Some Baloney on the Nuclear Power Industry
Apparently, Robert Hargraves carries a PhD in physics from Brown University. I say “apparently,” because he authored this list of 12 statements about the nuclear power industry in the EnergyCollective, which is largely a combination of meaningless half-truths and complete falsehoods. As I wrote in my comment, “I’m shocked that anyone with a PhD in anything (from Sears, let alone Brown) would publish something so asinine.”
Safe nuclear energy? Why not safe machine guns, safe antrax poison?
A list of why we should NOT engage again in nuclear energy:
1. Nuclear generators may (who really knows), generate cheaper energy: They surely generate cheaper energy than oil, but, if we consider not only up-front investment, but also extraction and processing of radioactive materials, the danger of having a “safe” reactor around anywhere, the disposal of the radioactive “waste” , and lastly, the “safe” storage and the human resources for some 200 years (so no innocent victim can get close to the storage facilities) all of these costs would add up to some unimaginable amount. And then, who an trust humans to do a perfect job?
2. Plenty of radioactive material, sure, but we would have to have a big enough industry to process these materials at a “cheap” enough price.
Well, then, we are getting into the storage, handling, etc. which also costs resources.
3. People are overly fearful of nuclear…?? Ask the victims of Chernobil + Fukushima! I will always be fearful of something that we cannot really defend ourselves, no matter what.
4. Not much radioactive waste? Let’s take a look at the gigantic problem in Fukushima right now: They are having to grow their “provisional” storage facilities by 400 tons per day; how much longer will they be able to pay for that? And when things go really wrong, who is going to take the tab?
5. Waste “could” be “”SAFELY”” stored in YUCCA mountains, well they have been saying that for decades, still no solution! Maybe send them into the sun in a rocket.
6.Nuclear weapons are derived from purpose-built reactors or centrifuges, not power plants. Well, I would say: Dirty bombs can be made with radioactive material at home, if you are an angry terrorist, and it’s not that complicated!
7. Yeah, most electricity comes from coal and oil. That, at least is true, but we should be able to change that soon.
8. To stop global particulate and CO2 pollution, we must provide developing nations with a cheaper alternate to fossil fuels.
Well, there we have one more: take nuclear materials into developing countries with economic problems, where there’s not enough money to pay for healthcare and education and have them invest BILLIONS of dollars to get a nice nuclear reactor?
So you see, I also can make a list of why we should not continue with nuclear.
Lets keep in mind that although the problem of disposal of waste from nuclear power plants is a big one with the problem of permanent storage not completely solved, the problem with coal fired power is much bigger but unfortunately does not attract anything like the same concerns. When it comes to atmospheric release of radioactive isotopes, coal fired plants are worse: one study concludes health effects of living nearby were worse for coal. For solid waste, studies of coal ash pits showed some richer in uranium than some producible ore bodies (they just wouldn’t use it because of other toxic content). The thing about coal liquid and solid waste is that nobody cares very much so instead of permanent storage they mostly landfill in pits with clay and/or plastic liners; one fact about landfills is they all leak – it’s only a matter of time. Land use is another issue: state of the art coal power versus state of the art solar power results in the same area of land disturbance per kWH over 30 years (not even including area contaminated by smokestack exhaust), the main difference being the degree of disturbance. A solar farm can be refurbished or repurposed but you can’t put more coal in the ground or develop a toxic waste pit. Nuclear power land use is substantially less.
Nuclear power is expensive and would be even more expensive if fully insured. However, nuclear power pays for a substantial portion of it’s true costs through energy sales. Fossil fuel sources in particular bear only a small portion of their total cost and are actually paid for the damage they do. An audit of the mining industry in Virginia showed that when royalties, taxes and allowances were balanced out, the state was paying out a net $200M. The healthcare costs are an externality that is in no way compensated – the medicaid costs for miners with lung disease alone runs to hundreds of millions. The nuclear industry pays into a fund to offset future remediation costs (arguably underfunded) but the coal industry does not.
‘Coal ash is the second-largest industrial waste stream in the U.S., after mining wastes’ but when mining waste and processin waste are included …. In most cases, contaminated sites are left to be remediated later at taxpayer expense.
Wind is arguably the cheapest power available. Solar is burdened by permitting costs currently around 40% (which exceeds the 30% federal tax credit rebate). Hydro is also heavily burdened by regulatory constraints. Only fossil fuels get a pass on environmental regulation and the cost of environmental controls.
I think we have to take a highest peg in the tent approach : coal first, natural gas second and then possibly nuclear.
Speaking of coal ash, please check out: http://www.centuryboardusa.com/. These guys have a terrific product.
Craig,
It’s better to take the high road, and point out what – if any – specifics you see wrong with a statement.
In this case, most of the statements are true, they just have missing caveats that should be considered.
My response to Dr. Hargraves:
1. Nuclear power generates energy for less than wind and solar IN SOME REGIONS. Wind in high wind regions is much less expensive still. Nuclear energy is cheapest in countries with extremely powerful centralized authority… in countries with more power in local governments then NIMBYism serves to wreck any chance at efficient and low-cost construction, which then wrecks any chance at low cost energy.
2. True. Without caveat.
3. There may be plenty of thorium, but we still don’t have next-gen LFTR reactors up and running. NIMBYism tends to work even better when the scary generator in question is UNPROVEN or EXPERIMENTAL… so LFTR reactors will likely take a full decade or more to get to a point where they’ll begin playing a role. That leaves us to simply considering uranium. The uranium ores being mined today are 1/10th the quality of those mined 30 years ago, and in 30 years the uranium ores will likely be 1/10th the quality of today’s ores. Yes there is plenty of uranium, but if the cost goes up by 10-fold every generation, then it’s not a long-term play. Until throrium is part of the equation, U235 reserves cannot be taken for granted.
4. True – to a completely irrational extent.
5. True, and the waste disposal for nuclear power represents an extremely small ammortized cost.
6. True, though NIMBYism causes problems here. The best option is to have breeder-reactors that purchase waste from other reactors… then take the “hotter” waste from that reactor and bury it deep in a Yucca-type facility. But we can’t even get Yucca – a place in which very few people live – passed due to NIMBYism… the road forward isn’t limited by technical problems (which are few and easily managed).
7. True, without caveat. Though I don’t know why this is relevant to the discussion of American nuclear power program… America already has plenty of nuclear warheads and plenty of centrifuges to make more…
8. True. Specifically, a plurality of our electricity comes from coal, with the second largest source being natural gas. Nuclear – being baseload – would directly displace coal, and by virtue of its inflexibility would further force some additional coal to be displaced by natural gas.
9. Coal and natural gas generate power more cheaply than NEW nuclear and/or NEW hydro… Existing nuclear and hydro power plants produce incredibly cheap energy – at a far lower cost point than coal could ever hope to achieve.
10. True. Without caveat.
11. Advanced nuclear and wind in good wind regions and eventually solar in regions of extremely high insolation, and eventually geothermal in regions of high geothermal energy… There are some regions that have different options, but nuclear is clearly going to be a part of the mix in most countries.
12. “May have” the potential, but the potential of LFTR will take decades to realize, and it’s still likely that some regions will see lower cost energy from wind in high wind regions. That doesn’t mean we stop research on LFTR, but unrealized possible potential in LFTR shouldn’t preclude us from developing our renewable options – with their own possible potentials – either.
I didn’t take the time because the previous commenters on this article had already presented tomes of data points refuting what he had said. Gentleman that you are, you were characteristically quite kind here. As soon as I saw his point #1, i.e., that nuclear was less expensive than wind, I decided to limit the amount of time I was going to devote to debunking this horse manure. Obviously, references to “horse manure” aren’t exactly taking the “high road,” but I really was appalled that an educated person would publish something like this.
Also, to say that “Nuclear power plants are safer than other power plants” is “true without caveat” seems a bit odd in the face of Fukushima, an event about which we learn new horrors every day.
Craig,
Perhaps there should have been the following clarification: “Nuclear power offers more power safely than other sources for an equivalent delivery of electric energy.”
Fukushima was a disaster… but that was a 7.4 GW park. A rough equivalent would be the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington. If the Grand Coulee Dam were hit by a 9.0 earthquake, I can assure you the destruction would be many dozens of times greater than that seen by Fukushima.
The lesson here should be “don’t build a nuclear power plant on a highly active fault line”, which in retrospect seems to be painfully obvious.
😉
I believe that the true disaster that is Fukushima is only partially visible at this point. The situation is not even close to being under control, and the truth is not even close to being revealed in full in the mainstream media.