NEW NUCLEAR: An MIT report cautions that nuclear power has not yet been effectively employed to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions--and time is running out.
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This month, Finland's Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor was supposed to begin generating power, a tangible sign of the revival of the nuclear industry outside of Asia after nearly 30 years of no new construction because of accidents, cost-overruns and other issues. Instead, the reactor won't be completed for more than three more years, its price is nearly 60 percent more than anticipated, and it is mired in costly legal squabbles between the builder, Areva, and the Finnish utility, Pohjolan Voima.
In the U.S., since 2003, 17 applications for 26 new reactors have been filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but not one is yet under construction.
Despite dozens of new nuclear plants ordered or built in Asia in recent years, "increased deployment of nuclear power has been slow both in the United States and globally," wrote the authors of a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology review of the state of nuclear power.
Those figures, say the authors of the report, an update on a similar report in 2003, mean that "even if all the announced plans for new nuclear power plant construction are realized, the total will be well behind that needed for reaching a thousand gigawatts of new capacity worldwide by 2050."
One thousand gigawatts is the number the M.I.T. professors estimated would be needed to ensure that nuclear power provided 20 percent of global electricity needs as well as cut emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants. In the U.S., the number would be jumping from 100 to 300 gigawatts of nuclear-sourced electricity by 2050.
After all, once operating, nuclear power plants burn nothing and therefore emit no carbon dioxide as fossil fuel–burning power plants do. (There are, of course, significant greenhouse gas emissions associated with building and fueling nuclear facilities).
But the price of new nuclear power has "escalated dramatically," according to the report, jumping by 15 percent a year to reach as much as $4,000 per kilowatt compared with $2,300 for coal-fired generation and just $850 for natural gas. And the industry is asking for at least $100 billion in federal tax subsidies and loan guarantees for the 26 reactors currently planned.
The situation is no better in Europe, according to Steven Thomas, a professor of energy studies at the University of Greenwich in London: Finland cannot complete its new reactor; the U.K. has yet to get started on any projects; and a new nuclear reactor in France, after 18 months of construction, is 20 percent overbudget and requires complete subsidy by the French government.
"The nuclear power industry in Europe is in the midst of the same kind of regulatory and financial uncertainty that makes the future of the industry murky at best in this country," Thomas said during a conference call with reporters. "We've been waiting for the renaissance for 10 years."
Nor has there been a solution to the issue of nuclear waste. In the U.S., the plan to use Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert as a repository for spent nuclear fuel rods is in limbo, opposed by the Obama administration. Reprocessing nuclear fuel, currently underway only in France, has proved prohibitively expensive, and it raises concerns about the proliferation of plutonium for nuclear weapons.
"We do not believe a convincing case can be made on the basis of waste management considerations that the benefits of partitioning and transmutation [conversion of fuel into less radioactive form] will outweigh the attendant safety, environmental [and] security considerations, and economic costs," wrote the researchers, who included President Obama's now science advisor John Holdren, in 2003.
The update? "There is no basis to change that conclusion today," the professors, not including Holdren, wrote in the new report.
Ultimately, the M.I.T. authors warned, "if more is not done, nuclear power will diminish as a practical and timely option for deployment at a scale that would constitute a material contribution to climate change risk mitigation."
Adds Thomas: "It seems to me highly unlikely that [investing in nuclear power] is the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Put that money in other sources, such as energy efficiency and renewables, and get a much better return on your money."
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40 Comments
Add CommentThe authors here at Sci American neglected one of the first rules of journalism in producing this extremely biased report - check your facts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 4000 a kw is just a (WAG) wild assed guess based on suspect figures.
1) It is based on a few Asian reactors with some rather dubious conversions to US Dollars.
2) In the middle of the worst depression in a century it assumes without proof that nuclear plant cost inflation is 15%.
3) It assumes 11% cost of money at a time when public power ie governments can borrow at 3%.
4) Ignored are Westinghouse's sale of four ap-1000 reactors for 5.5 billion to China a little over 1300 a kw and Hyperions sale of six of its 25 mw units for $25 million each again $1000 a kw with 45 mw of free heat leftover to warm the town.
5) Ignored also is Westinghouse's contention that with mass production techniques it can produce these reactors for around $1000 a kilowatt. With a World War Two hell bent for leather lets save the planet from global warning type effort ramping up quickly to hundreds of plants opening worldwide every year, costs for mass produced reactors would drop drastically.
5) It assumes every country is like the US where a large portion of costs are a result of an army of attorneys, bureaucrats and insurance companies lined up for and against any proposed private power company nuclear plants.
6) The article then compounds the cost of capital error by using the same 11% wall street hedge fund rate, instead of the modest 3% available to public utilities, to calculate per kwh average cost.
The tone of this article seems to indicate that we are in danger of missing out on further developing an energy source that generates horrible waste products that have to be stored deep in a mountain for an extremely long time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAm I the only one that thinks the author is a little nuts? Why is passing on nuclear energy in favor of more earth-friendly sources a bad thing? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but when something goes wrong with a solar panel or wind mill, it just breaks and needs to be fixed or replaced. When something goes wrong with a nuclear power plant, some very extreme horror stories can result for a great many people. Why again is that a better option?
Seems like somebody had nothing else to write about.
twitchbrain - no, you are the one who is a little nuts. What is little known is how polluting the process of building solar panels truly is - "more earth-friendly"? No chance. Worst US nuclear power plant accident? At 3MI... no deaths, AND next-gen plants are safer still. Nuke power is ON 24/7/365 except for refueling -- can any of your so-called "more earth-friendly" sources claim that? Not even close. And how much power? 1GW of nuclear power = 1 big unit; 1GW of solar, wind, etc. = more than in your wildest dreams.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"This non-technical summary article compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors. It explains why soaring taxpayer subsidies aren’t attracting investors. Capitalists instead favor climate-protecting competitors with less cost, construction time, and financial risk. The nuclear industry claims it has no serious rivals, let alone those competitors—which, however, already outproduce nuclear power worldwide and are growing enormously faster."
Another important factor for any manufactured product is life cycle considerations:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/des_s99/life_cycle/index.html#Assessment
"In general, the Green Design approach to the life cycle is to consider the end of the product life when doing the design. A tricky way in which this ties in to the life cycle costing model is that society as a whole (and our descendents) pay a hidden price for pollution and resource exhaustion that are difficult to take into account in a single-product life cycle model. The only proven wide-scale techniques for accounting for these costs is government taxation/rationing (such as with Freon to discourage manufacture and consumption) and recent European initiatives to make manufacturers accountable for disposal of waste streams their products generate."
This cerebral discussion is “nice” to discuss, but will lead to nothing. Let’s face it; the United States has more nuclear power plants than the entire world combined (Nuclear submarines, air craft carriers et al included) and we will NEVER have another land-based plant. Which is a truly sad state of affairs considering (and here I am going to cause considerable agitation from those with little or no knowledge of the subject) the minimal impact on the environment when compared to coal, bio-fuel, and solar.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd before it is even suggested, yes, we need to store the so-called waste produced… but consider that the overwhelming “waste” produced at a nuclear power plant is not nuclear waste but the protective suits, wipes, and tools used in daily routine operations. Virtually NONE of this “waste” has any radioactive signature and that which does is so low, you could get more (as they say) on the beach on a cloudless day.
This cerebral discussion is “nice” to discuss, but will lead to nothing. Let’s face it; the United States has more nuclear power plants than the entire world combined (Nuclear submarines, air craft carriers et al included) and we will NEVER have another land-based plant. Which is a truly sad state of affairs considering (and here I am going to cause considerable agitation from those with little or no knowledge of the subject) the minimal impact on the environment when compared to coal, bio-fuel, and solar.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd before it is even suggested, yes, we need to store the so-called waste produced… but consider that the overwhelming “waste” produced at a nuclear power plant is not nuclear waste but the protective suits, wipes, and tools used in daily routine operations. Virtually NONE of this “waste” has any radioactive signature and that which does is so low, you could get more (as they say) on the beach on a cloudless day.
If only people would look at facts, the single biggest setback to curbing carbon emission occured 25 years ago when we stopped building nuclear plants. Nuclear base load generation is the lowest cost form of electricity available in large qty. As soon as congress passes cap and trade we will all see our average power bills jump $260.00/month. The truth is if we pass a cap and trade bill we will drive manufacturing jobs overseas, i.e. integrated steel manufacturing will shift to countries who will ignore climate change issues. Once the realities of this hits the street it should create a feeding frenzy for the nuclear industry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 3MI incident was never properly outed. Recently there has been more information come out, although there were reports shortly after it that were distorted, repressed or ignored. Read Sternglass's SECRET FALLOUT, 1981, for a history of nuclear fallout issues. There are problems on every front with nuclear power, besides the cost. Here is some info. for those wishing to become enlightened on this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead this unbiased assessment:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear-power-in-a-warming-world.pdf
nuclear plant problems map:
Union of Concerned Scientists map of U.S. nuclear facilities: http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/reactor-map/embedded-flash-map.html
authoritative analysis:
Craig A. Severance, 2008, Business Risks and Costs of New Nuclear Power
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf
historical background: Ernest J. Sternglass, 1981, SECRET FALLOUT, LOW-LEVEL RADIATION FROM HIROSHIMA TO THREE MILE ISLAND.
UCS analysis: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear-power-in-a-warming-world.pdf
UCS map of nuclear power plant problems: http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/reactor-map/embedded-flash-map.html
Amory Lovins: http://tinyurl.com/forgetnuclear or http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php
Lester Brown: http://tinyurl.com/brownnuclear or http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update78.htm
Public Citizen summary (Naders Critical Mass work):
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/
http://www.citizen.org/documents/FatalFlawsSummary.pdf
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_power_plants/articles.cfm?ID=13447
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/routineradioactivereleases.htm (what they dont want you to know)
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/fctsht.htm/#radiation (fact sheets)
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/tritiumbasicinfo.pdf
Tritium has a half life of 12.3 years which means it will be dangerous for at least 120 years, since the hazardous life for a radionuclide is ten to twenty times longer than its half-life.
waste and costs raising doubts (4/22/09): http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A393820
TMI the truth comes out (4/22/09): http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A393821
Sure - it's affordable (*-\
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power is neither affordable, safe or practical in solving our energy problems. Consider just the following:
Physicist Dr. Tom Cochran extrapolated from the nuclear industry calculations for its future and found that by adding 700 gigawatts of nuclear electricity to the world – double today’s capacity – for the fifty years from 2050 to 2100 would entail:
• Adding about 1,200 new nuclear plants (provided they last forty years and have no meltdowns);
• Adding fifteen new uranium enrichment plants;
• Generating 0.97 million tons of high-level nuclear waste containing enough plutonium for hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons;
• Outfitting fourteen Yucca mountains to store the waste;
• Adding fifty new reprocessing plants to extract plutonium if the Generation IV reactors were to proceed;
• Investing $1 to $2 trillion.
The effect would then be to cut the global average temperature rise by just 0.2%; far from helping to actually reduce global warming.
The nuclear waste problem has been solved a number of times, just not by the Department of Energy and therefore funded and touted by the U.S. congress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst there was the subductive waste disposal method, which is considered by some the state-of-the-art and most viable solution to the problem. To kill this effort it was necessary to falsely claim it was barred by international agreement, when in fact it is a means to dispose of nuclear waste in a repository beneath the seabed, which is accessed from land, and no different than that currently in development in Sweden and Finland.
Another option currently being shunned capitalizes on the peak oil phenomena. U.S. nuclear waste is a renewable, free and carbon-free resource of energy with the potential to pyrolyze close to a billion barrels of oil shale annually. Once the shale has been depleted and the fission products have decayed in about a hundred years, the fuel rods themselves can be reused as is - without expensive, dangerous and environmentally detrimental reprocessing in a CANDU reactor.
Importing the global inventory of spent fuel eliminates the potential for terrorists or proliferators to access the plutonium it contains and quadruples the potential oil output from Americas shale formation.
If you believe in man made global warming, CO2 driven, then and only then do we have any sort of electric power problem. Right now our electric supply is diverse and not fueled by oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's first really look at whether CO2 is really a problem.
If it is or the pols just say it is then the ONLY solution is nuclear. It is the only alternative to coal that is CO2 free. All windmills and solar panels will do is displace a small amount of natural gas load follow and peaking plants. Wind and solar are highly variable, depend on the weather and have too low a power density to replace base load coal power generation. You can wish it all you want but it just can't be done. This will drive up our electric bills significantly.
It really is one or the other. Unless you're just in it for the handouts, like Al Gore. Then of course let's build windmills, solar farms and enrich Al, not decrease CO2 and pay a ton more for electricity.
Fits right in with our present leaders other plans. Nonsensical.
@Horatio, thanks! I appreciate your information. I'm glad a number of people are cautious enough to consider all the ramifications of widespread nuclear power production, including risks from terrorism and long term storage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@magicskip, your numbers look good on paper, but I don't think you're considering all the numbers. The "safeness" of a plant is measured by the number of catastrophes it is kept from causing, right? Can you imagine the look in the eyes of America-destroying terrorists as they gleefully consider blowing up several HUNDRED nuclear power plants across the US? Can you really be assured THAT catastrophe won't be happening? That is a vulnerability that I don't think can justify the difference in power generation per acre that exists between a nuclear plant and, say, a solar farm.
Also, you should consider that there are high-density power plant options that are renewable such as geothermal. This method is very compact for the wattage output, has no carbon emissions, and requires a relatively small investment to set up.
Oh, and if a terrorist blows it up, it doesn't take out a 20 mile radius along with it!
Renewables can't replace coal. Geothermal is great, just like hydro is great. Problem is these sources of power are limited and do not have the potential to replace coal. You can't build more rivers. You either have them or you don't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWind and solar can't do it either. Combine all of them together and they still can't do it.
The problem is that we generate a tremendous amount of power with coal. You can tinker and subsidize and feel real good about a windmills that replace nothing (eg. Denmark).
And all it is a big boondoggle that rewards the lobbyists, penalizes the conusmer and hurts the economy.
Just a non-practical idea that sounds so good when Obama writes a speech about it. In practice it won't work at all.
Horatio, what a joke! You list some of the most vocal anti-nuclear organizations and people as providing an "unbiased" assessment. You ought to look to the American Nuclear Society or the Nuclear Energy Institute for real facts and figures.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe original article used the fact that no new nuclear plant has started construction yet as evidence that the nuclear Renaissance in the US is not happening. They missed the simple fact that construction cannot start until the NRC has issued a construction license. The South Texas Project is first in line to receive such a license, and it's not scheduled to be issued until 2012.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike many discussions on alternative energy, this misses out on an aspect crucial to the discussion: water. While reactors may "burn nothing" they are, like CFB power plants, extremely thirsty for fresh water, which is being depleted everywhere. We need to stop thinking about water or "just steam" as being "nothing" because we're running out of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, those of you who think that nuclear power is safe or cheap need to stop and do some research on places like the West Valley Demonstration Project in NY and look at what our attempts at reprocessing and vitrification have gotten us: millions of dollars of clean up (and millions more to come) and two creeks which run off into Lake Erie which will soon be breeched by the radioactive plume underneath the place if action isn't taken soon. West Valley isn't the only example of such problems, either. Part of the problem is that too few people want to do their homework on the whole of the benefits and risks of nuclear power, the actual total costs (not just building a plant) from mining to running to decommissioning and all steps and side steps in between. I have, and I've come to accept that it is still not safe (a typical reactor may be, but that is only part of the entire story) or cheap.
Horatio,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe the reason that building 1,200 new nuclear plants would only reduce the global average temperature by 0.2% is because man is not the cause of the rising global temperatures.
Fab,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI too have looked at all of the costs of nuclear power. I've been doing it for over 30 years now. The cost of construction is obvious, and is added to the rate charged consumers once the plant is operational. The cost of mining, enriching, and fabricating fuel is all included in the fuel cost, which by the way, is insignificant compared to all fossil-fueled alternatives. The cost of decommissioning is built into the rate as is the cost of ultimate waste disposal (the nuclear waste fund paid to the US Government). With all these costs included, only hydro power is cheaper (unfortunately, there aren't too many more large rivers to dam up), coal is about equal depending on region, and all other forms including wind and solar are more expensive.
@truthe2141, while you're right about rivers, you might check into geothermal again. There is hot rock below the crust everywhere, not just in certain spots. Now certainly, natural geysers are rare and cheaper to use for geothermal. However, the technology for artificially induced geysers in closed systems where you wouldn't be losing all the steam not only exists, but is growing in use around the world. Also, there are certain areas where the crust is thinner and has a higher temperature differential, such as areas of Australia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe estimated potential for US energy is that we could replace 20% of our base load electricity with geothermal. While you have a point about the difficulty of completely replacing fossil fuels, there's no sense in concluding: "Hell, screw it. We can't save the planet and boost the economy at the same time, so let's just burn the place down around our ears!" These things can't be easily measured in dollars. So what if clean energy costs more than fossil fuels? Is that a good enough reason to pass on it? The problem is that the real costs are not taken into account.
In the end, we will have renewable energy sources whether we like it or not. Fossil fuels will run out. I don't hear anybody seriously debating that one. The availability of fossil fuels will simply get smaller and smaller driving the cost up and up. At that point, the market will demand the cheaper option: renewable energy. The problem lies in the strain that will create around the world, and less diplomatic countries may be driven to destructive extremes.
Let's not make the same mistake with energy that got us into the financial mess we're in now. Using "the numbers" as justification for our actions without looking at the whole picture gets us ridiculously inflated housing prices and an economy overdependent on debt. Likewise, saying "but it's more energy for cheaper!" without looking at the consequences as part of the real cost is asking for a crash. A big, smack-down crash.
Mathematical ability less wisdom makes you no less a fool.
According to the 2000 DOE report, Thermohydrologic Behavior at the Potential Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository - https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/237680.pdf - The radioactive decay of high-level nuclear waste emplaced in a Yucca Mountain repository will produce an initial heat flux on the order of 30 to 50 times the heat flux in the Geysers geothermal reservoir in California, which is America's greatest geothermal resource. If you are so enamoured of geoghermal, why would you not want to use an expoentially greater resource to develop your indigenous hydrocarbon resource? Using nuclear waste in this fashion would be technically indistinguishable from developing geothermal energy. Plus you wuold be ripening a resource that could be reused once the most dangerous raiation had decayed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFab,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're 1/2 right about the need for water with nuclear. The other 1/2 is that ALL thermal plants need water for cooling: coal, natural gas, geothermal, biomass, and non-photovoltaic solar. So don't use the water angle to rule out just nuclear.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor would seem to be a much better option. Cheaper, safer, 1% radio-active waste with 300 year storage requirement instead of 10,000 years. Thorium is plentiful (100 years supply in coal ash an mine tailings) check out http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/11/thorium-at-googles-tech-talk.html and http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ LFTRs can burn the existing stockpile of radio-active waste and there are no bomb grade products so it is safe technology to sell to all countries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreen nuclear power is the only practical solution to (1) avoid dependence on foreign oil and gas, (2) overcome future oil depletion, and (3) ameliorate global warming. Only coal and uranium, can affordably deliver terawatts of mother electricity to: (a) feed heavy industry - manufacture cars, ships, airplanes, bridges, etc; (b) power vast fleets of future electric plug-in autos; and (c) produce large quantities of portable synfuels and biofuels to replace oil. But coal worsens global warming and must be preserved as raw material to make plastics and other organics when oil and gas are gone. This leaves uranium as the only big-mama energy source. Solar and wind are useful for small-quantity power generation and may contribute 10% of future electricity. But at terawatt levels, huge land areas are needed, requiring enormous maintenance operations, spoiling scenic landscapes, and destroying local ecosystems - a nightmare for naturalists. As scientifically documented in The Nuclear Imperative" (ISBN 1-4020-4930-7), after oil depletion by 2040/2050, only uranium and thorium can affordably sustain global energy needs for some 2000 years, using proven fuel reprocessing and advanced (GEN-IV) reactor technology. Nuclear power is essential to rescue our children from a future economic catastrophe. For the USA, 500 additional nuclear reactors are required, built on 9000 acres (@ $1.5 trillion), compared to 1,500,000 windmills with storage batteries on 6,000,000 windy acres (@ $4.5 trillion). (Costs in 2004 dollars; for later years multiply by inflation factor). Contrary to anti-nuclear propaganda, the cost of electricity at terawatt levels is three times higher for wind or solar than for nuclear. Solar and wind power generation requires expensive energy storage systems (batteries, etc) when there is no sunshine or wind. Also many miles of access roads for maintenance and repair are needed to keep blades or solar panels clean from bird droppings, dead birds, sand erosion, and storm damage, battery maintenance, etc. Aficionados of renewables often quote peak wind or solar capacities, neglecting to multiply their numbers by four to account for a year-averaged availability of only 25% of peak wind or sunshine. Reactors run continuously at 90% capacity. The "What about Nuclear Waste" lament by anti-nuclear bigots is unbelievably exaggerated. Fission waste products amount to only one aspirin tablet per year per person; the US Navy has been handling nuclear waste for half a century without a problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for this information. I pay fairly close attention to media...and have noticed very few discussions or articles on building new nukes. I am wishing for a documentary for PBS,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand a debate on C-span. over&out Carolyn Clark
Seems to me you'er all missingthe simple truth... If the US doesn't, today, start drilling our own oil to guarantee the next ten years energy needs to just barely tread water and, today, start building Nuclear Plants so we can be guaranteed future energy untll there is, in fact, an alternative energy source. The profits from drilling can be used for both 'future' experimentation and Nuclear Plants. That profit today folks is going to Canada, Mexico, and other oil inporters. It's either or. Either we have needed energy or we become a third world country. Choose! Now, before it's to late.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was a nuclear quality control inspector for GE. I have worked inside three nuclear power plants, Seabrook in New Hampshire, Clinto, Ill and Joliet, Ill. One of the reasons I moved to Hawaii is that there is no commercial nuclear power plants here. I do NOT want to live anywhere near one of these ticking bombs. We were amazingly lucky at Three Mile Island. There are massive safety and construction problems that exist in these OLD plants. Close them and invest in GREEN resources and the world will be much better off for it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTaking all advantages from a transaction while pushing disadvantages connected to it to another group means exploiting them. In this sense, nuclear energy is exploitation of future generations. One geneartion gets the advantage (energy), all others get disadvantages in the form of risks connected to nuclear waste, which could be released by mistake, used as a weapon or threat by dictators, terrorists and so on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExploitation is ethically unacceptable, so nuclear energy is not an option, just as burning fossil fuels.
It has been shown recently that it is possible to convert electricity production to 100% renewables, using wide area supergrids. This is the way to go, not nuclear energy.
Why does Sciam continue to push nuclear power? Its dirty, dangerous and expensive. You should be discussing the abundance of green and alternative energy technologies that are ready and being used now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRenewable energy sources such as windmills and solar cannot replace our baseload coal generation which is the major CO2 emitter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can reduce CO2 emissions but it will cost you a lot more than the renewable energy salespeople are telling you and will not reduce CO2 as much as advertised. You can wish and politicize all you want but unfortunately the laws of physics dont care at all about politics.
The only way to really reduce CO2 is to stop burning as much coal. Coal generates 50% of our baseload power. Windmills run at best 30% capacity factor so you would have to install 150% windmill capacity to replace coal. But even to partially replace it will be painful.
That is because the definition of baseload generation is generators that provide a reliable steady state output except when there is a planned outage. Windmills and solar depend on the weather which we all know is unpredictable.
Coal stations do not load follow well or in most cases at all. Neither do nuclear power stations. Load followers and peakers are natural gas generators since they are basically a big gas engine that can throttled up and down easily. To significantly reduce CO2 you would have to just shut down coal plants since they are not designed to load follow and replace them with natural gas plants that would follow the ups and downs in windmill or solar power. Note that natural gas stations also emit CO2 so the net CO2 reduction would be the difference between the natural gas plant emissions and the original coal plant emissions minus 30% which is the capacity factor for windmills (even less for solar panels).
With a lot of effort and cost it could be done. Question is do you want your electric bill to quadruple? What kind of recession would that cause?
Note that wind power extraordinaire Denmark has not shut down a single fossil station. They also have the highest electric rates in the world. They are also surrounded by extremely grateful countries that are happy sell them power at a nice price.
Who's a 'joke'? I'd say the nuclear power industry. Greedy and a joke.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe links I posted are hardly biased. Any claim to that effect exposes the biases (and ignorance) of one making such an accusation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUntil our dear politicians can show me how the alternative green renewable way will work in some detail I vote no.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWindmills and solar panels are tomorrow's government boondoggle same as ethanol. If they compete in the marketplace fine. If not than then we don't need them. If the eco-freindly types want only green power than I have no problem with them paying four times more for electricity or they can only have lectricty when the wind blows or the sun shines.
Leave me and my pocketbook out of it.
No more slogans. How about some science? I thought that Obama was so smart. Not seeing it. Great speeches with a lot of platitudes and slogans. No meat.
Can anyone provide a rational explanation on how windmills and solar panels are going to replace coal power stations? and if so what is the unsubsidized cost?
Our energy grid is outdated and still resembles what it was in the 1950's. Instead of updating our energy grid using central power plants, we must rebuild it to accomodate de-centralized power sources such as wind and solar. Using oil and coal is unsustainable. We cannot continue. If we do, it will mean the end of human civilization. To argue for continued use of oil and coal is insane and it is driven by political ideology, selfishness and greed. Solar and wind are being used now, successfully on larger and larger scales. To deny this is to deny reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDenying that grid voltage and frequency must remain cosntant is denying reality. Wind and solar are highly variable. Grid operators do not even consider them a generation source because of this variability. They view them as negative loads.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDecentralization does theoretically help T&D issues which is secondary really.
Until you can provide a stable reliable renewable soure of energy (excluding hydro) it cannot replace base load.
Decentralization, "smart grid" and any other slogan you can think off won't help.
Nuclear is the only viable base load generation that is CO2 free. That is reality. The renewable salesman are con men.
The international Atomic Energy Agency evaluates that current Uranium minerals will have been depleted within seventy years. So every new reactor built will reduce this supply , especially if India, China or Brazil and other developing countries go nuclear. This will mean that initial investments in plant will not be economically viable, as reactors are built to last only 40 years, before which time Uranium sources will have long run out!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor more information about the Department of Energy's lead nuclear laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, go to www.inl.gov or the YouTube site at http://www.youtube.com/user/IdahoNationalLab. There is ample information about projects and goals here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeaking as a NE student, I can assure that nuclear is safe and a wise option. Nuclear is by far the cleanest option available. Starting with the land consumed nuclear provides the highest energy density of any fuel source. Mining for uranium is much less destructive than growing biofuels, mining coal, and killing marine life with dams.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear plants are safe and any fear of a nuclear generation facility can be dismissed as irrational or a phobia. Nuclear is safer than all forms of harnessing energy from fossil fuels. Nuclear has a much less higher accident rate.
Nuclear is the only feasible way of meeting future "carbon free" energy demands. Wind and solar have there small residential use, but will never be able to support our energy needs.
Nuclear fuel will not run out soon: assuming we find no future uranium deposits and generate at the same rate as today we will have enough for 200 years. Further note breeder reactor will provide us with the ability to produce energy for thousands of years.
Nuclear is dirty, yes, if you consider filling one large stadium with spent fill over the next century dirty. I often wonder how many stadiums the Tennessee ash pond accident could have filled up, and that is one plant. I used to think wind was clean until I witnessed the hundreds of dead bats and birds under turbines.
I am not saying that nuclear is the fix quick and that other "green" sources are bad. Like everything moderation is needed. There needs to be a mix of solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric , and nuclear. However Nuclear needs to be implemented on a scale that is larger than today's.
The problem with the Finnish new reactor is all due to the rather nonchalant ways that the French handle safety issues. In Finland nuclear safety has always been top priority and the safety demanded from the rench has not been good enough. Therefore delays. The most recent ones are due to safety software developemnt that does not fulfill the strigent Finnish requirements
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe atomic electricity generation industry was created to make plutonium production less expensive for the military lobby. As we are now supposedly engaging in limiting nuclear weapons, why should the taxpayer go on subsidising atomic energy?
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