million years, then – whatever the benefits – I believe we can and should learn to rub along without it.

I have other problems too, but I’d like to know the answer to this one first. Any engineers out there?

to miners & the land. Mnay years ago I read that Navajo miners had 85 times the cancer rate of the general population. I’m sure the unethical practices of sending them in without adequate protective gear has ended.

I read about 15 years ago that uranium mining in Niger was harming subsistance lands of pastoralists and farmers who are too poor to even have electricity.

There are probably other horror stories, as well. Problem is we rich people are like elephants stepping on ants & not even aware of it most of the time. A lot of people would just rail against this kind of information, refuse to consider it true, and ignore the problems. That’s what I did when I was age 5. My teacher accused me of stepping on a kid’s toy and crushing it. Since I didn’t see myself do it, I totally denied it. Years later I realized that I probably did crush it.

We need to get beyond that 5 year old phase and start solving problems.

Why don’t we go for the other alternatives first (wind, solar, geothermal, co-generation, conservation/efficiency, etc.), then 20 years from now if we feel we need nuclear we can look into how we can do it safely for all people involved.

I am an engineer and I favor a nuclear power plant over a coal power plant unless the carbon dioxide from the coal power plant is sequestered. Why?

Climate Issues:

A coal power plant can burn a train-car load of coal every minute and all the emissions of mercury, sulfates, and carbon dioxide go directly into the air. The carbon buildup can increase planet warming while the sulfates mask it through planet cooling and mercury can make ocean fish so toxic that even the vast waters of the ocean cannot sufficiently dilute it. Since the carbon buildup is offset by the sulfate cooling, we create a situation whereby we may have to live with sulfate pollution simply to keep the planet from warming more.

I call it the “coal trap” and the effect of contrails may be the “plane trap” whereby we have to keep flying to make contrails in order to keep the planet from not warming more with reduced global dimming.

More Good News about Nuclear Power Plant Safety:

Nuclear-power plant designs have been ingeniously improved with the pebble-bed reactor concept. This idea has made it impossible for a meltdown to occur from human error. It does this by not being able to develop meltdown temperatures even when coolant is not present.

This ingenious concept was developed in part to answer the human error that led to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Engineers cannot hide their mistakes. When one occurs at this level, there is a natural tendency among professionals to solve problems that led to a disaster from ever happening again.

In retrospect, Three Mile Island did not become a Chernobyl since the containment building was designed adequately to contain any meltdown pressures which could have developed. Although a big expensive mess, Three Mile Island would have been much worse if it was designed like Chernobyl. On that respect, good engineering mitigated that problem. We could have done better, and now we have better ideas.

Nuclear Waste Issue:

In contrast to smokestack emissions, nuclear power plants produce waste which is already sequestered in that it is not placed directly into the air. The problem with coal power plants is that we have to contain the emissions and this has not yet been perfected. Granted that radioactive wastes are much more dangerous and long-term storage presents risks, but at least these wastes are contained from the very beginning.

The real issue is that if nuclear power can help prevent catastrophic climate change, then I say proceed with caution and be prudent and leave the nuclear waste issue to the 22nd century. It is our primary responsibility of the 21st century to provide a stable planet and climate and we already have our hands full so I say that if we do this, then I have confidence in the people of the 22nd century to solve the long-term waste issue in ways we cannot even imagine.

In that regard, I may give a hint of a concept which may help. Conversion of any waste material to solid form would make it difficult for that waste to leak as either a fluid or a gas. Solids simply stay where they are placed.

Nuclear Security Issue:

The security issues warrants special attention but this should be within our reach at some level to provide a solution which is protection from our own species. I so often think that we do not have a “climate problem” so much as we have a “human problem”. Protecting us from us is a great challenge since our ingenuity can be used for good as well as evil purposes.

To best answer this question, I have to resort to a simple belief system which incorporates the concepts of faith, confidence, and courage. For me, we have to have faith that the good guys are smarter than the bad guys. I believe this is true because the bad guys already have a flawed brain. With that said, I have confidence that we can create cost effective security measures and systems and when it comes to making decisions about securing our climate. Finally, I think we should have the courage not to let the bad guys dictate to the good people, through fear and intimidation, to not act prudently to protect our climate and provide electricity through a safe nuclear option if that is what we think we need to do.

With or without nuclear power plants, we may still have to deal with some form of terrorism. Our best bet to eliminate terrorism is to eliminate the root causes by eliminating anything that creates an evil mind bent on mass destruction to begin with. My contention on eliminating the root causes is that once an evil mind is created, it is more difficult and costly to prevent them from committing terrorist acts especially when intelligence and financial backing are present.

In the long run, such a mind may be impossible to completely contain in a free unencumbered society. How we deal with this issue is beyond my scope of expertise and this blog site. I only know that if we do not have capable people focused on destructive acts, then our problem is solved. If we can do it without involving military, then we can eliminate the need for military expenditures and use the financial capital to protect the planet and develop a sustainable infrastructure instead.

We have to somehow transcend the dark side of our nature!

Being Pragmatic:

We already have a long-term nuclear waste problem to deal with or without more power plants built. Would more additional nuclear waste warrant much more of a security risk and storage issue than the wastes already accumulated? This may be why a more pragmatic attitude toward nuclear options is justified.

In addition, we already have many older nuclear power plants operating and should we replace them with coal power plants instead? I do not think so if we wish to control carbon dioxide. In fact, if it were not for our existing nuclear power plants, our carbon buildup would be worse right now so in this instance, nuclear power has already bought us some time when our climate science was developing and continues to develop today.

Regardless of our opinions about nuclear energy, we will still need a viable nuclear industry for years to come. Our older power plants have to be watched carefully. New power plants should be built using more advanced and safer designs (which also can help the economics) and we still will have to deal with the waste storage issue.

A breakthrough in clean nuclear fusion or some other unknown nuclear discovery is still possible and if a nuclear scientist or nuclear engineer discovers something helpful, then our whole world paradigm can change in an instant.

Best Regards,

Dan

Instead of turning the economy around to renewables, effeciencies, elimiating waste and closing the loop, we continue as if our profligate energy needs shouldn’t change.

Risks be damned! Full speed ahead with whatever energy keeps the train going!

Sad that we can disparage pigeons for fouling their nests…

D

what if we dont control our energy use; if the 3rd world doesnt leapfrog our dirty energy sources; if energy use (and consequent GHG emissions) continues to rise???

I am afraid to say that the above are not actually “if”s, they are the most likely`s. Its no good hoping things will change when there is no evidence to suggest that they will.

Renewables will have there time, hopefully before fossil fuels run out, but either way, it wont be that soon.

Isnt it only resposible to dodge each bullet as it comes along? deal with GHGs, & then nuclear waste later?

The economics of energy supply are fast changing. Oil prices are rising, and almost certainly wont come down in the medium term (bar an economic shock), this is making nuclear more feasible (and by the way renewables too). Nuclear can harness the demand, renewables cant (in the short term).

It is truly depressing, when I (who preceive nuclear as generationally unfair, and a backward step), have to admit that it might be a necessary short term “evil”.

regards Brendon

It is not a matter of being for or against nuclear energy but what viable options we really have to reduce carbon dioxide buildup and provide electricity.

I am always in favor of reduced electric demand preventing the need for a new power plant and I support most any measure to achieve that as the best path to take when possible. So I agree with Dano’s assessment as well.

In my assessment posted previously, I made a comment about both our past and existing nuclear power plants as already preventing carbon dioxide buildup. This is an important fact worthy of further exploration to aid our collective insight.

So, a relevant question which came up in my mind this morning was:

What would our current carbon dioxide buildup be today if all nuclear power plants both past and present were coal power plants instead?

France produces up to 60% of its grid by nuclear (not the 78% claimed by the BBC), and over 15% by hydro and renewables (mostly hydro tho). (http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/Cli_cou_250.pdf)

French emissions are 2.5 mmtce/million people, compared with the uk – 3.25, and Canada 6. (USA 6.6).(http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/globalwarmingemissions.htm)

Nuclear power has meant that france does not have to reduce GHGs from below 1990 levels, (set at kyoto & agreed under the EU burden sharing scheme- as is incorrectly ingnored by many commentators). (http://www.iea.org/textbase/nptable/Kyoto%20Targets%20and%20Trends%20in%20CO2%20Emissions.pdf)

Frances emissions problems arise from transport & home heating (47% of total emissions), this could threaten its Kyoto compliance.

But France does show that a G8 economy, with profligate energy use, can operate its grid without emitting dangerous amounts of GHGs, but only by commiting itself to nuclear power.

Does this mean that, if we can be reconciled with the nuclear waste issue, that nuclear provision becomes a stop-gap imperative?

Yes.

Dodging each bullet as it comes along is fine if your time scale is seconds or minutes. But the decay rate of life-destroying nuclear waste extends hundreds of thousands of years into the future. There is no way even the best precautions we can imagine can be guaranteed more than a few years into the future.

It’s only 150 years ago that Americans were killing each other in their thousands in their civil war, in England it was 400 years ago and it was only 60 years ago in Europe. And they are the most secure and predictable polities on the planet. That’s how unstable human societies are and shows how unlikely it is that disposal arrangements will ever be other than very high risk.

There is no indication at all that there is any alternative technology which will remove the threat of radioactivity; that’s why the US is planning this foolhardy Yucca Mountain site. No one is saying “we don’t need Yucca Mountain because we’re on the verge of discovering a safe disposal method”.

All the other risks of nuclear power are insignificant compared to this. Even the nuclear plants we have now should be closed down immediately.

If you prefer to focus on shorter-term risks, think about the insidious effect having more nuclear power plants would have on the public attitude to nuclear weapons. The dreaded ‘nuclear winter’ would loom again as a likely reality.

I’m with Lynn and Dano on this one, only I’m even more concerned than they are.

Nuclear power is not an imperative at all. Dano and Lynn (see above) have pointed to the only imperative.

Just because it is hard to imagine that we need to cut back massively and promptly on our energy use and that when we do try to imagine it it seems uncomfortable is no excuse for sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that the risks will go way.

This is tough stuff!

Just a few questions: Does anyone know how the efficieny of wind energy compares with the production of nuclear energy? and How quickly could nuclear power plants be constructed in various countries (hopelessly vague, sorry!)? Does nuclear power really have the potential to help us reduce GHG emissions quickly?

Cheers

Keith, Brendon qualified his stop-gap statement when he first said:

“if we can be reconciled with the nuclear waste issue, ...”

Keith, what both Brendon and I are doing (especially me) is to analyze the situation objectively with full concern toward the waste issue.

This is a multi-dimensional analysis. Brendon and I are focused on one dimension at the moment which is the carbon reduction benefits while you are focused on the waste liability issue which is another dimension.

All dimensions are important and relevant to this discussion so I agree with you, Lynn, and Dano. I am sure Brendon does as well.

If you re-read both my posts and Brendon’s, it is apparent that we are not sticking our heads in the sand at all in this discussion.

With that said, what are the details of your thoughts to address both the nuclear problem and the GW/CC problem?

Best,

Dan

Tara,

If you want to read a positive guide to renewable energy, including wind power, I can recommend this book/manual:

Renewable Energy : Power for a Sustainable Future, ed Godfrey Boyle (2004) OUP.

There are a lot of myths about wind-power. Although there are many technical challenges, based on this book I do believe that wind-power could provide a substantial amount of the energy we need.

The economics are very different to fossil fuels – but if we were to develop wind-power on a large scale, the price of the energy from wind power, over the longer term looks competitive.

The problem of nuclear waste, and the impact on civil society make me wary of nuclear power.

Back in 1983, whilst at university, I did a study on nuclear power, and I came to thee conclusion that it was a very dangerous way for us to develop our power sources. But students are usually pretty opinionated!! I have mellowed since then, but still think we ought to develop renewables more.

BTW, I would recommend this source:

Sir B. Flowers (1976) “Nuclear Power and the Environment”, Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution”, September 1976

In it he writes:

“The build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels … could yet provide a powerful argument for nuclear development” (Para 510)

A very far-sighted comment! Not only from his recognition that CO2 might be considered a pollutant in future – but it also recognises that our perception of what constitutes a pollutant is constantly changing. I think a key implication is that we need to be pragmatic about these things.

I am fully supportative of energy efficiency, it is an area I have researched, and know that there is significant “low hanging fruit” to make an impact in the west. But its prospects are limited by the natural selfishness of people, they will always be more preoccupied with getting on with their lives (which now a days means using alot of energy).

Politicians will not impose mandatory restraints on domestic usage, or transport, dont waste time talking about how they “should” because they wont! Fact. They are happy to try with business, but business emissions now count as the least significant sector, and shrinking, unlike domestic and transport.

Politicians operate on short political timescales, and feed off votes. GW gets relegated to the bottom of the list.

I believe that GW poses imediate, possible calamitous consequences for the environment, and society, perhaps. Nuclear waste doesnot. It does pose serious inter generational issues of equity and cost, and of course health.

I work on the basis therefore, that something HAS to be done now about GW, and it has to be affordable, and politically feasible. I am not committed to nuclear, god no! but I can see it as buying much needed time, until hydrogen technology/renewable power can fill the void.

I am not 100% decided either, because the R & D of renewables is moving so fast now, that they could become feasible sooner than all are predicting.

My fingers are crossed.

My apologies for not being clearer, Dan. I understood Brendon’s and your points, but I was also writing for others who might drop in to this site and read a post or two, not only those who were familiar with this thread.

It didn’t enter my mind that YOUR heads were in the sand!

Are you familiar with the “End of Environmentalism” debate? It’s received quite a bit of publicity and online comment on Grist:

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-intro/

The authors of the original paper suggest – among other things – that our environmental problems are, at root, problems of values and priorities, rather than about choices between competing technological approaches. My own values are such that I see the present standard of living of Western societies as destructive of communities, nations, regions and individuals (as well as being having physical effects like pollution etc.). Biodiversity destruction is a physical effect which also has social and psychological dimensions.

My take on “the end of environmentalism” debate is that arguing for one fix over another (nuclear over coal, wind over hydro, solar over oil etc.) can be a distraction from the bigger question of whether all this energy burning is necessary or even desireable. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, with a population of 5-10 million, had few social disparities and used about two Human Energy Equivalents per head. In the 21st century, we have massive disparities and each consume about 100 HEEs. If we follow the Dano and Lynn models (mine too), we will cut right back on the HEEs and, I would reckon, be better off. Neither oil, nor coal, nor nuclear need to be a threat if we used only what we needed, not what we desired.

So, yes, we are on the same page: global warming is a massive threat. Underlying this is our gross disregard for humanity’s place in nature. Going nuclear (and today China declared it will be building 40 nuclear power stations to feed its economic growth – which itself is designed to feed the appetite for cheap goods in your country and mine) is an alternative to burning oil or coal, but it’s not an alternative to the underlying attitudes and values which will, inevitably, have massive – and largely unforeseen – downsides whichever technological fix is adopted. If we all lived like the Amish, there wouldn’t be a problem of anthropogenic climate change!

Hi Keith,

Add population growth to the mix of complexity. As you said, “Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, with a population of 5-10 million” did quite well. Is it possible to return to this with today’s growing world population? If so, then how do we do this?

Interestingly, I see your points clearly and agree with them as passionately as I can. I also find no disagreement with Brendon’s recent post either.

So, with that said, every line in this metaphorical book must be written and read as we each write each part of it. Not only is this a large and complex book but it is also a complex puzzle. It is a puzzle of many pieces and we all may see a different picture in completing it with no picture being incorrect.

Agreed, we are all on the same team, same page, and same book. Leave out a line and we fail, my friend.

Every line is important and even the current focus on understanding nuclear is critical since those power plants most likely will be built no matter what you, Brendon, or I may think, say, or do.

The one area I do not see you post enough about is how to achieve what you say we must become. Even your focus on nuclear waste provides no detail. What wastes?, What is the volume? In what forms are these wastes, (ie Solid, liquid, Gas?). What is the radioactivity?, the danger?, the half life? the economics?, etc?

Without specifics, I cannot help write your line for you. I tend to look at benefits first before looking at the liabilities. I tend to work on one line at a time.

On that note, I am so delighted that those power plants in China are at least nuclear. Why? At least they are not coal power plants and if they were, then about 30 train-car loads of coal would be burned every minute. I wonder what our emissions would look like then.

If you have a plan to stop China from building those nuclear power plants instead, I would love to hear about it.

In the meantime, I need to get back to my line since the original question I posted needs an answer.

I suggest that you spend some detail addressing how we can secure nuclear wastes. Even if we could make every nuclear power plant go off line right now, we still have a waste problem.

Brendon used the world reality. I think this is an important word and even though I find value in being an optimist, I always have to embrace reality.

Optimists want to win! Pessimists already have embraced failure. If we win, it will be from a combination of optimism and reality. We can also add courage add determination which will defeat our anxieties and fears.

Mark demonstrates great courage from his convictions and this is why we are all here discussing these issues. I admire greatly Mark’s unshakable courage and determination.

You articulate so correctly, it is our values that truly matter. I have always said that we do not have a climate problem. We have a human problem. Different line! Same book! Same message!

Peace my friend,

Dan

A fix would be desireable and I think you are right that something has to be done. In fact many things have to be done it appears.

Any thought of forming a smaller focus group off the blog site?

Please email Mark your interest in doing this. We can have a dialogue as a small splinter group and post our final results as a team.

In this way we solve a problem in having a complete analysis done so others who visit this site will get a balanced representation as Keith, I think, is concerned about what may appear to be a pro-nuclear focus when it is merely a discussion about a line of reasoning without the entire paragraph completed yet.

I would be happy if you thought this was a good idea and hope I hear from you. More direct dialogue between qualified people in the UK and USA, in particular, would be beneficial and productive plus encouraging.

Best, Dan

Hi Keith

Just wanted you to be aware that I agree with your idea about what the root cause is.

I am biocentric. Confirmed. Humans have no rights over the planet, or even other species. Unfortunately my “journey” has led to me to one (as Dan might say!) pessimistic conclusion, but also many other very optimistic ones.

The pessimistic one is based on the dualistic nature of man, both ugly & beautiful. The ugly side is destroying our planet. My understanding of politics leads me to beleive that no major social shifts are going to happen, communism & other ideologies failed because they only saw what they wanted man to be, ignoring what he is.

I believe we should learn to accept this, and accept that in the medium term, this strange materialistic celebtocracy is gonna continue. I am committed to understanding how, under such circumstances, GW can be mitigated, or reduced in impact.

While I like the idea of a needs based society, my knowledge of history can not come up with one example of a succesful society based upon such rules (for they would have to be rules, to actually be implemented). I see ideology as dangerous, frequently inflexible and rarely workable.

This is where my optimism creeps in. Technological developments could get us out of trouble, I see nothing wrong with a society, using vast amounts of clean energy. Energy is not evil, it powers hospitals, transports the old and infirm, safely and comfortably. It prevents huge amounts of desease and provides us with plentiful, fresh and affordable food, something which was not necessarily available to the poor in previous societies.

I want a clean energy source. I dont want to live in a society like hunter gatherers had to, where infant mortality and food shortage were every day threats.

Finally, the book you cited, claims “our environmental problems are, at root, problems of values and priorities, rather than about choices between competing technological approaches”. That is a qualitative assessment. Our environmental problems are in effect caused by the technologies we use, and GW could be mitigated by changing them. That is my interest. I am not trying to change, or judge the world, GW is a hot enough potato for me!!

cheers for now

Brendon

I am concerned that my postings dont fit in with the anti-nuclear consensus, and am being moved offline as a result- just being paranoid!!

I like the idea of assessing the benefits of a nuclear GW solution compared to the downsides of the waste issue. I worked with a group in Japan, trying to derail japans nuclear storage plans, I might be able to contact them and get some interesting data.

But I think your question; “What would our current carbon dioxide buildup be today if all nuclear power plants both past and present were coal power plants instead?” does infact need to be answered, as it could shed light on what nuclear has delivered so far, if much atall (from an atmospheric perspective), it has certainly been a very financially costly way to produce energy!

Regards Brendon

Just did a Google and found this letter. This idea seems interesting but there may be better ones.

I have no comment for or against this idea at the moment but to share that there are people working on this problem developing unique solution concepts.

This waste disposal is subpart to a more thorough analysis and discussion of this entire subject (nuclear) before we leave it prematurely. Letter below:

Roy F. Schall, Jr., Ph.D. Glendora CA Fax: (626) 914-0241

January 3, 2002

To Whom It May Concern:

I, Roy F. Schall, Jr., Ph.D., former director of research for clinical and diagnostic instruments and reagents and holder of an earned Doctorate in Nuclear Chemistry (1969) from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, have witnessed and evaluated a method for disposal of highly radioactive waste designed and in development by Dean S. Engelhardt of Los Angeles CA. The method involves encapsulating this extremely dangerous waste in a stainless steel vessel of special design. The filled capsule is then dropped into the mud at a tectonic plate subduction zone of the earth’s crust where in a short geological time it will be drifted with the continental plate under the crust of the earth where its chemical and radiological toxicities will lie harmless for the ages.

I consider this idea to be an excellent method of disposal for these dangerous byproducts of nuclear fission. The depths of water where continental plate subduction occurs is so great that retrieval by man would be most difficult and expensive once the capsule has been dropped or lowered. Once the capsule is embedded into the mud at the bottom of the ocean, it will sink slowly further into the mud making it harder to retrieve. The capsule or vessel itself is of novel design and will compress and strengthen as pressure rises around it at great water depth. In time, movement of the subducting crust will sweep along the capsule underneath a continental plate where it will become impossible to retrieve and safe from accidental or intentional retrieval. Use of salt water resistant materials for the capsule will ensure that corrosion will not release the contained waste until it is finally buried where it can do no harm.

This method seems a practical, safe and inexpensive method for high level, long lived radioactive waste disposal when compared to current methods being contemplated and developed.

Witnessed and signed this 3rd day of January, 2002 in Glendora CA:

Roy F. Schall, Jr., Ph.D.

OK This is the original Question I posted and desire it to be the first focus of this nuclear analysis concerning GW/CC. Following is a methodology which may help answer this question and it would be nice if others jump in who wish to take this discussion to a more useful problem solving focus:

“What would our current carbon dioxide buildup be today if all nuclear power plants both past and present were coal power plants instead?”

1. What is the total sum of electrical energy generated to date from all nuclear power plants based on the generating capacities in megawatts and length of service of each plant?

2. What would be the tons of coal consumed to produce the same amount of electricity calculated in step 1

3. What would be the carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of all that coal if all those nuclear plants were coal power plants instead?

4. What would the total concentration of carbon dioxide be in the atmosphere if all this carbon dioxide were added to our current carbon dioxide buildup assuming that all this extra carbon dioxide would be added to our current buildup and be equally distributed in our atmosphere?

Until we have a total blueprint regarding GW/CC issues, we need to more fully explore solutions. With regard to nuclear, should we build more power plants? This is already occurring. If not, will we replace all existing nuclear power plants and with what? Should we find a way to not need electricity? Can we find a way to increase efficiency and/or generate enough electricity through renewable means?

In order to provide a “non-nuclear solution”, the answer to this my original question exploring what nuclear does to help our carbon budget would be helpful because it also concerns climate.

Since coal and gas power plants are, for the moment, our viable alternatives to nuclear power plants, we have to go there first. My “belief” is that based on those 2 options, I would favor nuclear because of GW/CC concerns. Now, let us answer the question.

Best,

Dan

I did a Google on Pebble Bed Reactors:

http://www.pharmaciaretirees.com/pebble_bed_reactors.htm

I think this unique concept of generating nuclear power has merit. It is called a Pebble Bed Reactor. It seems to effectively eliminate the problems that created both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. This is relevant and important in this discussion because these were the major problems from the past we never want to happen again.

My intent in these posts is for all of us to develop a better working knowledge of this issue (nuclear) before we leave it prematurely and to do this without being for or against anything but to be more concerned about the prevention of catastrophic climate change and understand more fully ALL our viable options in terms of benefits, risks, economics, and liabilities.

In order to compare nuclear energy with renewable energy and other good ideas, it is prudent that we learn more about nuclear with an objective, pragmatic, and open mind.

The answer to your question about the potential carbon-reduction benefits from nuclear power. Yes, they are very significant and very relevant and important to this discussion.

My first goal is to help answer this nuclear question by comparing nuclear to coal/gas power plants first. If you think you can help, I recently posted a methodology to aid this comparison by asking what nuclear power has already done to help mitigate GW/CC.

Also, with respect to wind energy, it is also an alternative to coal/gas power plants and like nuclear power, wind produces no greenhouse gases. I also did an assessment on wind power under Mark’s blog on the subject that you may find helpful.

I think that a valid comparison would be the potential availability of wind power as a competing power source to coal and gas power plants. The reason for this is that with regard to reducing greenhouse gases, both wind energy and nuclear energy have merits. However, wind energy is as clean a source of energy as it comes and therefore is much superior to nuclear with all its environmental risks.

With respect to the comparison of wind energy to nuclear energy, it may be that the availability of energy to generate electricity is the more important question than the current economics.

How much wind energy is available for electric production to offset the coal and gas power plants which emit greenhouse gases?

Is there enough wind energy to also offset the nuclear power plants or would we have to find ways to use less electricity or use it more efficiently?

These questions also affect any decisions made to use or not use nuclear power to generate electricity.

Wind energy is geographical and the UK appears to be a place where wind energy has a high potential for further development.

A much more complex and even much less important aspect of wind energy at this time may be if a changing climate will change the available wind energy from a shift in weather patterns. Hopefully, we will not have to even bother answering that question if we get GW/CC under control!

Tara, continue to ask good questions!

GW/CC is a multi-dimensional problem and the viable solutions seem about as complex as climate science itself.

Best Wishes,

Dan

I mentioned in my 18 April post the announcement last weekend that the Chinese were to build 40 nuclear power stations. I have been aware of China’s problems for some time, and Mark’s High Tide brought home the reality of it at the individual level.

Recently China’s deputy environment minister spoke out. Here are three extracts – they could almost be updates to Mark’s account:

“Cities are growing but desert areas are expanding at the same time; in these fifty years, habitable and usable land has been halved.”

“This miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. Five of the ten most polluted cities worldwide are in China; acid rain is falling on one third of our territory; half of the water in China’s seven largest rivers is completely useless; a quarter of our citizens lack access to clean drinking water; a third of the urban population is breathing polluted air; less than a fifth of the rubbish in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable manner.”

“In the future, we will need to resettle 186 million residents from twenty-two provinces and cities. However, the remaining provinces and cities are able to absorb only 33 million people. China, in short, will have more than 150 million ecological migrants, or, if you like, environmental refugees.”

The full interview is at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-83-2407.jsp#

Today’s news is that some golf game in Beijing has been disrupted by unseasonable winds. Trivial in itself, but what does it presage for the Olympics in 2008?

Dan, You wrote: ’ Even your focus on nuclear waste provides no detail. What wastes?, What is the volume? In what forms are these wastes, (ie solid, liquid, gas?). What is the radioactivity?, the danger?, the half life? the economics?”

I had no detail, because I was asking the same questions you are. Now here is a recent article that provides us with some of the data we were both looking for:

http://www.energybulletin.net/5595.html

The article is by Helen Caldicott, who’s been researching, writing and campaigning on nuclear weapons and nuclear war for a generation.

Keith

you’ve given me a bit to think about and some ideas on what to read about, so thanks. thought that george monbiot had a few interesting things to say this week in his column. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1470427,00.html

Good article Tara!

I wish you well in your reading. Many complex issues!

Sometimes there are other options other than either a wind solution or a nuclear one and that one may be augmenting the wind energy with a smaller gas power plant and using the waste heat for an industry which needs it.

This is called Cogeneration. If an industry can be found suitable for this, then some of the coal or gas used for the industrial heat could be used to produce electricity and the waste heat from generating the electricity would be used for that industrial purpose instead.

Power plants are less than 40 percent efficient in creating electricity with over 60 percent going to waste heat. If two thirds of the waste heat from the power plant were used to offset the fuel used for the industrial purpose, then 40 percent of the energy will go toward electricity and 40 percent of the energy in the form of waste heat will go to the industrial process. This could be space heating for buildings or homes.

If the original fuel for the industrial process was natural gas then, the total natural gas used would double as well as the emissions. If the power plant waste heat was not utilized, then the energy would triple as well as the emissions. So, if cogeneration were used instead of a stand alone power plant, it could save as much as a third of the fuel energy and reduce the emissions by the same.

However, if the original fuel used for the industrial purpose was coal, this situation changes on emissions. Since coal produces twice the carbon dioxide as natural gas for the same heat output, then under the same scenario, the heat energy would double but with 50 percent less carbon dioxide because of the change in fuel. This means that the carbon dioxide emissions would remain essentially the same and not increase.

Please note that an assumption was used in this simple calculation in that the energy needed by the industry would match closely to the waste heat output of the gas-fired power plant built. A gas power plant can be over-sized with less of the waste heat energy used.

If the waste heat were going to heat buildings in the winter, then it would be useful to use this same waste heat for cooling in the summer months. If an absorption cooling system was built, then the summer cooling of these same buildings could utilize the waste-heat energy. In this manner the full benefit of the waste heat can be utilized year round. Any waste-heat energy used for cooling helps reduce peak electric loads in the summer which would help any wind-powered system.

Another option which could be used in conjunction is to reduce the electric use of the end users by increasing the energy efficiency by having every home and “flat” use energy-efficient appliances and energy-efficient lighting. This would lower overall demand on the wind farm generated electricity. This could be done by offering discounts on energy-efficient lighting and energy-efficient appliances and charging the consumer a monthly fee until the lighting and the appliances are fully paid. Interestingly, the monthly payments would be offset by the energy savings on electrical use negating any financial burden to the consumers. This would be a part of the capital investment of the wind utility instead of investing in more wind generators.

Compared to the tremendous capital investment of a nuclear power plant, the combination of the wind farm, natural gas cogeneration power plant, and increased energy efficiency of the end users would make the wind farm energy more viable to provide baseline electricity and the gas-fired power plant would help with peak loads. Plus, a lot of people would get new energy-efficient appliances and lighting paid for by the energy savings while the utility recoups some of that capital investment from the consumer.

Just some more thoughts! It all depends on the specifics. Since I do not know the specifics, I cannot really know how relevant some of my ideas mentioned here really are.

But quite often, we have more than two options. Sometimes, a third option which is not discussed is the one we should follow. It requires people to get creative and think outside the box so to speak.

Best Wishes,

Dan

I had an almost identical conversation on realclimate on this subject:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=131#comments

see post 23 and related comments.

it’s good to know that someone with a relevant scientific background is thinking seriously about this.

The real problem with all kinds of energy generating plant, even renewables, is that you have to construct them using raw materials and energy in the first place. As the availability and cost of fossil fuel energy increases, the cost of extracting oil, coal, methane, uranium etc. climbs rapidly as does the cost of buidling and maintaining generating plant. We HAVE to get overall energy consumption down below a level where the amount we consume for daily living (our energy revenue expenditure) leaves enough over to put into an energy ‘capital depreciation fund’( converted to battery storage, liquid or gaseous fuels, or as kinetic energy e.g. pumped storage) for when we need to repair or replace the generating plant. For the last 150 years or so, we have been drawing our energy ‘capital fund’ to live on. This cannot go on: the analogy with a pension is appropriate. If you mortgage your house when you retire and stop working for a living, in order to live a comfortable lifestyle, what happens if your capital runs out before you die and the interest won’t meet your bills? answer: you die in the gutter and there’s nothing left for your kids.

Now , if we had to, there is a lot that could be done in a very low-tech manner: most of Britain’s canal and rail network was built in the period 1800-1875 largely using human labour with picks & shovels, but let’s hope we don’t have to go back to that level. When you read Natural Capitalism, you will see the examples of how we can actually move to a good, sustainable standard of living on probably 10% of the energy and resource consumption we use now; provided we make the transition in good time. We have already left it too late for an orderly, painless transition, and every day that goes by brings us closer to a global crash yet the politicians and those involved in the global capitalist system just go on denying it all. There are tough times ahead: we haven’t seen starvation in Western countries for over 100 years, but we could do again, in our lifetimes.

I am convinced that we will survive this ‘tribulation ’ that is coming but it will require the rapid development of a new way of working and I feel strongly that a network of much smaller community-based structures which exchange good practice, trade, resource-share and co-operate will be the only model that will help us to survive into a stable, rather than a growth-based way of living. The role of people in communities; Civil society as it is known will have to come to the fore as large-scale government will no longer have the backing of global capital to sustain it.

we live, as the Chinese curse goes, in interesting times.

All the best

Colin

It seems that if I am ever to be able to help my own country, I would benefit by going to the UK one day and meeting you in person.

It may never happen but in reading your posts, I know that you have a special awareness. I have never been outside the USA and so I have not had the benefit of experiencing another culture.

Your talk of communities is interesting and in our independent lifestyle and car culture, we do not always form cohesive communities. It is not uncommon for Americans not to even know their next door neighbors (even their names).

Since we are so mobile, our friendships and associations can be further away from where we live. I am assuming it is better in the UK but I do not know.

I feel I am already part of this website blog community and I have no where else to go at the moment to discuss these issues at this level.

Hopefully we will not see starvation in western countries and even a reduction of starvation in non-western countries. Your age-old wisdom may be better than my blind optimism. I am convinced like you that we will survive this ‘tribulation ’ and even be better for it in the end.

I would like it if we established private email communication. Maybe we could work on some projects together. Having a permanent contact in the USA may be of value to you because helping the USA through people like me may be good for Wales and the UK.

The global issues we face make national boundaries obsolete. Contact Mark for my personal email address if this interests you. In any event, our correspondence could involve a better flow of useful information and analysis utilizing databases and spreadsheets.

All the Best Colin! If I could ever help you in any way, it would my pleasure and honor to do so. I will be reading Natural Capitalism over the next week. I just started it.

Again, always the very best,

Dan

I am so glad you posted this article Keith because it does address the dangers from nuclear wastes.

What is even more relevant with concern to GW/CC issues is the carbon dioxide used from the fossil fuels required to build a nuclear power plant and the processing of uranium creates even more carbon dioxide from fuel use for transportation and electricity use if it comes form fossil fuels. So, when the total carbon benefit profile from nuclear energy is assessed properly, then these carbon liabilities must be accounted for.

Also, your article brings to light the importance of addressing the hidden energy and total carbon emissions from all energy industries from oil wells and coal mining to even the manufacturing of wind turbines.

When it comes to a proper carbon analysis, all carbon associated with an industry should be brought to light. This is a helpful point the article made which can be and should be more broadly applied to everything.

I do find myself in complete agreement with the article you posted which was promoting a well balanced approach to education of all aspects of nuclear energy.

Nuclear waste is the most hideous of all forms of waste and pollution and we must have the ability to insure its containment or nuclear energy should not be promoted. No argument there!

I would never favor embracing the nuclear option wholeheartedly and in that sense I am not pro-nuclear at all. In the effort to address climate issues, all nuclear options must be weighed very carefully and that includes nuclear power plants already in operation and if and when they can be taken off line.

Somewhere there is a proper balance in preventing climate change and addressing our nuclear issues. My only point is that we cannot avoid the cost/risk/benefit analysis of it when addressing climate or energy issues and especially when it comes to carbon accounting.

In that regard, I do not see anything about the issue I find I disagree with you on. It is important and I am glad you brought the nuclear toxicity issues to light. I was hoping you or someone else would do that because my focus on carbon benefits was one sided. Part of my focus was to draw the other aspects of the issue in since I know little about it. A balanced discussion is all I was after but you know that.

In that light, I really like wind energy and other renewables. But wind energy, in particular, has a nostalgic feel to it with me like the modern version of the old windmills of the past. For me it is a technological combination of the old and the new at a time when we had little use for fossil fuels.

Colin posted some sites with photos of people having a picnic watching the raising of a wind turbine. A nuclear power plant would not promote people having a picnic during its construction phases. Maybe protesters!

You may like to find Colin’s posts and check out the photos at the websites he listed on wind energy. I already responded to him about them and you may find something there of interest in our discussion.

I would be in favor of a plan which eliminated nuclear but not sacrificing the climate in the process. Maybe we can do that!

Hard facts about nuclear! Hard facts about climate! Hard facts about Energy!

One thing is for certain; our future is full of Hard Choices!

All the very best Keith!

Dan

There is a lot of information here and I have tried to present it in a way that enables you to skim through it easily.

I have arranged the information under three sections (marked by a string of asterisks)

1. The case for energy efficiency rather than nuclear energy

2. Practicalities, opportunity costs and economics

3. Nuclear wastes

The main references are at the foot of the post.

1. The case for energy efficiency

ENERGY EFFICIENCY VS NUCLEAR POWER: Dan has asked something like “What would be the atmospheric effect if all the present nuclear plants were NOT online, and the power was coming from coal, oil, and gas?” But a better question would be “What would be the atmospheric effect if all the present nuclear plants were NOT online, and the all the money that had gone to nuclear had gone into energy efficiency?” An even better question would be, “What is the most cost-effective use of government investments and public policy levers for reducing greenhouse gas emissions today?” The answer is clearly energy efficiency. How can the US ask us to reconsider nuclear when their government isn’t even giving efficiency and renewables a fair chance?

NUCLEAR POWER HAS CO2 OPPORTUNITY COSTS: as a strategy for reducing greenhouse warming nuclear power carries an opportunity cost: for every $100 invested in nuclear CO2 abatement, one ton of CO2 is released into the earth’s atmosphere that could have been avoided, had that $100 been put into efficiency. Even under the most optimistic cost projections for future nuclear electricity, efficiency is found to be 2.5 to 10 times more cost-effective for CO2 abatement. Thus, to the extent that investments in nuclear power divert funds away from efficiency, the pursuit of a nuclear response to greenhouse warming would effectively exacerbate the problem.

PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE: Avoiding problems in the first place is a far better strategy then hi-tech fixes after the fact that typically bring their own new set of problems. If we knew what to do with the waste, it might not be so bad. Even after fifty years of research, the British government is still not convinced that it’s safe to store it under the ground or seabed. In fact, no country in the world has a working answer to the problem of permanent storage of high-level radioactive waste. It is simply irresponsible to future generations to make worse a problem that will last thousands of years and for which there is no identified solution.”

LET THE MARKET DECIDE?: But if global warming is so dire as to require everything you describe plus nuclear, then why don’t we just put on a carbon cap and see what wins in the marketplace?

2. practicalities, opportunity costs and economics

TIMELINE FOR BUILDING NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS: According to executives of Duke Power (US), it takes about four years to design and licence a new power station and five years to build it. And that time line assumes peak oil and civil protests don’t get in the way. The UK government estimates that, if more nuclear power stations were commissioned there, they would enter production around 2020.

CENTRALIZED VS DECENTRALIZED POWER GENERATION: Where nuclear really falls down in terms of reliability is that it will never provide the decentralized and localized power needed to make a supply network really secure. Relying on a few big power plants puts a country’s electricity at risk from anything from mechanism failure – remember North America’s dramatic blackouts – to terrorism.

PEAK URANIUM?: At present there are around 440 nuclear reactors in operation around the world. If, as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were to replace fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary to build 2000 large, 1000-megawatt reactors. Even if we decided today to replace all fossil-fuel-generated electricity with nuclear power, there would only be enough economically viable uranium to fuel the reactors for three to four years.

(Addition on 27 June 2005: see my post on “peak uranium” posted on this site on 27 June 2005)

ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR POWER: The true economies of the nuclear industry are never fully accounted for. The cost of uranium enrichment is subsidized by the US government. The true cost of the industry’s liability in the case of an accident in the US is estimated to be $US560 billion, but the industry pays only $US9 billion – 98 per cent of the insurance liability is covered by the US federal government (the Price-Anderson act). The cost of decommissioning all the existing US nuclear reactors is estimated to be $US33billion. In the UK the 2004 Energy Act set aside 48 billion pounds to deal with the waste already in the pipeline, and the government expects this figure to increase as it becomes clear just how much is to be done. These costs – plus the enormous expense involved in the storage of radioactive waste for a quarter of a million years – are not now included in the economic assessments of nuclear electricity.

FOSSIL FUEL INPUTS NEEDED FOR NUCLEAR POWER: The nuclear fuel cycle utilizes large quantities of fossil fuel at all of its stages – the mining and milling of uranium, the construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of its 20 to 40-year operating lifetime, and transportation and long-term storage of radioactive waste. In the US, where much of the world’s uranium is enriched, it requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide. Add up the carbon footprint of the bits you don’t see. Nuclear power plants are built of tons of concrete and steel that require much energy to manufacture. If the energy and materials to build nuclear power plants must be taken from other forms of construction, which projects will be sacrificed? Military bases abroad, or houses, schools and hospitals at home?

3. Nuclear wastes

DISCHARGES – NUCLEAR POLLUTION: It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is very different. Nuclear reactors consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the air and water each year. These releases are unregulated because the nuclear industry considers these particular radioactive elements to be biologically inconsequential. This is not so.

DISCHARGES – ISOTOPES: These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease.

DISCHARGES – TRITIUM: Tritium, another biologically significant gas, is also routinely emitted from nuclear reactors. Tritium is absorbed through the skin, lungs and digestive system. It is incorporated into the DNA molecule, where it is mutagenic.

WASTE PRODUCED: Each typical 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 33 tonnes of thermally hot, intensely radioactive waste per year. At the end of the fuel cycle, tens of thousands of tons of intensely hot, radioactive spent fuel rods must be stored, isolated and guarded for thousands of years — a challenge that is emerging as a scientific and physical impossibility.

WASTE VOLUME – AND TERRORISM: Already more than 80,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste sits in cooling pools next to the 103 US nuclear power plants, awaiting transportation to a storage facility yet to be found. Britain now has half-a-million cubic metres of highly radioactive waste. This dangerous material is an attractive target for terrorist sabotage now and even more so when it is transported for long-term storage. A plane crashing on Sellafield (UK), for example, would release over forty times more radioactivity than the Chernobyl disaster.

NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE – YUCCA MOUNTAIN: The long-term storage of radioactive waste continues to pose a problem. The US Congress in 1987 chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada, as a repository for America’s high-level waste. But Yucca Mountain has subsequently been found to be unsuitable for the long-term storage of high-level waste because it is a volcanic mountain made of permeable pumice stone and it is transected by 32 earthquake faults. In April 2005 a congressional committee discovered fabricated data about water infiltration and cask corrosion in Yucca Mountain that had been produced by personnel in the US Geological Survey. These revelations have almost disqualified Yucca Mountain as a waste repository, meaning that the US now has nowhere to deposit its expanding nuclear waste inventory.

FOUR DANGEROUS ELEMENTS MADE IN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS.

IODINE 131, which was released at the nuclear accidents at Sellafield in Britain, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the US, is radioactive for only six weeks and it bio-concentrates in leafy vegetables and milk. When it enters the human body via the gut and the lung, it migrates to the thyroid gland in the neck, where it can later induce thyroid cancer.

STRONTIUM 90 lasts for 600 years. As a calcium analogue, it concentrates in cow and goat milk. It accumulates in the human breast during lactation, and in bone, where it can later induce breast cancer, bone cancer and leukemia.

CAESIUM 137, which also lasts for 600 years, concentrates in the food chain, particularly meat. On entering the human body, it locates in muscle, where it can induce a malignant muscle cancer called a sarcoma.

PLUTONIUM 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to humans, is so toxic that one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. More than 200kg is made annually in each 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Plutonium is handled like iron in the body, and is therefore stored in the liver, where it causes liver cancer, and in the bone, where it can induce bone cancer and blood malignancies. On inhalation it causes lung cancer. It also crosses the placenta, where, like the drug thalidomide, it can cause severe congenital deformities. Plutonium has a predisposition for the testicle, where it can cause testicular cancer and induce genetic diseases in future generations. Plutonium lasts for 500,000 years, living on to induce cancer and genetic diseases in future generations of plants, animals and humans.

PLUTONIUM is also the fuel for nuclear weapons—only 5kg is necessary to make a bomb. Therefore any country with a nuclear power plant can theoretically manufacture 40 bombs a year.

DECOMMISSIONING NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS: When Britain’s older generation of Magnox stations start to be decommissioned April 2006, the amount of high- and intermediate-level waste is set to increase fifty-fold by the time the clean-up is finished, a clean-up that’s scheduled to take a century.

CONCLUSION: It’s worth asking which investment is best for our future: nuclear power plants with their limited lifespan and unlimited end-of-life liability, or renewable energy, that’s set to go on and on and on?

Most of the above information is from

A number of posts by Steve Romm on: http://brand.trblogs.com

An article by Helen Caldicott in The Australian: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0%2C5744%2C12835747%5E12332%2C00.html

An article by Helen Bullock: http://www.greenfutures.org.uk/features/default.asp?id=2157

Good work Keith. I agree fully that all options must compete on their own merits without subsidies. Nuclear seems to have many hidden costs as with fossil fuels.

I agree that energy efficiency and renewables should be promoted and encouraged and I like your revision to my original question better which broadens the scope away from a simple comparison of nuclear to coal.

Your post is excellent and it stands on its own. Your points about the downside seem to add up to make nuclear a very undesirable choice as an option to reduce carbon dioxide.

Again, as a by product from our dialogue, I see the importance of looking at the total carbon picture and this includes the total energy picture as well.

There should be no hidden energy, no hidden carbon emissions, and no hidden costs. Health, security, and other aspects should be quantified as well. It is only by doing this can a fair assessment be made and the best solutions be discovered.

It seems likely that renewables which are the most cost effective stand to be the best bet.

In this light, wind energy has both an energy cost and a carbon cost of manufacture.

If the wind generators are placed in an area with such a low wind yield that very little electricity is produced, then this may not justify the use of wind in poor locations if the energy and carbon used in manufacture were not made up.

So, even renewables must be judged on the basis of their viability to a given geographical location. In this light, too much promotion of even a renewable source may have a few inefficiencies we need to avoid if poorly implemented.

I hope others who have kept up with this constructive dialogue have benefited as much as I have. As always, Mark’s site proves to be a place to help us develop better ideas and thoughts through our discussions.

All the very best Keith!

Dan

renewables is a waste of time, they are very unreliable and we haven’t developed the technology to use their full potential, or even half of it. Nuclear power just needs amore understanding from the public and more detailed planning, it can then be the most powerful, and versitile energy source available to man. It just needs some TLC

Great andrew Biddles!!!!! you can give the waste some TLC by storing some in your basement. Maybe in your child’s room. That’ll be great if you can do that for the rest of us!!!!!

heart

D