"Nukes are back and so are we"

[bloom]

By Harvey Wasserman

The nuclear power industry is back to where it always goes when it wants to build new reactors---the taxpayer trough. And those of us who've been fighting them for decades are doing it again, now with help from the musicians' community, and a petition drive (at nukefree.org) aimed at stripping the radioactive subsidies from the national Energy Bill now before Congress.

Time after time over the past half-century, the atomic energy industry has gone to the government to demand massive amounts of money. The most recent public gouging came during the Great Deregulation Scam of 1999-2001. As Enron and its cronies contrived phony energy shortages and nearly bankrupted California, the atomic pushers went before America's state legislatures and asked for a massive bailout. They complained that with the coming age of deregulation (about two dozen states deregulated their electricity businesses) nuclear power plants were too expensive, inefficient and obsolete to compete in the coming green age.

So they demanded---and got---more than $100 billion in “stranded cost” payouts. These were the ultimate admission that atomic power simply could not make it in the marketplace. As deregulation failed throughout the US, what Forbes Magazine labeled “the largest managerial disaster in business history” stayed alive as America's ultimate welfare cheat.

Now the industry is back for more. After complaining about its old reactors' lousy economic performance, it now argues that the new ones will be magically transformed, and that billions more should be spent building them. The first of those is already under construction in Finland. Ground was broken just two years ago, but the project is already two years behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. So a whole new cover story has been invented: nuke power will “solve global warming.”

The assertion is absurd. All reactors emit radioactive carbon, along with numerous other “hot” isotopes. Massive quantities of greenhouse gasses are spewed into the atmosphere during the mining, milling and enrichment of uranium fuel. The reactors themselves emit huge plumes of heat directly into the air and water....

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=45368

[TheWraith]

1. That article is so full of bullshit and pseudoscience it's hard to know where to start.

"They complained that with the coming age of deregulation (about two dozen states deregulated their electricity businesses) nuclear power plants were too expensive, inefficient and obsolete to compete in the coming green age."

Actually, no. That's just something that somebody made up. "Stranded costs" actually have to do with recovering money from investing in infrastructure. A company pays out lots of money to build and power their grid to supply customers, only to have those customers leave them due to competition from another company. The original company is then left holding the original bill. That's stranded cost. Also if one company chooses to invest in forms of power which have a greater up-front cost like nuclear, hydro, or wind, while their competitors undercut them by using cheap coal. That's also a stranded cost.

I also feel it's necessary to point out that part of the element that made nuclear power less economical was the rabid, screaming half-science of the anti-nuclear crowd. It's one thing to debate an opinion--it's a whole different thing to make up your own facts and then debate yourselves.

"more than $100 billion in “stranded cost” payouts."

The only reference I can find to this $100 billion number is factually-dubious anti-nuke sites. Some of the less dubious ones say $28 billion. Can't find any actual credible news sites which assert it at all.

"All reactors emit radioactive carbon"

And you'd have to be an absolute fool to think that trace amounts of carbon-14 are on par with any other point source of atmospheric carbon. You know how much C14 escapes from a nuclear plant? Very, very little. You'd do better to take your car off the road.

And while I'm at it, it's worth noting that a coal plant releases 100 times as much radiation yearly as a nuclear plant, by virtue of uranium and other radioactive compounds in the smoke and ash.

"Massive quantities of greenhouse gasses are spewed into the atmosphere during the mining, milling and enrichment of uranium fuel."

By which logic there is NO such thing as clean energy, and we might as well all just kill ourselves. Unless one thinks that the silicates and heavy metals in solar panels just lept out of the ground, or that wind turbines grow on those funny metal trees you see them on. Any kind of energy requires a support structure, and that support structure can be made carbon neutral in time.

"The reactors themselves emit huge plumes of heat directly into the air and water"

Which is quite literally a microscopic amount of heat compared to the input from the sun. That's like saying that a blowtorch pointed at the arctic circle is responsible for the sea ice melting.

"Still more greenhouse gasses have been created with the partial construction of the proposed Yucca Mountain waste dump in Nevada, which has already cost the public $11 billion."

As opposed to sitting around singing kumbaya while we continue to draw our energy from thousands of tons of coal.

"Had those reactors been hit, the death toll could have been in the tens of thousands by now. The property damage from irradiating southern New York, Long Island, and all of downwind New Jersey and New England would be beyond calculation."

New York City is well outside the range of even the most powerful catastrophic explosion you could imagine at Indian Point. And I hate to break it to you, but those reactor containment buildings are rated to stand up to almost anything. A fully loaded jetliner slamming into the thing--assuming you could hit something that small--would NOT breach it. Says who? The Japanese of course, who actually did a test.

"Meanwhile, the renewable energy industry is soaring to new heights of power and profitability. Wind farming has boomed to a $10-15 billion per year industry, with worldwide growth rates surpassing 25%. Breakthroughs in silicon solar cells are taking rooftop photovoltaics (PV) to vastly increased levels of efficiency and profitability."

And together, they STILL only make up 0.5% of our energy. Cite all the growth rates you want, but a 25% growth rate means almost nothing if it's from 0.4 to 0.5.

And of course this ridiculous article comes to us from a guy with a website called "Solartopia." The ideal analogy--an image of a perfect world that's NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, because it's technologically impossible.

[jpak]

2. 110 US nuclear reactors were canceled in the '70's and '80's

The true value for these stranded nuclear costs was $112 billion (in eleven states).

Bullshit indeed.

[TheWraith]

12. And do you have credible journalistic citations that these costs were paid by the govt?

Or to justify the claim of $100 billion in stranded cost payouts in 2001?

[NNadir]

16. And this compares to the stranded cost of dangerous fossil fuel waste how?

The alleged 112 billion dollars resulted from public stupidity and nothing else.

The anti-nuke industry/religion is like a fireman who is an arsonist.

$112 billion dollars over 20 years - all of it unnecessary because the plants should have been built - amounts to (uh, oh math to follow) amounts to 5 billion dollars per year.

The anti-nuke religion - which couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuels, never has, never will, is apparently unfamiliar with the cost of burying hundreds of thousands of dead each year from the coal industry.

No form of energy is free, and no form is risk free. Nuclear energy doesn't have to be perfect to be better than every thing else. It merely has to be better than everything else, and, sure enough, it is.

Now.

If one is getting drunk in front of the fire on Allen's coffee brandy on the family compound, while thinking about the place settings for the dinner for 40, you probably have never had to worry about little people things like "costs" or economics. Given that nuclear energy produced 14,811 billion kilowatt-hours of pure electricity since 1980, the alleged $112 billion dollar cost, even if it wasn't a dumbass number made up by illiterate anti-nuke theologians, would amount to less than one cent per kilowatt-hour. This number apparently is supposed to get a rise out people, even when it comes from people who couldn't care less that solar energy, for instance, costs more than 20 times as much, and solar is not continuous, and not reliable. Note too, that the entire stranded cost from abandoned reactorss is almost entirely the result of the anti-nuke industry's need generating revenues and continuous bribery by appealing to ignorance. Few, if any of these costs derive from any intrinsic fault of nuclear technology

[losthills]

17. The Anti-Nuke God spoke to me...

and told me to ask you, "Why should a viable energy source be given 112 Billion dollars of the tax payers' money, and what have they received in return?"

[TheWraith]

25. Then we should stop all public funding for solar and wind power? NT

[jpak]

23. Ummm... the "little people", not the reactor owners, pay these stranded costs

something the shills at the Nuclear Energy Institute want us to forget...

[AlecBGreen]

5. 25% annual rate of growth

means a doubling every 3 years.

2010 = 1%
2013 = 2%
2016 = 4%
2019 = 8%
2022 = 16%
2025 = 32%
2028 = 64%
2031 = we're saved! halleluja!

Thats assuming a 25% ROG can be mantained, which is pretty f'ing hard to do. Just look at China trying to maintain 10% annual growth. Even so, renewables are growing quickly and should be encouraged with subsidies. If we can give handouts to the polluting coal and oil industries, why not solar and wind?

[TheWraith]

13. I'm all for encouraging renewables.

But it's like the old trope about how if you take a penny, then double it, and keep doubling it every day, in a month you'll have 11 million dollars. Catch is, you can't keep up that kind of geometrical growth. 25% growth is possible with wind right now because it's such as small percentage of the equation.

I'm all in favor of increasing wind energy, and yes, even solar, weak-ass as it is. But they alone just cannot provide the kind of power we demand. The highest rated wind turbine in existence can do roughly 2 megawatts of real generation, to keep things simple. The US demands about 456,000 megawatts on average, again to keep things simple. That means to complete our needs with wind power, you'd need to build 228,000 towers each over 650 feet tall with rotor diameters of almost 400 feet. More than that, technically, since energy would have to be pumped across the grid to power areas where the wind wasn't blowing, and that's lossy. I don't even want to think of the financial cost, and as far as ecology--that's one 650 foot tower on each square of land 3.8 miles on a side, across the entire United States.

We need to play all our cards. The insistence that we can have clean energy without nuclear power ignores ALL the math. To compare, you'd only need about 235 good sized nuclear plants to replace all US electrical demand. Less than that actually, when you subtract the 28% of our energy that's already clean--22% nuclear and 6% hydro. That makes only 170 new plants, figuring at a rough cost of 2 billion each... a complete clean energy solution for less than the cost of the Iraq War, and let wind power handle the growth in demand.

I've yet to see anyone who can present compelling math that says wind and solar can replace fossil fuels without a more dense energy source. If I had three wishes, I'd happily provide something that didn't have the stigma of nuclear power, but we're already using energy sources that are every bit as toxic, and aren't contained and protected. Even with funding that hasn't been obtained yet, it's likely that practical fusion reactors are still ten or fifteen years out, and that leaves us in a world where we need to choose between the pragmatic solution and the status quo. It isn't a perfect world.

[phantom power]

3. Meanwhile...

renewables advocates are working hard to keep the "taxpayer trough" open for wind and solar.

Act Now To Save Solar!

ASES, along with many others, wants to encourage you to pick up the phone and contact your congressional representatives. You can find their phone numbers here. Please call their Washington offices and tell your Representatives and Senators to demand that Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi include the 8-year extension for the solar investment tax credit and the production tax credit in the energy bill. Tell them that the challenges we face need to be addressed and these tax titles MUST be included.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=120754&mesg_id=120754

[Dead_Parrot]

4. That's completely different!

Apparently.

[jpak]

7. Yes -a 30% solar tax credit for homeowners that actually pay for these systems

is a lot different than the $50 billion dollars in no-congressional-oversight nuclear plant loan guarantees slipped into the Farm Bill in the dead of night by a GOP Senator that took mega$$$ from the Nuclear Lobby.

and it's way different than the $6 billion for nuclear electricity production credits in GOP 2005 Energy Bill...

[phantom power]

8. Here is where I was going with that...

The anti-nuke argument regarding tax breaks, or subsidies, etc, is: "all these govt subsidies prove nuclear isn't economical." To which the obvious reply is, "All right, then let's all do without tax breaks and subsidies. No more tax breaks for homeowners, businesses, or utilities for installing PV or wind."

I don't know that this line of argument is so helpful. Governments give subsidies to industries that they want to promote, and no subsidy is going to please everybody. I don't actually mind tax benefits for renewables. If and when I get around to installing some PV, I'll file for my tax benefit too. I don't mind subsidies for nuclear power either, since I approve of it, and I think it's a good investment in America's future. To the extent that we have any future.

Maybe a better way to say it is this: If you don't want subsidies for nuclear power, that's one position. However, if you say "nuclear is bad because they benefit from subsidies," then that sort of obligates you to explain why renewables aren't bad because they are subsidized.

[jpak]

10. Here is where I was going with that...

GOP nuclear politics and parliamentary shenanigans are bad - indeed, they sucketh.

The nuclear industry is a mature energy industry. It has benefited from tens of billions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies that cannot be compared to the table scraps renewable energy has received over the years.

$50 billion in solar loan guarantees and $6 billion in solar production credits would give the GOP a bad case of the vapors - but think nothing of it when its for their friends in the NEI...

[phantom power]

9. Another thing: you realize where that tax credit goes, right....

it passes through the PV consumer, and ends up in the coffers of the PV manufacturers. If I install some PV on my roof, and get a 25% tax credit, it means that 25% of the cost was paid by the taxpayers to the people I bought the PV from.

I will re-iterate that I'm not interested in bashing tax credits for renewables, but let's all be aware that the renewables industry benefits from these tax credits, no less than the nuclear industry benefits from their various subsidies.

[Nederland]

6. Good point

We should either install a carbon tax (which is technologically neutral) or scrap subsidies altogether and let the market decide what technology works best.

[losthills]

11. I don't believe in letting "the market" decide anything.

That's what we have elected representatives for. And I don't believe in giving government subsisdies to anybody that makes more money than me....

I would simply pass a law saying, "All new power generation must be renewable." And another one saying, "All new buildings must provide at least half their own power from wind or solar." And another one saying, "All oil, coal, and nuclear power plants must be phased out in ten years."

Then I'd let American ingenuity and know-how work like it always has...

[Dead_Parrot]

18. Interesting

I'd have to check, but I think that's the most stupid comment I've ever heard. But checking everything I've read on the internet in the last ~20 years is way to much hard work for a Tuesday evening.

[losthills]

22. Thanks for your valued input.

Your comments are always encouraging...

[Nederland]

21. Yup

We can't afford to let all those stupid "people" to make their own decisions, we need politicians to make our decisions for us; because if history has ever shown us anything, it's that politicians are way smarter than the people. :eyes:

[TheWraith]

14. The market decided that coal-fired power is the most economical.

It costs only 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, as opposed to 3.8 cents for nuclear, 4 cents for wind, and 25 cents for solar.

"The market" actually doesn't work all that well.

[Massacure]

15. Because the market doesn't count external costs...

Utilities that burn coal don't end up paying to repaint peoples houses or to buy asthma medication or for the crops destroyed by acid rain...

[Nederland]

20. Exactly

That's what the carbon tax is for...

[Nederland]

19. Read my post again

You'll see that I suggested the creation of a carbon tax. A carbon tax would incorporate the externalities of CO2 output into the price of coal power, thereby making it less attractive to the market.

[TheWraith]

24. There are ways around pollution taxes.

Assuming that it even got past the immediate, million-decibel screaming of the entire right wing.