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TechnoratiNukenomics No Longer Add Up - Expert
WASHINGTON - Nuclear power is a risky source of energy that comes with many hidden costs, said an environmental analyst and long-time leader in the U.S. environmental movement Tuesday.
Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, said the "flawed economics" of nuclear power are placing unforeseen burdens on taxpayers: the costs related to the construction of nuclear plants, the disposal of nuclear waste, the decommissioning of old plants, and security in case of an accident all contribute to the price the world pays for nuclear power. Wind energy is a more economically sound option, said Brown.
The apparent cost of nuclear power is the cost of construction and fuel for nuclear plants, and this price is rising. The estimated construction cost of a nuclear reactor two years ago was between $2 and $4 billion. Now it is $7 billion, in part because of the rising cost of steel and cement, Brown said.
The price of fuel for nuclear power plants is also on the rise. Uranium now costs $60 per pound, compared to $10 at the beginning of the decade. This increase is due to the depletion of easily mined sites rich in ore, Brown said. Companies now have to dig deeper to find uranium, and the uranium content of the ore has dropped.
Brown said that when calculating the true cost of nuclear power, factors such as waste disposal, insurance in case of an accident, and decommissioning costs once a plant is worn out have to be included.
Brown mentioned the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, where the United States plans to store the radioactive waste from its 104 nuclear reactors, as an example of unforeseen costs of nuclear power. Yucca Mountain is located 90 miles outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. The cost of this repository, estimated at $58 billion in 2001, has climbed to $96 billion.
"Not only is Yucca Mountain over budget, it is 19 years behind schedule," said Brown. "It was originally supposed to be ready to accept waste in 1998 and it now is scheduled for 2017. It's not even certain that it will ever be completed."
The lack of a permanent waste storage facility is a security risk and security costs are usually not included in financial analyses either, said Brown. There are 121 temporary facilities in 39 states, and it is difficult to monitor and provide adequate security for all the sites. He cautioned that this distribution leaves the sites vulnerable to leakage, as well as possible terrorist attacks.
"There is a growing risk of radioactive material getting into the wrong hands," Brown said. He said there were 250 incidents last year of nuclear material being lost or stolen, and a lot was never recovered.
Another risk of nuclear power, according to Brown, is the danger of another accident like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. Sandia National Laboratory estimates that a worst-case scenario accident would cost $700 billion, "roughly the size of the fiscal bail out that congress passed a few weeks ago," said Brown. The cap on liability for U.S. nuclear power plants was set at $10 billion by the government, so in the case of such an accident the excess cost would be born by tax payers.
The cost of decommissioning older nuclear reactors can tip the balance sheet too. Reactors have an average life expectancy of about 40 years. Since the first plant opened in 1954, over 100 reactors have been closed, but many have not completed the decommissioning process, said Brown. According to a 2004 International Atomic Energy Agency report, the decommissioning cost for each reactor will range from $250 to $500 million, not including the cost of removing and disposing of the waste.
A report by nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider said recently that about 90 nuclear reactors are set to close within the next seven years. With only 36 new nuclear reactors under construction worldwide, Brown notes that world nuclear power generation could drop by 10 percent by 2015. With this "aging of the nuclear fleet," nuclear power generation could hit a sharp decline as more aging reactors close.
"What we're looking at is a half century of growth being replaced by what could be decades of decline," said Brown.
In light of this impending decline, Brown said the U.S. government should stop investing money in nuclear power -- currently over $70 billion a year -- and devote more money to the research and development of renewable energy sources, such as wind.
Comparing nuclear power with wind, Brown pointed out that nuclear power already costs twice as much as electricity produced from the wind, not including the additional costs he cited.
"If we look at the economics comparing nuclear with wind, a dollar invested in wind produces more energy, leads to a greater reduction in carbon emissions, and creates more jobs than one invested in nuclear power," said Brown.
Environmental research and activist groups, including the Center for American Progress, Greenpeace, and the Worldwatch Institute, are pressing the next administration in Washington to support multibillion-dollar "green jobs" programs to spur the U.S. economy while slowing the onset of global climate change. Each group's plan calls for a significant increase in government support for renewable energy.
The U.S. Department of Energy released the first national wind resource inventory in 1991, which highlighted the potential of three states -- North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas -- to satisfy the country's electricity needs through wind energy. Brown said that since then, wind turbine technology has improved and he estimated that these three states now have enough potential wind energy to satisfy the country's entire energy needs, not just electricity.
"Wind is the most mature of the renewable energy sources," said Brown. "Emphasizing the creation of new jobs with investments in renewables and efficiency is the way we want to go."
45 Comments so far
Show AllYes, wind and solar aren’t tuned to our frenetic anti-nature inhuman pace. And thank god, goddess, buddha, water spirit or whomever you choose, that that’s so. While global climate catastrophe is one of the 3 most serious problems we have, it is also only a sympton of the real problem, which is psychological, and healing our addiction to distraction and doing will go a long way toward helping with that.
And for the practical matters… solar and wind are largely complementary—each one tends to produce the most when and where the other is producing the least. In hot summer areas solar meets peak demand, when AC is pulling the most juice; during long cold nights in the plains and on the coasts wind is pumping out electricity for heat like a pre-Columbian bison herd running. And you can use it to recharge the new electric car whenever—at home or office or both. Improvements in battery technology, use of pumped storage, and of course, for a while, backup coal- and oil-burners to run only when needed, because it will probably take a couple of months to replace them all.
I’ve never gotten why people think only penny for penny equivalence will make solar and wind competitive. We are the richest, most extravagant country on Earth who will spare no expense to get what we really want—witness the military budget and what we spend on turning beautiful forests and meadows into golf courses and parking lots every year. People don’t compare the prices of a used Yugo with the price of a new BMW, or a local artisanal goat cheese with convenience store sliced American, because they’re not the same product. You get what you pay for. Except in the case of renewables, where we would get a whole lot more than we pay for—healthier bodies and minds (less mercury poisoning from burning coal, for example), the heart-stirring sight of sail-like blades gracefully turning above those bison herds instead of the heart-rending sight of burning oil fields in oil wars, reconstituted marshlands, reinvigorated populations of birds, amphibians and US laborers, and oh, yeah, civilization gets to continue.
Yep ~BILL~ I agree, burning coal is mankinds most serious problem, nuclear waste is in second place.
Speaking of serious nuclear power plant accidents, whenever they occur, it is always a big surprise. They say, "Oh my how did that happen, dang it, I just hate it when that happens".
Someday we will have a major nuclear power plant disaster, it is just a matter of time. When one plays with fire long enough, fingers get burned.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com
Spinwing,
I think you have some bad data. Coal is not shutting down nor is the expansion limited to China. In the US there is approximately 19GW of new coal generation under construction. This compares to less than 9GW of wind. Germany is also building new coal plants. Scotland is reactivating a couple of plants that have been mothballed (Scotland is shutting down its only nuclear plant and restarting coal generation. Does the coal miner's union have clout or what!).
Kem,
I haven't sparred with you for quite a while. Glad to know your new 'handle'. This is the first antinuclear article on CD in a long time. I guess Wasserman either gave up or is preoccupied with voter fraud in Ohio. I haven't hassled him for his inaccuracies in those articles. With those articles I think he is on the side of the angels.
In the past you have stated that there is no such thing as a perfectly safe reactor (or any other piece of industrial equipment for that matter). You were correct. That does not mean that a serious accident is probable. The risk analysis for the new reactors states that the risk of an accident causing a significant release of radioactivity beyond the plant boundaries is vanishingly small (like less than once in a billion years).
You are correct that Yucca mountain will fill up to its legal limit very quickly if we don't do something about the used nuclear fuel. A couple of points:
1) The legal limit, 70,000 tons, is about 1/5 of the safe limit. The legal limit was set by politicians for political reasons; it has no basis in science or engineering; it is merely a law from political compromise and expedience.
2) The used nuclear fuel, what many people characterize as nuclear waste, can be reduced dramatically if we were to recycle. Like recycling conventional trash, the cost is higher than using the material once and discarding it. We can recycle and reuse the fuel in water cooled reactors like the French do although I personally don't particularly favor this approach. The more rational approach is to use fast reactors to much more completely 'burn' the fuel. This approach would largely limit Yucca mountain to what really is waste-the fission fragments.
Regards,
Bill
I kind of doubt it is the unions.
Probably only about 15% of eastern coal mines are still union, and no western ones are. The coal boom is being pushed by corporations like Consol and Massey, Peabody, Arch and ICG, and robber-barons like the vile, union hating, global warming denying, Bob Muraay, who has the blood of quite a number of miners on his soul, including the six crushed and entombed at Crandall Canyon.
That nuke in Scotland is an orphan design. Maybe one more like it in England. It depends on some sort of giant fan spinning really fast under extreme conditions, and its a clunker.
If GHG are public enemy number one, then replacing nukes with coal is a huge step backwards.
BTW, Shell bailed out on the giant London Array windfarm. Not sure why, but at least partly money and NIMBY permitting problems. Sound familiar?
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model which makes the existing model obsolete"
-R. Buckminster Fuller
GO TIDAL (CURRENT) ENERGY!! If North America is serious about energy shortages & reducing dependence on foreign oil & GHG emissions, then by a long shot the most feasible energy source is in the tidal currents sloshing by on all our maritime shores and major river estuaries. Wind energy is virtuous and has come a remarkable way in 20 years but tidal (current) energy has the following remarkable advantages: it is predictable (i.e. FIRM), it has much higher energy density-potential than wind or solar (e.g. sea water is 832 times as dense as air), there are many excellent tidal current resource sites nearby to grid-hookups and population centres on both maritime coasts (and worldwide), it is non-polluting and has the lowest enviro-footprint relative to other large-generation energy technologies, and the concepts or tidal technologies now emerging worldwide are proven. All that remains to fully seat this technology is the political will to support it, and all you have to do is understand how aggressively the UK is working to seat tidal energy, for electricity and billions in jobs and exports, to comprehend the scope of this emerging technology. Check out this industry association: Ocean Renewable Energy Group: oreg.ca for more industry news.
- Michael Maser, Blue Energy International (www.bluenergy.com)
Thanks for the post and the link, I know very little about tidal energy.
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I think, therefore I am dangerous.
Tidal requires water, something Big Nuclear, more oil drilling, and more coal mining will suck up big time.
Tidal generators are placed off coastlines and in river mouths and deltas I believe...nukes don't use water from those sources.
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I think, therefore I am dangerous.
With Obama we get it all.
A whole slew of renewable energy sources, plus nuclear energy and (not) clean-coal.
The only way nuclear happens is if the profits are GIVEN to corporations regardless of cost. The liability of a single plant is approximately infinity. No private insurance company will provide coverage. The fuel takes an incredible amount of fossil fuels to mine, refine, guard, contain and dispose of with additional approximately infinite liability that no private insurance company will cover.
All losses in the business are paid by rate payers and taxpayers. The majority of these people will not willingly bear these costs.
No investor will freely invest in nuclear power.
Why do the people who think the government is incompetent in every area that benefits people like health care, think the government can handle such an open ended business?
Conservation and efficiency can replace more power at near zero risk and liability. Wind and solar are also very low liability and controlled cost.
Hi ~BILLY~, howzit goin? Yes indeedy they are extending the life time of nuclear reactors and that is really frightening if one cosiders how close several have come to haveing a disasterous accident already due to decayed plumbing, faulty valves, etc.
We all know it is just a matter of time before one will go ape-shit and wipe out a land area the size of New York and Pennsylvania combined. We all know the more nuclear plants opened the more deadly waste will have to be stored away for centuries to come. If the Yucca mountain storage site is ever put to use, it will be full before half of the waste is delivered to the site which sits atop an earthquake fault-line.
We all know that we could have ample clean re-nuable energy within ten years time with no nukes or coal burning plants in operation, ____ if we wanted to do that and the powers who be allowed such a massive program to commense.
~Kem Patrick~
This article has several errors that distort reality:
He states that the average life expectancy of reactors is 40 years. The original liscensing of the US reactor fleet was 40 years but about half of the currently operating reactors have had their liscense extended to 60 years and the other half are working on the paperwork. As bbr stated, there are current studies to determine if an 80 year life can be achieved.
He states that over 100 reactors have been shutdown. Many of the shutdown reactors are test units. Many more were small early generation-1 units that were not economic to continue in service. Some were techologies outside the PWR/BWR umbrella which in the US norm. Several were shutdown for political reasons. The EIA maintains a list of shutdown reactors: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/shutdown.html
He states that the runup in uranium price was due to ore exhaustion. This is not true. The US and Russian governments for a decade have been demilitarizing their uranium weapons stockpiles by diluting the highly enriched uranium with depleted uranium tailings from the enrichment process. The blended uranium was mixed to be reactor grade feed stock. This greatly depressed the price of freshly mined uranium. This program is winding down and the supply must be replaced with mined uranium. There was a temporary spike in the spot price of uranium to about $130/pound. This has now come back down to about $45/pound.
He states that storage and security costs are not included in financial analyses. This is not true. Storage and security are part of a utility's normal cost of doing business.
The fact that Yucca mountain has cost overruns and is behind schedule is more a commentary on the ineptitude of the federal government rather than a technological problem.
The paring off of wind and nuclear is a false dicotomy. The issue is the nation's dependence on fossil fuels for 70% of its electricity. We need both nuclear and renewables (currently providing the other 30%) to reduce that dependency.
Bill
From http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/kyotonuc.htm:
Exposing the myths 2: Nuclear power does not produce CO2
Nuclear power is not greenhouse friendly. While electricity generated from nuclear power entails no direct emissions of CO2, the nuclear fuel cycle does release CO2 during mining, fuel enrichment and plant construction. Uranium mining is one of the most CO2 intensive industrial operations and as demand for uranium grows CO2 emissions are expected to rise as core grades decline.
According to calculations by the Öko-Institute, 34 grams of CO2 are emitted per generated kWh in Germany [4]. The results from other international research studies show much higher figures - up to 60 grams of CO2 per kWh. In total, a nuclear power station of standard size (1,250MW operating at 6,500 hours/annum) indirectly emits between 376,000 million tonnes (Germany) and 1,300,000 million tonnes (other countries) of CO2 per year. In comparison to renewable energy, nuclear power releases 4-5 times more CO2 per unit of energy produced taking account of the whole fuel cycle.
Also, with its long development time a nuclear power programme offers no short-term possibility for reducing CO2 emissions.
AND, nukes add huge amounts of heat to the atmospere via cooling towers and cooling pools---as if the btus stopped at the pools themselves and didn't migrate to the air at the same rate they are put in the water, but over a larger area. We don't need more heat. The status quo likes nukes because they require a controlled society and they concentrate wealth.
I never hear any advertisements for wind energy except under PBS and that's only a private corporation sponsorship right before and after the newshour. Otherwise, all I get are sleazy advertisements for "clean" coal, more oil drilling, and somehow the need to build nuclear power plants. Does anyone living in the USA who listen to the radio or watch the commercials notice otherwise?
I'd prefer them to spend money on building wind turbines than advertisements anyway.
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I think, therefore I am dangerous.
You worried about the birds? How many birds die annually from the release of man made poisons from nuclear power plants? How many die from nuclear waste pollution? How many die from striking automobiles, buses and trucks every year?
Our man made pollution of this water world humanity has named Earth is killing all of the birds, bees, bats, etc. Energy derived from solar, wind, geo-thermal, tidal and wave, would eleminate most of our pollution and save the birds which are still with us. It would save our dumb asses also.
~Kem Patrick~
Google "Nuclear accidents" it is incredible what nuclear power has dome to date and $700 hundred bilion is bull, a serioius melt down of a nuclear power plant could easily steralize a land area the size of Alaska for centuries and kill millions. No one can figure the cost in dollars.
Just imagine if you could borrow money to install a wind or photovoltaic system and pay it back with the saving on your utility bill.
Just imagine if GM or Chrysler started producing cheap wind turbines.
spinwing
Pickens and Obama both spout about; wind, solar, nuclear, "clean coal" -- what the heck is that? -- bio-fuel. not a peep about geo-thermal.
What is the common element in the sources mentioned: control by corporations.
Large wind farms; controlled by corporations or utility companies, and inefficient because of large transmission losses.
Nuclear: enough has already been said by others about that; But still controlled by big money.
"Clean Coal" you have to be joking. Except for China the world is shutting down coal fired electicity plants.
Solar: On a large scale it suffers the same problems as wind. In my jusidiction we have a summertime peak problem on hot days when air conditioner are being run. Solution: build a new nuclear plant. #$%^&*(! Stick with me here; peak demand -- hot and SUNNY. Photovoltaic cells on roof to power air conditioning unit. Divide the price of the solar panels into the cost of a nuclear plant and see how far ahead we are.
Now last time I checked the earth wasn't getting any cooler. The areas that seem to have the fuel/natural gas/PNG problems are in the suburbs. Answer: an individual ground source heat pump (geo-thermal). Heat transfer piping needs to be trenched, if room, or drilled. Uses minimal electricity to drive pimp and compressor. BONUS: Whatever you reason -- heating or cooling -- for installing the system is that you get the other almost for free. Hot water is a bonus. Larger scale plants, local / town size can provide steam driven electricity without large transmission losses.
Too bad politians are all bought by corporate interests. :-<
P.S. BIG FRANK You can - could - borrow to install solar and geo-thermal.
Wind has two problems that can, and should, be addressed up front. Wind isn't tuned to our rush hours. Wind isn't everywhere.
However, the cost of wind generation is currently 4.5 cents per kwh. At least one turbine producer expects 2.5 cents per kwh now, and my guess is the competition's game will also improve somewhat.
The standby solution for not being tuned to rush hours is to pump water uphill. My local pumped hydro station is at Storm King Mountain on the Hudson. These plants lose about 30% of the input energy in the storage process, but it's a worthwhile bargain. We would want perhaps a week of wind power banked to provide us with over 90% of all electricity needed.
Note: nuclear is incredibly unreliable because the plants trip off just when you need them most, making blackouts far worse, and they stay offline for three whole days after causing such a disaster. A huge pumped hydro capacity could partly compensate for this nuclear unreliability. Or, you can pass on the inconvenience of more massive blackouts to the small customers, sort of a secret tax on all of their freezer foods, plus blacked out traffic signals injuring a few people.
The solution for location is high voltage DC lines, costly but terribly energy-efficient over 1000 mile distances.
Wind's theoretical capacity off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is far more than the U.S. can use. I favor floating turbines over fixed.
Don't forget geothermal. The earth never gets cold.
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I think, therefore I am dangerous.
.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Yesterday afternoon, I went outside into a glorious Fall afternoon.
Placing my 7 month old granddaughter into a tree swing suspended from the branch of an Oak tree, I lay down in the grass and gently pushed her with my foot. As I looked past her smiling face, the sun shimmered down though the golden leaves.
The sky was a deep blue. Lawn mowers made their distant droning, dogs barked; a small plane flew over us.
Saturday. Sunday. Monday.
Then Tuesday, after eight years, it comes to an end. The world begins anew.
Now, at long last – a chance.
I say a simple prayer…
“May my granddaughter one day read about this dark chapter.
This time when America the Beautiful lost her way.”
One day. In some school book. A long time from now.
.
You have a grandchild and you are that deluded about what "America the Beautiful" was doing PREVIOUS to the last eight years?
I like hope as much as the next guy, but why do people insist on taking it to this ridiculous level?
On "Tuesday" the "world begins anew"?
Don't you think that is a bit much?
Bush is in office until January -barring Impeachment- anyway.
So wouldn't that be the time when the "world begins anew" -even allowing for this "President as God-King" view of yours?
Gonna be plenty of work after Tuesday grampa.
my god i feel sorry for you
In later speeches, Obama said that a safe way to store nuke wastes is vital.
He didn't mention nuke power in the energy portion of his last speech, though McPain reiterated his plan to build 45 new nukes.
This is a good sign for Obama. We know he is online and well informed, unlike his dinosaur opponent.
Also, to get radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain they have to transport it from all over the country. Runaway train! Look out! Passing soon through a state near you (or yours).
I think its too early to just pull the plug on nuclear.
Even Germany with its huge commitment to renewables may be forced to replace decommisioned nuclear with coal, or purchase electricity from nuclear powered France.
China should have broken ground on at least one modular Westinghouse AP1000 reactor, and they plan to purchase as many as 100. We can follow the economics as the nuclear suppliers gear up to produce standardized parts for these reactors.
Because there is no replacement technology at the moment, the most efficient of the US 100 plus operating nukes (actually most of them) will probably be maintained and relicensed until they are 80 years old. That will be quite an achievement of safety and reliability.
A 2100 megawatt twin reactor station on 1000 acres produces more power than the Hoover Dam, or as much as 500-600 wind turbines spread out on 100 or more square miles with cables and substations, etc.
There has been substantial research by our national labs on using depleted uranium for fuel and recycling nuclear fuel down to relatively short half-life atoms. The possibility is having 80 year lifetime reactors charged once with DU and recyling their own waste (and older waste). It would result in centuries of low cost fuel, and might reduce or eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain style waste storage. We should investigate this avenue further. Its on the agenda in France, Russia, Japan and elsewhere.
There are places nuclear doesn't belong. Florida has plenty of sunshine and pristine water. The plains states have little industry but lots of wind... The Northeast and Midwest with their huge populations, infrastruture and industry need the high density power that nuclear provides, and have the necessary water resources.
Its time to really get going on GHG free power generation, and both renewables and nuclear will need government financing. They need to compete with each other just as various designs within each technology need to compete. At the same time we need to have the guts to cap and reduce CO2 emissions, stand up to the fossil fuel interests, and keep our pencils sharp on things like corn ethanol and biodiesel before bad ideas get out of control.
BTW: Someone in PA is running TV ads encouraging coal to oil conversion. This stuff has to be stopped dead in its tracks.
Industry parrots are so colorful.
You misuse statistics to support industry taking points... the question is why? Since it is the most common tactic employed by nuclear power, I can only guess that you have a vested interest.
First of all... there is the "Germany" lie... Germany does not have a HUGE commitment to renewable energy. Although their record is much better than most, it is still only a moderate commitment... and it is one that the majority of the population has seen fit to embrace.
YOU claim: "A 2100 megawatt twin reactor station on 1000 acres produces more power than the Hoover Dam, or as much as 500-600 wind turbines spread out on 100 or more square miles with cables and substations, etc."
The twin reactor you use as an example produces nearly exactly what the Hoover Dam produces, so to say that it produces more in a way that sounds like it produces a much greater amount is deceitful. As to cost, with inflation adjusted over time... your twin reactor is still over 25 times more expensive than the cost of building Hoover Dam... and of course, the Hoover Dam is only the 35th most productive dam.
In addition, nuclear reactor sites are limited to specific geographical locations that are few and far between. Current generation reactors need billions of gallons water as coolant... ***the most precious commodity on this planet***. Neither can they be built on land that is seismically unstable... so generally require prime real estate and as a result, spoil habitat by their needs.
With nearly 2 billion gallons of nuclear waste contaminated ground water currently not being dealt with, why would anyone in their right mind suggest adding to the problem? ... and of course, you gloss over the fact that nuclear reactors using river water must be shut down when the water gets too hot or drought conditions curtail adequate supply.
Since you are talking "new generation" nuclear reactors... I will also talk "new generation" wind generators... those are the 5 megawatt turbines... so 420 turbines would equal your 2100 megawatt twin.... on much less than a 10 by 10 square mile area... and of course, it's easy to replace old technology generators with new more powerful and effecient turbines... a HUGE undertaking with nuclear, if at all possible.
And of course you gloss over the fact that there are many areas that are available for wind generators, simply because they are too windy and desolate to be considered choice building locals for human habitat. As those areas are not considered prime for human population, they ARE perfect for wind generation... and in many cases, suitable for multiuse farming or grazing as well... so it's not as if your area comparison has any real meaning.
Yes, we need a new electric distribution system, but you paint a picture as if additional nuclear power generators could easily be built on or near existing distribution networks... in either case an upgrade will be essential.
YOU claim: "There has been substantial research by our national labs on using depleted uranium for fuel..."
Please provide me a link to any real life usage of DU for power generation. In fact, reactors must be designed and built for that purpose, and I have not seen any evidence that idea is even being seriously considered for commercial generation. So your claim for DU glory is just fluff at this point and my never get out of "fantastic comics". You make it sound like it's a piece of cake to recover DU... in fact, most nuclear waste isn't in that category... so when you say "might reduce or eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain style waste storage"... you deceive.
YOU claim: "Because there is no replacement technology at the moment, the most efficient of the US 100 plus operating nukes (actually most of them) will probably be maintained and relicensed until they are 80 years old. That will be quite an achievement of safety and reliability."
Of the approximately 80 reactors that were built primarily for commercial power generation, about 20 have been shut down. That's about 25%. Please show me a link to any study that indicates that a majority of the remaining 60 will not suffer a similar fate. Your claim of "achievement of safety and reliability" is a joke as far as I can see.
YOU claim: "The Northeast and Midwest with their huge populations, [sic] infrastruture and industry need the high density power that nuclear provides, and have the necessary water resources."
Prove to us that they "have the necessary water resources". Give us any evidence that is a true statement. Just where do you see new reactors being built?
YOU claim: "nuclear will need government financing".
AND THERE IT IS FOLKS. The reason for the industry talking points. This is THE lie.
I will admit that out of your post, there is one truthful sentence: "There are places nuclear doesn't belong." That would be inside the borders of the USA.
No more nuclear until Hanford is completely cleaned up and an operational storage site has confined all the waste that currently needs safe storage! Enough is enough!!
Renewables need to compete with nuclear energy? When have we seen a fair competition in the USA that involved the elites? In evaluations of industrial proposals in the USA, elite corruption reigns. In such a gigantic country, with such gigantic corruption, we should not promote any expansion of concentrated economic/industrial activity until the corruption is purged. Besides, we don't need more electric power. We need less, and it can all be generated ultra cheap via renewables. And this should occur with dispersed, small-scale ownership of production.
Ask all the people who live next to or work in uranium mines, or who are from Chernobyl, what a great idea nuclear power is. It's expensive, unsafe, and there's no good way to store the waste, which stays radioactive for zillions of years.
Furthermore, it's completely unnecessary. It's not true that Germany has a "huge commitment to renewables." If they had an adequate commitment to renewable energy and conservation, there wouldn't be any reason for them to produce or purchase power from nuke plants. There are a number of industrialized countries--Norway, Australia, and New Zealand, for example--with no nuclear plants and no plans to build any.
The potential for meeting our future energy needs from renewables and improved efficiency is enormous, and the notion that we can't adequately meet our energy needs in these ways in short order is a myth promoted by the fossil fuel industry. What's lacking is not the technology or--even in the present economic situation--the money to do it; what's lacking is the political will.
Wind needs to solve its bird slaughter problem before it can be green.
They have to do better than using the flimsy excuse: but domestic cats kill more birds than we do!
Use slower moving fans, create massive nets around the wind farms--anything.
But if they cant do that then its not a green technology.
Instead of birds being mired by oil spills they are getting chewed up by wind farms.
Headline: KILLER WINDMILL GANG PROVEN INNOCENT
In answer to Webber, like you know, a couple of weeks ago back there, and for anyone else who runs into this argument all the time, as i do:
Some article excerpts clearly demonstrate the absurdity of the killer windmill idea. While windmill-caused bird deaths are relatively tiny in number, vastly overestimated and dramatically shrinking per tower all the time*, other dangers--pesticides, cars, communications towers , buildings, and utility lines--are huge and increasing. Yet we never hear about them from all those rabidly pro-raptor republicans, who remain ready to jump to the defense of helpless birds everywhere. Except on the endangered list, of course. And in offshore oil slicks. Oh, and on the grills of cars and trucks. And yeah, at the foot of those many many towers that will go up as soon as the theft of 5000 or so digital TV stations is complete (almost done--only a few more days to comment to the FCC) And OK... really? almost anywhere--except at the bottom of evil wind generators. And ugly. Don't forget they're ugly, too.
Here are some titmouse tidbits:
Death by….
Utility transmission and distribution lines, the backbone of our electrical power system, are responsible for 130 to 174 million bird deaths a year in the U.S.1
Collisions with automobiles and trucks result in the deaths of between 60 and 80 million birds annually in the U.S.3 Our dependence on oil has taken its toll on birds too. Even the relatively high incidence of bird kills at Altamont Pass (about 92 per year) pales in comparison to the number of birds killed from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. In fact, according to author Paul Gipe, the Altamont Pass wind farm would have to operate for 500 to 1000 years to "achieve" the same mortality level as the Exxon Valdez event in 1989.
While there are no required ongoing studies of bird mortality due to buildings or house windows, the best estimates put the toll due collisions with these structures at between 100 million and a staggering 1 billion deaths annually.4
The number of telecommunication towers in the U.S. currently exceeds 77,000, and this number could easily double by 2010. The rush to construction is being driven mainly by our use of cell phones, and to a lesser extent by the impending switch to digital television and radio. Current mortality estimates due to telecommunication towers are 40 to 50 million birds per year.9
Agricultural pesticides are "conservatively estimated" to directly kill 67 million birds per year.10
The most reasonable estimates indicate that 39 million birds are killed in [Wisconsin] each year."11
There are other studies on the impacts of jet engines, smoke stacks, bridges, and any number of other human structures and activities that threaten birds on a daily basis. Together, human infrastructure and industrial activities are responsible for one to four million bird deaths per day!
"Based on current estimates, windplant related avian collision fatalities probably represent from 0.01% to 0.02% (i.e., 1 out of every 5,000 to 10,000) of the annual avian collision fatalities in the United States."15
There has never been a report or documentation of a home-sized wind turbine killing birds in Wisconsin. [yet another reason to go with small, decentralized, "personal" wind machines over big, centralized, for-profit wind farms. j4z
notes not included here; see the site: www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html
* better siting and slower, larger blades have and will continue to dramatically reduce bird deaths, especially as older turbines like the ones at Altamont pass are replaced or phased out.
Twisting truth in this way is only to be expected from the proponents of dangerous, ponderous, undemocratic energy systems, because they have few good arguments that aren't lies. Using the deaths of birds they care nothing about to argue against a technology that would in fact save hundreds of millions of birds? Par for the heavily pesticided golf course.
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one:
“O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.”
And God granted it.”
Voltaire
This is a completely inaccurate and outdated complaint about outdated wind technology. Birds simply are not being "chewed up" by wind turbines. Please do some research before you try to discourage the use of wind.
Probably 20 or more years ago a wind farm was erected in California that was stupidly placed in the flight path of many types of migrating birds. The farm used some of the oldest technology turbines whose blades spun at a rate far too fast to allow the birds to compensate if caught in their path. Yes, this was a tragedy and nobody wants too see birds perish due to this kind of lack of insight.
However, as I understand it, measures were taken long ago to redirect birds with some sort of sound device. Still, as redgreen wisely points out, many more birds are killed by other human means than were killed at that farm. Furthermore, today's turbines spin much more slowly which has reduced the bird toll immensely. And the flight paths of birds are being studied and compensated for much more than ever happened in the earliest wind farms. These measures have reduced the bird toll to a degree that is so small that in comparison to bird deaths from other human means, the effect is essentially nil.
I'd like to point out also that on my 20-minute drive to work each day, on 30-50-mph roads, I see fresh road kill every day - morning or night. And this is one 13-mile stretch of roadway on this entire planet. I don't care if you're dummer and drive a hummer, or if you think you're green because you drive a Prius, no raccoon or cat or deer or possum will survive a 50-mph interaction with your front tires. Does this mean we all should eliminate our cars until this problem can be fixed? Does this mean you're really not green if you drive a hybrid because you're still driving?
Again, I do not mean to be callous about the death of anything. But getting wind power up and running, along with solar, tidal, and others, is way too important to be discouraging its use by spreading disinformation.
Although of course even a small number of birds killed by wind turbines is a problem that needs to be addressed, there are tens of thousands of times as many birds killed by other factors for which humans are responsible. (Figures are available at http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html.) The fact that there's so much discussion about the relatively few bird deaths caused by wind turbines (especially the newer ones) and so little about the other causes (collisions with windows, jet engines, TV towers, etc.) that are much more common suggests there's an ulterior motive behind much of the discussion--corporations with a vested interest in slowing down wind power development. Just burying electrical wires as is done in most other industrialized countries would save far more bird lives in a year than have ever died from hitting a wind turbine.
Birds are fairly smart animals. As windfarms become ubiquitous, is it possible birds will learn how to avoid them? I'll bet geese will. Then what about migrating birds that have never seen a windfarm? So many species are already endangered.
Good point, Webber.
Webber & bbr: Have you seen the newer turbines? By changing the gearing and spinning the turbine blades slower, there is no "blender" effect anymore. Smaller birds along coastal areas are at risk from smaller wind turbines but this can be mitigated by more carefully selecting locations for wind farms. Besides, how many species of birds have been decimated by the foul air created by burning fossil fuels? As big cities go, San Diego's air isn't all that bad and yet I haven't seen a sparrow in a month!
Wind is an excellent renewable energy source. But we must remember that turbines are mechanical and require maintenance and lubricants. Solar (photovoltaic) arrays are static and very low maintenance if appropriately installed. Using the same property for both wind and solar is being tried to maximize area efficiency.
I must admit grudgingly that existing nuclear plants can help us in the transition to truly renewable sources like wind, solar, wave, geothermal and eventually hydrogen power. Constructing new nuclear plants is a terrible idea judging from skyrocketing construction costs, uranium ore depletion, and the inevitable nuclear waste. For those who insist there are ways to recycle nuclear waste delude themselves of the constant safety issues of handling nuclear material. If our nation would channel our revenue (and tax credits) toward clean, renewable sources we won't be wasting our time, money and brainpower by continuing the polluting and dangerous use of coal- and nuclear-powered energy.
http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com
There is no single solution or holy grail. We must diversify our sources of power. This does NOT mean we therefore MUST use Nuclear or hydrocarbons. Wind, tidal , geothemal and solar all work.
More importantly the generation of power must be distributed across an economy rather then be concentrated in the hands of a few Utility companies.
Individuals generating their own power on a smaller scale many times over rather then a few big utilities trying to supply an entire region.
Smaller is better.
In order for wind to add genuine base-load capacity, a large and robust smart-grid using high efficiency transmission technology must be developed. So, at a minimum there needs to be a central authority (hopefully a governmental entity) to build and manage the grid and allocate the resources
The idea of individuals generating their own power is completely impractical, and, frankly, bourgeois-elitist in a peculiar American-individualist way. Most of us live in cities - often in apartments and in climates not suitable for wind or solar.
The article only hinted at the most expensive and problematic part of nuclear energy: decommissioning the plants & safely disposing of the waste. Not only is the radioactive toxicity problematic, but the kicker is the half-life of the atomic radiation. It requires sealing off the plants for at least 50,000 years (which is ten times the age of humanity's oldest, mostly intact construction, the Pyramids...and current plant builders are nowhere near as good at erecting monumental buildings as the ancient Egyptians) & making sure the waste depots remain intact for 250,000 years (which is four evolutionary steps, pre-Neanderthal). To assume that human civilization can keep the consistent level of organization required for continual safe handling of nuclear waste & decommissioned plants, given mankind's history, is the dictionary definition of asinine. It is well past time to put a moratorium on all things nuclear until science comes up with a safe and reliable method(s) of dealing with waste and radiation.
For so many reasons, we should not be going nuclear. However, if the trends with the price of gas vis a vis the sale/use of gas guzzlers is any indication -- given the falling price of gas and the apparent return of the SUV -- humans are not smart enough, nor do they learn, to take the longer, but safer, and ultimately more sustainable route. It's all about now. The future? We won't be here.
Clean-up of abandoned uranium mines is another omitted cost, estimated at over $1Bn per mine (for open pit mines in western South Dakota, at least).
"Sandia National Laboratory estimates that a worst-case scenario accident would cost $700 billion..."
So that's what CheneyOilCo's monkeypuppet meant when he indicated the economy was about to "crater".
Thanks for this post Brittany... this analysis can not be stressed highly enough in my opinion... nor too often.
clean coal, safe nuclear, Barack Obama... omymorans for November 2008.
Wind, Solar and Hydro are all indirect thermonuclear power.
Wind has provided transportation for millenia. Wind has pumped water and milled grain.
Solar drives the wind and lifts and distills water and grows and dries our food.
Wind is good but solar has it's advantages too.
Solar generation can be distributed to every rooftop and it does not make a sound.
Gales may blow or not but no man lives where the Sun Don't Shine!