Thanks for posting the excellent article by Peter Asmus. He puts his finger right on the matter. Now that the first enthusiastic flush for nuclear power is over (30 years ago), there are still immense pressures from civil engineers to build nuclear reactors but privately-owned utilities everywhere in the world are not keen to operate them unless the costs of operational insurance, of decommissioning and long-term storage are taken off their hands by governments.
If Bush wants more nuclear power then there's nothing to stop him. As he well knows, most of the public -- because of our evolutionary ancestry -- is always biddable enough. All he has to do is to guarantee sufficient insurance to the utilities industry. But he cannot do that -- and nor can any developed government -- above a modest proportion of power stations.
Nuclear power stations are perfectly safe to operate for 99.99% of the time because they're computer controlled. It's the other 00.01% of the time that's the problem when invisible stress cracks can occur and, maybe, the software hasn't anticipated that particular problem. I was delighted to see confirmation of my personal observations of some of the incompetent people I used to know who went into the nuclear power industry in my youth where he writes:
<<<<
The picture painted by some insiders was of an operations crew made up of a bunch of yahoos who would fit right into an episode of "The Simpsons."
>>>>
Precisely. Idiots can -- and do -- run nuclear power stations. The scientific personnel in the nuclear industry in this country is mainly supplied by one "captured" university which is so second-rate, if not third-rate, that no self-respecting science student with a good mind would dream of going there. As for the "ordinary" inspection control staff in our industry, they were cooking the books so much (with the tacit permission of the non-scientific senior civil service management) that they lost the huge contracts for treating the nuclear wastes from Japan and Germany, and just running Sellafield with no throughput at all is costing us hundreds of millions every year.
Keith
At 15:26 06/07/2005 -0700, you wrote:
Two items, the first from Llanos at MSNBC: Hot Idea: Fight Global Warming With Nuclear Power
The 'maybe some day' camp. Still other environmentalists, while not embracing nuclear power, are saying it could some day be a viable option if safety issues can be resolved and steps are taken to ensure that plutonium produced as a byproduct from the process doesn't end up in the hands of terrorists. "The problem of global warming is so serious that we must thoroughly consider every low-carbon option for producing power," the group Environmental Defense says on its Web site.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has a similar position. "These problems" safeguarding plutonium, reactor safety and nuclear waste disposal "need to be solved before expanding our commitment to nuclear power," Thomas Cochran, head of the group's nuclear program, told Western governors last year.
And Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, has gone on the record saying: "I don't believe we should a priori exclude any viable alternative" for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, "including safe nuclear power, provided we address issues of waste disposal and security."
New reactors safer. Jim MacKenzie, a climate researcher at the institute and a physicist by training, says that a new design known as the pebble-bed reactor is "substantially safer" than existing reactors and "basically meltdown proof." But he also sees significant obstacles, starting with what he calls a "culture" at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that favors the existing reactor designs. And he feels the industry is more focused on getting U.S. government subsidies than on addressing the nuclear waste and proliferation concerns.
MacKenzie favors fostering a mix of greater efficiency and clean energy resources, not building dozens of nuclear plants.
Opinion polls and smart money. Where do Americans stand on all this? A Gallup survey in March 2005 found 54 percent were strongly or somewhat in favor of nuclear power. That's up from 48 percent in 2001 and down from 57 percent in 1994. A Washington Post/ABC News poll last June asked a slightly different question whether to build more nuclear plants and got a much lower approval rating: just 37 percent somewhat or strongly in favor.
The 2005 Gallup survey touched a nerve as well when the question became more personal. Asked how they'd feel about construction of a nuclear power plant in their area, only 35 percent were in favor. That skittishness is also reflected among investors like billionaire Warren Buffett. His holding company already owns utilities, and he told the Wall Street Journal last month that he's keeping an "open mind" about investing in new nuclear power plants. "The price of making a mistake (by not acting) is such that you should err on the side of the planet," he said. But he also made clear that it would take guidance from Washington for him to commit. "We're here to participate in the dialogue," he said, "but not to set policy."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8120563/
Nuclear Dinosaur
By Peter Asmus, Washington Post, Wednesday, July 6, 2005; A17
The recent call by President Bush to restart a major nuclear power program in this country in response to concerns about our dependence on foreign energy sources and global climate change would have Adam Smith rolling in his grave.
There is no power source less compatible with the GOP's love of free markets and disdain for regulation and subsidy than nuclear fission. Without government intervention, there simply would be no nuclear industry.
Now, it is true that nuclear energy does not contribute to global climate change. And the new pebble bed modular reactor may well leak less, greatly reduce the risks of catastrophic meltdown and use less uranium fuel. But nuclear power is far from being clean or green. Consider the following:
Ø In the nuclear fuel process, uranium enrichment depends on great amounts of electricity, most of which is provided by dirty fossil fuel plants releasing all of the traditional air pollution emissions not released by the nuclear reactor itself. Two of the nation's most polluting coal plants, in Ohio and Indiana, produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment.
Ø The operations of nuclear power plants release dangerous air emissions in the form of radioactive gases, including carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton and xenon.
Ø Uranium mining mimics techniques used for coal, and similar issues of toxic contamination of local land and water resources arise -- as does the matter of the unique radioactive contamination hazards to mine workers and nearby populations. Abandoned mines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste can pose radioactive risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure.
Concerns about chronic or routine exposure to radiation are augmented by the supreme risk of catastrophe in the event of power plant accidents. A major failure in the nuclear power plant's cooling systems, such as the rupture of the reactor vessel, can create a nuclear "meltdown." Catastrophic accidents could easily kill 100,000 people.
I first learned about the electricity industry when I covered the battle to close the Rancho Seco nuclear plant in Sacramento in the 1980s. A long list of problems had resulted in local rate increases exceeding 200 percent. There were rumors of drug use, and even sex orgies, under the immense cooling towers. The picture painted by some insiders was of an operations crew made up of a bunch of yahoos who would fit right into an episode of "The Simpsons."
Over the next 15 years, I learned the ins and outs of the electricity business, the world's largest -- and most polluting -- industrial enterprise. The subject is boring and complex, which has led to ignorance about its extremely important activities. Past decisions authorizing a spate of nuclear plants were made with little scrutiny of their economic or environmental impacts. The consequences of those decisions, and the government subsidies that helped promote the fiction that they were cost-effective, helped set the stage for today's crisis in energy supply.
The United States, with its 103 operating nuclear power plants, is already the world's top consumer of electricity generated from nuclear fission. But we have yet to build a federal repository for nuclear waste. Given that U.S. reactors produce about 2,000 tons of high-level waste every year of operation, calling for greater reliance on nuclear power is not only supremely irresponsible but also an insult to the "conservative" wing of the Republican Party. Teddy Roosevelt is also turning over in his grave.
That Republicans call for more nuclear power is truly mind-boggling. There has never been a more subsidized, socialized power technology than nuclear. Virtually all of the countries that derive the greatest amount of electricity from nuclear power -- France, Lithuania, Ukraine, Sweden -- feature central planning and socialistic energy policies.
Real, free-market energy policies suggest smaller, smarter and cleaner power sources. The last thing the United States should embark on in these volatile times tainted by the terrorist threat is the dinosaur technology that is nuclear power.
The writer is author of "Reaping the Wind" and "Reinventing Electric Utilities."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/05/AR2005070501291.html?nav=hcmodule
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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