Anti-Nuclear Energy Article from ForeignPolicy.com

[HemlockGrey]

Usually anti-nuke stuff comes from the raving Greens. Thus when this article appeared on the front page of Foreignpolicy.com I was rather surprised. Take a look.

Think Again: Nuclear Energy
By Benjamin K. Sovacool
Page 1 of 2

Posted September 2005

With worldwide demand for energy soaring along with oil prices, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as the answer to curbing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. Even committed greens are warming to nuclear energy. Unfortunately, nuclear power plants are not the answer to our energy needs, and they’re not as eco-friendly as they appear.




Enriching material: Like India, Japan, and Russia, China is planning to build more nuclear power plants such as this one in Guangan in China’s Sichuan Province.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images


“Nuclear Power Is Dead”

False. Although most U.S. nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, concern about climate change is reviving the nuclear power industry. The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force for 141 countries this year, aims to cut back on global greenhouse gas emissions. This pressure has driven interest in nuclear reactors, which many erroneously consider a “zero carbon dioxide emission” technology. Judith M. Greenwald of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change has noted that “the imperative to decarbonize the future world energy economy to mitigate climate change provides strong motivation to keep the nuclear power option open.” Three large U.S. utilities—Exelon, Entergy, and Dominion—have filed early site permits with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the construction of new nuclear plants in Illinois, Mississippi, and Virginia, respectively. For its part, the energy bill recently passed by congress provides significant support to the nuclear industry. The legislation extends liability limits for nuclear accidents for another 20 years, authorizes the construction of new Department of Energy (DOE) research reactors, and establishes hefty loan and insurance programs to make the construction of new nuclear reactors more attractive.

Worldwide, a total of 25 reactors are currently under construction in 10 countries. China has nine fully operational nuclear reactors, and it plans to build another 30 within the next five years. New nuclear plants are also on the drawing board in India, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Russia.

“Nuclear Power Will Decrease Dependence on Oil”

Not really. Oil generates only around 3 percent of U.S. electricity (the rest comes primarily from coal, nuclear, natural gas, and hydropower sources). Gains in electricity generation from nuclear power do not automatically translate into decreased oil dependence. Nuclear power’s ability to reduce oil dependence may grow as Americans purchase more hybrid vehicles that could use either the electricity generated by nuclear power plants or hydrogen harvested from nuclear reactions. But the day most cars and trucks run on electricity or hydrogen is still distant. The transition to a hybrid or hydrogen economy is at least 20 to 30 years away, due to the difficulty of developing cost-effective fuel cells and the infrastructure to extract, compress, and store hydrogen. Because most of the research and development on hydrogen takes place in the United States, Europe, and industrialized Asia, the rest of the world is even farther from this future. Plus, many analysts believe that, at current consumption levels, there is only a 50-year supply of uranium, rendering social and economic investment in nuclear plants short sighted.


“Nuclear Power Is a Clean Form of Energy”

Unfortunately, no. When President George W. Bush signed the energy bill in August, he remarked, “only nuclear power plants can generate massive amounts of electricity without emitting an ounce of air pollution or greenhouse gases.” This claim is flat-out wrong. The reprocessing and enrichment of uranium often relies on fossil fuel-generated electricity. Data from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and USEC, a uranium enrichment company, indicate that enriching the amount of uranium needed to fuel 1,000-megawatt reactor for a year using the most efficient method can require 5,500 megawatt hours of gas- and coal-fired electricity (a 100-megawatt power plant running for 550 hours).* Two of America’s most polluting coal plants in Ohio and Indiana produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment. In this way, many nuclear power plants contribute indirectly but substantially to global warming, and fail to reduce U.S. dependence on petroleum and coal.

The mining and milling of uranium and the operation of nuclear reactors also present grave dangers to the environment. Abandoned mines in the developing world, for example, can pose radioactive risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure. Nuclear plants release toxic pollutants and gases, such as carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton, and xenon. They also produce prodigious amounts of waste that remain dangerously radioactive for more than 100,000 years. The DOE has relied upon on-site retrievable storage as a stop-gap solution. By 2003, more than 49,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel was scattered in dry casks and storage pools in 72 different U.S. locations, with the amount of waste expected to grow to 105,000 tons by 2035. Yucca Mountain—a federally funded permanent storage facility being built in Nevada—has only enough space for 70,000 tons. Put simply: We don’t yet have a lasting solution to the nuclear waste storage problem.

“Nuclear Power Is Inexpensive”

False. Even modern nuclear facilities are extremely capital intensive and take years to build. A typical 1,100 megawatt light-water reactor plant costs between $2 and $3 billion for licensing and construction. These costs soar even higher once the additional expenses of storing nuclear waste and decommissioning old plants are added. The capital intensity of nuclear projects complicates the process of balancing capacity with demand, meaning plants tend to overproduce electricity. These problems help explain nuclear power’s downturn in the 1980s. Moreover, such expenses are expected to increase along with the demand for uranium, the primary source of nuclear fuel. Experts say the cost of uranium could surpass $40 per pound in 2006, a nearly 300 percent increase since the 1990s. Fuel prices account for a small percentage of the overall expenses for a nuclear plant, but the costs can reach millions, as about 200 metric tons of natural uranium are required annually for a single 1,000 megawatt light-water reactor. It’s no surprise, then, that nuclear generators need massive government subsidies to attract investors. A 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study recommended a host of government subsidies and a carbon tax of $200 per ton on conventional power plants to help make nuclear reactors cost competitive with existing technologies. Without heavy subsidies, it’s unlikely that the U.S. nuclear industry would survive, let alone expand.

“Nuclear Power Plants Are a Security Threat”

Yes. Domestically, nuclear plants increase the likelihood of a nuclear accident or terrorist attack. Stringent security regulations enacted after Sept. 11, 2001, have reduced the risk of forcible entry, car or truck bombings, cyberterrorism, and aerial bombardment to nuclear plants. Yet, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that 37 of 81 nuclear plants tested failed their 2003 Operational Safeguards Readiness Evaluation. And while the nuclear plant structures that house reactor fuel can withstand aircraft impact, multiple reports have cautioned that for too many plants, the vital control building—the building that, if hit, could lead to a meltdown—is still located outside protective structures and vulnerable to attack.

Globally, nuclear plants are vulnerable to theft of fissile material and may promote the spread of nuclear weapons. There is no shortage of terrorist groups eager to acquire the nuclear waste or fissile material needed to make a crude nuclear device, or a “dirty bomb.” Commercial nuclear reactors already create an amount of plutonium equal to the global military stockpile every four years. A modest growth in worldwide capacity from 350 gigawatts to 700 gigawatts would generate roughly 140 tons of weapons-grade plutonium annually. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, authorities have documented nearly 200 incidents of nuclear smuggling in France, Germany, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Russia, and Turkey. A 2004 Jane’s Intelligence Review report concluded that a substantial increase in the number of new nuclear power plants worldwide would directly increase the risks associated with nuclear weapons proliferation. Existing safeguards are clearly not sufficient. After all, the International Atomic Energy Agency was unable to prevent Iran and North Korea from using civilian reactors to launch weapons programs.

“Nuclear Power Is a Wise Choice for Future Energy Needs”

No. For the moment, the wisest energy strategy for the United States—in terms of cost, environmental benefits, and potential—would be to invest in long-term energy demand reduction through the increased deployment or improved performance of energy-efficient equipment. In New York state alone, for instance, efficiency policies have already saved more than 1,000 gigawatt hours of electricity and displaced 880 megawatts of peak demand. On the supply side, using smaller, decentralized units such as wind turbines, combined heat and power systems, biomass generators, and solar heating and photovoltaic systems is a much better strategy. Such technologies are quicker to construct, less fuel intensive, and more modular, meaning that almost any demand can be met, no matter how small, because they can generate smaller increments of electricity. It is these miniature generators—not mammoth and capital-intensive nuclear plants—that offer the best strategy for diversifying electrical generation in a competitive energy environment.


The drawbacks of nuclear power are even more severe in developing countries, which are less able to afford the capital investments nuclear technology requires. Poor countries also have more to lose when projects bog down or fail—especially because many of these countries pay higher interest rates on international loans. In addition, an expansion of nuclear power throughout Africa and parts of Asia would require the construction of an expansive transmission and distribution network, as well as expensive and difficult-to-secure facilities to store nuclear waste. Above all, countries pursuing nuclear power would become dependent on the West for the technical expertise and financial capital required to construct and maintain their facilities. In the end, expanding nuclear power only entrenches existing problems posed by the use of fossil fuels, and obscures better alternatives for a sustainable energy future.

*Correction: This sentence has been clarified. It originally said that the enriched uranium needed to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity can require 5,500 megawatt hours of gas- and coal-fired electricity.

I think the security argument is overstated, and the oil argument suffers from a lack of vision, and I think that the cost argument is not a real con to nuclear development, but I'm interested in knowing if the stuff about cleanness and the 50-year-supply of uranium is true.

[Instant Sunrise]

One of the guys from the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum, runs Freedom for Fission

I shall quote his site.

There is only enough nuclear fuel to last for another fifty years.

Supplies of uranium-235 available by extraction in line with today’s uranium prices will only last for fifty years. It should be noted that this is actually not as pessimistic as the estimates for availability of other minerals or fuels. However, uranium-235 lies elsewhere in abundance, albeit with increased extraction costs, which are ready for use once the market makes them economical. Uranium is overall a fairly ubiquitous metal, about as common as tin or zinc.

Currently, uranium is extracted from rich ores, which are a far more concentrated source. This makes sense economically for the time being while they are available. However, there are other sources, such as granite and sedimentary rocks that contain uranium. Even coal contains uranium, which is usually released into the atmosphere in coal-fired power stations. It is estimated that the trace amounts of uranium present in the coal could provide more energy through fission than the coal itself through combustion. Of course, at present, burning the coal is cheaper than extracting uranium from it.

It is currently estimated, and indeed estimates are constantly increased in all mineral and fuel resources and new information becomes available, that supplies of uranium-235 from these conventional resources are sufficient for over 200 years at present consumption. However, there are less conventional sources, which can offer still more reserves of the isotope, such as phosphate deposits and especially seawater, provided the market makes the significantly increased prices economical.

Beyond that, uranium-235 is not the only nuclear fuel. Any isotope that is fissile can be used as nuclear fuel. Other than uranium-235, plutonium-239 and uranium-233 are major candidates. Plutonium-239 is the principle ingredient in modern nuclear weapons because it is higher yielding. It is also a small component of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel along with other isotopes of plutonium. Uranium-233 is also a higher yielding isotope under fission than uranium-235, but it has not yet entered into commercial use since uranium-235 is an economic enough fuel for the time being.

The key difference between uranium-235 and the other two is that only uranium-235 is naturally occuring. Uranium-233 and plutonium-239 must be bred from fertile isotopes through neutron capture. Plutonium-239, along with all other isotopes of plutonium, is bred primarily from uranium-238, the isotope that comprises the vast bulk of uranium. Because uranium used in civil reactors is generally natural or low enriched, most of the uranium is uranium-238 and as such, during the reactor operation, plutonium is bred as byproduct. This is the main source of plutonium for MOX fuel in the civil fuel cycle, although plutonium from decomissioned nuclear weapons is also becoming available and is requiring burning for the security of all.

This breeding means that almost all the uranium can ultimately be used, which means at least 60 times the yield since uranium-235 is only 0.7% of all uranium factoring in the breeding of undesirable isotopes such as plutonium-240. So with breeding to plutonium, uranium offers a supply for more than 10,000 years.

But the story does not end there. Uranium-233 is not bred from uranium, but from thorium. Thorium is almost entirely thorium-232, the fertile isotope required. Thorium is also three times more abundant than uranium. You can do the maths yourself.

Beyond that, new reactors are designed to make as much use of all actinides as possible. The isotopes with odd nucleon numbers are fissile, but the isotopes with even nucleon numbers can absorb a neutron to become fissile so waste can even be used.

The point is that with proper use of nuclear fuel, we are guaranteed a supply of energy for some thousands of years to say the least.

The cleanliness argument I suspect is innaccurate, but I cannot back it up at the moment, so I will wait until I find more data.

[Uraniun235]

We would also have an even easier supply of fuel if we would drop Carter's bullshit initiative and resume reprocessing of spent reactor fuel.

[Rahvin]

Wait, wait wait.

Nuclear Power Is a Clean Form of Energy”

Unfortunately, no. When President George W. Bush signed the energy bill in August, he remarked, “only nuclear power plants can generate massive amounts of electricity without emitting an ounce of air pollution or greenhouse gases.” This claim is flat-out wrong. The reprocessing and enrichment of uranium often relies on fossil fuel-generated electricity. Data from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and USEC, a uranium enrichment company, indicate that enriching the amount of uranium needed to fuel 1,000-megawatt reactor for a year using the most efficient method can require 5,500 megawatt hours of gas- and coal-fired electricity (a 100-megawatt power plant running for 550 hours).* Two of America’s most polluting coal plants in Ohio and Indiana produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment. In this way, many nuclear power plants contribute indirectly but substantially to global warming, and fail to reduce U.S. dependence on petroleum and coal.

If the whole fucking point of nuclear power is to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels for electricity, why can fossil fuel use be used as a reason against nuke plants?!

If we switch over to nukes, those enriching facilities will use nuclear generated electricity, not fossil. That's the goddamned point!

And who cares if it takes 5500 MW - hrs to enrich 1 yrs worth of fuel? 1 year running at 1000 MW is 8,765,000 MW - hrs! That's a pretty fucking good return on investment! Even with using fossil plants for the enrichment process, I'd rather run that 100 MW plant for 550 hours than run it for 87,650 hours to produce the same amount of electricity as the nuke plant it fuels!

Yeah, so nukes aren't entirely pollution-fee right now becuase the enrichment process uses fossil. It's still far less pollution than just running on coal! And after you have a few new plants running, you can use them to enrich more uranium for other plants. That 1000 MW plant will only have to run for 5.5 hrs to provide the energy for another year's worth of fuel.

[defanatic]

The problems with nuclear power plants are primarily created by us:
Pollution: Because we are so dependent on fossil fuels, it will create greenhouse gases to construct a Nuclear Power Plant. Also, our electricity is powered by fossil fuels, so anything to do with electricity will generate fossil fuels
This also applies for electric cars. You require fossil fuels to generate electricity to power electric cars. Each problem can be solved with the other, but people live in the here and twelve years ago.
Cost: Our fault, because hippies don't like Nuclear Power, and make it expensive to get the liscencing.
Of course, none of these arguments hold any water.

[tharkûn]

scaremongering, half truths and BS.

Oil dependence. First off eliminating coal fired power generation would do wonders for alleviating demand and bringing about sharp price reductions. Second the issue is not "oil dependence" but fossil fuel dependence. Many of the same assbackwards locales that feed the world's oil habit feed the world's growing natural gas habit. Likewise the problems from burning oil are in many cases inherent to burning natural gas. Going nuclear means that Azerbaijan, Iran, etc. have less geopolitical leverage as well lower levels of pollution. Thirdly cheaper energy means we change the economic equilibrium for ethanol and biodeisel - which directly decreases oil dependence without having to remake the entire transportation sector.

Pollution. Half-truths. Yes Bush is incorrect that there won't be an ounce of pollution. However when you read the lifecycle assessments of EVERY damn power source known to man; nuclear pollutes the least. The uranium enrichment claims are BS. We use fossil fuel because that is what the grid supplies, even if that is enough to get your panties in a knot - I'd like to suggest one word: CANDU. We have the ability to make natural abundance reactors and have thousands of years of reliable service out of them.

Mining is again a half-truth issue. Yes mining leaves health risks behind, particularly if the environmental regulations are crap where you are mining. However that is true of ANY form of mining. Mining coal releases uranium, thorium, and plenty of other toxic crap.

The waste claims are BS. This is a case where conservation of mass does not apply; we can reduce the mass of the waste by seperating out the worst materials and only placing those in long term storage. Recycling fuel is also an option. As far as radioisotope pollution - I'm sorry but the radiology departments at hospitals inject that crap directly into patients, some of which does end up in the environment. Medicine dumps for more radioisotopes than nuclear power.

Expensive. BS. The intrinsic costs of the nuclear energy cycle are low. Even if we insist upon burying the waste forever it still is ridiciously cheaper than anything except coal. This is after multiplicative cost increases because we hold nuclear reactors to unreal safety standards (for instance a nuclear egineered to never release as much radiation as a coal plant spews in a typical day of its operation).

Security threat. Scaremongering BS. Let's say that terrorists manage to take the external control tower, the duress codes on the doors aren't used, the controllers don't irreversibly poison the reaction before being shot/fleeing, and the terrorists have their own operator who can circumvent the multiple safety systems that prevent meltdowns (both 3MI and Chernobyl had multiple instances of humans shutting off automatic safety safety systems) ... okay granted all the exceedingly unlikely crap coming to pass what would a melt down do? The fuel would liquify and begin to drop through the floor. However as concrete and other material gets added to the molten slurry the fissile material's density will drop quenching the nuclear reaction and cooling the molten slurry. The net result? You lose the reactor. Could terrorists with this type of funding, expertise, skill, and planning do more damage elsewhere? You bet your ass. It is far easier to blow a natural gas plant, torch off any fuel stock, take out chemical plants, etc. than going after nuclear power plants.

Diry bombs. Scaremongering. If I was going to build a nuclear bomb I wouldn't THINK about touching the nuclear industry. Go for the hospitals. You can get far more for far less by going for cesium or cobalt radioisotope stocks. You think safegaurds on nuclear waste and fuel suck in some parts of the world, in the hospitals it is almost nonexistant. Not only that but the international trade in these radioisotopes is much larger and less regulated. Any terrorist with a brain is going to go for the easier stuff to get which does more damage.

Smale scale renewable fellato. BS. PV requires higher capital investment for equivalent power production; construction is limited by how much ultrapure, defect silicon you can produce (this is done in multistory plants where you grow single crystals by drawing them up out of a molten Si bath) and any serious increase in its use is going to utterly overwhelm the silicon production facilities. After that you have etching which is near capacity right now and further production would require expanding production of everything upstream (hydrofluoric acid, EDA, etc.) Of course the really fun kicker is that because making the etched silicon for PV is so energy intensive we'd first have to build more power plants to provide the electricity needed to go through the production lines.


In any event Googling "Benjamin K. Sovacool" turns up some other papers which handily lend themselves to bolster my suspiscion that Benjamin K. Sovacool is a green and bordering upon the raving line. He's against bioengineering, supports North Korea's nuclear proliferation, and does the stock fellate renewable power options beyond all reason. I'm not sure wether to place in the woefully mislead or raving moonbat categories.

[Alliance SpecForceTrooper]

In any event Googling "Benjamin K. Sovacool" turns up some other papers which handily lend themselves to bolster my suspiscion that Benjamin K. Sovacool is a green and bordering upon the raving line. He's against bioengineering, supports North Korea's nuclear proliferation, and does the stock fellate renewable power options beyond all reason. I'm not sure wether to place in the woefully mislead or raving moonbat categories.

Hehe, I did the same thing and was wondering why he was interested in such diverse topics as animal genetic engineering and the dangers of nuclear power. My guess was he was a Green pretending he wasn't so as to gain legitemacy, since Greens are usually shown to be nutjobs in their frothing rants just as much as some scum-bag NeoNazi.

[aerius]

Usually anti-nuke stuff comes from the raving Greens. Thus when this article appeared on the front page of Foreignpolicy.com I was rather surprised.

I don't care where that article came from, but I was definitely written by an enviro-weenie whackjob. As others have mentioned, those arguments are straight out of the raving Greenie textbook and are full of lies and BS.

[aerius]

It should read "...it was definitely writtnen by..."

This is what I get for inhaling solder fumes all day.

[HemlockGrey]

I'm not actually sure what an article on nuclear energy was doing on Foreign Policy.com

[Alan Bolte]

I stopped reading and started laughing when I got to the part about the power costs of enrichment. Some people just don't have a head for numbers, I guess.

[tharkûn]

I'm not actually sure what an article on nuclear energy was doing on Foreign Policy.com

That actually makes sense. One of the major issues in foreign policy is global warming and the whole must cut carbon emissions idea. This lends itself directly to a discussion of why should we keep burning natural gas and oil when we could switch to nuclear. Likewise there are problems when governments co-opt energy and research reactors for nuclear proliferation, as happened in India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. There are legitimate discussions to be had about which states we should export nuclear technology to, which parts of the fuel cycle should be trusted to which states, and what type of assistance and gimmes should be offered in order to keep other states from making readily weaponizable programs.

There is plenty of room to have an intelligent discourse about nuclear power in terms of foreign policy. Why they turned to a moron who can harp about the pollution from enriching uranium and then straight face tell us photovoltiacs are superior; I'll never know.

[Braedley]

This article looks like a crock-pot full of BS. Totally unsupported evidence and ambiguous figures. I don't know where to begin. I'm still a supported of nuclear power.

[WyrdNyrd]

I stopped reading as soon as I saw that bit about fossil fuels being needed to process uranium. WTF? You have to be half-asleep (or already so firmly anti-nuclear as to be brain-dead) not to spot how utterly ludicrous that is. It comes down to: "We can't use nuclear, because we're not already using nuclear!"