Nuclear energy debate fraught with myths on danger, high costs,

[Coastie for Truth]

Nuclear energy debate fraught with myths on danger, high costs By Eric McErlain

While reading Steve Kirsch's op-ed on nuclear energy ("Despite safeguards, nuclear power carries great risk," April 24), I found many of his arguments distressingly familiar from my time blogging for the Nuclear Energy Institute. Since I started our blog 15 months ago, my colleagues and I have been busy battling many of those same myths about nuclear energy. Here are just three we've dealt with most often.

1. Nuclear energy is too expensive: This claim is rooted in higher upfront capital costs. While this may have been true of some plants when they were built 20 years ago, it isn't today.
In the 1990s, natural gas-fired electric capacity had the most attractive capital structure. But by overbuilding, America opened itself up to punishing price volatility and the prospect of developing an addiction to imported natural gas much like our current addiction to foreign oil.
But new nuclear capacity can hedge against price volatility in natural gas markets. We believe the limited incentives contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for the first half-dozen reactors will jump-start construction. Once new nuclear plants get built, the other half of the equation, production cost, comes into play. After more than 25 years of improving performance, production costs for nuclear power plants are the lowest in the industry. This is even after utilities have spent $1.2 billion enhancing security at American reactors in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

2. Chernobyl proved that nuclear power plants can't be operated safely or reliably: What Chernobyl proved was that you shouldn't disable safety systems -- which is precisely what the operators of the plant did. And while no one can guarantee that there will never be another accident at a nuclear power plant, design differences between Russian and Western reactors make a repeat of that accident impossible.

---snip---

In 1980, one measure of reliability, industry wide capacity factor, was under 60 percent. Preliminary figures from the Energy Information Administration show that had risen to 89.6 percent by 2005.

3<. [u>Nuclear energy's environmental benefits are overstated: Now that environmentalists are becoming familiar with how nuclear energy can reduce emissions, anti-nuclear extremists have become desperate to confuse the public with fatally flawed studies which we have dissected in detail on our blog.

What industry opponents can't deny, however, are the benefits our environment is already enjoying thanks to nuclear energy:
In 2005, U.S. nuclear power plants prevented 3.32 million tons of sulfur dioxide, 1.05 million tons of nitrogen oxide, and 681.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the earth's atmosphere.

From 1995 to 2005, U.S. nuclear generation avoided the emission of 41.0 million tons of sulfur dioxide, 16.9 million tons of nitrogen oxide, and 7.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
---snip---

ERIC MCERLAIN is a speech writer for the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C., and serves is editor of its blog, NEI Nuclear Notes (www.neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com). He adapted this article for the Mercury News from a May 2 post on his blog.

[drm604]

1. .

:popcorn:

[Deja Q]

2. Hmm

#1 - if everything is about the upfront costs only, just sneeze when making the crucial connection and turn this fuckin' planet into a burnt marshmallow NOW. x(

#2 points to #1

#3 Both sides will do anything to bolster their POV. Therefore I listen to neither of them. It all boils down to money.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. My biggest worry is what to do with the waste?

By the way, they are finally almost ready to demolish the Trojan cooling tower...

Description: The only nuclear power plant in Oregon shut down twenty years early, after a cracked steam tube released radioactive gas into the plant, in 1992. It cost $450 million to build the plant, and it is expected to cost the same amount, at least, to finish decommissioning the plant. In 2001, the 1,000 ton 1,130 megawatt reactor was encased in concrete foam, and coated in blue shrink-wrapped plastic, then shipped up the Columbia River on a barge to the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, where it was placed in a 45 foot deep pit, and covered with six inches of gravel, making it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole. The plant went on line in 1976, and was said to have been built on an Indian burial ground. When it shut down 16 years later, it was the largest commercial reactor to be decommissioned. Once the rest of the plant is cleaned up and decontaminated, it will probably be demolished, and the 500 foot tall cooling tower will be imploded, but probably not before the spent fuel rods are removed, as, like all the other 108 or so commercial reactors in the country, the radioactive spent fuel is stored on site in a pool, in this case right next to the Columbia River, awaiting the possible opening of the Yucca Mountain radioactive storage facility in Nevada.
http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/OR3142/

Lots of issues. Oregonians finally voted to not allow nuclear power in the state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Nuclear_Power_Plant
In 1978, the plant was closed for nine months while modifications were made to improve its resistance to earthquakes, following discovery both of major building construction errors and of the close proximity of a previously unknown faultline. The operators sued the constructors, and an undisclosed out of court settlement was eventually made.

The Trojan steam generators were designed to last the life of the plant, but it was only four years before trouble was first detected, as premature cracking of the steam tubes. In 1992, rupture of a steam tube finally closed the plant, and it was announced that replacement of the steam generators would be necessary before it could restart.

Environmental opposition dogged Trojan all of its life, including violent clashes both inside and outside the boundary fence. In an Oregon state poll in 1980, a proposal to ban construction of further nuclear power plants in the state was approved by voters. Then in 1986, a proposal by Lloyd Marbet for immediate closure of the Trojan plant was defeated. This proposal was resubmitted in 1990, and again in 1992 when a competing proposal by Jerry and Marilyn Wilson to close the plant was also included. Although all of these closure proposals were defeated, in campaigning against them the plant operators committed to successively earlier closure dates for the plant.

more at the link...

the spent fuel is sitting there, underground, still waiting to go to Yucca Mtn.

The cooling tower is to be demonlished via dynamite explosion on May 21, 2006.

[MercutioATC]

7. Agreed. Until they solve that problem, I can't support nuclear power.

There are plenty of manufacturing processes that create great products that we don't allow or regulate heavily) because of the waste byproducts they create.

[Massacure]

14. You should read about the Experiemental Breeder Reactor (EBR)

The managed to get the fuel the used so that it will be less radioactive than the original mined uranium ore in 400 years. Bill Clinton opposed that project though, as did Kerry if I recall. Funding for it was cut in 1994.

[jpak]

4. The NEI was a charter member of Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/energytf.html

<snip>

According to the GAO's report, "senior agency officials" with the Department of Energy met "numerous times" with energy companies to provide advice to Cheney's energy task force. Those companies include Bechtel, Chevron, American Coal Company, Small Refiners Association, the Coal Council, CSX, Kerr-McGee, Nuclear Energy Institute , the National Mining Association, General Motors, the National Petroleum Council, and the energy lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers. In addition, the Secretary of Energy discussed national energy policy with chief executive officers of petroleum, electricity, nuclear, coal, chemical, and natural gas companies, among others. The task force even sought and received advice from the now-disgraced and bankrupt Enron Corporation.

<snip>

paid liars and GOP crony capitalists...

:popcorn:

[Coastie for Truth]

5. As we learned in History 101 -

read critically, compare and contrast, dig a little deeper, analyze.

[jpak]

6. But I have Coastie

from the link...

"We believe the limited incentives contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for the first half-dozen reactors will jump-start construction."

Limited???

Unprecedented!!!

50% taxpayer financing of the licensing costs ($$ hundreds of millions $$).

$6 billion in production credits (1.8 cents per kWh).

$2 billion in taxpayer bailouts if the NRC (or heaven forbid "intervenors") delays construction.

Taxpayer guaranteed loans for up to 80% of the construction costs (~$9 billion minimum).

Why do they need this if nuclear power is so "economical"????

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. check out the wikipedia link in #3

PGE passed all the costs on to consumers, EVEN AFTER THE PLANT WAS CLOSED FOR BEING FAULTY. All so they could keep their profits up.

Corporate Energy Welfare at it's finest. :mad:

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Compare the alternatives

We are in a classical energy war - to project military power (i.e., kill 2400 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis) to assert hegemony over oil in the ground.


And, as usual, I refer one and all to;

* F. William Engdahl, "A Century Of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order"

* Matthew Simmons, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy"

* Kenneth Deffeyes, "Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak"

* Kenneth Deffeyes, "Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage"

* Michael Klare, "Blood and Oil : The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum"

* Michael Klare, "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict"

* James Howard Kunstler, "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century"

* Anthony Evans, "An Introduction to Economic Geology and Its Environmental Impact"

and, oh yes - the Bushco "smoking gun"

* Project for a New American Century, "Rebuilding America's Defenses"

I am obsessive-compulsive, I carry a grudge, and I am no fan of the oil industry (and I am a Chemical Engineering doc) -- and here's why -- and I have worked in nuke power, photovoltaics, industrial electrochemistry, fuel cells, and batteries (with electric car and hybrid car applications).

As I see it - we have four choices:
1. More Bush-Cheney- API - Big Oil "Energy Wars" (of which Iraq is only the first).

2. The Malthusian Depression predicted by Kunstler.

3. Nuclear Power

4. A miracle happens
<>

[jpak]

10. The US has ~4% of the Earth's remaining oil but consumes ~25%

of global oil production.

The US is host to ~25% of planet's nuclear capacity but has only ~4% of recoverable uranium reserves.

We import ("percentagewise") as much uranium as we do oil (~66% of domestic consumption for each).

Any parallels here???

We are currently in a war for oil.

China and Japan are also currently scouring the planet for uranium, locking up supplies for themselves - and locking everyone else out.

The US, UK, France, Germany, South Korea, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania et al. import most or all of their uranium.

Will we have to fight for uranium too???

Finally, 6000 MW of new nuclear capacity won't even keep pace with existing nuclear plant retirements over the next 15 years.

If we wait around for nuclear to "save us" we will be waiting around for a long long time...

[Coastie for Truth]

13. Two More Alternatives

1. Bush-Cheney - API Alternative ---

2. The alternative from my first job - like they still teach at Penn State, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia Univ. (I'm a hill billy - and that there is where I grew up- I did my grad work at a "School of Engineering and MINES").

[flashsmith]

11. Whatever happened to pebble bed reactors?

I went to a lecture about 10 years ago when the speaker was advocating the adoption of pebble bed reactors. The nuclear fuel is encased inside tennis ball sized pebbles which provide the containment. The reactors are meltdown proof as has been demonstrated twice where the operators deliberately removed the coolant. The reactor stabilizes at a temperature a couple of hundred degrees below the melting point of the pebbles. They were supposed to be cheap to make as the reactors don't need a cooling tower. The spent pebbles could be adequately disposed of by putting them in a lead container. The speaker said they would have to been installed on existing nuclear sites or replace existing nuclear facilities as it was politically impossible to create new nuclear sites. That was the last I heard of them. You'd think with the fossil fuel crunch that someone would be advocating them.

[jpak]

12. read on

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2001/october/a6oct01.cfm

http://www.ieer.org/comments/energy/chny-pbr.html

http://www.tmia.com/industry/pebbles.html

[Massacure]

15. The uranium is a pain in the ass to recycle with that arrangement.

I don't like those designs very much. They are not sustainable enough.