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TechnoratiA $50 Billion Nuke Power Bomb Is Dropping Toward Obama's Stimulus Package
The desperate, dangerous nuclear power industry has dropped a $50 billion stealth bomb meant to irradiate the Obama Stimulus Package.
It comes in the form of a mega-loan guarantee package that would build new reactors Wall Street wouldn't finance even when it had cash. It will take a healthy dose of citizen action to stop it, so start calling your Senators now.
The vaguely worded bailout-in-advance provision was snuck through the Senate Appropriations Committee in the deep night of January 27. It would provide $50 billion in loan guarantees for "eligible technologies" that would technically include renewable sources and electric transmission. But the handout is clearly directed at nukes and "clean coal."
The Stimulus Package is explicitly meant to create jobs within the next two years. But according to sources at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, no new reactors could be licensed for construction within that time. Nor could any new coal plants. And thus the funds in this rider are to "remain available until committed." That means their "stimulus" might not go into effect for many years.
But the nuclear industry does have the ability to spend large sums of money on "site preparation" and other busy work prior to being licensed. Though the guarantees could technically be used for truly green sources such as wind and solar, the provision's backers, including Senators Robert Bennett (R-UT) and Thomas Carper (D-DE), have made it clear that this money is meant to go for new reactor construction.
In late 2007, nuclear power's Congressional Godfather, then-Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), stuck a similar $50 billion loan guarantee package into that year's energy bill. A grassroots uprising, joined by virtually all national environmental organizations, helped defeat the package. Among other things, the fight inspired a music video from Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Keb Mo and Ben Harper (www.nukefree.org).
In late 2008 the industry came back again with a blank check package that went down in flames along with the stock market.
Still unable to get private financing, the industry is back yet again. In the interim, the projected cost of building new reactors has soared to more than $10 billion each, and continues to climb steadily. Many of the previous generation of reactors came in hugely over budget. According to the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, one DOE study places the overall average overruns at 207%. But reactor projects such as Seabrook, in New Hampshire, New York's Shoreham, Pennsylvania's Beaver Valley, California's Diablo Canyon, and many others, far exceeded that.
The Congressional Budget Office now predicts that half the nuclear utilities using such a loan program will go into default. Some $18.5 billion in loan guarantees has already been approved, apparently for such use. But its legality is being hotly disputed, and the money has not been distributed by the Department of Energy.
Washington insiders believe this latest attempt at a pre-arranged bailout has again come from Domenici, who has stayed in Washington to lobby for his radioactive benefactors after apparently retiring from the Senate in January.
This guarantee package was not part of the Stimulus Package that passed the House. Its secretive, late night inclusion on the Senate side is reminiscent of how former Vice President Dick Cheney did business for the fossil/nuclear corporations that funded much of the Bush Administration. The reappearance of this kind of back door dealing has not been well received, especially in the House.
Numerous national groups, including the Nuclear Information & Resource Service (www.nirs.org) are providing sign-ins for sending e-mails to the Senate. They also urge that you call your Senator at 202-224-3121.
Time is fast slipping by for the nuke power industry. As the popularity of renewables and efficiency escalates, the most obvious source of new jobs and prosperity has become truly green technologies. Atomic power has long since been priced out of the market. Only massive federal and ratepayer subsidies could bring it back, to the direct detriment of the revolution in renewables.
Defeating this latest money grab will help drive another nail in the coffin of the 20th century's most expensive failed technology. It is an essential step toward a truly green-powered future.
82 Comments so far
Show All(I LAUGH OUT LOUD) to this post by Jesus Hussein Christ.
"
"Since actual safety is not a serious debate in the scientific community, perhaps you could let people who live in proximity to nuclear power plants speak for themselves, as they do with great confidence and security by overwhelming margins of 80 percent and up in regular random surveys."
as well as this which he posted:
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Tr-Y68nNMOYJ:www.redorbit.com/news/...
***************
I wonder what the average income and post secondary school educational level was for the folks who were surveyed?
I assume as is with most power plants or industrial sites that the people who live nearby are very low income and have a very low post secondary school educational level?
Is that data in the survey?
It is also seems strange that they didn't survey the people who actually work in the power plants or those who work for the power company?
Hmm. Perhaps no one who works in the power plant lives close to a power plant? That would be a interesting survey.
Or maybe this would taint the result they were seeking?
Speaking of they, who payed for the survey by the way?
It sounds like someone wanted a result they could use for their own self serving purposes?
Jesus Hussein is this a joke?
Thinking and community organizing is a wonderous thing. If you don't they'll pay someone to do it for their own selfish purposes.
Look up Greenpeace contractors Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen's attitude towards nuclear power. They voted with their feet.
Each nuke plant that can be cancelled or shut down means another annual $400 million or so for the natgas interests. Where are they in this discussion?
theinitiate
Billy -y4
We are trying to move AWAY from the type of energies that require somuch oversight and regs that companies will do anything and everything to get out from under them. We have worked with these for decades now and we should be realizing that the human species will find a way to go around what ever rules which cost them any money.
If you say that Nukes are privately insured please if you could find the time or if the info is handy could you provide us with how and who?
Now, the vision should be that we create a whole new paradigm for energy consumption. The argument that we need something like nuclear to provide base load electricity should be moot. Instead of trying so hard to put so much energy time and tax payer money into Nuke power, why don't we develope a whole new way of life in which we use less. YES I UNDERSTAND THAT SOME INSTITUTIONS WILL NEED TREMENDOUS AMOUNTS OF ELECTRICITY TO FUNCTION, LIKE HOSPITALS ETC. (military industrial complex). But as for the reest of us using those self generating methods of electricity would take up some of the stress on the grid.
I'm a firm believer that if there's a will there's a way. The problem is we have to all combine our will in the same and sane direction.
from an earlier post below regarding private insurance of nuclear facilities
http://www.amnucins.com/About%20ANI.html
Glenn,
I do not know the details of Obama's behavior as a state senator so I cannot make an informed response-sorry.
Los Alamos is not about nuclear power. It is part of the weapons complex. Like an earlier post I made about Hanford, the environmental aspects of the weapons program should have been under public scrutiny and was not. In no way would I seek to defend the history of the weapons program.
Initiate,
I mention coal because it is the major source of electricity in the US. It has demonstrated health effects on the populace rather than hypothetical ones. It is the biggest single source of CO2 in this country. It is the major source of anthropogenic radioactive emissions in the environment. I live near and have seen the mountain top removal in Virginia and West Virginia. This is environmental rape and can be stopped if we switch to nuclear power for base load power generation.
I have no difficulty at all with wind, solar, geothermal, tidal or bicycle generators. It is just that these sources are not up to replacing coal. They are great supplements and do displace natural gas consumption.
I will acknowledge that uranium mining can be profoundly destructive like coal mining. Personally, I would support a ban on surface mining of uranium in the US. This would limit the mining to ISL (In Situ Leaching) which is environmentally benign and shaft mining which is less environmentally disruptive.
Bill
theinitiate
To Billy-y4
Why would you bring an argument about coal into this. Yes, coal is filthy and should be done away with. But you didn't answer my question. If you are so into building more Nuke plants, then would you mine the stuff? Plus, all your info about how these days it's so much safer-well then you should have no problem mining it. YOur point about how in underdeveloped counties they are still using unsafe mining techniques, well who owns those companies? American Business Corps from what I read in an article from CD. I think the guy who had connections to Clinton who bought the land in Congo might be an example ( or maybe he was Dutch or Canadian. ...But my point is that You can't tell me that US Corps wouldn't go to these underdeveloped countries so that THEY WOULD AVOID THE REGULATIONS FOR SAFE MINING that would be practiced in the U.S. ( Oh wait did I just say practiced in the U.S. -that probably would n't be true either.)
When private investors put billions into building a new nuclear power station, within a very few years, billions are saved through avoided natural gas-burning. But some of those natgas billions would have gone to government. Historically, this has motivated it to red-tape nuclear projects to death. If the people force it to guarantee nuclear project loans, it can no longer profit by this behaviour.
California's acquired hostility towards nuclear power has not resulted in wind or solar energy production anywhere near what the nukes it has shut down or cancelled would have produced. Rather, it has conserved and imported. The New Mexico gas disaster of 2000 was one consequence of this rush to import.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, ('How fire can be domesticated')
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/
Glenn,
Private liability insurance has a limit (for example, I have a $300,000 limit on my home owners policy). Insurance companies covering nuclear plants likewise have limits on liability, higher limits but the same sort of thing.
If I have a liability that exceeds my $300k limit, it is my problem, not the insurance companys'. They won't fork out any more than $300k. The insurance company could care less if I have a backup plan if liabilties exceed the policy limit.
Under the Price-Anderson act, if the liability limit is exceeded on a nuclear power plant, a pool of all the nuclear utilities would be tapped for additional funding for the damages. This would not be legal under anti-trust legislation were it not specifically provided for under Price-Anderson.
It the utility pool is exceeded, the government is then on the hook for the remainder. This has never occurred. TMI was the biggest nuclear liability claim to date. The damage exceeded the insurance policy limit and the utility pool was tapped to cover the remainder of the cleanup costs.
OBTW, I do work in the nuclear industry but, to the best of my knowledge, my employer is unaware of my posting activities. I post as a private individual and present my personal views. I get no reward for my posts except the sense of contributing to something I strongly believe in.
Bill
You should check out Florida law related to nuclear power plants. As of this year, utilities are now allowed to start billing customers to finance nuclear reactors that my be built in 20 years, or never...and will be able to keep all the extra money. Electricity rates are supposed to have gone up 25% last months, and I believe it will keep going up each year. Nuclear power is the most expensive and reckless form of power to have ever been dreamed up. It is nothing but yet another dangerous excuse to make obscene profits at taxpayer expense.
Bill --- If the risks and enviormental costs are reasonable, why do nuke lobbyist find it neccessary to intimidate people like Obama into watering down their own legislation( in Ilinois) requiring the public to be informed of nuke accidents in a timely manner?
Also I live in a national nuke sacrifice zone. The state finds it impossible to get Los Alamos to clean up its act or protect the public.
Instead of dirty coal or nuclear why don't we try using terrestrial energy.
Every fuel used in human history from firewood, to coal, oil, wind and water is a form of solar in that it has been derived from the sun. But terrestrial energy is different.
Terrestrial energy is the heat at the earth's core that raises its temperature to 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the surface of the sun. The energy released is enough to melt iron, stoke volcanoes and float the earth's continents like giant barges on its molten core.
Geothermal plants are a way of tapping this heat. They are generally located near fumaroles and geysers, where groundwater meets hot spots in the earth's crust. If we dig down far enough, however, we will encounter more than enough heat to boil water. Engineers are now talking about drilling down 10 miles (the deepest oil wells are only five miles) to tap this energy.
These plants exist and acount for a small percentage of our energy needs.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/geothermal/
Geothermal Energy in California
photo of Geysers Geothermal Plants
Because of its location on the Pacific's "ring of fire" and because of tectonic plate conjunctions, California contains the largest amount of geothermal generating capacity in the United States.
In 2007, geothermal energy in our state produced 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity. Combined with another 440 GWh of imported geothermal electricity, then geothermal energy produced 4.5 percent of the state's total system power. A total of 43 operating geothermal power plants with an installed capacity of nearly 1,800 megawatts are in California, about two-thirds of the total United States' geothermal generation.
The largest concentration of geothermal plants is located north of San Francisco in the Geysers Geothermal Resource Area in Napa and Sonoma Counties. This location has been producing electricity since the 1960s. It uses dry steam; one of only two places in the world for this resource (the other being in Larderello, Italy)
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
No private insurance company would insure a Nuke Plant until congress passed an act saying the Feds would cover the ultimate liabilties.
Why subsidize a toxic waste producer when we have more than enough solar and wind available to power the nation. If the yoyos in the administration do not know how to power the country on wind and solar my friends and I will come from Santa Fe and show the oafs pro bono.
Have you not learned anything from using oil?
Ex Senator Domenici -------- Dodged an investigation into the felonious pressure he exerted on a federal prosecutor by getting a note from his doctor saying he had bugs eating his brain. Then as soon as he retired he got a note from his doctor saying the bugs were gone ( I guess the spiders in his head ate the bugs). This is the kind of man neccessary to sponsor this waste.
Also beware just as there are paid israelis blogging in defense of war crimes, I do not doubt there are forked tongued lobbyists blogging for nukes.
Finally why would a terrorist bother smuggling a bomb into the country when you build one for him. I wouldn't believe anyone who says you cannot sabotage them; anything that can be built can be sabotaged.
P.S. Obama caved in to Nuke interests when he watered down his own Nuke transparency bill after the lobbyist squeezed him as Illinois state senator
That's a great idea, and can solve most of our problems, with just a little fine tuning. Remarkably, this heat derives largely from a single source -- the radioactive breakdown of uranium and thorium. So all we really need to do is bring the source of this heat -- the uranium -- to the surface, put it in a carefully controlled environment, and accelerate its breakdown a bit to raise temperatures to around 700 degrees Fahrenheit, and use it to boil water. The technology doesn't even need to be developed. It's called a "nuclear reactor," but we could change the name to a "terrestrial processor" and get Jackson Browne to write a song about it.
Sure, let's just give everyone cancer so you can have your precious nuclear energy.
How are you proposing that we give everyone cancer? Force them all to read sensational posts on Common Dreams? No doubt, excessive exposure to radiation does causes certain kinds of cancer. However, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) study, with results published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that there is no increased risk of cancer based on living in proximity to the 62 nuclear facilities included in the study. Similarly, the British Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment found no evidence of raised cancer risks at nuclear power sites there.
Sensationalist speculation aside, there has never been a member of the public injured by a nuclear plant in the United States. The accident at Chernobyl was a combination of ridiculous operator error, and reactors built without containment vessels. No one else has done that. Besides that stupid design at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island was the worst accident in the history of the West. It was a bad mechanical failure that did not cause harm to the public or to the workers in the plant. In fact, the fail safe measures worked to perfection. There is no evidence that anyone was injured by that accident.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it's safer to work in a nuclear plant than it is to work in either real estate or financial services. This study was done before the current economic collapse, so I wouldn't even venture to speculate on how much more devastating in all respects it is to work in those fields today.
Six thousand people die in coal mines every year in this world. The impact of fossil fuel combustion on public health is the single largest impact of any technology we have, killing hundreds of thousands annually. Yet, one cannot build a nuclear plant in the world today without it being world-class in both its design and its operation. There is too much oversight.
From Janet Mills: "Sensationalist speculation aside, there has never been a member of the public injured by a nuclear plant in the United States."
I have one name for you Janet: Karen Silkwood. Yes, of course, you're groaning.
Karen Silkwood reported that she had discovered evidence of spills, leaks, and missing plutonium. She charged that Kerr-McGee was negligent in maintaining plant safety and that she herself, had been exposed to plutonium on several occasions. She provided testimony to this effect to the Atomic Energy Commission, which was investigating safety procedures then in place at nuclear facilities.
She further alleged that quality control of fuel rods had been compromised. She said that the results of X-ray checks, which would have shown substandard welds in fuel rods, had been falsified.
Karen Silkwood died in a one-car automobile crash on November 13, 1974. Was it an accident or was it murder? We still don't know, and probably, we never will know.
Significant levels of radiation exposure were found on her hands, arm, chest, neck and right ear. High levels of radiation were found in a fecal sample.
Tests run on her locker and in her car found essentially no radiation in either location.
After Karen's death, an autopsy showed that the highest levels of plutonium in her body were in her gastrointestinal tract. The only possible conclusion was that she had actually ingested plutonium some time before her death. Signs of plutonium exposure less than 30 days before her death were also found in her lung tissue.
On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood had an appointment with a union staff representative and a New York Times investigative reporter. At this meeting, she was to provide documentation to the reporter, showing that her charges that Kerr-McGee had been negligent in quality control and had falsified records were justified.
Karen was on her way to this meeting when she died in what seems to have been a one-car crash. The documents she was to have turned over to the reporter were never found.
Magarulian (with lots of help from the BBC and my own memory)
Magarulian,
I am surprised you didn't bring up the international headline making case from last summer when a number French nuclear plant workers were exposed to contaminating radiation levels that reached nearly half of the levels affecting people who fly one time in an airplane.
As for the Karen Silkwood case, do you have some particular insights into it that are not part of the public record? If not, then you have to ask yourself why, when thousands of people worldwide die everyday from burnt fossil fuel contamination, that you feel the need to reach back to 1974 to come up with a single anecdote of what can only be described as a uniquely bizarre set of circumstances to make the case for more sensational speculation on a member of the public being injured by a US nuclear plant.
It is a matter of record that prior to her contamination, Silkwood made inquiries about the health effects of eating plutonium pellets. She later asserted that she was the victim of a malicious attack and was being given testing jars laced with plutonium. It somehow ended up in her stomach. If even half of her assertions were true, and we will probably never know that either, I would be the first to agree with you that she was a likely victim of foul play. On the other hand, it may also be true, as were the findings of the police department, and coroner, that she fell asleep at the wheel of her car due to the barbiturates in her system and died in the resulting crash.
From the established facts of the case, I hope what we can agree on is that regardless of how these substances get into one's system, if you do ingest plutonium pellets, and you do ingest two times the recommend maximum dosage of Quaaludes, and you do go driving in a car, you are living on borrowed time.
In passing, I can't help but notice that you express no thoughts on the National Cancer Institute studies or the British cancer studies as they relate to nuclear plants.
I have seen reports of elevated cancer rates, leukemia, etc in people living around nuclear plants. And personal accounts of the families of people who work in and around nuclear plants...they're not able to have more than one or two children. Any further attempts miscarry, over and over, or if any are born most of them have severe birth defects and other related diseases. I cannot provide a link, since I read the reports on a piece of paper at a conference.
That's fascinating, zmann.
I have personally seen reports that the Iran Nuclear Stalemate is an outrage to space aliens. I also read the reports on a piece of paper at a conference, but fortunately for all of humanity, I can provide a link.
http://www.ufodigest.com/irannukes.html
I'm glad you can joke about the deaths of innocent people through greed and foolishness.
And oops, I can provide a link.
http://www.c-10.org/pdf/Elevated%20childhood%20cancer%20incidence%20proximate%20to%20U.pdf
You diminish your case drastically by providing this undocumented archived joke that conflicts directly with the largest findings of the (US) National Cancer Institute and voluminous British studies. I must admit that it is fascinating in a pathetic way that in order to prop up the self important wobbly report you refer to, it begins with the canard, "Little research has examined US rates near the nations 103 operating reactors."
You must try harder my friend, there is a vast, worldwide scientific conspiracy against you.
I'm sorry that I'm busy at work and used the top google result, I'll be sure to do my own study of cancer rates near nuclear reactors just to please you.
No one could imagine, an idea so bad that no one on Wall Street would invest in it.
Do you really think this is the reason that renewable energy has so much difficulty getting financial backing from the corporate sector?
Rather devious, Janet? So how is that job with Exxon going for you?
The main reason that renewables gain no traction is because the industry itself makes enoprmous profit from the status quo.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
That was a nice reversal, Janet Mills.
Ralph Nader asks the pertinent question:
"Do you know any other industry producing electricity that has to have specific evacuation plans for miles around it, is inherently a national security risk, cannot be privately insured without Congress mandating severe limited liability in case of massive casualties and requires massive taxpayer subsidies?"
And Chip Ward sums up Wall Street's stance:
"Wall Street won't invest because nuclear power is too expensive, too risky, too complex, takes too long to bring on line, and can't compete with other energy sources once massive tax-payer subsidies are removed from the equation."
Capitalism is proving itself to be the worst of economic approaches on many levels. The energy corps all want to turn a quick quarterly profit , and not make long term investments in something as safe and clean and stable as nuclear. Not many investors were willing to put up $5 billion to $10 billion for a project that could become engulfed by 10 to 15 years of regulatory delay -- as occurred during the hysteria of 1980s.
Margarulian,
You are correct. My statement was insensitive. My point was not that the Shoshone sacred ground is God forsaken. It was that I would not fear to live adjacent to (or atop) a high level nuclear repository. I was certainly disrespectful in my argumentation.
PJD,
You are correct in your statement on the volume of high level waste. I believe the volume is 20 feet high on a football field. This statement does ignore the volume of the protective shielding which is greater than the used fuel itself.
MountainMike,
The capacity of Yucca mountain, should it be liscensed, was set by Congress. That congressional limit has no basis is science or engineering-merely politics. The volumetric capacity of the mountain is 3 or 4 times the congressional limit. Which ever limit is used, yes, the mountain would eventually be full and additional storage locations would be necessary.
Hanford is a poster child for the argument that the government's business ought to be conducted in public view. Hanford was operated in deep secrecy. This may be appropriate for the technical aspects of weapons manufacturing. It is certainly not appropriate for its environmental stewardship (or the lack thereof).
Bill
There is no viable solution to the nuclear waste issue. Before anyone even starts to consider nuclear energy, a viable solution is needed.
Usually nuke power advocates will respond with statements about the Yucca Mountain facility. If you do the math of how much waste is out there and how much space is at Yucca Mountain it is easy to calculate the facility reaching its capacity in a couple of years. Then what? The use of this facility for nuclear waste is also tied up in court. It is on Shoshone land and they do not want their land desecrated. The land is theirs by treaty, and I do not see any way around their challenge.
That leaves us with the prospect of nuclear waste dumps such as the Hanford, Washington facility. It has a horrific track record for leaking nuclear waste into the environment.
And even if we had a viable alternative for nuclear waste materials, there is the issue of terrorism and the materials getting into the wrong hands. One of the most like scenarios for another 9/11 catastrophe is the use of a "dirty bomb" - which is simply any explosive if radioactive material that would be dispersed with detonation.
"It is on Shoshone land and they do not want their land desecrated. The land is theirs by treaty, and I do not see any way around their challenge."
Since when has this country gave a crap about treaties, especially with those here before us?
zmann,
Nuclear reactors are insured through your electric bill, not your tax bill. Every power reactor has private insurance. (Normally other forms of electrical generation have liabiltiy insurance as well. With wind turbines having a tendency to shed blades, there is no way an utility would operate one without liabiity insurance.)
There is a third tier provision under Price-Anderson for government liability if both private insurance is exhausted and the nuclear vendors' common pool is exhausted. This third tier has never been tapped. During the cleanup for TMI the private insurance was exhausted and the common pool was tapped but not exhausted.
Bill
Glenn,
It is true that wind farms make money. It would be questionable were it not for the production tax credit. Wind power generates only when the wind blows and this is not an attractive feature to the utilities but the PTC financially compensates for the unpredictability. There have been instances where independent producers pay a utility to take wind generated electricity because of the PTC.
Nuclear plants ARE insured. It is a requirement of their liscenses. No plant in the US could operate without it.
Uranium is not a particularly scarce material. It has about the same abundance in nature as tin. Were the mineral deposits of uranium to play out, uranium can be extracted from sea water for about $200/pound. This is an affordable cost although well above the market price. If sea water extraction is implemented, there is more than a 1000 year supply of uranium in the oceans.
Bill
Thanks, Bill. I appreciate you job of debunking the comments on this issue.
About the waste issue, isn't it important to emphasize how tiny a volume high-level radioactive waste from commercial nuclear power represents - even without reprocessing? I've heard all the spent fuel generated by present US nuclear plants so far could fit on a single football field about 20 feet (or yards?) deep. Is this correct?
I know that spent fuel is very hazardous stuff, bit this is stunningly tiny volume.
---USAn---
"Nuclear plants ARE insured."
With our tax money, sure.
http://www.amnucins.com/About%20ANI.html
"The Stimulus Package is explicitly meant to create jobs within the next two years."
We don't need jobs. We need ownership of production in the hands of the people, via limits on asset ownership and enterprise size to ten man-powers. We need free and universal access to all information, via the internet. We need full costs in retail prices. And we need to switch to top priority the people's enlightenment and responsibility. Nuke power is one of the elites' most cherished ways to cultivate the people's irresponsibility, dependence, and slavery. We don't need "cheap" energy. We need self-reliance and responsibility in energy. The people will produce their own food/fuel/materials locally. Get to work, people!
Initiate:
We kill many more people in this world with coal mining and burning than we do with nuclear power (including the deaths from Chernobyl). Coal plants also emit more radiation than nuclear plants (uranium, thorium and their daughter products in the coal).
70% of the US electricity comes from fossil fuels. Renewables such as solar and wind are great but they cannot do the heavy lifting of baseload power generation-that requires either continuous hydroelectric, geothermal or nuclear. Serious hydroelectric is pretty well tapped out in the US. Geothermal, at the current state of the art, is limited to a few select spots with very low production capacity. That leaves nuclear as the only readily expandable baseload power to replace fossil.
I would not mind living atop Yucca mountain except for it being a God forsaken location in the middle of nowhere.
Early in the atomic age there was a lot of very unsafe mining because of ignorance of the risk and the demands of the Manhattan Project and cold war. There continues to be unsafe mining in some underdeveloped countries. Almost all of the mining in the US today is by ISL (In Situ Leaching) which is quite safe for personnel and, if properly liscensed and operated, benign for the environment.
Janet,
Recycling used nuclear fuel does permit its reuse but, if the transuranics are diluted with uranium and placed back in a conventional LWR (Light Water Reactor) more transuranic material is created than burned by fission. This is the current practice in France and Japan.
To really get rid of the transuranic material requires either a fast reactor or a Th-232/U-233 reactor. Both of these options are viable but they are not lower cost than conventional LWRs.
OBTW, for reuse of nuclear fuel rather than PUREX or UREX+, I would much prefer the DUPIC process developed by the South Koreans/Canadians and use the reprocessed fuel in a CANDU reactor. It does not have a nasty liquid waste stream. It is a dry process. Unfortunately, the US does not have any CANDU reactors at this time.
Bill
Billy_y4
Great post, thanks!
Bill
"I would not mind living atop Yucca mountain except for it being a God forsaken location in the middle of nowhere." This statement says more about you than you apparently realize. It's the same attitude that the Spaniards brought with them to the new world.
The Western Shoshone (along with many aware descendants of Europeans) don't want you "living atop Yucca mountain" anyway. It's not up to you to live there, or not to live there. It is also not up to you to determine whether or not it should be the place to store the Empire's nuclear waste.
Raymond Yowell, Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council, says "Our land, the earth mother is not for sale and we will protect her and continue our responsibilities as caretakers under the Creator's law."
A person of your high, although very narrowly-focused, intelligence would probably find that statement amusing.
No place on earth is "in the middle of nowhere." But you probably wouldn't understand that statement either.
Quite profound...thank you.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
sierra7
Great technical information, but....
Why won't the "nuclear industry" cover their own costs.......having thrust all their disasters including environmental cleanups on the taxpayer???????????
I'm sure you've seen the term "stranded costs" on your energy bills?????
Apparently there was some reason why Wall Street wouldn't give enough money to solar and wind development when it had the money, either. I know Mr. Wasserman wants the government to give money to renewables, not including nukes. If he were a right-wing muckraker, he would expose the green pork hidden in the stimulus bill, $Billions for windmills! Instead he is scandalized that with a president elected on cautious, conditional support for nuclear, among a mix of new, non-carbon energy sources, Congress would endorse loan guarantees for future nuclear plants, which as Mr. Wasserman points out will take a decade or more to fully plan out, license and build (Mr. Wasserman does not advocate quicker licensing or lower standards of environmental and safety engineering and oversight). How sneaky of them to implement in legislation the policy Obama was elected on!
Nukes are already subsidized to the tune of probably trillions of dollars, when you figure in that the government is assuming liability and insurance for nuclear reactors, not to mention eternal storage of wastes (if Yucca Mountain ever opens). If nuclear, and also coal, oil, etc were not already subsidized by the trillions by the government (in the form of using the military to secure oil supplies, citizens sickened by pollution from the plants on medicaid, etc) then solar, wind, etc would be far more profitable than these foolish choices by far. I once saw a great cartoon about the price of gasoline being $100 a gallon. The gas station attendant was telling the irate driver "That's $1 for the gas, $90 for the aircraft carrier, $4 for the tank, $2 for the soldier", etc. Government also greatly subsidizes oil by paying for road and highway construction. If the true cost of driving was reflected in the price of gas, nobody could afford to drive. And you complain about a few billion for a new genuinely clean and renewable energy sector that's so tiny it can experience nothing but gigantic growth for decades to come?
Sioux Rose
ZMAN: Great post! It's important that the true scale of costs be understood. It's related to that factor termed "Natural capital," and it seldom figures on any MANMADE balance sheets. It approximates what it would cost (but how indeed does one factor in that price when countless CENTURIES of biological activity are required to produce said substance?) to replace the mountain tops lopped off, the countless ecosystems battered, and the species eradicated to maintain the rabid resource depleting use of coal? But that doesn't make nuclear the next best thing.
Quite a few profitable windfarms exist. Farmers get around $15,000 per Turbine per year. They love the easy money. Nukes are not insurable because of the magnitude of danger. As uranium gets more scarce the ratio of energy to mine and process to energy gained gets worse. Also water pollution, fish kills.
theinitiate
You know,I guess you people that "belive in " nuclear power feel tha some people are expendable. You must also believe that certain areas of the country or the world are expendable. The people who died from the Chernobyl accident and/or developed cancer and other problems and lost their homes, well, that must be like when in war when they call it "collateral damage". Then there's the fact that the covering over that site is LEAKING radiation and they are in the process of building a huge dome next to it which they will slide over it and seal it up again. Yeah,that will work-Untill they have to doit agin in how many years? THen, someone has to mine the shit- uranium I maean. Hey that a good way for you to support your cause, since you believe so strongly in the use of nuclear power. You can offer your employment services to go mine it.
I DARE YOU -NO-I DOUBLE DARE YOU -I WANT YOUR RESPONSES!!!!!!!!
Electricity can be produced by stationary bicycles with the back wheel attached to a generator. So...let's do away with electricity generated by oil, gas, coal, nuclear etc. and get fit by riding these bicycles.
A fit human can only put out about 0.2 horsepower for extended periods - that's about 150 watts. After conversion and transmission efficiencies, maybe 100 watts.
So, it would take about 10 people, pedaling hard, for a very frugally powered home - one that heats with gas and never uses AC.
For central AC, that would take at least another 25 people, pedaling furiously.
---USAn---
I've posted it here before but no one has more succinctly stated the reasons against nuclear power in America than John Perlin, a maven of solar power. His words bear repeating:
"I see three problems with nuclear power. First, we haven't learned from our experiences with accidents; the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island incidents were strong warnings. Secondly, the very presence of nuclear plants gives terrorists the nuclear threat (if they forcibly take one over) without even having to invest in it. And finally, nuclear waste--and there's a lot of it--can be used to make dirty bombs by either terrorist cells or rogue governments..."
Whole article at:
http://freesolaradvice.blogspot.com/2008/11/perlin-clean-coal-is-like-perfumed.html
It also bugs me that nuclear power is currently close to an energy Ponzi scheme. By some calculations you don't get out as much energy as you put in. If you cheat on safety enough you make an energy profit, but that's not fair. Anything even close to being a giant energy-sucking fraud should be canned. We have numbers of excellent renewable energy-saving and money-saving options available now.
I was also told nuclear power plant construction requires more energy than it will ever produce, and brought up this point at a renewable energy conference, but a scientist participating in the conference corrected me. A nuclear power plant merely requires 20 years of operation before it offsets the carbon released into the atmosphere during its construction. Still, a 20 year waiting period before it starts to pay off...doesn't seem very useful to me. Especially since they're not supposed to be operated much more than 20 years,
Sorry, but you figure cannot possibly be true.
If it were, it would also be true for wind turbines - they likewise require, proportionally, even greater amounts carbon emissions associates with the steel, concrete, and employees driving trucks and cars to construct than a nuclear power plant.
---USAn---
The figure for the power plants also includes the carbon produced in mining and creating uranium fuel rods for the fuel I believe. With wind turbines, no fuel is required. And I don't know the figure is true, I just said I was told it by a scientist. But I can imagine huge amounts of energy going into the much more rarer materials and metals needed in a nuclear power plant, compared to just steel for wind turbines.
Zmann 12:05 --------- the amount of concrete and steel in a Nuke Plant is astronomical. I can buy a wind turbine to power my house but a nuke?( actually Los Alamos recently developed small nuke plants, truck size that you bury and use, but it is still many more times the cost of wind or solar.)
Yes I'm sure they'll soon allow the public to buy their own miniature nuclear plants :-)
Perhaps Bonnie and Jackson and Graham and the others could have a concert to raise money for the new Anti-nuclear Science Museum going in next door to the Creation Science Museum in Kentucky. It will be very cost effective to have it run by the same management.
Excellent! I needed the laugh...
I serious doubt if Wasserman of those who agree with him here could even could even use Newton's Laws on even the simplest problems.
---USAn
I'll bet that the Republicans will do almost anything to defend that pork even if they claim it's not pork. So on the one hand, the GOP are happy to call women "pork" but on the other hand weapons and energy guzzling crap is somehow not called "pork" but "stimulus". I hope the Democrats don't fall for it but I guess I'll be keeping my fingers crossed on this one.
Jason Jordan
Sandpoint, Idaho
"Nuclear Power" is a misnomer -- we don't speak of "coal power" or "oil power" when referring to energy plants using these fuels as a source for energy.
"Wind power" and "Water power" are correct, because the wind/water power goes directly to the turbines producing electricity.
"Nuke power" is, at core, a primitive technology, a heat source to heat the water to turn the turbines. Public monies should in no way finance or subsidize this bastard.
___________
There's a glory in the morning because the earth turns 'round and a promise in the evening when the sun goes down
The vast international scientific community says that clean safe nuclear energy is here to stay. Just for the sake of diversity and amusement though, the anti-nuclear carnival needs a better informed barker than this clueless screech owl. On the other hand, if the anti-nuclear intelligentsia led by such illustrious scientific scholars as Bonny Raitt and Jackson Browne have an inspired music video on the subject then perhaps all bets really are off.
Good one.
I'll add that both Obama and Al Gore support clean and safe nuclear energy.
But I'm afraid most people here have a shill disdain for both science and common sense.
Both science and common sense would call for an energy technology that neither leaves any sort of pollution nor requires around-the-clock maintenance and attention to avert a deadly catastrophe. That would definitely call for wind and solar, which generate electricity on their own for decades without requiring a large and very expensive staff to monitor them, can be built or installed in hours or days instead of the decades it currently takes nuclear reactors to be built, and requires no further efforts once built and hooked to the power grid to deliver power, unlike coal, nuclear, oil, or gas power plants which require a constant and never-ending supply of fuel. Clean, quick, lasting, effortless energy versus dirty, deadly, burdensome, onerous energy. Which would you pick, if you had common sense?
I'll add that both Obama and Al Gore are politicians who are not particularly choosy about where their campaign donations or speaker fees come from. But I'm afraid most people are swayed by nuclear and fossil fuel industry-funded propaganda.
"But I'm afraid most people are swayed by nuclear and fossil fuel industry-funded propaganda."
Quite the reverse I suspect. Most folks are scared to death of the production of electricity by nuclear plants, while most politicians are only too happy to accept the money generated by that industry in order to gain permission to build such plants.
My company owns one such generation plant in California, Diablo Canyon, and I am asked to deliver material there on occasion. Some of my coworkers refuse to even go near the place, more overtime for me!
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
Sioux Rose
Hey, genius girl, ever hear of "Disaster Capitalism"? Because profit motives have overcome common sense along with respect for public safety, in the 40 years that nuclear power has been used, very little $ has gone into coming up with any remotely safe storage material or plan. And don't even mention the Yucca site. Each plant produces dangerous detritus. Ralph Nader's publication "Public Citizen" spoke about the way some of these radioactive metals (old piping and such) were being "recycled" along with metals never thus exposed, and SOLD in the form of everyday household appliances, even children's braces!
The American Indigenous held councils and discussed the potential impact the actions they elected to take today would hold upon FUTURE generations. With our nation in a moral sewer, funding bombs rather than school lunches, the moral impetus to even consider what our actions will cost future generations is disabled.
This bloated spoiled nation needs to put REAL conservation practices into use. I do it! Who said we have to always have a room at 70 degrees in summer or 75 in winter... wear a sweater if it's cold. Scarcity could be good for prompting a re-evaluation of what's been so grossly taken for granted.
Now if you're willing to have all the spent fuel rods in YOUR back yard, perhaps we can continue the discussion. And I suppose you'll be wanting round-the-clock guards to ensure that none of it makes to the black market.
Lovely sentiments, but you are mixing your ideas. You are sort of right about the lack of funds available for research, which came as fallout from the anti-nuclear hysteria, but fortunately it hasn't really impeded progress. I have read Naomi Klein's published works. "Disaster Capitalism," the term she coined, refers to economic policies implemented to benefit a few by taking advantage of societies reeling from natural and manmade disasters. I'm not going to stretch this genuinely insightful concept out of shape to fit it into the anti-nuclear kabuki, but will be glad to respond to it if you do.
Sorry you won't allow me to mention the Yucca site, though it may bare occasional repeating, that the scientific community doesn't have the problems with it that your obligatory censorship implies.
"Each plant produces dangerous detritus."
Not really. It's called recycling, or what used to be called reprocessing. The French and the Japanese use it. It is basically separating out the remaining uranium and the plutonium that is manufactured as a byproduct and used as fuel again. Plutonium is a fuel. Contrary to what anti-nuclear expert, Jackson Browne says, we don't need to wait 250,000 years for it to decay. We can use it right away as a fuel and turn it into fission products, which will then have a 300-year lifespan of being radioactive. If that seems like a long time, I'll refer you back to the MIT study again, with it's safety projections exceeding 1,000 years before another evaluation is needed. Japan just opened a fuel fabrication and recycling center in Northern Honshu. Japan took the French technology, which is probably the leading technology, and design a system in which the plutonium never emerges as a pure product anywhere; it's only inside, where nobody could, without dying, get it. The plutonium is separated, then before it comes out it's recombined with uranium into what's called mixed-oxide fuel, which cannot be made into a bomb.
"Ralph Nader's publication "Public Citizen" spoke about the way some of these radioactive metals (old piping and such) were being "recycled" along with metals never thus exposed, and SOLD in the form of everyday household appliances, even children's braces!"
I agree, that is a horrible anecdote. A lot of things including computers and the batteries necessary to store solar power continue to be recycled in bad ways.
"The American Indigenous held councils and discussed the potential impact the actions they elected to take today would hold upon FUTURE generations. With our nation in a moral sewer, funding bombs rather than school lunches, the moral impetus to even consider what our actions will cost future generations is disabled."
All of our actions affect future generations. Including the one to deny life saving nuclear generated energy to those who aren't getting it.
"This bloated spoiled nation needs to put REAL conservation practices into use. I do it! Who said we have to always have a room at 70 degrees in summer or 75 in winter... wear a sweater if it's cold. Scarcity could be good for prompting a re-evaluation of what's been so grossly taken for granted."
As to addressing first world consumption by cutting back wherever possible, we are in complete agreement. So assuming you are sitting in a building that is using no more electricity than your computer, what is your suggestion for the three-and-a-half billion people on earth who still use less energy in a fortnight than you used to post your comment? To bring them up to your conscientious level requires either the combination of nuclear and a fanciful array of all of the renewable energy plans, or else some cosmic vibration that no one in the scientific community seems to be aware of. Simply put, how do you propose to harness energy effectively enough to meet the task of dealing with the catastrophe that most of us are already in? I'm assuming that you either don't want to sacrifice, or may not want to admit that sacrificing at least half of the world's population is part of an acceptable plan.
"Now if you're willing to have all the spent fuel rods in YOUR back yard, perhaps we can continue the discussion. And I suppose you'll be wanting round-the-clock guards to ensure that none of it makes to the black market."
That's quite a demand you make for continuing a discussion. As I'm fortunate enough by birth to reside in sunny climate, my back yard is fully planted. Otherwise I wouldn't have a problem with it, though some under-educated neighbors might. MIT has a recent long-term safety study for holding nuclear waste. It's one of very many showing that it is safe. They, among others also address your concerns about the unmentionable mountain depository. As for how recycling of spent nuclear fuel works, there is the transition from a once-through fuel cycle to an approach that includes recycling of spent nuclear fuel without separating out pure plutonium. Recycling can employ uranium extraction plus (UREX+). Research has shown that UREX+ can separate uranium from the spent fuel at a very high level of purification that would allow it to be recycled for re-enrichment, stored in an unshielded facility, or simply buried as a low-level waste in my backyard or yours.
Unfortunately, we will both continue for the rest of our lives to get a lot more radiation into our system from burnt coal than nuclear. So, I would ask in closing, would you be adamant about immediately shutting down every filthy coal plant and trusting whatever you think would be left of civilization to renewables? Solartopia or Solarfantasia notwithstanding, there are no credible notions, not to mention plans on the table, that would even give you the opportunity to respond in your lifetime.
Leading technology or not, the French had quite a scare recently (last year?).
And so did Japan a bit earlier... You might argue it was a small thing, but it surely wasn't for the residents in the affected areas.
I guess, you have a different perspective on the subject if it's purely academic. For people living close to nuclear power plants or nuclear waste depots the issue is so much more than it is for scientists, polititians, those who weren't living in Central Europe when the disaster happened, those in countries without nuclear power plants and the possibility of something going wrong....
Safe? There is no such a thing as 100% safe.
The scare you refer to made headlines, and was a huge issue precisely because the amount of radiation exposure reached a small fraction of that to which you have been expose if you have ever flown in an airplane one time.
Since actual safety is not a serious debate in the scientific community, perhaps you could let people who live in proximity to nuclear power plants speak for themselves, as they do with great confidence and security by overwhelming margins of 80 percent and up in regular random surveys.
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Tr-Y68nNMOYJ:www.redorbit.com/news/science/269461/nuclear_power_p...
Sioux Rose
Okay, JANET, I came down hard on you. You're obviously intelligent, but I will never advocate in favor of nuclear power. Our earth has been known to throw an earthquake here or there (where none had been seen before); the climate IS shifting, and there is no SAFE, longterm place to put those radioactive materials that Earth Mother spent considerable time burying for a good reason.
Some of your points are well taken. Thank you for sharing.
I thank you for a reasonable sounding defense of nuclear power. Further I believe that nuclear plays a major role in the future of our energy needs and that there is much alarmist in the attacks on such power. I read about new technologies in that industry and am open to the use of nuclear when and if we get sufficiently ahead of the curve technologically speaking.
The fact that Yucca Mt. requires the shipping of hundreds of tons of such waste across the nation, the fact that said waste will remain deadly far longer than we can predict the stability of its storage facility are powerful arguments against rushing into the construction of such energy producers, at least today.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
Interesting post.
"Japan just opened a fuel fabrication and recycling center in Northern Honshu. Japan took the French technology, which is probably the leading technology, and design a system in which the plutonium never emerges as a pure product anywhere; it's only inside, where nobody could, without dying, get it. The plutonium is separated, then before it comes out it's recombined with uranium into what's called mixed-oxide fuel, which cannot be made into a bomb."
I was unaware of this, though I did know the Japanese were using French technology.
The mining of uranium ore contaminated mining sites with radiation and poisons the miners, their families, and their communities. The milling of the ore into more useful forms is a higly toxic, energy-intensive process, and releases quite a bit of radiation as well. There are more steps in making nuclear reactor fuel...all of which are highly dangerous, leak radiation, and kill people. Lastly, ALL nuclear reactors leak radiation. They're simply permitted to leak a certain amount each year. Any community within a few miles of a nuclear reactor suffers higher cancer and related death rates. Recycling fuel rods does not solve the problem of radioactive wastes from nuclear power. Nuclear energy is not clean and safe, period.
Frugalness is fine. I keep my thermostat at 60-62F in the day, 57F at night, except when it goes below 0F, when it needs to go up a bit at night to keep pipes from freezing. I don't use air conditioning at all and can't understand why anyone uses it in Western Pennsylvania.
But considering the urgency of the climate problem, we can't keep any options off the table.
---USAn---
Sioux Rose
PDJ: Mine is set at 60 and it's been in the low 30's here lately. I realize that conservation is NOT the only issue, it is however, an important one. We lost 8 years to Bush playing Indian Jones crossed with Attila the Hun in his PURSUIT of the holy grail of energy (oil). That time could have been used to put more inventive zeal into ways to bring down the cost of solar panels, or erect windmills... I am NO expert on the SCIENCE behind renewable energy, but I know that it is the ONLY sane long-term way to go. Now if we just want short-term solutions, many of which got us into this pickle of faltering economy, suicidal international policies, and broken ecosystems, then do the rah rah rah for nuclear. I don't buy it. There ARE options, and they are safer and have longer lasting benefits.
Great Point!
"But considering the urgency of the climate problem, we can't keep any options off the table."
And no matter if the climate problem is man made, real or not real, no matter the arguments, there can be no downside to conservation.
You guys are better than we are. 68 day and 64 night. And we use A/C most of the uyear. But I'm proud to say we use less than 50% of the power of a comparable home becayse of the way we built it. Almost broke my arm with that pat on the back (lol)
Darn it Thomas, my TWO HVAC systems are going to get a stern talking to from me...But , in the summer when it is 109º in the valley I absolutely need them.
Installed double pane glass throughout and state of the art insulation though...my utility bills are almost reasonable, and we've got those doohickeys on our systems that allow the utility company to remotely cut power to the HVAC's by half when power requirements spike. One tries one's best...
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
Think how lucky your two HVAC (we have two) are not to be fed on our unregulated Texas electricity. Its absurd, but our legislators were paid handsomely! Ain't deregulation grand!
Its now owned by the hedge fund KKR. (Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts)
sidebar alert...My Dad did much business with George Roberts,the R in KKR, enough so that I received several invitations to golf with him at the very upper echelon SF Golf Club. Nice guy, one who also owns sixteen golf resorts including Doral ( a favorite of mine). The first time I played there our group included Charles ( call me Chuck) Schwab. It was two billionares and a poor SOB.
I trimmed their trees but good! Then got chastized for over tipping the caddy......Great course by the by, its nice to rule the world I guess.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so. Bertrand Russell
Swimming with the sharks huh?
That darn caddy should pull himself up by his bootstraps instead of waiting for the working poor to overtip him.
The Glue That Holds Chaos Together
The Bush administration defunded the search for the Higgs-Boson, and this is already having serious repercussions in our scientific community, as well as our educational systems, but the most important thing to remember is that Bush has done everything in his power to destroy any chance that we have of developing alternative forms of energy.
I am having trouble pulling up records on a government funded project concerning the manipulation of nuclear energy through means of an improved, high temperature, boron reactor. This reactor would combine boron and hydrogen, to create wasteless nuclear energy. The by-product of the fusion reaction is helium, which would be relatively harmless. The integral reactor would have no nuclear waste. Think about that; clean nuclear energy. The reactor was built and the experiment was successful, yet the government defunded it...why?
I can only offer a link to a private site that is dedicaed to this research, but if you can find the government records please post.
http://focusfusion.org/index.php
Also, I hear a lot of talk about windmills and solar panels, but very little on hydro-electric, geo-thermal, nano-paint, glow-in-the-dark paint, or biological energy systems such as the type that use algae to produce hydrogen. All of these systems are proven viable sources of cheap alternative energy, yet the endorsers of alternative energy are strangely mute when it comes to mentioning this.
Great article. Thank you!
How many trillions of dollars in product licensing did America lose by defunding the Higgs-Bosun?