In my recent perusal of talk radio, sites and newspapers (of a certain ideological perspective) I was surprised to see the promotion of nuclear power as a way of meeting our future energy needs. Maybe it is just because I lived through the end of the Cold War and witnessed the destruction of Chernobyl, but nuclear energy just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Therefore, I was quite surprised to find out that going nuclear (outside of Iran of course) is quite in vogue. When dealing with this form of energy, there remain some serious issues that need to be addressed and thought through. The article below goes into more detail.Just Say No
Nuclear power is complicated, dangerous, and definitely not the answer
BY STEVEN COHEN
08 Aug 2006
If the media and the New York Times editorial page are any guide, nuclear power is the new green-energy option being embraced by environmentalists. This is not a new idea. The first mainstream statement of the "nuclear option" came from a 2003 report by MIT professors John Deutch and Ernest Moniz, "The Future of Nuclear Power."
As the duo's press release put it: "The nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power ... Taking nuclear power off the table as a viable alternative will prevent the global community from achieving long-term gains in the control of carbon dioxide emissions."
While I share their alarm at our failure to address the problem of overabundant greenhouse-gas emissions, I am equally alarmed by their willingness to accept this dangerous, complicated, and politically controversial technology as a fix for our looming climate crisis.
Let's begin with dangerous, setting aside the obvious problems raised by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. In the past few years, we have seen the horror that suicide bombers set loose in restaurants from Tel Aviv to Baghdad, and the danger of jets flying into skyscrapers. Do we really want to see what happens if a terrorist attacks a nuclear power plant? Are we so arrogant as to believe that these facilities are not already tempting, and vulnerable, targets?
Let's move on to complicated. The primary waste product of nuclear power, spent fuel rods, remains toxic for thousands of years. We do not yet know how to detoxify these waste products and, despite 20-some years of trying, we have not yet been able to establish a long-term repository anywhere in the United States.
Money is not the issue. We have the resources to build a nuclear-waste storage facility -- under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, customers of nuclear-generated electricity have been paying a $0.001 per kilowatt-hour fee on their electric bills since 1983. Utilities pass the money into an account that has generated $24 billion over the years. Despite assurances that the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will last longer than the waste will be toxic, serious failings in storage technology and the risks of transportation have resulted in widespread opposition. Today, our nuclear waste goes into "spent fuel pools" at nuclear power plants like the one at Indian Point, just 35 miles north of New York City.
If the problem of detoxifying waste is beyond current technology -- which is why we need to store it for thousands of years -- what about the technology of power generation? The MIT study acknowledges that no power plant can be made risk-free. In reality, all technology carries risks. When we drive on an interstate highway, we face the risk of a crash. We accept the risk because it is relatively low, and because the effect of the risk is localized. A mistake in a nuclear power plant, however, can cause long-standing, widespread damage to people and ecosystems. Just ask the people who survived Chernobyl. The risk may be low, but the potential impact is high.
That leads to the politics. No one wants to host the nuclear-waste repository. No one wants a nuclear power plant next door. This is not an engineering or economic issue, but one of politics. In an increasingly crowded and interdependent world, people have grown more sensitive about questions of land-use development. Environmental justice has also reached the political stage, because the rich are better able to defend themselves against environmental insults than the poor. In the United States, local politics in many places has become the politics of land use and development. If we can't site Wal-Marts without a lengthy battle, why does anyone seriously think that we will be able to site the hundreds of new nuclear power plants that may be necessary to meet our energy needs without increasing greenhouse-gas emissions?
Moreover, why waste our time and effort on a so-called solution to climate change and high oil prices that has no real chance of gaining political traction? The largest impacts of global warming lie in the future, and are global in scope. But the problem of a nuclear accident would be comparatively local, and would potentially last for decades or centuries. The American political process is designed to respond to intense, local issues -- that is why constructing even one nuclear power plant is a non-starter.
I agree that the answer to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and reducing energy costs is to develop new technology. I agree that the need for a technological fix is urgent. The problem of energy prices and global climate change is real, and reaching crisis proportions. The American government should start a major research and development effort to create new power sources that are small-scale, decentralized, environmentally safe, and feasible in the political climate of the U.S. in the first decade of the 21st century.
Despite the promises of a previous generation, nuclear power never became "too cheap to meter." Rather, it became a discredited, mid-20th century mistake. Raising this issue is a distraction from the real work we need to undertake. We need to put our brain power to work on a way of reducing energy prices and emissions that can actually be implemented here in the United States -- and very, very soon.
Some relevant links:
The Dangers of Nuclear Power
Nuclear power isn't clean, it's dangerous
Nuclear Energy Fact Sheet
14 comments:
From Mr. Cohen's language it's clear that he started with a conviction against nuclear energy and since then all he's done is collect reassurances that he's right.
He SAYS his main objection to nuclear energy is based on the wastes. Oddly, he doesn't make the same objection to coal, even though the wastes are many times more dangerous and last forever.
In fact, however, he isn't right. The technology for dealing with spent-fuel waste has been known for decades. First, the valuable uranium and transuranic actinides make up 97% of the waste. Once they are removed, the remaining 3% will lose their toxicity naturally in some centuries and isolating them for that short time is no challenge at all. Second, present technology allows for the residual waste to be transmuted into other substances that can be safely handled in decades or sooner.
But we've all been through this before. Mr. Cohen will never give up this objection. And if he did, he'd find a new one.
If you are trying to make your blog informative, consider seeking out people who have valuable information to offer, for example James Lovelock.
I just finished Power to Save the World by Gwyneth Cravens. She goes into much more depth than I can on all the pertinent subjects. She's also a much better writer. If you really want to know about the subject, check it out. At the end, her main informant makes an interesting remark:
"One day God could say to us: I gave you the brainiest men and women in human history to come up with an understanding of the atom and its nucleus. I gave you enough uranium and thorium to last you for thousands of years. I gave you an understanding of how when uranium decays it releases energy. You didn't need to invent anything else. You had everything you needed to provide energy for yourselves and your descendants without harming the environment. What else did you want?"
Where are we going to come up with the energy to heat, cool and illuminate our homes and to power our transportation vehicles if we don't move toward nuclear energy? Are foreign oil and coal really any better?
MB
Greetings, Robc and MB :)
MB:
This is not an argument for foreign oil, that would be silly.
If you watch the video posted "Coal" below, you would have gathered that my bent is not towards coal. Since coal is just as toxic to the environment as nuclear waste. And I highly recommend the Coal video!
RobC:
Regarding bias, you read this post with bias. There is nothing wrong with that. We all have biases, that is the benefit of debate and dialogue with people who hold a different view than ourselves.
The whole point of the article and three links below are to refute nuclear power and its proponents. That's what makes it a debate. Your analysis of nuclear power has been refuted in all three articles. And by the masses of toxic waste being produced by the US, France and Britain (three nuclear energy countries. A quick google search will give you all the stats on nuclear waste). So if nuclear is so clean and this has been known for decades (as you say), then why all of the toxic waste?
That is an interesting quote that you end with. So why do you think God would want us to use a dangerous toxic substance to power an over- consumption based society? As the Dangers article aptly points out:
While it is claimed that there is little or no fossil fuel used in producing nuclear power, the reality is that enormous quantities of fossil fuel are used to mine, mill and enrich the uranium needed to fuel a nuclear power plant, as well as to construct the enormous concrete reactor itself.
Indeed, a nuclear power plant must operate for 18 years before producing one net calorie of energy. (During the 1970s the United States deployed seven 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plants to enrich its uranium, and it is still using coal to enrich much of the world’s uranium.) So, to recoup the equivalent of the amount of fossil fuel used in preparation and construction before the first switch is thrown to initiate nuclear fission, the plant must operate for almost two decades.
As far as being informative, how about reading on both sides of the argument in order to be better informed yourself ;) I only feel informed once I have heard both sides of a debate.
"One day God could say to us..."
When someone begins to ponder what God might say, I think it's important that we ponder whether the statement reflects His nature. God is exceedingly creative - He created the universe and all that it contains. He is innovative - He is constantly working to redeem and reconcile at all times.
I do not believe that God would say, "Okay, don't innovate anymore. Stop being creative. Good enough." It seems to contradict His nature.
Reilly, Mr. Cohen's article doesn't refute anything. He merely repeats anti-nuclear dogma that ignores the reality that nuclear waste is being safely reprocessed and isolated from the environment.
The three links on which his argument rests are symptomatic of his blindness on this subject. The first is a diatribe composed in 1972 which relies on a damage estimate done in 1957. Even at the time, the paper was deficient, relying on disputed sources. All the work done since by scientific panels such as the National Research Council and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation have shown that the early alarmism over health effects of nuclear energy were unjustified.
The second link is a page of misinformation from Helen Caldicott. Dr. Caldicott is such an extreme exemplar of grotesque dishonesty that most writers would have avoided such a reference to save themselves from the ridicule it deserves. But not Mr. Cohen.
The third link is nothing more than the usual litany of false arguments. Here's an example, related to the accident at Three Mile Island: "Consequences of the incident include radiation contamination of surrounding areas, increased cases of thyroid cancer, and plant mutations." All the studies done by professional epidemiologists concluded that there were no radiation-caused health effects. They did, instead, conclude, "Pending a demonstration that very low dose gamma radiation can act as a tumor promoter or the identification of another late-stage carcinogen in the effluent stream, an effect of plant emissions in producing the unusual patterns of lung cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma appears unlikely, and alternative explanations need to be considered."[ref] In a later study, they suggested that the slight effect either resulted from statistical noise or could have been caused by stress. If it's the second possibility, then irresponsible news coverage did more harm than the accident did.
Nuclear power plants do not leave a lot of toxic waste. I followed your suggestion and googled nuclear waste. A 1000-MW nuke generates 25-30 tonnes of used fuel per year, of which 3% (less than 1 tonne) has to be isolated. In contrast, a coal plant of the same size generates 226,000 tons of toxic, radioactive solid waste per year, not counting pollutants released to the atmosphere [ref][ref].
Every study done to date, not counting those done by political zealots, show that nuclear ranks among renewable energy sources on life-cycle CO2 emissions. [example].
Life-cycle CO2 emissions are a rough indicator of the energy payback times for non-fossil sources. It would be helpful if you gave references. A payback time of 18 years obviously can't be right, and can be dismissed simply on the basis of silliness.
I've been following both sides of the debate for forty years. The anti-nuke side has always been just like the presentation you've made here: nonsense made up by true believers in a cause that should have died before it started. Listening to both sides of the debate is what we all should do, but at some point you have to realize that one side is propping up misconceptions with misinformation.
We are at the crucial point right now. If we continue to delay in converting away from fossil fuels to the one non-fossil energy source we can count on, we'll give up our last chance of averting disaster. You can look at it right-side-up and up-side-down, but without nuclear we're screwed.
Dave, we've been creative. Nuclear has the best technology and the most potential of any energy source we have. Pure thoughts and windmills won't do the job.
RobC,
Wow, you sure do like nuclear power. How about one in you neigbrohood? You would be okay with it right? Because it is so safe. How about a nuclear waste disposal sight? After all it doesn't produce allot according to your argument. And your stats on waste are not the only stats. Many non-government sites show that there are over 300 million tonnes of toxic waste produced each year.
Every reactor (in the US) produces about [20 to 30] tons of highly radioactive waste a year. The majority of it is very long-lived and will have to be isolated from the ecosphere for hundreds of thousands of years ... As it leaks into the environment, it will bio-concentrate by orders of magnitude at each step of the food chain: algae, crustaceans, little fish, big fish, us. But I'm sure you are not concerned about this.
It takes a single mutation in a single gene in a single cell to kill you. [The most common plutonium isotope] has a half-life of 24,400 years. Every male in the Northern Hemisphere has a small load of plutonium in his gonads. What that means to future generations God only knows.
But as for your rebutal. You can dissmiss everyone who doesn't agree with you as ideologes, and zealots, but that doesn't streanthen your agrument, maybe on talk radio, but not here. This is exactly the behavior that Dr. Gordon Edwards wrote about. You can say that you have studied both sides of the argument, but you provide no evidence of this. A monologue is not a dialogue, and debasing those who don't hold your oppinions only further shows this.
I do agree that we need to change from fossil fuels, I am not, however, convinced that using an expencive and dangerous substance it the way to go.
Reilly,
I'm just asking where we are going to get the energy to heat/cool our homes and power our motor vehicles if coal, foreign oil and nuclear are all taboo (or at least to be avoided at all costs). You've ruled out three of the cheapest and most plentiful sources of energy.
MB
Reilly, ask the right question. Would you rather have a nuclear power plant in your neighborhood or a coal-fired one? Would you rather live near a nuclear waste repository or a sludge pond from a coal-fired plant?
I'd rather live near a nuclear plant than a chemical refinery or a gas station or a hog farm or a meat processing plant or a wastewater treatment plant or a freeway or a high school or a shopping mall. If Yucca Mountain had trees and grass I'd live there without a moment's hesitation.
I wish you'd make the effort to get some information on this subject. Of the 20 to 30 tons of spent fuel, 97% is uranium and transuranic actinides that can be recycled as fuel. The remaining 3% loses its radioactivity in hundreds of years, not hundreds of thousands. The whole point of isolating it is to ensure that it doesn't leak into the environment.
Where do you get this stuff? Any plutonium you've got came from bomb tests, not from nuclear power plants. You should know that all natural radiation has the same effects as artificial radiation. You get cell mutations constantly. The body heals chromosome damage the same way it treats other damage. Natural background radiation varies by large ratios and the health statistics in high-level areas are as good as those in low-level areas. Moving into the mountains will more than double a flatlander's exposure. In comparison, if you lived within 50 miles of a nuclear plant, your exposure would rise 0.009 millirem per year, compared with an average natural exposure of 240. If you lived the same distance from a coal plant, your exposure would rise .03 millirems per year. If you lived next door to a nuclear plant, you'd get 1 extra millirem/year, compared to 5 millirems you'd get from a single cross-country flight.[ref]
What kind of proof do you want that I've listened to both sides? I majored in Environmental Studies in California when an anti-nuclear initiative was being decided in the 1970's. Trust me, I've heard both sides. When anti-nukes depend on Helen Caldicott for their information, it proves their argument is bankrupt. How many times do environmentalists like me have to show you they're lying before you'll catch on?
No, anti-nukes debase themselves by inventing and recycling misinformation. All I do is point out where they're wrong.
I would rather have neither RobC. Your extreme this evil or that argument is baseless, since I have promoted neither.
Your facts on radioactivity are not in-accordance with science. There is no evidence that toxic waste will be gone in a hundred years. As far as getting facts, there are plenty of them here. You have just chosen to ignore the ones you can't deal with and pushed your version of "facts."
As far as radiation not being harmful. Tell that to the people in Chernobyl.
I would hardly call you an environmentalist for promoting a harmful product. I would call you an evangelist though.
Reilly, the truth is that the world does have to choose between nuclear energy and coal. Part-time energy sources won't provide the energy the world needs. People will never accept any edict that they must stay home in their cold, dark houses when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.
You can call me all the names you want, but it won't change the decision we have to make.
I didn't say the wastes would be gone in one hundred years, but that they would be harmless in some hundreds, a period that can easily be managed. Here's a chart to illustrate. If you remove the actinides, the total radioactivity remaining in the fission products is represented by the dotted line; on this log-log plot, it reaches the radioactivity of the original uranium ore in about five hundred years. Isolating it that long is not a challenge.
I see that in my earlier note I said the fission products lose their radioactivity in hundreds of years. That was poorly worded; I should have said that they lose enough to be harmless.
Thanks for bringing up Chernobyl. That's a subject that's been sorely abused. It was a Soviet reactor, different from all the other reactors in the world: it was inherently unstable and had no operating safety systems, not even a containment structure. To understand why the reactor was built and operated so unsafely, you'd have to understand how the Soviet system worked. I'm not qualified to explain it, but if you read some Solzhenitzyn you'll get the idea. The accident did, however, prove that anti-nukes had vastly overstated the harm such an accident could cause. It turned out that the consequences, serious as they were, were of the same scale as disasters that happen every year. But Three Mile Island in the US had a serious accident, even a melted core, but did no harm to anyone, anywhere. That's because of the defense-in-depth design Western reactors have.
What's interesting is that a big part of the region around Chernobyl now is healthier than before the accident. The chemical refineries and coal-burning plants caused terrible health problems. Now that they're shut down, the air is clean. Some people have moved back into the parts which officially are quarantined but where radiation isn't especially high. They eat vegetables from their gardens and drink water from their wells, and take eggs from their bug-eating chickens, and they're doing just fine. Wildlife have flourished in the area, including the hot spots. Wildlife biologists are studying the animals and plants and even after all these years they're not finding any radiation-related health problems. There's a superb book on Chernobyl's aftermath: Wormwood forest : a Natural History of Chernobyl by Mary Mycio.
I insist that I am an environmentalist. I believe in all the things environmentalists believe in, and have structured my life accordingly. But I have looked at this issue more carefully than many environmentalists have, and looked hard at the science. I think there are two kinds of environmentalists: the scientific and the social-activist. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, explained it this way: "Environmentalism has become anti-globalization and anti-industry. Activists have abandoned science in favor of sensationalism." He knows environmentalists better than I do, and I am one.
Reilly,
I know several people who have lived near and worked at nuclear reactors and waste disposal sites. As engineers and scientists, they are not concerned about the health effects for them or their families. In fact, all of them who have worked at other types of power plants prefer the safety and cleanliness of the nuclear industry.
Solar and wind cannot replace the capacity of our coal and fossil fuels. There aren't many options for energy sources without hydrocarbon byproducts. Nuclear energy is the only source with the potential to cleanly replace fossil fuels.
MB
:) Funnily enough, I don't remember saying anything about pure thoughts or wind power. I do remember commenting on top-down, big government welfare however. ;)
Sorry, Dave. I was on a rhetorical buzz and let it go. I should have been more respectful.
If we're going to adopt lifestyles that take less energy and figure out ways to move people and things without petroleum fuels, there will be plenty of need for creativity. Electricity is the easiest problem to fix.
No problemo! :)
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