Most of us know what torture it is to be a wallflower, so it's hard not to feel at least a slight frisson of sympathy for the nuclear industry. Once considered "most likely to succeed," this promising power source found itself stumbling in the 1970s. It was bad enough after Three Mile Island in 1979 -- particularly when Jane Fonda got to work in The China Syndrome. But this wallflower status was taken to an altogether different level in 1986, in the wake of an event whose ongoing repercussions will provide some of next year's great news hooks.
She'll be back on her feet in no time.
Photo: iStockphoto.
After Chernobyl, nuclear folk worldwide found themselves not just wallflowers, but actively disinvited wherever people came together to dance around the subject of sustainable energy. It was rather like Cinderella's coach and horses turning back into something a lot more mundane. And when the ill-fated Chernobyl site was shut down for good in 2000, some critics hailed the closure as the beginning of the industry's end.
Was it? Hardly -- and not just because of the high-level waste that will undoubtedly outlive our civilization by several hundred thousand years. In fact, this industry that was once consigned to the corner seems set to become the belle of the business world's ball.
Sting Your Partner
The sheer horror of the statistics that will no doubt be rolled out in 2006 would give even a nuclear engineer pause. Take thyroid cancer, normally a rare disease, with just one in a million children falling victim; a third of children who were younger than four when exposed in the main Chernobyl fallout zone are thought likely to develop the disease. In Belarus -- where 60 to 70 percent of the fallout landed, contaminating some 25 percent of the country's farmland and forest -- nearly 1,000 children have come down with thyroid cancer, compared to seven in the 10 years before the accident.
This type of thing has made the nuclear industry a darned unattractive prospect for NGOs and anyone else wanting to fill their partnership dance card. Today, anti-nuclear folk point with glee to the trend line for reactor construction starts -- which, having sketched the spiky outline of a pine forest from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s, plummeted over the subsequent 20 years to the stuttering outline of melting snowdrifts. If the message weren't so gloomy for the nuclear folk, it might have made a nice Christmas card.
But irony of ironies, the industry is back, thanks in great part to environmental concerns. In 2004, for example, greens were shocked when one of their idols -- James Lovelock of Gaia hypothesis fame -- warned that only a massive expansion of nuclear power would save our current industrial civilization from rapidly advancing climate change. The peak-oil debate has been another driver, and it's all left environmentalists wondering: should we open our arms to the industry?
It's a complicated question. Much of the 20th century was spent in a hate-love-hate relationship with nuclear technology, mainly thanks to the shadow of the A-bomb. One of us remembers his father shipping off in 1957 to fly monitoring missions around the British H-bomb bursts above, yes, Christmas Island. On the upside, we were told we were going to zoom around in nuclear cars, trains, and planes. Energy too cheap to meter, we were promised, and a glowing cornucopia of atomic toys and gadgets. Now, again, nuclear is being dangled as the great, white-hot hope.
Even as today's giant companies like BP and GE begin to tilt to windmills and other renewable-energy technologies, countries like Indonesia and Vietnam are thinking seriously of going nuclear. The World Energy Council claims that the industry is "poised to expand its role in world electricity generation. Plant life will be extended in some markets, such as Finland or Sweden; new plants will be built in Asia; governments and voters will accept the inevitability of new nuclear power stations in Europe, Africa, North America, Latin America, and even the Middle East."
If the Slipper Fits ...
So the question arises: is the environmental movement in danger of letting its allergic response to nuclear power blind it to a scenario filled with new technologies and players? If commercial opportunity -- like some Prince Charming -- does come a-knocking at the nuclear industry's door, we will desperately need to know who the Ugly Stepsisters are, and whose foot we might be happy to see the slipper fit.
What do we really know about the nuclear activities of companies like GE, TVO, or Westinghouse? If we ignore the whole sector and some form of nuclear renaissance does occur, are we in danger of losing the chance to shape the industrial consequences? (Full disclosure: SustainAbility was founded the year after Chernobyl, and while we have always insisted that we will not work with the nuclear industry, we have been working recently in non-nuclear areas with a French company that has some nuclear involvement.)
It's truly a case of the glass being half empty or half full. Some of the world's biggest users of nuclear power are signaling that they will have to decommission many of their plants in the coming years. While anti-nuclear activists assume renewables and energy efficiency will fill that gap, the nuclear industry sees such closures in an increasingly carbon-constrained world as huge potential opportunities to build new reactors.
Common sense would suggest that we should avoid even thinking about the nuclear option. Just as the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster in 1984 turned up the heat under the international chemical industry, 2006 will do the same for nuclear. And yet, we can't get out of our minds the argument of some industry observers that the debate may well change over the next decade -- from questions about whether or not reactors should be built to what sort of reactors should be built.
Ultimately, the swing factor in determining our energy future may not be the Lovelocks or the anti-nuclear activists of this world, but China. If Hollywood ever makes China Syndrome 2, it's conceivable that the story line would be about Chinese engineers helping to save the planet from melting down. While Western power producers continue to favor slight tweaks on conventional large-scale reactor designs -- and as a result will likely keep trying to shoehorn their big-footprint feet into environmentally constrained shoes -- China is different. With a fast-growing appetite for energy and a serious dislike of the idea of being in thrall to anyone else for access to said energy, China is beginning to develop a taste for a very different form of nuclear technology.
Get ready to hear a lot more about "pebble-bed modular reactor" designs, either as a stepping stone or as an ultimate destination. First developed in Germany, the technology is winning growing support in countries like South Africa and France. These reactors are, among other things, a fifth the size of conventional reactors, much less capital-intensive, and much less prone to meltdowns. For countries that fear overdependence on the West, they also have the added advantage that they don't need Western-style fuels or refueling services. In short, they have all the makings of a potential Cinderella story.
What's the Mandarin for "go figure"?
New nukes? A fair shot, not a free ride
David Frum says ‘Conservatives Heart Nuke Power.’
Comments
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Atomicrod Posted 7:43 am
13 Dec 2005
Here is my full disclosure - I founded Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. in September 1993 with the mission of designing and developing pebble bed reactor heated closed cycle gas turbine power plants.
We believed that the time was right to build plants that could compete in the markets that were being served by large diesel engines and combustion gas turbines - specifically the commerical shipping market and the market for distributed power plants.
By 1996, we put the company to sleep - with oil at about $10-12 per barrel and natural gas at $1.80, our economics were not compelling enough for anyone to take a chance with an "unproven" technology. Our protestations that oil and gas prices were in a temporary slump fell on deaf ears. You can find some of the articles on the subject that we published during that period on our web site at http://www.atomicinsights.com. The team focused on other employment opportunites, but kept a watchful eye on the energy markets.
In the past three to four years, the market has begun to turn and we have begun the process of waking up our tiny little company.
The Chinese, South Africans, the French and even some Americans believe that the technology has great promise. The conventional nuclear plants have a place, but they cannot serve all needs.
Rod Adams
Founder and President, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
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greenenergygirl Posted 3:31 pm
13 Dec 2005
Nuclear power is more expensive than even solar per kWh and takes years to deploy, so it is definitely not a good solution to climate change. We need to make investments RIGHT NOW in clean, renewable energy technologies that give us the most bang for our buck such as energy efficiency, solar thermal, wind, geothermal, and even solar photovoltaic to mitigate climate change. It is also important to point out that these investments have little risk (very little risk compared to nuclear energy projects, which only seem attract investment when they are proped up by tax payer insurance and other subsidies) and will ensure much more consistent energy prices in the future because the sources of energy are free and abundant.
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ed abbey Posted 12:59 am
14 Dec 2005
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GRLCowan Posted 2:49 am
14 Dec 2005
Thus, one likely hallmark of a truly forward step in power supply will be that many voices are raised against it, not because it threatens the privilege of those living off existing methods -- this will never be mentioned by those objecting, they may not even understand that the money which would go away if they stopped is their price -- but for numerous other plausible-sounding reasons.
--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
boron as energy carrier: real-car range, nuclear cachet
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elahug2 Posted 11:17 am
14 Dec 2005
Saskatchewan!
The world's Number ONE storehouse of deadly uranium.
Check it out at http://www.sasknuclearfuture.ca.
And, don't forget to check out that ohhh-soo balanced Speakers' List.
I live in this beautiful province and I am ashamed!
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Atomicrod Posted 6:12 pm
14 Dec 2005
According to the discussion at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) link that you provided to "prove" that nuclear power is more expensive than solar, I found the following statement:
"True, nukes don't produce carbon dioxide--but the power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change."
Accoring to reliable statistics used by the financial community, the average cost of operating a nuclear power plant in 2004 was about 1.67 cents per kilowatt hour that costs includes all operating costs - fuel, personnel, decommissioning allowance, and fuel storage fee.
At the prices listed on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, natural gas costs more than $14 per million BTU which translates to a FUEL cost of more than 11 cents per kilowatt hour in a modern natural gas fired power plant. That price ignores all of the other costs of operating and maintaining a power plant.
As an investor, I would consider that RMI's advice is suspect. As a critical thinking, I wonder if the support that the natural gas industry has provided to RMI over the years has anything to do with their number free statements that sound a bit more like marketing than fact.
Oh, BTW, gas fired power plants still emit 2/3 of the CO2 that is produced when burning coal. Nuclear power plants are clean enough to operate inside sealed submarines - something that the US has been doing for more than 50 years. I ought to know - I have spent more than 2 years underwater within 150 feet of an operating plant. I was even in charge of the department that operated the plant for 6 three month periods.
Therefore, as a very concern environmentalist, I challenge RMI's advice that gas is cleaner than nuclear power. I would like to ask Amory Lovins (RMI's founder) to live for three months sealed inside a small ship powered by gas!
Rod Adams
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rh Posted 12:02 am
15 Dec 2005
Could you post the source for your figures so that we all can examine them?
As someone who happens to think markets work at least somewhat efficiently, I'd be incredibly surprised to learn that nukes do electricity at $.0167/kWh vs. $.11+/kWh for gas because if that were really the case, this country's entire base load would be nothing but nukes.
Of course, wasn't that the argument made back in the 50's, that "Hey, it'll be so cheap we won't even meter it!" Aren't those same investors that you mention the same ones that have stayed away from nukes for 25 years?
Count me skeptical...
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amazingdrx Posted 2:59 am
15 Dec 2005
Unless the US government outlaws lawsuits against it, these devices will never find a home.
As with other reactors, the damage from an accident is uninsurable. The cost of compensation for permanently contaminating a whole region, like happened from Chernobyl is so large as to be incalculable.
That is why investors would not have funded present nuclear plants unless congress agreed that the US government would assume that risk. And given the response to natural disasters like hurricanes, no one should trust the government to guarantee to make the victims of a nuclear disaster whole again.
And given the record of contamination at government sites all over the US, why would anyone trust government regulation of these new supposedly safer designs? The underground contamination from Hanford is creeping towards the Columbia River right now!
The fact is that wind power is far cheaper and safer than nuclear power, and due to the easier siting of wind machines..it is in fact the real solution to global climate disaster.
Getting a new nuclear plant approved and litigating a site would take decades if it is possible at all.
In a decade wind could replace enough fossil fuel power to halt global climate disaster. The same argument you use for cost effectiveness your nuclear engine, mass production, works even better for wind.
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Atomicrod Posted 7:51 am
15 Dec 2005
For nuclear power:
http://www.nei.org/documents/U.S._Nuclear_Industry_Production_Costs_1981_2004.pdf
Here is another source that provides the same information, just in case you completely discount the NEI:
http://www.cameco.com/uranium_101/electricity_sources/
Full disclosure, it appears that I was incorrect in my initial post. I put the O&M cost of nuclear at 1.67 cents, the above two put it at 1.68 and 1.69 respectively.
For the NYMEX price of natural gas (updated each day):
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/energyprices.html
My calculation included a CCGT heat rate of 8,000 BTU/kw-hr.
You might also be interested in a fuller development of my idea that nuclear power is, indeed, cheap enough so that meters are not really necessary.
http://www.atomicinsights.com/AI_03-09-05.html
It nuclear plant economics would actually work better if people could simply pay a monthly fee for a certain amount of capacity to use electricity and then use as much as they wanted - if all of their power came from nuclear plants.
Think of it more like paying for a high speed internet connection. The capital cost is pretty high, but the variable operating cost is pretty darned low.
Rod Adams
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rh Posted 5:18 am
16 Dec 2005
I think I mis-read what you were saying before. You were saying O&M costs and I thought you were talking about total costs. My mistake.
While O&M costs are technically accurate, they don't reflect the real costs which includes the high upfront costs, often pegged at $1200-1500 kW to build, if not more. (For instance, see http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/aeo04/assumption/pdf/tbl38.pdf)
When you include the "all-in" costs (upfront costs + O&M), nukes aren't much of a bargain...especially when considers the subsidies nukes have received over the past 50 years
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