I continue to be surprised that nuclear power has once again become a darling of many power supply planners.  While I do support taking care of the plants that are in operation as it would be irresponsible to do otherwise.  Further, nuclear fuel supplies have been enhanced by the Russian sale of fuel produced from its retired fleet of ICBMs.  I believe few nuclear plants will be built in the US, and we will continue to retire existing plants as time goes by.  

Thanks!!!  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Thanks Atomicrod, that was well written.  I am amazed at some of the comments Grist gets.  This must be a widely read blog.  How did this come to be?

I was approached by Laurence Livermore National Laboratory with the message that the future will be powered by solar energy or nuclear energy.  They wanted data on the economics of solar.  And I wanted data on the economics of nuclear.

I know some of the problems with engineering unique plants at every site whereas France made one standard design.   And pebble reactors  do not have the confidence of  finance because they lack history (even though they may be safer and cheaper to operate).

The nuclear industry often blames environmentalists for their public relations problems but, from my view, their problems are cost (when not cogenerating weapons), the track record of accidents, and waste disposal.  Environmentalists (sorry Grist) do not have the political power to hurt the nuclear industry.  The industry made self inflicted public information damage in spite of over $100 billion in direct US subsidy.

The pilot light glow of nuclear will probably continue due to the investment in education and technology, but I doubt it will ever become a dominate energy source "too cheap to meter".

Y'all do know that the temperature has increased 0.8 C, and is committed to 0.6 C more. At 1.5 C, the polar bear is committed to extinction and the coral reefs to widespread bleaching. At 2 C, we may have triggered catastrophic sea level rise of 3-4 m/century. At 2.5 C, there will be a loss in food productivity everywhere, rather than regionally as is now the case.

And yet some people sound as if they more worried that nuclear power will be part of the solution than in limiting the damage from climate change.

Rule #1 -- if nuclear power really makes no economic sense, you don't have to blog on it.

To answer the points and comments above.

"Too cheap to meter" was a comment of a pro-nuclear power enthusiast, Admiral Lewis Strauss. It was never a belief of scientists.

No one knows how much uranium there is because as long as there is enough for the next generation of plants, there is no incentive to go looking for more. Other technologies, such as extracting uranium from sea water, will only be studied for economic feasibility when other cheaper sources are exploited.

Nuclear power does not have to be THE solution for now, nor does it have to be A solution past the next generation of nuclear power plants. Perhaps solar power will be able to supply half or more of the world's electric or/and heating needs in 2050, no one knows today. But for those who worry about every few tenths of a degree C, no solutions can be rejected.

Policy analysts from the national labs and universities and such are recommending massive improvements in efficiency, huge funding for research into renewables and subsidizing of solar power, such as is happening in Canada and elsewhere. Locally, the amount of money saved on electric bills, according to friends who are enthusiasts and who have bought solar panels, is less than the interest payment on the loan they took out, and that's with subsidies. Obviously, subsidies will need to continue for a while.

But there's no way to keep carbon emissions sufficiently low without nuclear power and carbon geological storage.

As a previous post mentioned, the majority of Americans now favor nuclear power, and the percentages are higher near nuclear power plants. This is true even in cities where there was initial resistance to building a nuclear power plant.

I am surprised to read so many objections to nuclear power, but relatively little mention that even without climate change, fossil fuel waste kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each decade. But of course, the climate change numbers are likely to be of more importance when looking ahead to this century, and the next.

If nuclear power is too expensive and there isn't enough uranium to last the life of a nuclear power plant, someone will figure this out even without your help. But if nuclear power is part of the set of policies and technologies and behavior changes that can keep the increase in temperature below 2 C, and you are at all successful in fighting nuclear power, people my age who expect to be alive mid-century may be very upset with the people who did this.

Karen Street

The papers you cited would in fact be "the final nail" in the pro-nuclear argument, except one teensy weensy little problem:  They aren't even remotely true.

Sorry Dave, try again.

It'll run out in 75 years but many still think it a viable long term energy solution?

What is the pro-nuclear response to the estimated range of nuclear power?

75 years? Who do you think you're kidding.

Folks, let me repeat this:  the 75 year estimate is utter nonsense.  It is based on the assumption that not another ton of uranium is ever discovered, anywhere on the earth.  This assumption is just silly.

Uranium is a reletively common mineral.  There are vast deposits of it lying around the world, millions of tons,  in all sorts of places, which haven't been found for the very simple reason that nobody was looking.

It's very sad to see the anti-nuclear movement use such a poor argument.  It reeks of desperation.  There are plenty of real issues to discuss with nuclear power, which deserve real debate.  Why waste people's time on this.

There are vast deposits of it lying around the world, millions of tons,  in all sorts of places, which haven't been found for the very simple reason that nobody was looking.

I'm confused. If nobody's looked for it, how do you know it's there?

www.grist.org

Shore are some sore losers!   That's a shame.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

"there's no way to keep carbon emissions sufficiently low without nuclear power and carbon geological storage."

Piffle and nonsense Karen.  Nukes as a 100% energy source run out of fuel in 6 years, the sun has how much fuel left?  A billion years worth?

I say we go with sun, wind, and water power all relying on nuclesar fusion.  In the Sun 93 million miles away, where nuclear power belongs.

Check out the 55% effiocient solat cells now going into mass production, and the batteries that charge in minutes and compete with gas as a transportation energy storage medium.

This nuclear brainwashing has got to stop.  Big lies just like the lies about WMDs in Iraq.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Laughably easy to debunk these guys, but I'll just give you the highlights:

Assume theoretical relationships between cost of plants and the cost in energy.  Studies that have actually measured the energy inputs have found vL&S's figures overestimate by almost 2 orders of magnitude.

Assume diffusion enrichment is used exclusively.  This is an old technology on its way out.  Newer centrifuge technology uses 1/10th the energy.

Assume energy costs for extraction at low ore concentrations, that if true, would mean existing mines making multi-billion dollar loses every year, and one mine in Australia using more energy than all of Queensland (no surprise... it doesn't).

I'm confused. If nobody's looked for it, how do you know it's there?

Same way as oil is found, by looking for appropriate geological areas. Because this method had produced results before, there is confidence it will work again.

From David Bodansky, Nuclear Energy (an excellent and easy to read reference book, get the second edition), "Adopting the probably conservative resource estimate of 20 million [metric] tonnes, ...A resource of this magniutde could sustain four times the present rate of generation for 80 years." He then looks at research on extracting uranium from seawater, in very early stages yet, as it will be decades before this source is important. At current costs of $700/kg U, an order of magnitude more than uranium costs today, nuclear power costs would increase by 1.5 cent/kWh.

These are the estimates that people in business will use.

In my post below, I meant to say California not Canada.

Photovoltaic cells at 55% efficiency? Or 55% of theoretical efficiency?

Also, not clear where you get the 70% improvement over natural gas in terms of carbon emissions. Nuclear power emits very little carbon. US plants use coal power to process the uranium, but hopefully that error will be rectified soon.

But the main point is, we can't save the polar bear, and only with difficulty will we prevent catastrophic sea level rise and mass loss in productivity. Estimates that we can keep total temperature change under 2 C by 2100 without nuclear power do not come from the national labs and the universities. They do not go through any kind of peer review process.

And again, not to forget the hundreds of thousands of Americans, tens of millions of people worldwide, who die every decade directly from fossil fuel waste.

Karen Street

Um... ok, so not 75 years... how long then?  100, 150?

Do you have another estimate or is your only arguement that the two estimates I've seen are silly?

If you're not prepared to back up your claims with evidence or refute other then your arguement is silly!

Of all the comments I've read on this thread that are pro-nuclear none have addressed the fact that we will inevitabley run out just like with oil!!!!!!

Unless someone can provide some counter estimates on the long term viability of uranium, leakage scares, waste, mining... then we're not having a debate, we're simply pushing our own interests blindly.

"Same way as oil is found, by looking for appropriate geological areas. Because this method had produced results before, there is confidence it will work again."

so you plan to use up all the oil, then the Uranium... then what?

I can see the headlines in 2050:

Scientists pioneer Solent-Green Energy Technology: Our energy crisis is final over.

   Governments all over the world are planning on building more nuclear power plants (the Chinese are doing this, and at the same time, putting serious money into fusion research).

   In many developing countries, nuclear looks like a good source because it promises power without the immediate pollution problems associated with coal.

   It is cheaper to import enough uranium to power a plant than it is to keep importing coal, gas and oil (if you don't have them).

   Seventy five years is forever in terms of government thinking and planning.  So, saying that it won't be valid after that time period doesn't bother them at all. (Their answer would naturally be, "fine, it gets us through the immediate crisis and buys us time to find and implement other solutions, such as solar or fusion or newer types of technology.").

   The issue of waste, although serious, is not immediate, and can be put off until another time. (This is of course, very appealing.)

   The final problems are cost and safety, and governments aren't afraid of expensive projects (and the price has come down for the new reactors), and may feel that the newer reactors are reasonably safe (so they are being told by their scientific advisors, and by people in the nuclear industry).

    Outside the United States, governments in much of the world are definitely planning to include nuclear power in their mix of intermediate energy solutions.  

    If you are paying attention to the nuclear crisis in Iran, this is why the US finds little sympathy for its' position.  

    Just a reality reminder. :)

patrick

---------------
so you plan to use up all the oil, then the Uranium... then what?
---------------

We won't use up all the Uranium by then.  There is billions of additional tons of it.

Get over it.

-------------
Um... ok, so not 75 years... how long then?  100, 150?
Do you have another estimate or is your only arguement that the two estimates I've seen are silly?

If you're not prepared to back up your claims with evidence or refute other then your arguement is silly!

Of all the comments I've read on this thread that are pro-nuclear none have addressed the fact that we will inevitabley run out just like with oil!!!!!!

Unless someone can provide some counter estimates on the long term viability of uranium, leakage scares, waste, mining... then we're not having a debate, we're simply pushing our own interests blindly.
--------------------

Good point Vincenze.  OK, let me try to answer you:

The current generation of nuclear reactors have terrible fuel efficiency.  They are the equivalent of a car that only gets 3 miles per gallon.  Over the next 20 years, the reactors are expected to triple or quadruple their efficiency.  Within 40 years they'll increase their efficiency by a factor of 20 (the equivalent of 60 miles per gallon).  

Based on that efficiency, and a very conservative view of how much Uranium is economically recoverable, we could probably power the entire human race, electricity and transportation, for at least 200 years, and probably 1000 years.  

Hopefully that's enough time to build more solar panels.  If not, well then in 1000 years we're in trouble.  Personally I'm just hoping we survive the next 50 years without Global Warming destroying out civilization...a very real danger.

"...not to forget the hundreds of thousands of Americans, tens of millions of people worldwide, who die every decade directly from fossil fuel waste."

Yes fossil fuel is awful at the scale it is currently used.  So is nuclear power.

The solution is blowing in the wind, the cleanest, cheapest, immediate replacement for fossil fuel and ever widening nuclear contamination.

At the Paduchah Kentucky plant that makes all the fuel for nuclear power plants, plutonium has been spreding out into the groundwater for decades.  The contamination of this resource that us vital to life itself has spred miles already during the industry coverup.  

It is flowing into the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers down through the Mississippi valley to the gulf.  Have you eaten any Louisuana quisine lately?  Crawfish and shrimp from that wonderful ecosystem?

What is life itself in all its wonderful variety of experience worth?  Can you insure life itself for "accidents" like this plutonium contamination of a whole region?

Give it up.  Go solar, go electric.  

Oil, coal, nuclear fission must all become just a horrible warning from history or there will be no one to read a history book left.  

The dark future of spaceship earth impelled by evil  men like Lord Cheney of Halliburton.  Hehey.

Dark humor?  Better to laugh than cry.

Those who learn from history are doomed to watch others repeat it.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Amazingdrx:

You have made a bold statement. Would you care to explain the process that allows a uranium enrichment plant to produce and release plutonium to the environment.

I am sooooo confused.

thomasrex...

good point, if the timeframe can be extended that long then that would surely be a good thing, my main beef was the neglecting of this 'minor detail' of the whole 75 years... especially since if anything consumption will go up... but you're probably right that technology will improve and hopefully buy us some time.

That said, even if I do hear a report that suggest Uranium could power our world for 10000 years I'll still back the sun. :)

cheers.

The fun thing about imagining a nuclear future is considering the fruitful possibilities for dictatorship.  Nuclear is a great energy source for a centralized, totalitarian agency.  If the people decided to revolt against the oligarchy, the oligarchy's paid operatives merely shut down the energy plants and, voila, no energy, thus no revolt!  Nuclear makes rule by the few over the many an ongoing option.  Capitalism should mesh smoothly with nuclear, as capitalism is rule by a small owning class over a large working class.

The whole notion of an energy crisis (and, for that matter, of its intellectual progeny, "peak oil") is bound up with the notion of defending capitalism against the environment.  The opening premise, usually unstated, is that "since our current civilization consumes 85 million barrels of oil every day, we need to find an energy equivalent for those 85 million barrels."  And by "we" I mean "we the major beneficiaries of the consumer society."  We can even be more specific; how about "we the beneficiaries of what Marx called the 'circulation sphere'"?

Remove the consumer society, and re-employ the circulation sphere to the prodigious task of saving the Earth, and a big chunk of the problem goes away.  But, of course, it's like John Lennon once sung on the Imagine album: "How can I go forward if I don't know which way I'm facing?"

http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/

Sorry folks, but the truth is, solar and wind power suck.  

Here in California we've had tax credits and incentives for decades, and yet solar energy still contributes less thann 1% to the energy grid.  The state is currently building a gigantic power line to wyoming so they can build 12 huge coal plants and pump the electricity to our grid.

Solar is a big fat failure.  You people who rhapsodize on solar power have nothing but promises.  We've heard promises for years and the actual performance has been horrible.  You pump out studies and statistics about how great solar is, how fast it's growing, and yet at the end of 20 years, it's still less than 1%.  

Why the discrepancy?  Simple.  You folks are all talk, no do.

Same with wind.  Same with wave energy.  Lots of talk, but 20 years later nothing but more coal power.

I wonder how many of you solar promoters realize that you are playing right into the hands of Big Coal?  The fossil fuel billionaires LOVE solar power because they know it's no threat to them.

Meanwhile France already generates 75% of their electricity with Nuclear power, and they converted their entire grid in only 25 years.  

You are absolutely right that nuclear power is, by definition, huge energy.  It cannot be made "local".  It will always be controlled by huge corporations and governments.  Personally I don't like concentrating power like that.

But the problem is, we NEED huge energy sources if we're going to have a chance in hell of displacing coal.

How many of you have seen Gore's new movie?  Remember the scene at the beginning where he is talking to Chinese energy planners?  China is building THOUSANDS of coal plants.  They are burning more coal than any nation on the planet and they plan on a 500% increase over the next couple decades.  They are only planning 10% renewable energy at most.

So that means the other 90% is coal, coal, and more coal.  Billions of tons of coal.  Not clean coal like the US either...wer're talking the dirtiest possible.  Pollutions beyond our worst nightmares.

So what's your solution for this?  "Socialism"?  Riggggght.  Solar/wind power?  Sorry, not a chance in hell.  China needs 24-hour-a-day, baseline power, the kind that solar and wind are worst at supplying.  Conservation?  Nice but won't provide 500% growth.  

The one and only energy source that has a chance of preventing even a small part of the brewing environmental disaster in China is nuclear power.  LOTS of nuclear power.  China already has planned another 58 nuclear plants.  You'd better pray they find the money to build  hundreds more, or the earth's ecosystem is in MAJOR trouble.

Yes, this means a lot of nuclear waste that needs to be disposed of, but that's better than destroying the entire ecosystem of the earth.

Yes, nuclear power is by definition a "large scale" energy source.  And that is exactly what we need.

That is right Biod.   New technology diffuses though institutions and is more powerful than politics, the military, and corporations.  New technology has often destroyed huge old industries.  They fear nothing more than new technology.

How will people use nuclear power?  Will we use it for heat, hot water, cooling?  Solar energy is much cheaper than nuclear power.  Solar energy is new technology competing asymmetrically, not in the image of nuclear.

Solar power can run circles around peak oil.  Just do the net present value calculation for solar against the 25 year price of oil and compare with the current cost of solar.  It is amazing.

There has not been a new US nuclear plant order since 1973.  Solar power growth is a hundred times that of nuclear growth in the US.  The French passed a referendum that substantially reduced public subsidies for nuclear because the French prefer solar by a margin of 80%.  The rest of the world will catch up.

The next step will export solar technology to China then import solar hardware.  Politics is just a flea on the back of energy economics.

Knowledge about solar energy (which is much more than electricity) makes the vision of a sunny future easy to see, inevitable, like knowledge of global warming.

I hear you, LSam.

It was clear enough, a few decades ago, that solar, wind and the other exciting renewable ideas were not going anywhere, unless and until the Big Energy interests -- petroleum, coal, the grid-minders -- were going to make a profit off them, losing nothing meanwhile.

Or at least it should have been clear.

At this point, it would be only fair to acknowledge that the corporate-capitalist competitive-marketplace Box within which all these proponents of this or that energy source continue to think has taken on the appearance of an adamantine prison.  It is genuinely pathetic, not to say a global evil, that these well-intentioned proponents must waste their precious time dithering about market value.

"Public control of economic decision-making" would represent thinking outside the box at its best.  Far-sightedness, and "investing in the future" truly so-called, would at last matter.

I don't understand the solar vs nuclear discussion. It's (almost) everything vs coal. And oil. And natural gas.

One of the speakers in the China US Climate Change Forum said that if solar power continues to grow at 35%/year, as it has been doing, then by 2015 it will supply less than 0.5% of the world's electricity. Subsidies must continue, the federal government must continue to underwrite research (and to a greater extent than is currently the case). Solar power will be important in the future (but the "too cheap to meter" people may not see their goals met) and is already important in areas that are far from the grid or/and have a very small energy use.

Higher efficiency is crucial. Pretty much everyone participating in this discussion can cut their energy use 10% over the next year by driving and flying less, turning off the lights and heat and air conditioner in unused rooms, and changing to higher efficiency appliances, light bulbs, and cars. And insulating. Investments in higher efficiency at this point help the economy by reducing wasted spending. They certainly can save the individual money. At some point, gains will be harder to come by, but we are far from that point now.

Other technologies for both the short and long term deserve investment.

But if we are going to reduce carbon emissions, we need to invest in and support a variety of technologies. Solar power could turn out to be more important more quickly than we imagine. Or there could turn out to be more problems than people today imagine. But if we call it wrong, or run into problems scaling beyond 20%, and it was one of very few eggs in our basket, we're in trouble.

Nuclear is appropriate for base load, where solar supplies peak load. They currently aren't even competing for the same niche in our electric supply.

Right now, it's all other sources of electric power vs coal, or at least everything vs coal without geological storage. Should we get rid of coal (in my lifetime?), then it will be most other sources of power vs natural gas. We need to reduce carbon emissions some 60 - 80% while energy demand doubles, in other words, reduce the carbon percentage per unit energy by 80 - 90%, over a period of perhaps 4 or 5 decades, though much, much, much faster would be much, much, much better. And because we in the US emit way more than our share today, and because the US has produced 28% of carbon emissions from 1850 - 2004, there are some in the world who feel that Americans (and other rich people) should reduce our carbon emissions by a much greater amount.

My friends are paying for solar even though the amount they save is less than the interest on a 30-year loan (at which point the panels may be defunct). I may not be willing to do that much, but I am willing to up my electric bill to heavily subsidize solar power, and my federal tax bill to subsidize solar research. Ditto for paying for better efficiency. But I am not willing to give up all other low-carbon energy sources. When people make that recommendation, I always hear that they are more interested in their solutions than in solving the problem.

Karen Street

 I always hear that they are more interested in their solutions than in solving the problem.

That's my chief complaint as well.  Cabin comfort makes no sense on a sinking ship.  I am using this blog, like a mirror, as part of my search for a plan that will achieve a carbon-neutral energy future for 90% of civilization.  I believe that the solution from a large diversity of energy sources will have a common attribute:  The cost of energy must be less than the consumer cost of coal.  I am particularly fond of district heating as done in Sweden.  (Also district cooling.)

Economics is the best solution I can think of.  Conservation, efficiency, and all transitional energy should be evaluated in terms of cost.  Not using energy is simple, efficiency is low hanging fruit, and new energy development will require work.  The theory is that low-cost displacement of coal is possible.

The Plan:

 Save money not burning coal.

?

Ijust realized, the idea of running out of fissional material in six or seven years is hogwash.

We know the main source of heating the interior of the Earth is low-level fission.  Do you really believe, in less than ten years, every earthquake and volcano would disappear, the plate techtonics would settle down, because we removed all the source of heat for the world?

Think about it - the same guys opposed to 'nuclear' are in favor of it, under the disguise of 'geothermal'.  'Geothermal' is just the 'politically correct' way of saying nuclear, it is merely using the Earth's inner heat (from radioactice decay) for energy.

Do these guys think if we used geothermal we would run out of energy in six years?

The Earth has been around for billions of years, and plate techtonics has been operating for hundreds of millions of years, all powered by radioactive decay.  We have enough nuclear to last until we have another source.

You have the essence of it.  It's how we think about capitalism that is important here -- if we imagine the capitalist system existing indefinitely "like it does now," then not only are we wrong (for capitalism is crisis-prone), but we are likely to succumb to despair, as the capitalist system strips the ecosystems of their integrity.  

http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/

Why don't we build nuclear power plants on mars, and using that energy convert the atmosphere ther into oxygen-rich air?

Then move half the world's population (the ones who are overweight for ease of movement in the half-gravity world) there and using the nuclear power make artificial fertilizers and grow plants in greenhouses to avoid the mind-boggingly freezing temperatures? That will be the solution!!!

Pro-nuclear on Mars!!! Woo-hoo! Party on the super-cool planet, and you don't even need the 'red light districts'!!! Woo-hoo!!!

"Why don't we build nuclear power plants on mars"

Evidently greenhouse gas release from combustion is just what is needed to terra form Mars.  Kind of ironic.  Send all the gas guzzlers to Mars?  Hehey.

Rod I sense that you are starting to sway into the renewable renergy camp.  Now if we could convert even YOU, we could convince anyone.  Except the evil Lord Cheney of Halliburton of course.

But he could be robotized and drive his hummer around Mars.  Perfect.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

"don't be so pessimistic! You never know what you'll find beneath melting glaciers."

Hehehehey.  Love that dark humor.  (Along with the gloom and doom.)

But of course the nut wing actually will use that seriously.  Which is fine because I think it exposes their wacky agenda to the light of day.

Remember this one they used in the past?  

When the Arctic ice cap melts the oil tankers will have shorter trips.  

And think of all that offshore drilling!  And mining and drilling Antarctica.  Those wacky scamps.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Geothermal energy from fission in the Earth's core doesn't run out, no.  Uranium deposits in the Earth's crust don't either--provided we don't go mining them at a non-renewable rate, which we already are (just as with oil).  They're not the same thing just because they both involve radioactivity.

For the record, I'm not anti-nuclear; I just don't buy that nuclear energy alone will save us.  I do like geothermal, but there are some distinct problems with it, which is why so few countries hae made it work to date.

http://rosettastone.wordpress.com

      No one can influence others when they start by applying labels that contain negative terms to them.  My intended (though failed) point was that calling the Chinese government ""Chinese Dictatorship in Power" is no more useful than calling the American government the "American Fascist Emperor in Power".

      While some people may consider these to be "merely" descriptive terms, there is a good liklihood that millions of Chinese and/or Americans would find the terms insulting.

      Which would render the possibility of dialogue unlikely.  And further makes the possibility of any transferal of information unlikely.

      In China, such actions would be considered very impolite (not "cool"), and would mean that the speaker is one to be discounted.

       Tone matters (though hard to perfect and control in a written medium), if one is interested in communication.

       Consider the statement "If China is in fact a true democracy, however, then I apologize, and I will go back to Marx's and Engels' practice of being kind and polite when discussing the capitalist elite and the aristocracy.".  This suggests that the speaker will be polite only  when and if the speaker approves of the government he/she is speaking about.  This suggests that any government that does not meet the speakers' defintion of a "true democracy" (which is not given) does not deserve polite communication.

      Unfortunately, we can see how this type of attitude on the part of President Bush towards Iran and North Korea has been successful at urging them towards the actions he wanted.  NOT.  

      If one is to engage in serious discourse, one must learn to speak to those one diagrees with in a way that there is a chance the "other" is able to hear one.

      (Since none of us are perfect, we will all fail at this from time to time, but is a useful policy to make the attempt.)

       The goal is not only to influence "people in power", but also people who have varying attitudes about the "people in power".

       If the goal is only to talk to those who already completely agree, well then insults amount merely to posturing, since no true information is being exchanged.

      "Secondly, I don't see how nuclear power, not calling the elites names, capitalist development, or despair about the public's interest in economic democracy will establish "international solidarity among the working class."  Help me out with this one; show me the true way."

      If anyone on this blog claims to know what all the "workers" in the world think, they are welcome to demonstrate this fact.

      I personally don't believe in "true ways" so much.

      The original quote I was replying to was "preventing environmental disaster in China?  Is that right?  Not going to happen.  My money is on learning from it after the fact."  

      This statement suggests and indifference towards "preventing environmental disasater in China".  Perhaps not intended, but tone is tone, and this is how people might interpret it.

      Since the vast majority of Chinese are "workers" (not knowing your definition), this suggests a disregard for their fate, as does the statement "My money is on learning from it after the fact."

      Unfortunately, much of the developing world feels like this is America's attitude towards their fate.  It seems to match President Bush's attitude towards the workers of Iraq or the "collateral damage" as he call our civilian bombing victims.

      Implied indifference towards the suffering of others (hopefully not intended, but again, an infernce easily drawn from the tone of the post) is not "solidarity" with anyone.

      Attitude counts (mine included!).

      Finally, "Thirdly, has China achieved ecological sustainability yet?  Are they anywhere close?  If so, I apologize."

      No China has not, has ANYONE achieved ecological sustainability yet?  No, and America is probably the furthest away.  For the rich to attack the poor for not doing what the rich are unable to do, well, this is one of the things the rest of the world doesn't like about America.

      If China (or any country) faces "ecological disaster", the world can either sit back and watch the show, or try to help.

      Throughout the developing world, there are those who are working to prevent ecological disasters (just as there are such people in the developed world).

      Many of these "potential" disasters will have implications world wide.

      It is better to roll up our sleeves and start working together to solve them, than to be spectators.

patrick

My understanding is that uranium was formed in supernovae billions of years ago. That makes it even less renewable than fossil fuels, which were formed over millions of years on earth. Don't we agree that fossil fuels aren't renewable and that's why we're trying to find other sources of energy?

Personally, the only thing I don't like about nuclear energy (as long as we are mindful of its non-renewability) is that it works great---except when it doesn't. I don't know if the risks (power plant malfunctions, danger to workers, terror target potential, etc) are worth the extra decades it would buy us. It might, but we'd better get on with finding real renewable sources.

So, I'm trying to keep up, but here's a question that doesn't seem to be answered in the 50+ comments thus far:

If nuclear energy is so great, why isn't Wall Street rushing to build more plants, at least in the United States?

Pretty basic, but could someone clear this up? Regardless of whether we have enough fuel for plants or whatever your like or dislike of nuclear power, who is going to pay to build these? Until we get there, all of this seems pretty theoretical. Even with the huge subsidies out there for nuclear, there still doesn't seem to be much on the horizon domestically. Why?

RH

Wall Street remembers how, when government began seeing its fossil fuel tax revenues being hurt by the rapid rise of nuclear energy in the 70s, regulators suddenly became very aggressive, egged on by "grass-roots groups". That conflict of interest still exists.

If nuclear energy is so great, why isn't Wall Street rushing to build more plants, at least in the United States?

It's a good question. I have part of the answer, hope this is mostly right. Perhaps some of you have more knowledge of the history.

After Three Mile Island, almost no new coal plants were ordered and many coal plant orders were canceled because utilities had predicted too high an increase in electricity demand. Additionally, nuclear power plants were not built all that well initially, first generation mistakes, but improvements over the years increased their percentage contribution to the grid, as they ran more reliably and at higher efficiency. Improving nuclear power plants added substantial base load power.

So now we have reached a stage where utilities actually have to build lots of power plants, there are no longer jillions of underutilized plants just sitting around. Consumption has gone up and plants are older, hardly any coal plant is less than 30 years old. Utilities do want to build more nuclear power plants, but there is concern about how much it will cost to go first -- delays during construction while Nuclear Regulatory Commission figures things out are really expensive as capital costs are disproportionately high for nuclear plants. Many utilities are very aware that the rules of the game -- carbon will be a pollutant -- will change January 2009 (or if we're lucky, January 2007). In contrast to California, where they are required to assume an $8/ton carbon charge, and required to assume that charge increases yearly, many utilities must assume that the current rules will apply forever. Many of the utilities managers are not stupid, and have requested that the post-2008 rules be clarified today to facilitate decision-making, but so far the Bush administration has not agreed.

Recently, power proponents fit into two main categories: first, coal because it's cheap - part of this decision involved not requiring coal to be much cleaner, so hundreds of thousands of Americans die each decade from using coal power; if this were not allowed, coal costs would be higher. Second, other mostly highly subsidized forms of energy, because they are our future and deserve heavy investment, and because some people find them attractive. There was a short period where utilities thought that natural gas (plants cheap to build, though fuel is expensive) could provide substantial amounts of baseload power, but prices didn't come down as had been predicted.

Meanwhile, nuclear power has made many advances, which means a new regulatory regime. Nuclear power has to meet standards that coal and natural gas don't, eg, a coal power plant releases 100 times as much radioactivity as the same size nuclear power plant, but because radioactivity is so far down the list of coal's sins, why regulate it? There are business questions about these new regulations, mainly, what are they and how fast will Nuclear Regulatory Commission get them decided. Also, as has been mentioned at this site before, while the majority of Americans now favor nuclear power, there are a sizable number of highly motivated people who hope to stop nuclear power. To the extent they are successful, those of us who live in a warmer world will be resentful. (I also have major class issues about how a primarily middle class and rich America is able to ignore so many coal miner deaths, thousands/decade, and so many pollution deaths that disproportionately affect the poor.)

It is expected that requests for several new nuclear plants, on the same sites where there now are nuclear power plants, will be made next year, using new safer designs. For example, one design criterion that came in post-TMI was to assume that the operator is hostile, because there is little difference between a hostile operator and one who forgets what to do. (Also training came in post-TMI, so nuclear power plant operators have a training regime similar to airplane pilots.)

One more piece - under deregulation of electricity supply, there is a financial advantage is building a cheaper power plant faster, even if the long-term costs are greater. Nuclear power, along with solar and wind, look more disadvantageous under these rules.

Karen Street

Don't make me list the countless known contamination events from nuclear power, once again!

"Nuclear power has to meet standards that coal and natural gas don't, eg, a coal power plant releases 100 times as much radioactivity as the same size nuclear power plant"

Besides, claiming it emits less than coal and kills fewer people because of that is not an argument for nukes, It's an argument for wind, solar, water power, and conservation.  Which kill zero people per decade.

You missed the main reason that nukes are not being built.  Uninsurable risk.

Nuclear power presents uninsurable risk, that is why congress released nuclear plant owners from liability.   Otherwise no financial institutions could provide capital for them.

Now put yourself in the place of a home or business owner that lives next to a nuclear plant or fuel or waste storage processing facility.

The US congress has passed a law at the behest of nuclear power interests, powerful politically connected corporations like Bechtel, that promises your interests will not be protected by insurance, but by the same government that protected the citizens in the Katrina disaster.

No evacuation plans, nuclear power industry "self" (no) regulation, no radiation suits for firemen or ambulance crews, not even any iodine pills to stave off radiation sickness.  Not to mention absolutely no way of reimbursing you for your life savings tied up in that home or small business, when (not if) a nuclear contamination incident occurs.

So fewer buyers  of property  choose to invest in an area near a plant.  That erodes the value of your property on the market.  If one more incident like three mile or chernobyl happens, anywhere in the world?  Well then buyers even her in the US get scared of property near a plant.

That results in NIMBY lawsuits to stop nukes, and delays that are very costly.  What's the interest on 5 billion bucks worth of concrete, steel, and exotic high tech radioactive equipment just sitting there generating no income?

The president's plan?  Taxpayers pick up the tab for ultra-expensive insurance to pay that interest.   The same people who have no protection for their lives or property thanks to government/nuclear industry corruption in letting the industry out of that uninsurable risk.

How much is the Columbia River basin worth?  The Mississippi, the Colorado?  They are ALL being contaminated right now and for decades past from nuclear "accidents".  That industry/government have tried to coverup.

All the homes. All the lives, and life itself in whole regions?  That is uninsurable risk.  That is what you are advocating for.

Easily replaced by 2 cent per kwh wind power.  Something's wrong.

(Great discussion though!  Go ahead and give me an excuse to link to a huge list of currently known nuclear power related contamination, hehey.  Do you feel lucky?  Make my day.)

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Um, I apologize in advance if I missed something as I skimmed these posts, but the authors of the article seem to disagree with the notion that we have no clue how much material is out there:

"There is doubtless some rich uranium ore still to be discovered, and yet exhaustive worldwide exploration has been done, and the evaluation by Storm van Leeuwen and Smith of the energy balances at every stage of the nuclear cycle has given us a summary."

Does anyone have a good link on this subject?  

Karen wrote:

<<(I also have major class issues about how a primarily middle class and rich America is able to ignore so many coal miner deaths, thousands/decade, and so many pollution deaths that disproportionately affect the poor.)>>

Excellent observation, of grave moral significance.  It deserves to be lifted from its parentheses, and made a huge front-page subject.

Karen is very good, but of course that is an argument for renewables not nukes.  We need articulate, informed people like this representing for wind and solar, instead of nukes.

The old false dilemna is a pretty common fallacy used by those who argue for more nuclear power.

It is not either coal, and it's related deaths, or nuclear (justified because it kills fewer people).  Because renewables kill zero people and can replace both.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog