mheslep said:
BTW, today's WSJ has a very good in depth supplement section on Nuclear: for and against.
I saw it.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121432182593500119.html?mod=2_1586_topbox
The problem with the way the article is written is that you get first the answers, and then the problems to which these were the answers. However, the "yes" part is pretty accurate concerning its claims, while the "no" part is much more "speculative". In fact, I think I recognize in the "no" part, Helen Caldicott's book!
Let's look at the "no" arguments:
exorbitant costs, the risks of an accident or terrorist attack, the threat of proliferation and the challenge of disposing of nuclear waste
Subsidies:
The cost issue alone will mean that few if any new nuclear power stations will get built in the next few years, at least in the U.S., and any that do will require expensive taxpayer subsidies. Instead of subsidizing the development of new plants that have all these other problems, the U.S. would be better off investing in other ways to meet growing energy demands and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
One seems to think that it would be sufficient to throw a few billions of $ to a problem to get it solved. It isn't said HOW this is going to be done.
Cost:
While no one knows what a new reactor will cost until one gets built, estimates for new construction continue to rise. Building a new plant could cost as much as $6,000 a kilowatt of generating capacity, up from estimates of about $4,000 a kilowatt just a year ago. FPL Group, of Juno Beach, Fla., estimates that two new reactors planned for southeast Florida would cost between $6 billion and $9 billion each.
Well, let's show another system, solar or wind or whatever, that generates the same power for that price. Power when we want it, that is. Not when it is available.
More important, though, there are less-costly ways of weaning ourselves off these carbon-emitting energy sources. Even if a high price of carbon makes nuclear economic, the costs of renewable energy such as wind and solar power are cheaper, and getting cheaper all the time. By contrast, nuclear is more expensive, and getting more expensive all the time.
Show me.
Storage of electricity:
And yes, it's true that wind and solar suffer from the problem of not being available 24 hours a day. But new technology is already beginning to solve that problem. And we'd be better off -- from both an economic and safety standpoint -- if we used natural gas to fill in the gaps, rather than nuclear.
Ah ? Show me. What technology ? Fuel cells ? Batteries ? Superconductors ? Anti-matter ? Price ?
In the end, we're going to use GAS. That's not a fossil fuel emitting CO2, right ?
Part of the reason for the rising cost estimates is the small number of vendors able to supply critical reactor components, as well as a shortage of engineering and construction skills in the nuclear industry. Perhaps the biggest bottleneck is in the huge reactor vessels that contain a plant's radioactive core. Only one plant in the world is capable of forging the huge vessels in a single piece, and it can produce only a handful of the forgings a year. Though the plant intends to expand capacity in the next couple of years, and China has said it plans to begin making the forgings, this key component is expected to limit development for many years.
Now, the question is: is the solar power industry, or the wind industry capable of putting down much more than "a handful of 1 GWe plants a year", and if they do that, don't you think that there will also be a price increase due to increased demand ? Is that capacity there right now, or should we also have to wait for many years before this capacity is reached ?
What is interesting, is this:
The important thing to remember about safety is this: The entire nuclear power industry is vulnerable to the safety standards of its worst performers, because an accident anywhere in the world would stoke another antinuclear backlash among the public and investors.
It is probably true, but it is silly. Using Chernobyl to point to the danger of western power plants was irrational. Pointing to TMI is irrational too, as nothing ever happened there.
It is strange that such standards are not upheld for coal for instance. If there is a mining accident in China, does the US close down all its coal mines ?
What's also interesting is the following:
There's also the question of waste disposal. Proponents of nuclear power say disposal of the industry's waste products is a political problem. That's true. But it doesn't make the problem any less real. California, for instance, won't allow construction of more plants until the waste issue is resolved.
where it is recognized that the waste issue is ONLY a political problem. Well, then it needs a political solution, not a technological one. The funny thing with California is that it doesn't want (politically) to have more nuclear power, until the (political) waste problem is solved - will it help in solving the political waste problem ?
Finally, what's interesting is this:
Expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. doesn't pose a great proliferation risk, but a nuclear renaissance will put a strain on the current anti-proliferation system. Most of the growth world-wide is expected to be in countries -- such as those in the Middle East and Africa -- where a nuclear-energy program could give cover to surreptitious weapons development and create the local expertise in handling and processing nuclear materials.
So it is recognized that the proliferation risk isn't much linked with nuclear power in the US. Now, the Carter policy already showed that the rest of the world doesn't stop using nuclear power in this or that way, simply because the US does so. So one already knows that what the US does, is not necessarily followed elsewhere. Here, it is stated that the main proliferation risk is by foreign nuclear power industry (which is, as we saw, uncorrelated to the US nuclear power industry). So in other words, nuclear power in the US has no correlation with the main source of proliferation risk. Is that a good argument against it ?
So, in fine, we have as "no" arguments:
- nuclear power is expensive (but are there alternatives that are cheaper ? Don't think so!)
- nuclear power industry is limited in its production capacity of new reactors. (but are alternatives capable of doing better ? No).
- there is hypothetical technology that can solve the problem of the fluctuations in renewables. That technology doesn't cost anything, isn't limited by any industry, and... doesn't exist. Ah, yes, I forgot, in the mean time, we will use... gas.
- the safety problem seems to be that there might be a nuclear accident somewhere far away in countries that don't apply safe rules, which will then lead to the irrational backlash of nuclear power from power plants that have nothing to do with that.
- the waste problem is recognized as being a political problem.
- there is the proliferation risk, mainly due to nuclear technology abroad, which has not much to do with the US nuclear power industry.
Mmm... that's indeed Helen Caldicott's book.
Not the best wording. The idea of course with any solar - plug-in vehicle scheme is that the solar would charge some energy storage gimick during the day - either on the spot batteries or a feed to the grid which stores energy and then gives it up again at night for charging the vehicles.