Dear Umbra,
I work for a certain large environmental organization, and I have often had to deal with the issue of nuclear and coal-fired power plants. If ever asked which is better, we are officially supposed to say "neither." But I think a response like that doesn't always work for the real world, so I'd like to ask you, oh answerer of environmental questions, which type of power plant do you think is best (or, least worst) for the environment, nuclear or coal? And your answer can't be neither!
MF
San Francisco, Calif.
Dearest MF,
You are evil. I publish this question only because I share your dilemma, and feel I may be able to offer you new ways to squirm out of answering the question. Of course, I have a better situation than you: when someone asks me which is better, nuclear or coal, I can always just ignore the letter. For you, I will face the problem and wiggle out of it in public. I hope you feel the love.
Eeny, meeny, miny ... no.
One thing I will say at the outset is that this (theoretical) comparison is a very complex one, and best left to professionals whose job is to make these types of evaluations, not professionals whose job is to write about them.
Cursorily, nuclear power is a potential Xtreme disaster waiting to happen both in terms of operation and of "homeland security," cannot save us from our immediate crisis, and is a completely unresolved toxic-waste issue that we are handing down to the next hundred generations. Coal is and will increasingly be a major contributor to air pollution and climate change, not to mention what its extraction does to the ground and nearby residents. Neither industry has sufficient government oversight, and both have too much government support. Right now nuclear gets some low-greenhouse-gas positive traction; maybe back in the '80s when nukes were non grata, coal looked all bright and shiny. But neither is good, neither is better. Neither, despite your protestation, is the only answer I can give.
The way we need to wiggle out of answering this question is to recognize it as a false dichotomy. This is almost never a choice the average person actually can make, and engaging in this dichotomy lends legitimacy to a false scenario in which we as a region, country, or world are forced to chose coal or nukes and have no access to developing other energy sources. It is a worst-case, stuck-in-the-corner, fake match-up.
On a daily level, most of us have little choice as to which power source we support with our monthly electricity or heating bill. If we do have choices, we should first buy renewable energy or even hydroelectric power (No. 1 way to wiggle out of plain old Neither). Find out if you have alternative choices by searching the EERE's Green Power map. Agitate for the development of sustainable power sources and support conservation measures. This is a longer way to say "neither," but I believe it to be a valid answer on an individual level.
If, where you live, you actually must choose between signing up for mostly nuclear and mostly coal power, make your decision on a local basis. Learn what you can about the nuclear plant and what you can about the coal. I, for instance, learned about how my electricity connects to mountaintop removal via the Sierra Club's anti-coal site. If your community is faced with a decision about development of a new energy facility, which is initially posed as coal vs. nuclear, that is a decision to be made on a community basis, with thorough consideration of renewable alternatives. Hopefully the community would come around and choose "neither," which again would be a valid choice.
On a larger scale, and in the theoretical discussions we have as voters and agitators, it is still legitimate to choose neither and in that way choose hope for the world. These are not the only two choices before us.
I enjoy reading the Union of Concerned Scientists' position papers on the nuclear issue, as well as their description of coal power. I also very much enjoyed revisiting a column I wrote about considering nuclear power and noticing 45 comments below it -- not only giving the cat article a run for its money, but providing a meaty discussion of our dilemmas.
Wiggly,
Umbra
New nukes? A fair shot, not a free ride
David Frum says ‘Conservatives Heart Nuke Power.’
Comments
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Johnnyp Posted 3:39 am
16 Jan 2008
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stopgreenpath Posted 3:41 am
16 Jan 2008
here's a little tip: ALL REMOTE GENERATION AND TRANSMISSION ON PREVIOUSLY UNDEVELOPED LAND IS BLACK, NOT GREEN, SO WE ALL NEED TO OPPOSE IT. PERIOD.
i am, of course, in favor of giving all the "renewable energy" subsidies, tax breaks, low-interest financing and guaranteed power buy-backs - which are currently being traded for bribes from Big Power to our government - to US, AS INDIVIDUAL LOCAL DECENTRALIZED POWER GENERATORS ON OUR HOMES AND BUSINESSES.
trouble is, Sierra Club, NRDC, and several other fake environmentalists seem to think that dynamiting, bulldozing, paving over, developing and poisoning wilderness for utility profits from remote power generation and long-distance transmission is somehow the best way to do things. kind of like deforesting the amazon, bleaching coral reefs and demolishing old-growth forests is the right way to do things, eh?
time to stop the FAKE ARGUMENTS and get down to WHAT IS BEST. nobody can deny that paying folks a great price for totally clean and green power they generate is best, so let's just give a flat NO to everything else, including anything that kills wilderness. NO MORE HALF-STEPPING TO PROFIT BIG POWER. they had their moment - now it's our turn.
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lorna salzman Posted 3:46 am
16 Jan 2008
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triskele Posted 4:24 am
16 Jan 2008
another less-bandied issue is that of opportunity costs. Nuke is SO expensive (even not including the costs the government takes on for regulation, covering risks, paying for the eventual storage of waste whenever we actually do it., etc, etc..) that we can get a lot more benefits from that money ($/KWHr) by putting it into other options like energy efficiency (now about 3-5cents/kw) and wind power (now cost competitive with natural gas powered electricity). Both of these are obviously safer and cleaner.
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bburtis Posted 5:34 am
16 Jan 2008
Unfortunately, nukes run all the time (except when they are shut down to disgorge their toxic fuel onto the local landscape), so you won't effect them much - and coal plants are so cheap (because the true costs to public health and natural resources etc. are not measured or charged for) that they are pretty much first on to the grid as well.
But if we can really cut down our hunger for electrons, we can make a difference.
I really think nukes are worse, because of the amount of CO2 released in construction (as triskele notes above) and in taking care of the spent fuel, and the GHGs released during fuel processing, and in "decommissioning" - and because they really are trying to make a case for being OK, which coal plants don't have a shot at doing. But I'm happy to settle for "neither".
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sindark Posted 6:23 am
16 Jan 2008
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raphsperry Posted 8:31 am
16 Jan 2008
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fyredancer Posted 8:34 am
16 Jan 2008
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rmainer Posted 10:24 pm
16 Jan 2008
PS Nuclear was can be recycled into new fuel reducing the waste by 98%.
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Savanna Posted 3:03 am
17 Jan 2008
One tour around the coalfields of Appalachia, or a trip through the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will show you that the terrible consequences of these forms of power are not just abstract notions of looming disasters and carbon emissions. Coal and nuclear have devastated the American landscape. And they will continue to do so until there is a drastic change in U.S. energy policy. That change, for better or worse, will start with us, as individuals. There are better options, as Grist readers know: efficiency, conservation, solar, wind, geothermal, even hydro. We need to choose them - all of them - in order to take coal and nuclear out of the picture.
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Asteroid Miner Posted 3:36 am
17 Jan 2008
smokestack or into the cinders of a coal-fired power plant
to Fully fuel a nuclear power plant with the same output?
See:
http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-
34/text/coalmain.html
If breeding of thorium into uranium and using plutonium as
fuel are allowed, enough uranium and thorium go up the
smokestack of one coal-fired power plant to fully fuel 500
nuclear power plants of the same size. That isn't all that
goes up the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants.
Arsenic and lead are also among the 73 elements in coal
smoke, and the quantities are worthy of commercial
production. Did you know that you get 100 times as much
radiation from a coal-fired power plant as from a nuclear
power plant?
Have you ever heard of background radiation? The natural
background radiation that has been there since the
beginning of time is 1000 times what you get from a
nuclear power plant or 10 times what you get from a coal-
fired power plant. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation
or http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2000_1.htm ...
If the safety level of nuclear power plants were
LOWERED to the same level as coal-fired power plants,
the resulting [nuclear] electricity would be very cheap
indeed and nuclear power would be very efficient.
I have NO connection with the nuclear power industry.
It is just that I would rather not go extinct because of global
warming. The Existential Risk that is virtually certain to
happen is the same as the End Permian mass extinction:
Hydrogen Sulfide. It is possible to avoid it, but the power
of wealth must be overcome. Coal is a $100 Billion [US]
industry in the US alone.
download from:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00037A5D-
A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000&sc=I100322
from the October 2006 issue of Scientific American
Article: "Impact from the Deep"
"Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and
sea, not asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass
extinctions. Could the same killer-greenhouse conditions
build once again? "
By Peter D. Ward
The last paragraph of the article says:
"The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the
Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under
1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic,
CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around
385 ppm, it seems we are still safe. But with atmospheric
carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to
accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the
end of the next century, and conditions that bring about the
beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. How soon
after that could there be a new greenhouse extinction? That
is something our society should never find out."
The hydrogen sulfide will finally put an end to the mining of
coal. Nuclear power is the safest available. 32 nations
have nuclear power plants. Only 9 have the bomb. The 3
that burn the most coal, the US, China and India all have
the bomb and nuclear power plants.
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Asteroid Miner Posted 3:43 am
17 Jan 2008
feedbacks lead to our extinction. Sea level will continue to rise even if we
disappear right now, but that is "minor" compared to poison gas bubbling out of
the ocean and killing almost everything including all of the people.
See the chart on page 274 of "Six Degrees" by Mark Lynas. We have until 2015
to BEGIN REDUCING our total CO2 output and we have until 2050 to actually
reduce our CO2 output by 90%. The curve has to start down by 2015, not we
have to think about it by then. The peak of our CO2 production has to happen in
the next 8 years.
How are YOU going to do it? Go ahead and invest YOUR money.
If we don't follow the schedule in Six Degrees, we will encounter positive
feedbacks which will take the control of the climate out of our hands.
Civilization may fall anyway well before 2050, but we can avoid going extinct by
2100. We have to hold the CO2 level to 400 parts per million to have a 75%
chance of avoiding the positive feedbacks. The natural positive feedbacks are
explained in Six Degrees.
We don't recycle nuclear fuel because spent fuel is valuable and people steal it.
The place it went that it wasn't supposed to go to is Israel. This happened in a
small town near Pittsburgh, PA circa 1970. A company called Numec was in the
business of reprocessing nuclear fuel. I almost took a job there, designing a
nuclear battery for a heart pacemaker. [A nuclear battery would have the
advantage of lasting many times as long as any other battery, eliminating many
surgeries to replace batteries.] Numec did NOT have a reactor. Numec "lost"
half a ton of enriched uranium. It wound up in Israel. The Israelis have fueled
both their nuclear power plants and their nuclear weapons by stealing nuclear
"waste." It could work for any other country, such as Iran or the United States.
It is only when you don't have access to nuclear "waste" that you have to do the
difficult process of enriching uranium, unless you have a Canadian "Candu"
reactor that runs on unenriched uranium.
Numec is no longer in business. The reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the US
stopped. That was the only politically possible solution at that time, given that
private corporations did the reprocessing. My solution would be to reprocess the
fuel at a Government Owned Government Operated [GOGO] facility. At a
GOGO plant, bureaucracy and the multiplicity of ethnicity and religion would
disable the transportation of uranium to Israel or to any unauthorized place.
Nothing heavier than a secret would get out.
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Asteroid Miner Posted 3:50 am
17 Jan 2008
Pennsylvania State University
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Nov. 3, 2003
downloaded from:
http://www.geosociety.org/
meetings/2003/
prPennStateKump.htm
"In the end-Permian, as the levels of atmospheric oxygen fell and
the levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide rose, the upper
levels of the oceans could have become rich in hydrogen sulfide
catastrophically. This would kill most of the oceanic plants and
animals. The hydrogen sulfide dispersing in the atmosphere would
kill most terrestrial life."
http://www.astrobio.net is a NASA web zine. See:
http://www.astrobio.net/
news/modules.php?op=
modload&name=News&file
article&sid=672
http://www.astrobio.net
/news/modules.php?op
modload&name=News&file
=article&sid=1535
http://www.astrobio.net/
news/article2509.html
http://astrobio.net/news/
modules.php?op=modload
&name=News&file=article
&sid=2429&mode=thread
&order=0&thold=0
These articles agree with the first one. They all say 6 degrees C
or 1000 parts per million CO2 is the extinction point.
The global warming is already 1 degree Farenheit. 11 degrees
Farenheit is about 6 degrees Celsius. The book "Six Degrees" by
Mark Lynas agrees. If the global warming is 6 degrees
centigrade, we humans go extinct. See:
http://www.marklynas.org
/2007/4/23/six-steps-to-hell
-summary-of-six-degrees-as-
published-in-the-guardian
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Asteroid Miner Posted 4:05 am
17 Jan 2008
"waste" should be reprocessed into fuel and put back in nuclear
reactors. We already have enough fuel stored in Yucca Mountain
to last for centuries. It just needs reprocessing and breeding.
Thorium can be bred into fissionable Uranium233 and
Uranium238 can be bred into Plutonium. Plutonium is excellent
fuel. We also have tens of thousands of bombs that could be
converted to fuel.
Refining and reprocessing use trivial amounts of energy.
Building wind turbines and solar cells uses energy also.
Reference:
OUR NUCLEAR FUTURE:
THE PATH OF SELECTIVE IGNORANCE
by Alex Gabbard
The truth is, all natural rocks contain most natural elements. Coal
is a rock. The average concentration of uranium in coal is 1 or 2
parts per million. Illinois coal contains up to 103 parts per
million uranium. A 1 billion watt coal fired power plant burns 4
million tons of coal each year. [The difference between coal and
nuclear is the 4 Million tons of carbon/coal which makes 14.7
Million tons of CO2. Of course, Mining 4 Million tons of coal
takes a lot more energy than mining 1 ton of uranium.] If you
multiply 4 million tons by 1 part per million, you get 4 tons of
uranium. Most of that is U238. About .7% is U235. 4 tons =
8000 pounds. 8000 pounds times .7% = 56 pounds of U235. An
average 1 thousand million watt coal fired power plant puts out 56
to 112 pounds of U235 every year. There are only 2 places the
uranium can go: Up the stack or into the cinders. Since a reactor
full fuel load is around 11 tons of 2% U235 and 98% U238, and
one load lasts about 10 years, and what one coal fired power plant
puts into the air and cinders fully fuels a nuclear power plant.
Compare 4 Million tons per year with 1.1 tons per year. 1.1
divided by 4 Million = 2.75 E -7 = .000000275 =.0000275%.
Remember that only 2% of that is U235. The nuclear power
plant needs 44 pounds of U235 per year. The coal fired power
plant burns coal by the weekly trainload. The nuclear power
plant consumes U235 in such small quantities yearly that you
could carry an equal weight in a brief case. [Actually, nuclear
power plants are not fueled that often. In some designs, the fuel
is left in the reactor for ten years and then changed all at once. In
other reactors, 10% of the fuel is changed once each year. That is
why terrorists can't steal nuclear fuel. It stays sealed inside the
machine for long periods of time.] We can fuel our nuclear
power plants just by extracting uranium and thorium from coal
cinders and smoke. See:
http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/coalmain.htm ...
At least 73 elements found in coal-fired plant emissions are
distributed in millions of pounds of stack emissions each year.
They include:
Aluminum Chromium Molybdenum
Antimony Cobalt Nickel
Arsenic Copper Selenium
Barium Fluorine Silver
Beryllium Iron Sulfur
Boron Lead Titanium
Cadmium Magnesium Uranium
Calcium Manganese Vanadium
Chlorine Mercury Zinc
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grygy Posted 8:34 am
17 Jan 2008
So what is our transition fuel to keep CO2 from balooning in the next few decades? It had better be nuclear, and we had better get with the Europeans and settle on failsafe designs that allow waste reprocessing at lower costs than current designs, or we are, as they say, cooked.
The good news is all that concrete can be made with way less greenhouse gas emissions, by using - guess what - coal flyash and also slag in up to 50% in the mix, it even increases the strength of the concrete (and the cure time).
Wind is lovely (except to that idiot senator from MA), but also unpredictable, except in CA where it always peaks in the middle of the night and requires billion-dollar transmission lines to get it to where the load is. And yes, those transmission lines take 10 yrs to plan and build because of NIMBYism (among other things), just like a nuke plant.
We are not going to survive as a species without going full court press on ALL the low-GHG technologies, and that includes nuclear. Carbon capture is a lot further off, so for the next 10 years I'd "just say no" to new coal plants.
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2wheelsgood Posted 6:55 am
18 Jan 2008
Renewable (preferably, local, distributed) energy is the only correct answer to the question being posed to Umbra.
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JMG Posted 9:40 am
18 Jan 2008
Coal directly emits about a kilo of CO2 (1,000 grams) per kWh, and that's WITHOUT a full life-cycle analysis (energy in mining, energy in transporting, handling fly ash, etc.).
In addition, coal emits a witches brew of radioactive and nonradioactive toxins, especially mercury -- and this after requiring mountaintop removal to get at the coal.
At least the nuclear waste starts in a contained space; the radioactive materials released from coal are nicely distributed throughout the atmosphere and enter the food chain in many places.
Both plants produce the same thermal pollution to rivers or put the same amount of water into the atmosphere from cooling towers.
Given a stable climate, we can work on solutions to nuclear waste; destabilize the atmosphere and there base of our food chain (acidify the oceans) and it's game over.
The "guns or knives" is a cute rhetorical device, but an easy choice when you recognize that coal is a machine gun firing at us while we're in a phone booth; the nuclear knife is a probabilistic knife that may not turn out to be used against us at all.
It's true that we must respond to climate change must faster than nukes can be built (if they can be built at all) to respond, so they are actually kind of irrelevant -- but many folks run around saying we should shut down existing nukes, even at the cost of seeing a coal burner built in its stead. That is truly insane.
Bottom line is that, in priority order, we must get rid of all the coal plants, starting in efficiency order (or, in inefficiency order actually). Once we've shown we can conserve and boost our efficiency enough to shut down all the coal plants, then we can continue by closing nukes if we wish.
So, no, your wriggle is bunk. There is a clear order to what we have to do if we want to survive.
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hunter Posted 1:46 am
19 Jan 2008
Coal inputs radioactive waste directly into the atmosphere as a matter of course. Coal releases radioactive carbon isotopes, as well trace amounts of uranium. Both end up in forms that can enter the environment and be metabolized. Nuclear power plants do not do this.
The latest enviro-obsession over apocalyptic climate change is a distraction that will only serve to waste yet more time and money getting to clean power.
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vincenoir Posted 10:48 am
19 Jan 2008
by the way, if you're so concerned with the spread of nukes, how come you didn't mentioned Pakistan ? or do you have a hidden agenda that you would like to share with the group?
I would like to make it clear that I am against nuclear weapons and their development everywhere in the world including my homeland, and I'm certainly against nuclear or coal power plants. I believe that saving power is the immediate desired solution.
good day lier.
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vincenoir Posted 10:51 am
19 Jan 2008
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Pappy Yokum Posted 12:13 pm
20 Jan 2008
First of all they are both antiquated thermoelectric technologies; one burns coal and oil, one splits atoms. Coal is about 40% thermally efficient or 60% waste heat, nuclear is about 33% efficient, dumping most of its heat from the fission reaction into the atmosphere or water. The Coal,Oil Nuclear (CON)job is run by pretty much the same club as demonstrated by Cheney's secret meetings early in Bush Administration. They have already agreed as to how to cut the pie, including by war---without cutting each other out.
The same corporations are looking to burn more of it all, not displace one for the other. Take for example, nuclear power is proposed to increase oil production from the Canadian tar sands of Alberta to Saudia Arabia.
Like, choose one:
a) global warming
b) global warming and nuclear winter
c) none of the above
In fact, the nuclear choice increases the chances of having both global warming and nuclear winter.
First of all, nuclear power is such an economic loser that it takes governments, not markets, to finance and build them. Here, there, and everywhere. The massive investment to build enough reactors to displace significant levels of carbon would not only squander enormous resources that could go toward quicker, cheaper, safer, cleaner renewables but would also waste what precious little time is left. All this on an industry already historically notorious for its ridiculously high cost overruns and failure to meet completion on time, if at all. In the US, as many nuclear reactor projects were cancelled as completed.
Secondly, the nuke industry is shot full of so many holes that it looks like swiss cheese; no accepted longterm nuclear waste facility anywhere in the world; increasingly deteriorating and unsafe reactor operations; domestic pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction; a internal threat to civil liberities and democratic society; and most importantly, the easiest way to build the nuclear bomb is to construct the atomic power infrastructure around it.
More nuclear power means more nuclear weapons materials around the world. Thirteen Middle East countries are bidding on nuclear power today---loading the region with nuclear materials ostensibly for electricity and atomic bombs. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission is actively promoting nuclear infrastructure around the world including the military regime of Burma.
Recent scientific studies using NASA climate change models show that a limited nuclear war between Pakistan and India involving a total of 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs would loft enough smoke into the stratosphere to affect a prolonged global nuclear winter. More people globally would likely die from starvation than from the nuclear blasts and ensuing radiation sickness.
Renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation are the 21st Century energy policy.
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gduell Posted 3:10 am
22 Jan 2008
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JMG Posted 10:44 am
22 Jan 2008
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lengould Posted 6:39 am
25 Jan 2008
I've invested my entire life savings and years of mathematical modelling in developing a new solar-powered Stirling thermal engine-generator which is still in prototype and may not work, but looks good so far. BUT i STILL KNOW that almost all "conservation and efficiency gains" made in the past few decades have been simply shipping the heavy manufacturing industries to third-world countries which cannot afford our strict environmental regulations. And yes, nuclear (and solar thermal) power CAN replace personal transport fuel, but switching all cars to PHEV's which will actually improve generator efficiency as well, by enabling a flatter load curve.
I hate reading junk about "Conservation Is The Only Solution" posted by people who couldn't mathematically calculate their way out of a wet paper bag, drink energy drinks (or WATER for crap sake!) from plastic or aluminum containers, while they post anti-nuke diatribes from their IPods or IMacs using wireless links because they'rs fashionable. Shut the heck up for a while, maybe get some technical education, couldn't hurt and would sure make your speeches a lot more sensible, less childish.
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Des Emery Posted 1:33 pm
26 Jan 2008
Yes indeed, nuclear power can be dangerous but it is the only energy source that can produce sustainable, steady, emissionless electricity in the prodigious amounts 6 billion of us require to live on the planet. Many small reactors feeding into a grid, co-generating heat and electricity for home and industry and pumping power into batteries to replace the internal combustion engine make the most sense to get us out of our present decline toward disaster. Big is not always beautiful, and survival, not cost, should be the deciding factor in choosing our path.
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