A few people commented on my piece about nuclear energy last week, and scolded me for believing that shortages of uranium may be one of many serious issues confronting this beleaguered industry. I’m not the only one who sees this, however. Editor of Peak Oil Review and former CIA analyst Tom Whipple writes this week:
China’s demand for uranium may rise to 20,000 tons a year by 2020. That translates into more than a third of the 50,500 tons mined globally last year. All of the world’s current uranium output currently has a market, supplying the existing global demand for uranium. Don’t be surprised to see uranium in shortage by the second half of this decade. Looking ahead, there’s just not enough new production in the planning stages. The world needs new mines, but startup costs are much higher than 10 or 20 years ago.
China currently has 12 reactors in operation and another 23 under construction, with others in development, according to the World Nuclear Association.
A recent letter to President Obama supporting nuclear energy was composed and signed by many people whom I have no doubt are genuinely distinguished and dedicated energy experts, and who I’m certain all sincerely and ethically follow their best lights on this subject. I’d like to supply some contrasting perspective.
In my estimation, there are six major factors that bear consideration in any complete discussion of the pursuit of nuclear energy:
1) Plant Lifespan
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Introduction
Although this paper has been written primarily to deal with energy concerns in the United States of America, much of the information will be useful for other countries also.
Regardless of whether we are concerned about global warming, we know that burning fossil fuels damages the environment and causes health problems. Therefore, we should be working diligently to develop alternative energy sources to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Moreover, we should be sure that those alternative energy sources are capable of ending our dependence on fossil fuels and not simply reducing the amount of fossil fuels which we use. To do so, they must be capable of providing continuous power 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
The proposed alternatives to fossil fuels include wind energy, solar energy, and nuclear energy. Hydroelectric power is also useful, but I am excluding that because we have already developed practically all of our available hydroelectric sites here in the United States. When considering alterative sources of energy, we should also consider what would be practical in countries outside of the United States since sources of power which would be practical in the United States may not be practical elsewhere.
To be able to understand adequately the challenges of developing alternative sources of energy, we must have an adequate understanding of how our current sources of energy operate. Accordingly, I shall begin by explaining some of the operational details of coal, gas, hydroelectric, and nuclear power plants. After that, I will explain the advantages and disadvantages of wind and solar power. That will facilitate a better understanding of the challenges of integrating wind and solar power with the existing sources of power. Then, I will explain why nuclear power is probably the only source of energy that can economically and reliably provide the large amounts of power required by an industrialized world. Last, I shall address the problems of eliminating the use of petroleum to power our transportation system.
Current Sources of Electricity
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A couple of readers have criticized me for not being specific in my rants on nuclear energy. It’s true that I do not perform independent research — and I suppose I can be taken to task for that. But I do read a fair amount of others’ writing, and I try to be as specific as possible in supporting my beliefs. E.g., take my post on the Florida utility group FPL, in which I wrote the following. That was fairly specific, wasn’t it?
The actual cost of building these plants is almost never anywhere near the projected budget. Readers may want to Google “nuclear plant cost overrun,” and read a few of the 54,700 articles they’ll find on the subject. Here’s one that refers to a certain nuclear project as “satanic,” based on the actual amount of the overrun ($6.66 billion). The Florida utility, FPL Group, now estimates the cost of building a new nuclear power plant at over $9 billion, nearly double their previous estimate.
Readers may have noticed the pro-nuclear comments of Frank Eggers. Responding to my request for guest bloggers, Frank wrote:
I’m not sure that there’d be much point in my blogging on this site.
The only information this site about nuclear energy is very obsolete. The olde objections to nuclear power no longer apply. There are solutions to the problems which were formerly a valid concern. For example, there are reactor designs that do not require enriched uranium; natural uranium and thorium can be used as fuels. Also, there reactor designs that produce very little waste because they use the fuel more than 100 times as efficiently than the pressurized water thermal reactors which, unfortunately, are too common. Moreover, the waste they do produce decays much more quickly and needs to be sequestered for only about 500 years rather than tens of thousands of years.
It seems that up to date and correct information on nuclear power is censored from this site. Also, any information that questions the practicality of wind and solar energy is also censored. That is very unfortunate because unless nuclear energy becomes a major part of our energy mix, we will become even more dependent on coal and the serious problems that coal creates.
Considering the above, there would be little point in my writing blogs for this site.
My original response was:
I understand. Thanks for writing back.
But I woke up this morning with a different take, as follows:
Frank: You know, been I’ve thinking about this further, as, in truth, we don’t censor pro-nuclear or any other ideas. If you want to write a blog on this subject, expressing a divergent but legitimate viewpoint, I would actually encourage that. It can be passionate (I can see you have plenty to offer in that department) as long as it’s respectful. I’m more than open to your ideas.
We’ll see what happens.
Dr. David Mills, founder and chief scientist of solar thermal leader Ausra, was generous enough with his time to help me with the chapter on concentrated solar power in my upcoming book on renewables. I happened to be watching this lecture he gave recently in his homeland (Australia) which I heartily recommend. It is entirely non-technical and accessible to anyone, while providing a worthy history of renewable energy – as well as a solid, well-reasoned direction for the future.
In it, he speaks about the safety and overall viability of nuclear energy, and provides essentially the same one that I always do: we already have a huge fusion reactor with an endless supply of fuel, no problems with operational safety, no million-year hazard associated with storing spent fuel, and no open invitations for terrorists or rogue states to attack, or use the technology to build bombs. It’s called the sun. Best of all, it’s separated from the Earth’s surface by a distance of 93 million miles – which is perfect; it’s far enough away to be safe, while close enough to provide us with more than enough clear power — insofar as we need to harvest only one out of every 6000 photons that is received at the Earth’s surface in order to address all the needs of all 7 billion of us.
This may sound like a flippant answer, but I don’t believe it to be. The cost of reaping this power is coming down every month. If we retain our focus on perfecting a few technologies for capturing that energy; we’ll be there very shortly. I urge readers to learn about solar thermal; I know you’ll share in my optimism.
A colleague sent me an article that starts: “A nuclear renaissance needs government funding to move ahead,” and then goes on to extol the virtues of this horrifically dangerous and expensive technology. (If you’re interested in reading it, you’ll have to find it with a search engine; I don’t want to empower it with backlinks.) I responded:
How utterly nauseating. As Paul Scott (VP at Plug-In America) said in response to a question I asked him during the panel discussion I moderated at the AltCarExpo a few weeks ago, “Prepare yourself for a steady onslaught of lies from the nuclear and fossil fuel people. If you thought it was bad in the 1990s with the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, you ain’t seen nothing compared to what they’re about to throw against EVs and renewable energy in the next couple of years.”
Of course, this is an excellent example. “Needs government funding?” You bet your sweet $%^ is does. Help will come only from people who have been paid off handsomely; the idea certainly will receive identically zero support from a fair-minded and informed citizenry.
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