Pop Quiz: what source of energy has received the most government subsidies since World War II, has a by-product that has remained dangerous for thousands of years, and is a major component of McCain’s energy proposal?
If you said “oil,” you answered incorrectly.
What I’m talking about is nuclear energy — 1950’s energy of the future. Back then, it was thought that nuclear energy would be the radioactive wave that would carry the world into the atomic age, supplying nearly all of the world’s electricity and a significant portion of its commercial energy. Obviously, nuclear energy has failed to live up to this expectation.
In the United States, no nuclear power plants have been built since the late 1970s. For private investors, the costs of building, maintaining and decommissioning a nuclear power plant overrun each other. Simply put, nuclear energy is a value destroyer that has only been proliferated by billing the American taxpayer. The modern initiatives for nuclear power still fail to recognize many of the flaws of the energy source.
Although electricity produced through nuclear power has been competitive, this price is not representative of all the costs along the nuclear energy value chain. For as much as nuclear energy is touted as an American fuel source, the Energy Information Agency of the U.S. government reported in 2007 that 54 million pounds of uranium oxide (what fuel rods are made of) were purchases imported into the U.S., compared to domestic production of 5 million pounds.
With oil, we have come to understand the political and economic consequences of becoming dependent on foreign sources, so we shouldn’t delude ourselves about nuclear.
Maintaining nuclear reactors can be expensive, yet necessary for the reactor to be stable and safe.
Unfortunately, when the companies that manage such nuclear reactors already work with thin profit margins, safety problems can be ignored until the plant has to shut down to address them.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has recorded on its Web site that an outage at a nuclear power plant which lasted more than a year has occurred 51 times at 41 different reactors. While in the 1960s and 1970s the plants were closed primarily for damage recovery, since 1996 all the year-long outages were for safety restoration.
In a September 2006 report, the Government Accountability Office criticized the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for acting slowly on needed oversight improvement, “particularly in improving the agency’s ability to identify and address early indications of declining safety performance.”
Although modern reactor and plant designs offer some solace about safety concerns, the issue still exists of what is done with spent fuel rods — high-level radioactive wastes. These spent fuels rods must be safely stored for at least 10,000 years, or 240,000 years if plutonium-239 is not removed by reprocessing.
There is no agreed-upon method for storing the wastes for 10,000 years, much less 240,000. Currently, many nuclear power plants in the U.S. store these wastes in deep water pools or dry concrete casks. Sabotage, terrorist attacks or earthquakes at one of these sites could release significant amounts of radioactive materials into the troposphere, contaminating large areas for decades.
Despite safety concerns, many aging nuclear power plants, dating from the late 1960s and early 1970s, are seeking operating license renewals from the Nuclear Regulation Commission, according to a Wall Street Journal article published in April.
Since 2000 the Nuclear Regulation Commission has extended the licenses of 48 nuclear power reactors. This extension delays the costly decommissioning process and speaks to the cost inefficiency of managing a nuclear power plant: they need to continue to extend a plant’s usable life to cover the overrunning costs. Moreover, using reactors beyond their intended life can only compound safety concerns.
Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that nuclear energy has received nearly half a trillion dollars in taxpayer subsidies, and thus has not been able to pay for itself throughout its entire existence. Current proposals to expand nuclear energy not only include more subsidies and tax incentives but also federal loan guarantees for the construction of plants. This means that nuclear power companies do not have to depend on their own collateral when trying to finance the construction of new plants.
America seems to be entering an era of socialistic corporatism. The measures for supporting nuclear energy are much akin to the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector. The government has visibly become an instrument for insuring private profit at public cost.
In reality, nuclear energy in this country is just a zombie kept alive by massive government subsidies. There’s only one thing I’d recommend to do with a zombie, and it involves a shotgun.
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This is the first O’Colly article I’ve read in a long time that was so informative and well-written. This doesn’t mention the persuasiveness of the argument made, which actually changed my view of this topic a bit. It’s also a unique subject that really needs to be debated.
Awesome job, Brandon.
The same old tired anti-nuclear lies, I’m afraid. I do still hope for some sensible points from intelligent anti-nukes that could lead to worthwhile debate, but it very rarely happens.
So we start with the subsidies lies. This involves adding in fusion research, which is nothing to do with nuclear power, making up a number out of thin air for some hypothetical liability, and ignoring the vast quantitiies of power generated and taxes paid by the nuclear industry. Sadly, this deception can only be deliberate. Taken life-for-life, and normalized for power, nuclear has received only very minor sibsidy which has been more than paid back.
Then we get to a strange statement about costs; but everything that follows is already in the cost of nuclear electricity, so it’s entirely deceptive to pretend that the next items are somehow additional to the cost. Uranium is dirt cheap, as a fuel, and part of normal costs - it makes no sense to avoid imports from good friends such as Canada and Australia, while they have the most accessible and developed uranium. Reactor safety is part of normal operational costs. Regulation is part of normal costs. Spent fuel disposal is part of normal costs - and has been handled safely in its most hazardous phase for many years. It’s not high risk for sabotage, terrorism or accident.
Nuclear power is a test - for finding out who is really concerned about generating clean energy, and those who prefer to cling to their myths.
This is an excellent piece. Further to the $700 billion bailout, it’s worth noting that Lieberman and Warner (with McCain doubtless pulling the strings) tried to bring a “climate change” bill to the senate last June that, according to analysis by Friends of the Earth, included $500 billion in subsidies for nuclear power! That’s the same amount as Lovins calculated in subsidies for the industry’s entire 60-year run. Fortunately, this move was averted for now. But the cost is perhaps the biggest Achilles Heel for nuclear energy. I’ll be writing about this in my Daily Kos Diary this week - look for Beyonder 1. And thanks for writing this excellent piece!
This whole article is ridiculous. Investors are lining up to build new plants: they are just waiting for the government to start issuing new licenses (the last one was issued in 1986, if I remember correctly). Aging plants would be a problem if they didn’t heavily upgrade their safety systems every 18 months (part of those year-long safety-related outages the author so deceptively mentioned). You don’t like uranium being stored for 10,000 years? Then tell the government to build a uranium reprocessing facility like it promised it would decades ago. Last I checked there was no OPEC for the uranium enrichment industry, but if you are still worried about foreign nuclear fuel throwing our economy into turmoil then start recycling spent fuel rods per the last sentence. Pure nonsense. Nuke is the cleanest, cheapest energy source we have and this author would have you throw it all away over a few tired cleches.
I am sorry to everyone for the length of this response, but it is based on science and research rather than an ignorant (uneducated) opinion.
Every one of the arguments that the author provides has been beaten to death. For starters, no new plants have been built recently because of the abundance of cheap coal and natural gas. Until recently, the price of these two sources have been on par with that of uranium, however, the initial costs of a nuclear plant was higher than that of a coal plant, partly (as alluded to in the column) because the initial cost of the plant also includes the cost of decommissioning the plant, which is paid to the government. As coal and natural gas prices rise, however, investors are beginning to realize that after about 10-15 years with current fuel prices, the initial investment of the nuclear plant pays for itself with the lower cost of fuel.
Secondly, as far as any research I found could show, much more money has been paid BY the nuclear plants than TO the nuclear plants. Since 1983, nuclear plants have paid the United States government over $31 billion dollars to fund the nuclear waste disposal facility which has not been built, or even approved. In that same time span, however, I could find records of only about $11 billion dollars in government subsidies, which, in addition to fusion research, provided funding for a host of other alternative energy sources, including wind.
Next, the primary reason that so much of our uranium is imported is due to supply vs. demand. In the United Stats in the past, the cost of processing uranium outran the cost of importing it. Recognizing that purchasing uranium processed elsewhere was cheaper than purchasing American uranium, many plants went this route. With a low demand and high supply, many uranium plants in the United States were forced to shut down, causing this bias toward imported uranium. However, as the demand for uranium increases as the number of power plants is increased, as well as the increasing transportation and processing plants in other countries, the number of processing facilities in the United States will increase. In fact, over the past 4-5 years, at least 2 old plants have scheduled re-opening dates, as well as plans for a new one to be built.
Concerning safety, the track record of nuclear plants in this country, as well as most other countries that use nuclear energy, is impeccable. With the exception of Chernobyl, not one death has occurred due to an accident at a nuclear power plant. Three Mile Island did not release one atom of radioactive material and not a single person died as a result of this event. In fact, many scientists have gone to proclaim Three Mile Island as a sign of how good the nuclear safety precautions are.
Of the 51 outages, all but Three Mile Island were scheduled outages, with the other reactors at the site used to compensate for the energy loss. These “safety restoration” outages were upgrades to safety equipment, as the technology became available. For example, in the 1990’s, many plants upgraded to digital technology rather than using analog instrumentation.
While it is true that there is no agreed method for storing nuclear waste, the argument that storing material that will be radioactive for thousands of years is very deceiving. The material is only highly radioactive for about 5 years, at which point the material is less radioactive than a charcoal grill or the bricks surrounding the Paul Miller Journalism Building. The material is then so low in radioactivity that it can be encased in concrete storage casks that are only 2 feet thick, which allows for the release of less than 0.03% of the annual background radiation from other sources. In fact, every year the United States public is exposed to almost 300 millirems of radiation (that is not a large number; there is no such thing as a radiation free environment), with over 40 millirems coming from our own bodies. The general public is exposed to less than 1 millirem due to the nuclear industry (a medical cat scan exposes you to over 1000 millirems and is still considered safe). Even if you were to stand right beside a concrete storage cask for over a year, you would still receive less radiation than you would on a coast to coast airplane trip.
When the United States government finally agrees on a design and location for the storage facility that has been promised, it will be very hard to fill it. Even if the number of nuclear plants is doubled and a recycling program is not instituted, a moderately sized warehouse could easily hold all of the waste produced for the next 100 years.
Every argument made against nuclear energy has been used to the point of sounding like a broken record. I hope that in the future, people will take the time to educate themselves before being scared of the word “Nuclear”.
Sources:
A Case for Nuclear Generated Electricity by Scott W. Heaberlin
http://www.nei.org (Nuclear Energy Institute)
Radiation and Modern Life by Alan E. Waltar
Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering by Shultis and Faw
Aunt Carries War Against Black Fox Nuclear Power Plant by Carrie Barefoot Dickerson
http://www.texasobserver.com
There are no good points to the big nuker DNA warping reactors, are there?
The only thing they make is bomb making Plutonium and hundreds of other deadly radioactive isotopes.
Ohhh, they make prodigous amounts of heat as a by-product, but it is a lousy and expensive way to make steam. And, they warm up and pollute Billions of gallons of water a day trying to cool these aging monsters.
A nice balanced article. Why did you hold back?
It will be a good day when the last of the US’s 104 old, embrittled, constantly leaking, Plutonium making reactors, or stationary nuclear weapons, is finally switched OFF.
Wow, Bob. Wow.
Did you get your information from the simpsons or just make it up yourself?
You know reactors don’t really cause three eyed fish, right?
Nuclear energy is a waste. Anyone who would use information from the Nuclear Energy Institute to substantiate their claims would use info from the Republican party to verify the non fact George W Bush is the best president ever to sit in the oval office. The nuclear industry has not paid a penny to the federal govt toward the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository. Us rate payers have and will pay for that boondoggle in our electric bills! I live in Michigan and can tell you industry has long complained about energy costs here which partially explains why Michigan is the only state in the union losing population. Nuclear electricity is expensive electricity. Uranium is a finite resource just like oil and only a small amount can be reprocessed. The total costs as well as health risks of the entire nuclear cycle from mining, enriching, processing, use, waste storage, and decommissioning of reactors renders nuclear energy a waste of energy. Anybody who thinks radioactive waste from a reactor is rendered harmless after 5 years should go back to school. The corporate world is afraid of wind and solar energy because wind and sunshine is free.