Nuclear power poised for comeback

San Diego Union -Tribune ^ | 7/31/05 | Dana Wilkie - CNS

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON – Nestled in the energy bill that Congress approved last week is perhaps the most tangible evidence yet that nuclear power, long shunned by many as a dangerous energy source, is on the verge of a comeback.

The broad energy plan includes billions of federal dollars to jump-start production of nuclear reactors. The incentives, from tax breaks to loan guarantees, come at a time when soaring oil prices and increasing public concern about global warming have forced even some leading environmentalists to rethink their opposition to nuclear power as a cleaner, cheaper alternative to traditional fossil fuels.

"Nuclear (power), in combination with renewables, is the only source of electrical energy that can replace coal and gas to a significant degree," said Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, now chairman of Greenspirit Strategies of Canada, which helps companies develop environmentally friendly policies.

Should the government incentives prove enticing, the nation's utilities are poised to order their first reactors since the 1970s.

"We need a lot more electricity in this country in the decades ahead," said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group for nuclear utilities. "Nuclear (power) is not by itself the answer, but it's part of that diversity of (sources) that will fill the gap."

But the federal incentives spell trouble to watchdogs. They fear that the bill doesn't do enough to promote other alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar, and that more reactors will mean more potential targets for terrorists and more nuclear waste piling up at power plants.

"Safety issues, waste, security – these issues still haunt the industry, and they still haven't solved them," said Michael Mariotte, director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog that opposes atomic energy.

There are 103 operating reactors in the nation, including two in California at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo. But all were ordered before the 1979 partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island, Pa., and the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, both of which led to widespread fears about nuclear power and a hiatus in reactor construction.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, reactors have become a key security concern. Critics have raised the specter of an attack that could release radiation and pose catastrophic risks to those living nearby. Reactor designers are incorporating features that would, among other things, automatically cool a reactor in the event of an attack, said Mark Wells, director of the Government Accountability Office, during testimony before Congress in March.

The United States is facing a power crunch, without enough supply to meet projected demand. The Department of Energy predicts that in the coming two decades, the nation will need to produce an extra 350,000 to 400,000 megawatts of energy to keep pace with demand.

The country's reactors are capable of producing 98,000 megawatts of electricity, about 20 percent of U.S. power needs. Reactors generate electricity by using radioactive material to boil water into steam to drive turbines.

The nuclear power incentives in the bill passed by Congress mirror President Bush's 2001 energy blueprint. The bill includes $1.6 billion for research and development of nuclear power, $1.3 billion for a nuclear plant at the federal Idaho National Laboratory to generate hydrogen fuel, and $2 billion in federal insurance to cover construction delays caused by court challenges or anything else outside normal business risks.

The bill also promises up to $5.7 billion in tax credits for the first six reactors to be built and unlimited loan guarantees for up to 80 percent of the cost of those reactors.

"The list of incentives is cradle to grave," said Michele Boyd, legislative director for the energy program at Public Citizen, another nuclear watchdog. "If this isn't enough to build new reactors, there's nothing more the government can do other than build them itself."

A host of developments – political, environmental and economic – have fostered renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, most surprisingly among leading environmentalists who previously opposed it. Moore, once a dogged foe of nuclear power, now considers global warming a greater threat than nuclear waste or reactor meltdowns.

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"Climate change has . . . shifted my perspective," Moore said in an e-mail message. His views on nuclear energy mirror those of other notable environmentalists, including Stewart Brand, founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, and James Lovelock, who posited the Gaia theory of Earth as a giant self-regulating super-organism, and now sees nuclear energy as key to the planet's health.

Nuclear reactors release some carbon dioxide, but only a fraction of the amount produced by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal or gas, which many experts have blamed for global warming.

Political concerns also are a factor. Nations have to compete – and pay top dollar – for a dwindling supply of oil and gas resources that tend to lie in politically unstable nations. The uranium that fuels nuclear reactors can be mined in stable countries such as Canada and Australia.

Finally, nuclear fuel is relatively cheap to produce, and its price does not fluctuate, as does the price of natural gas. Nuclear power costs 1.68 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 5.87 cents for natural gas and 1.92 cents for coal. A kilowatt-hour is enough to power 1,000 homes for an hour.

The shifting winds on nuclear power are evident worldwide. There are 25 reactors under construction in 10 countries, and 112 more are planned or proposed. China is aggressively expanding its nuclear energy program and has opened six reactors since 2002. Finland is set to build a large nuclear power station this year. France, which depends on nuclear reactors for almost 80 percent of its electricity, announced this summer that it would help Libya plan a nuclear energy program.

Although orders for new reactors in the United States are not expected until later this decade, the industry says it must take the regulatory and financial steps necessary to pave the way for new construction.

Industry experts say this generation's nuclear reactors are safer than ever, and that a Chernobyl-like accident is technically impossible. Mariotte, of the watchdog Nuclear Information and Resource Service, acknowledged that "on paper, they do have safer designs." But he said that's to be expected "considering the reactors we're using today were designed 50 years ago."

Frank von Hippel, a nuclear power expert at Princeton University, noted that "some safety improvements were made following Three Mile Island." But he also said that "Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulation at the moment is about as unaggressive as one could imagine."

Where to put reactor waste remains problematic. Most utilities are running out of space to store spent fuel at their plants, and a congressionally approved dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain faces so many legal, political and technical challenges that it probably won't be open until at least 2012.

[MinorityRepublican]

YES!

[MinorityRepublican]

France, which depends on nuclear reactors for almost 80 percent of its electricity, announced this summer that it would help Libya plan a nuclear energy program.

Eh, didn't we used to bomb Libya?

[headstamp]

Yes, good old France. Let's bring Nuclear power to Libya AND divert some to Nuclear weapons development while we're at it.

Since Libya has no other energy source except that black stuff in the ground. Ahem.

[Zartan]

Nuclear energy plants can not be used to make weapons of any kind. Oil is limited and pollutes the air regardless of how much crude a nation has it is best to move away from it sooner rather than later.

Again people - Nuclear energy plants can not be used to make weapons of any kind. It is called science.

[enviros_kill]

U.S. nuke map
http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?Print=true&DocID=&CatNum=2&CatID=93

Worldwide nuclear plants and stats
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf01.htm

---

Nuclear Now! (Jan 2005)

Wired magazine had a good article about nuclear power in Jan 2005. The only point on which I differ with the authors is their premise that 'global warming' is real. It is NOT REAL and is solely a product of computer models promoted by totalitarian-minded groups (United Nations, etc.) with the end goal of reducing America's economic strength and sovereignty. Proponents of nuclear power do not need and should not use the false promise of "saving us from 'global warming'" to sell nuclear power. When the 'global warming' facade finally implodes everything built on that lie will lose respect among thinking people. Nuclear power has inherent advantages covered in this article that have nothing to do with 'global warming.'

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/nuclear_pr.html


Advantages of Nuclear Power (April 2004)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller13.html

[PA Engineer]

"A kilowatt-hour is enough to power 1,000 homes for an hour."

Public education strikes again.

[Pukin Dog]

Hard to alert the liberal fanatics when the MSM is preoccupied with Rove and Frist.

[SAJ]

Hey, it's only off by 3 orders of magnitude. Think of the poor author's self-esteem, wouldja!

[cpdiii]

Again people - Nuclear energy plants can not be used to make weapons of any kind. It is called science

Wrong! The spent fuel rods will have considerable amounts of plutonium in them that can be extracted to make a bomb. However, it would be next to impossible for terrorist to steal the rods and extract them. They are not something you just pick up and run with. The radiation will kill you and you would have to take over a nuclear facility and hold it for days to remove the rods, and then spirit them away. I do not think the United States Army would sit idly by while this is going on. The only way plutonium will ever be extracted from the rods is by the government that controls the facilities. Diversion of the plutonium in the spent rods is a bogus scare tactic.

[inquest]

France, which depends on nuclear reactors for almost 80 percent of its electricity...

Does anyone have any idea what it does with its waste?

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Well said. And terrorists have a tough time targeting nuke plants. Even if a plane was hijacked the plant is too low on the ground for a plane to hit, and even if it hits the radioactive material is surronded by layers of thick concrete.

[mountainlyons]

I wonder why they left out the price per kw for water and wind. Windmills are too expensive to use. Water is cheap. Fast breeder technology can consume the nuclear waste but our eco friends have killed that!

[Petronski]

Recycling.

[NewHampshireDuo]

"A kilowatt-hour is enough to power 1,000 homes for an hour."

"Public education strikes again." You said it. Maybe 1,000 hovels.

[OrioleFan]

France has a capability to recycle the waste, with Japan shipping waste to France as well.

[RightWhale]

the federal incentives spell trouble to watchdogs

Running envirodogs. Unofficial, self-appointed coyotes.

[ThePythonicCow]

Finally, nuclear fuel is relatively cheap to produce, and its price does not fluctuate,

More B.F. (bovine flatulence). Here's the price of Uranium ore triuranium octaoxide U308 for the last couple of decades, from http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_g_price.html:

Ux U₃O₈ vs. CIS* Prices

* As of October 1, 2001, UxC is no longer publishing CIS prices.

In the last few years, it has jumped five fold, as nuclear energy makes a come back, and we are starting to deal with the problem that we are using more Uranium than we are producing. Current production meets perhaps 50% to 60% of use, with the rest coming from diminishing reserves. Japan, India and China are each planning to add another 10 or 20 reactors to generate power.

Granted - the price of Uranium is currently a small part of the overall cost of the electric power generated. That could change. I would not be surprised to see a few periods of panic shortfall in Uranium supplies for nuclear power generation, followed by a rapid increase in exploration and new mine production. This could also lead to development of economically competitive reactors using thorium instead of uranium. Thorium is more plentiful, and does not produce nearly as much byproducts useful for nuclear bombs. See further Wired News: Thorium Fuels Safer Reactor Hopes .

[Zartan]

To refine the spent fuel rods for the purposes of making nuclear weapon grade material requires a whole other set of technologies. It is not part of the nuclear energy process and powerplant at all.

[ThePythonicCow]

Two errors:

1. Make that "four fold", not "five fold".
2. Make that "U3O8", not "U308" (letter O, not number zero)