Con: Nuclear power is not a green option
EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer is addressing the question, Should the United States push ahead on building nuclear power plants?
Here we go again. With the Obama administration’s promise of federal loan guarantees to build two new nuclear power plants at a cost of $8.3 billion, the radioactive monster is rising from a long dormancy, pumped to life by the lobbyists for nuke designers, nuke contractors, nuke operators and nuke consultants and their generous spending.
Over the last decade, the nuclear industry has spent more than $600 million lobbying the federal government and an additional $63 million in federal campaign contributions, according to an analysis of public records by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. Today, the industry is using our desperate need for jobs and worries about global warming to further its cause.
But let’s not forget the reasons that citizens across the nation have been successfully opposing expanded reliance on nuclear energy since the 1970s.
First and foremost, there is the waste issue. Nuclear power generates a radioactive waste stream from hell that will threaten even our grandchildren’s grandchildren. We still have no repository for the waste and no plan to dispose of it. Two decades and billions of taxpayer dollars later, a proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has been all but abandoned. The taxpayer cost for resolving this currently intractable problem, if we ever do, will be massive.
There are problems at the other end of producing nuclear power too. Mining uranium is a dirty business that has left too many sick and dying miners—and polluted communities—in its wake. And once the uranium is mined, it has to be processed into fuel, also a hazardous and expensive undertaking.
Another factor is the price tag. Nuclear power just isn’t cost-effective. It has always depended on massive taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies. Before the latest round of government loan guarantees were proposed, the so-called nuclear renaissance was just talk because private investors wouldn’t bite, in part because power generated by nuclear plants isn’t competitive: It costs 30 percent to 35 percent more than power produced from coal or natural gas plants. Delays and cost overruns are common in nuclear plant production.
And the potential for legal liability is huge. The conservative Heritage Foundation, the libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative National Taxpayers Union have all questioned whether it is fiscally responsible for the government to guarantee loans on nuclear power plants.
There is also the danger factor. In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences noted that “successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible,” and that such an attack “could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material.”
Even in the absence of terrorism, plants release radiation. The Vermont Legislature is trying to kill the Vermont Yankee plant because deadly tritium has leaked into the environment. Twenty-seven of the 104 nuclear plants in the United States have been confirmed to be leaking tritium.
Lately, the advocates of nuclear power have called for expansion of their industry in order to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming. But nuclear power’s carbon footprint is not really so low once you factor in all the other phases, such as mining and processing uranium, the construction of a massive infrastructure and waste disposal and monitoring. It’s not a practical solution to reducing greenhouse gases now either because it would take decades to build enough power plants to make a difference.
If the government is going to subsidize greener energy, wouldn’t it be both wiser and more cost-effective to take the money we are giving the nuclear power industry and instead devote it to solar, wind, geothermal and conservation?
By its very nature, nuclear power requires the concentration and centralization of capital, expertise and authority, which leads to arrogant, unresponsive bureaucracies. Compared with other non-coal energy technologies, it is the most authoritarian and least democratic. Granted, large and expensive wind and solar farms will be built by big utilities, but a community could put up its own windmill, and I can put solar panels on my own house. When was the last time you and your neighbors thought about building a little nuclear power plant behind the garage?
From the promise of a “peaceful atom” through Three Mile Island and Yucca Mountain, nuclear advocates have misled the American public. And they are doing it again.
Industry spokespeople complain that regulation and litigation have driven up the costs for nuclear power. Now, in addition to the massive subsidies, the industry wants government help in fast-tracking its projects.
Let me bring the choice we are making down to earth: Say you’re buying a car. The salesman has a long history of telling lies, covering up mistakes and breaking promises. He is trying to sell you a car that doesn’t exist yet, so he’s not sure what it will look like. It is likely to cost at least two and maybe three times what it says on the sticker. It almost certainly will take him much longer to deliver it than he says it will.
The fuel for that car—let’s call it a battery—wears out constantly, is deadly dangerous and will be for thousands of years. You have to store that stuff in your basement because there’s no place else for it to go. Oh, and some powerful and distant authorities will tell you when and where you can drive it. Still interested?
Whose nuclear renaissance is this?
Chip Ward is a founder of HEAL Utah and wrote about the struggle to keep his Utah backyard from becoming a nuclear dumping ground in his books “Canaries on the Rim” and “Hope’s Horizon.” He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.
Mar 17, 2010 at 6:42 a.m.
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spudbeach-natural sources of tritium are infinitely in smaller proportions thatn when found from a leak in a nuclear power facility. And BTW-this problem is not so easy that a caveman can do it... ;)
Mar 16, 2010 at 11:22 p.m.
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The author is obviously uninformed regarding the state of the art in nuclear power. All of the nuclear power plants built in this country are 60's era technology that has been rendered obsolete by newer 3rd generation technology that will be used in these new plants. There is also very promising technology that needs to be pursued where we may actually be able to run future power plants using the spent fuel from older reactors.
Another little development was showcased in this months National Geographic. Read about it. These little things are like the reactors in ships. This is a no brainer folks and it does not generate carbon dioxide. The presidents energy secretary is the first real science guy in this spot in years and we better listen to him.
Mar 16, 2010 at 10:41 p.m.
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Partarican1: Well, actually, you do drink water laced with tritium. Tritium is constantly being formed by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere, and the supply is constantly being refreshed. With 6.02 x 10^23 hydrogen atoms in only 9 grams of water, at least some of them are tritium.
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Oh, and yes, I'd have no problem drinking tritium laced water. The effective concentration of tritium in the water from Vermont Yankee (20,000 pico-curies per liter) is _less_ than the concentration of radioactive potassium in your banana! (30,000 picocuries per liter).
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Moral of this story: there exists natural background radiation. There always has been, and there always will be.
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PanamaRed: OK, let's give up energy. You first. May I suggest the first step would be electric lights, computers, central heat, and powered transportation. Call me when you're a caveman and happy. Ooops -- sorry about that, you won't have a phone.
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I want my amenities. That takes power, power we can't get reliably, safely, cleanly or cheaply from anything but nuclear power.
Mar 16, 2010 at 9:53 p.m.
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I have never been a fan of nuclear energy because of the long term waste issues, but that may be changing for me. Bill Gates recently presented a solution to both our energy needs and the elimination of 90% of our nuclear waste while speaking at this years TED conference. In a short (20 min) talk before some of the leading science and engineering innovators of the world he laid out a dramatic new plan. You can see his presentation titled Innovating To Zero at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bill_g...
Mar 15, 2010 at 2:57 p.m.
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ozzman- no need to be angry because we don't agree. I don't use drugs, so save your lecture for your nuclear buddies. Nuclear energy is bad for the environment, period. Would you drink water laced with tritium? Even in small amounts? If you would, might I suggest you get some and start drinking. BTW-coal is bad for the environment and humans, too.
Mar 15, 2010 at 1:35 p.m.
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Wow, so a few hippies are preventing the expansion of nuclear power ozzman99?. And spudbeach claims, "millions of scared people dictate policy". That seems to sum up the fight against health care reform more than the opposition to nuclear power.
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Actually spudbeach, it seems the only individuals who have "misconceptions" about the use of nuclear power are those who favor using it to produce energy. The dangers are evident and real, while the benefits can be duplicated using other forms of generation. The effects of any "accident" could (and would) last for generations.
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No one has touched on what is really needed. A change in the way we live. We have discovered there is no such thing as "cheap energy". It either costs us in the short term or long term. The dollar expense is easy to measure; whats more difficult to gauge is the cost to our environment and health. No amount of money can "fix" radiation poisoning. While we search for alternative energy sources we also need to change our living habits in a manner that reflects the energy available to us.
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So far, the only solution to problem of nuclear waste is to quit making it.
Mar 14, 2010 at 5:27 p.m.
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ok partarcian continue to be scared about tritium in the water in such small amounts! I think the drugs you hippies have been using poses a far more serious risk to your health that leaking tritium. I have relatives who live in Byron il near the nuke plant and their ground water was tested last year and came back fine. go check the lungs of people who live near a coal power plant and tell me whos health is more in danger! Go toke your peace pipe and let us rational people move civiliation forward.
Mar 14, 2010 at 4:53 p.m.
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So many misconceptions, so little time.
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First, "wouldn’t it be both wiser and more cost-effective to take the money we are giving the nuclear power industry and instead devote it to solar, wind, geothermal and conservation?" Well, tell me the next time it's 20 below, at night, without wind blowing, and you need to get your furnace running. Last I knew, there was no geothermal power in WI, solar doesn't work at night, and wind isn't reliable. I want electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Carbon free energy sources other than nuclear just can not do that.
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Second, Yucca Mountain. Why was it abondoned? Not because of reasonable safety issues. Not because of geology. Not because of science. Because of the "Not in my back yard" syndrome. Too many people like Chip Ward complaining about what they don't understand, and it became a political issue, where millions of scared people dictate policy. If we based our policies on reality, instead of fear, we would be recycling our nuclear waste and using it.
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Third: Chip Ward makes a big deal of the tritium leak from Vermont Yankee. From http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/... we see that if a single person drank everything that was leaked, it would not be immediately fatal. Indeed, canadian nuclear power plants routinely emit thousands of times more, without damage to humans.
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Finally, I'd like to ask Mr. Ward about the price of nuclear power now. All those expensive plants from the 70's? Still humming along, producing cheap power. The only ones that aren't are the ones he and his ilk closed down. Thanks to anti-nuclear activists, coal plants continue to belch out carbon dioxide, mercury, radioactivity (way more than nuke plants), and leave fly ash to avalanche houses.
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I hope he's satisified.
Mar 14, 2010 at 2:03 p.m.
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In response to Chip Ward' rmarks on nuclear power, he got it almost, if not all wrong.
First, nuclear power stations do generate dangerous waste. However we most definitely know how to handle it. The best solution is to bury it in Yucca mountain. There is not all that much of it anyway. The sum total of all the neclear waste that has ever been generated by all the worlds nuclear power plants in the history of nuclear power would only fill a stadium the size of Camp Randall to the 10th row. That is not much.
Transportation of nuclear waste has been safety tested to the point of dropping containers from planes, crashing into with trains, explosives and the like, all successfully containing the waste.
Safety of nuclear power plants is not any issue since they are all heavily guarded.
Nuclear fuel can be turned into plutonium to be recycled. There are even chemical processes that have been developed to destroy toxic fuel. What isn't destroyed can be stored as mentioned above
Sure, some plants have released radiation. That is a danger. However there have been far, far fewer deaths related to radiation leaking from nuclear power plants than from coal energy. Remember reading about all the coal miners that have been buried?? What about all the toxic emissions from coal plants and the diseases that causes?? Far, far more the nuclear power. Advances in nuclear power plant design is reducing the danger even further.
Solar and wind power just cannot provide the quantity of on demand, 24/7/365 power like nuclear can, not only for our homes, but ouir factories. It just won't happen. What has to happen is for Sen. Harry Reid to get thrown out of office so the major obstruction to nuclear power is removed.
Mar 14, 2010 at 11:04 a.m.
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ozzman99_us hippies are glad you are not in charge of this project. The countries you mention still have issues with Tritium leaks, and problems with storage of spent uranium; we just don't hear about as frequently as we do when there are probles in the US.
Mar 14, 2010 at 3:45 a.m.
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You can reprocess used uranium to creat fissable plutonium like every other country does wiht their waste. We cant do that here because that woudl take away the hippies only valid argument.
Mar 14, 2010 at 3:43 a.m.
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Its amazing how France can get 80% of their power from nuclear, Japan 60% and have no problems or major opposition. Only the US cant seem to get it done!
Mar 13, 2010 at 9 p.m.
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Electric cars are the same way - those cars might save a little bit of gas, but those batteries will be poisoning our land until the end of time.
As a matter of fact, just about every green bandwagon that gets jumped on is bad for the environment in the long run. Remember biofuel? How many rainforests were clear cut or burned in order to grow crops purely for biofuel?
Mar 13, 2010 at 12:23 p.m.
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The first paragraph under the headline about green nuclear power says, Nuclear power generates a radioactive stream from hell that will threaten our grand children's grand children! That's the same thing that has happening right NOW with the raising of our NATIONAL DEBT!!!!!!!
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