Why Nuclear Power Is Not a Global Warming Solution
Posted June 19, 2008 in Nuclear Weapons, Waste and Energy, Solving Global Warming
When people learn that I spend a lot of my working hours battling global warming, one of the first questions they ask is, “What do you think about nuclear power?”
This is how I reply: I think it is important to look at every available option to meet our energy needs without disrupting the climate. But when you run the numbers on new nuclear power plants, you find a long list of better solutions--solutions that are cheaper and cleaner and will deliver the emission reductions we need much faster.
This week, Joe Romm writing on Gristmill offers several examples of just how expensive new nuclear power is.
- One industry-funded analyst told Romm that a new nuclear power plant would likely charge 20 to 29 cent per kilowatt-hour in the first year of operation, then shift to an average of 12 to 17 cents over the plant’s lifetime.
- Compare that to renewables: Electricity from concentrated solar power plants costs about 10 to 14 cents per kilowatt-hour, while wind power hit a low of 4 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour way back in 2002.
- In Florida, utilities can now recover construction costs during the time a nuclear plant is being built. This means ratepayers will have to pay an estimated $9 extra a month for years long before these plants even generate one kilowatt-hour of electricity.
The soaring costs are just a part of what makes nuclear power so troubling.
To displace enough emissions worldwide to avoid just four-tenths of a degree of warming, we would need a new nuclear plant every 3 weeks for the next 40 years. Right now, nuclear power generates only 20 percent of America’s power needs, and we will need major investments to stay even at that level.
Nuclear power is a gold-plated energy path that is dangerous and impractical, especially since we have still not licensed a single safe place to permanently isolate radioactive waste, or developed workable international safeguards to prevent nuclear proliferation.Last year, Congress set aside $10 billion to build just a handful of reactors. Just months later, the industry lobbied hard for $40 billion in additional loan guarantees.It’s time to put a limit on global warming emissions and let nuclear compete openly in the energy market with genuinely clean, renewable investments like wind, solar and energy efficiency and address its issues of safety, waste, and security that continue to cause real concern.
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Comments
Mark Bazemore — Jun 19 2008 01:45 PM
In ubiquitous liberal fashion you write that "But when you run the numbers on new nuclear power plants, you find a long list of better solutions--solutions that are cheaper and cleaner and will deliver the emission reductions we need much faster." Then support it with a piece written by a "Senior Project Attorney". The next thing you'll say is that journalists today have a clue about what they talk about. The Senior Project Attorney's discourse is just sad diatribe extolling the evils of major corporations, nothing substantive let alone factual. The really fun part is where the Senior Project Attorney states "Existing nuclear plants can compete favorably with fossil-fuel plants because they have relatively low operation, maintenance, and fuel costs, and their excessive capital costs have long since been forcibly absorbed by ratepayers and bondholders." Wow, should the corporations build a multi billion dollar plant for free? If so, will you please buy me a new "hybrid" car? Please? How detestably childish can you get.
Try something new for a change, try supporting your argument with a tad bit of fact, leave the fiction to those who can write well.
Craig Severance, CPA — Jun 20 2008 12:55 AM
The most telling fact about the nuclear industry is its admission it cannot compete with other options to reduce carbon emissions, without special billions in Federal loans and subsidies.
If we simply limit carbon emissions (cap & trade) the utilities will find the most economical ways to meet that mandate. If nuclear power can compete and offer the most cost-effective solution, it will win some of those contracts.
Not content with free and level competition, the nuclear industry is asking for special subsidies, hundreds of billions more than available to nuclear's competitors such as conservation, the renewable industry, or even carbon sequestration for coal.
Nuclear power is not the only solution to global warming, just the most costly, especially for taxpayers.
For more details see my post at:
http://www.pubrecord.org/index.php?view=article&catid=8%3Acommentary&id=149%3Anuclear-not-only-way-to-generate-a-kwh-&option=com_content&Itemid=11
Craig Severance, CPA, is co-author of "The Economics of Nuclear and Coal Power" (Praeger 1976)
Mike V — Jun 20 2008 03:42 AM
Romm's piece was far from a balanced discussion of the relative merits of nuclear power. He selected the studies that estimated the price of nuclear power high and ignore the studies with lower estimates. He also neglects to point out the alternatives to nuclear power and the costs associated and financial uncertainty with those alternatives.
The Republic would be better served by careful unbiased study of our energy options than by people parading their biased opinions as facts.
Dan Troutman — Jun 20 2008 09:53 AM
How can you seriously believe that an industry that emits NO carbon won't be part of the so-called "global warming" solution?? American nuclear power plants have been generating clean power for decades 24/7/365.
I'm not sure where the author got his price figures, but prices for the new GE or Seimons 1.3MW or 2.3MG turbines require nearly 15 years to break even. I know because as a rancher in west, central Texas, I've been contacted by multiple wind farm scouts. All of their confidential contracts demonstrate this long pay-back period. In fact the only reason there is such a land rush for wind turbines is due to Renewable Energy Investment Credits (paid by US taxpayers). Without REICs, wind turbines would be unprofitable - huge investment, long payback period, unreliable wind.
If the winds aren't blowing, the turbines are multimillion dollar albatrosses.
So, I suppose we're some how going to guarantee sunny and windy days all year long? Unlike a nuclear power plant, solar and wind energy are held hostage to mother nature for production. All it takes is a persistent Burmuda high in west Texas to shut down all turbines. I've seen them hang around for up to 2 months in the summer. What about clouds? News flash: State X suffers rolling blackouts due to extended cloud cover.
Renewable energy has it's place, but America needs a 24/7/365 energy source - unless we don't mind paying more for electricity that might be available 18 hours a day!
Don't let your fear of nuclear power interfere with your voice of reason.
miggs — Jun 20 2008 08:18 PM
What about energy recycling? (Also known as waste heat recovery, cogeneration, or combined heat & power.) I'd like to hear much more from the NRDC and other environmental groups on this. I'm associated with Recycled Energy Development, a company that turns manufacturers' waste heat into power and steam, thereby dramatically improving efficiency. The result is lower costs AND pollution. The only problem is regulations protecting monopoly utilities and making it hard for more efficient energy options to emerge. Environmentalists need to get in the game on this solution, which is an economic, environmental, and political winner.