Is increasing nuclear power's share of our power generation worth the risks?

No

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by Gary Sachs

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No. Nuclear is too slow and too expensive to be worth the risks.

Too slow. To build a reactor and to site it locally in the US takes years. Granted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has aided the industry by making the siting process far more streamlined and more difficult for Intervenors than it was back when the last reactors were sited in the seventies.

By the way, it was not Three Mile Island which led to the demise of the US nuclear industry, it was the free market system. It was found to be a bad investment. ( I note with interest that Berkshire Hathaway, the company associated with Warren Buffett decided at the end of January 08 not to pursue the nuclear reactor in the US state of Idaho.
( http://www.reuters.c om/article/rbssFinan cialServicesAndRealE stateNews/idUSN29574 46620080129)

Nuclear has yet to support itself without vast government subsidies from cradle to grave. Currently in the US the next reactors will be taking advantage of the industry gift called the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which is due to provide 72 to 80% of the start up costs of for the first six thousand Megawatts of new nuclear energy. That is the prize money Entergy, Exelon, Constellation, Dominion, Duke, Florida Power and Light ( the big industry names , I may have missed a few) are jumping for. Once those 6 new 1000 Megawatt reactors are built, who knows what the next incentives will be? 6000 Megawatts is not enough to make a significant difference, long term. In my opinion, the industry is nearing its last gasp, fending off a significant accidental release of radiation, refusing to stand accountable to the public, but they sure do have a powerful Public Relations team.

Start up costs for a new reactor are way higher than any other source of power- 3 or 4 billion (and the value of the dollar keeps dropping).

Comparativ ely speaking a combined cycle gas turbine plant (600 MW) which was 300- 400 million in 2001 is
today's super critical coal generator costing 900 million to 1.2 billion.

And between mid 05 and mid 07 the price of a new coal generator rose nearly 80 %. ( source: Power Engineering magazine)

What is the finite resource that fuels nuclear reactions? Uranium non- toxic out of the ground in Africa (not local)- except in large quantities where it is known to cause cancers.

The uranium must then be processed at USEC -United States Enrichment Corporation Paducah Ky. USEC is known to emit a CFC -114 product that is a far greater heat trapper and ozone destroyer than Co2. USEC is powered by two 1000 megawatt coal fired generators. Then at the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle are the costs required to store and protect the extremely lethal high level radioactive waste for tens of thousands of years at least.

Let's continue to add to this the dropping value of the US dollar. There is virtually one component of the new reactors
that can be made domestically- concrete.. And yes it takes a great deal of concrete to make a reactor. Concrete construction emits a great deal of Co2 into our atmosphere. So today the supply chain for the parts for reactors is international. Back forty years ago it was domestic only. Back in the seventies the US had 400 suppliers and 900 sub suppliers licensed by the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Today those #s are 80 and 200 respectively. ( Power Engineering)

The environmental and economic costs associated with storing and protecting the high level nuclear waste are factors upon which the industry expects to a) make money off the Federal inability to take the waste in the timely fashion it had promised back in 1982. The 1998 projected open date of the national repository continues to elude us now a decade later. And b) the high level radiation storage and protection costs are externalized so that the pro nuclear forces and PR teams say nuclear is a clean cheap source of electricity ... and as an end-use source it may be. Is it only the end use us short sighted first worlders think of?

Now there are 104 US nuclear reactors and 430 worldwide. I do not know if the Japanese ones that suffered the earthquake last Summer , August 07, are back on-line yet so we may be at 426 worldwide.

One significant accident anywhere in the US, be that Davis Besse in Ohio ( 1/2 in of containment building left after Boric acid hole found by NRC, or Peachbottom in Pennsylvania(sleepin g guards), maybe it will be Indian Point in New York ( one eighth the US population around its evacuation zone) or Diablo Canyon in California ( built on an earthquake fault), and that 4 billion dollar investment will become a multi billion dollar expense.

The US Federal Government even props up the industry in the event of such an accident with the Price Anderson act which limits corporate liability in the event of an accident to 9.2 billion dollars. The 1982 study done by Sandia labs for the NRC entitled the Calculated Reactor Accident Casualty 2 study showed that for a small 540 Megawatt reactor in the northeast US r in the event of a class 9 (worst case scenario) accident there would be no less than 68 billion dollars in damage in 1980 dollars, not to mention the injuries and lives lost.

To directly respond to the Mr Walch when he writes,
"France relies very heavily upon nuclear reactors to supply the majority of it's electrical power and seems to manage the risks quite well."

Didier Anger, a representative of Normandy, and French Green Party founder said," "France made a historic mistake when it decided to rely so heavily on nuclear power, rather than develop more advanced renewable technologies and efficient methods," "France is no showcase for nuclear power, Before pointing to France as a success story, the American(s) should ask the French what they think of the problems of waste, disease, and government cover-ups."

Reprocess ing doesn't destroy radiation. It divides & spreads radiation into: plutonium, uranium, highly radioactive, medium level waste, and much low level nuclear waste. Reprocessing contaminates' buildings, people and the environment.

What is needed is sustainable energy sources. For the world to continue to rely on finite resources will keep us in the situation we find ourselves in now after a century of wanton oil addiction.

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