More About the Problems With Nuclear Energy

I have often raised issues with nuclear energy in response to the resurgence of nuclear advocates that seem to be blogging these days. I have raised many objections, based on what I read from the Union of Concerned Scientists and other scientific sources. One source in particular I drew from was a book on global warming I discussed here and here.

Most recently I got caught up in yet another debate on Daily Kos with nuke advocates. They, quite typically, denigrated other energy sources, over sold nuke energy, and behaved rude and overbearing. And they kept claiming that nuclear waste wasn't a problem or was a soluble problem, that nuke energy was either the ONLY alternative to fossil fuels or the main alternative, and that the cost of nuke energy was cheaper than anything else.

Coincidentally I was listening the same day to an NPR interview with an expert from the Federation of American Scientist who was being asked about nuclear energy. He raised the following difficulties with nuke energy, all of which I have raised in the past:

1. Nuke energy is hugely expensive to build.

2. It takes 10 years to get a nuke plant running (which is too late given the time frames given by global warming scientists who tell us we have 1-5 years left to address global warming)

3. Reprocessing only addresses about 1% of the waste and even then it is so expensive to do that mining new uranium is more practical.

4. There is nothing currently planned for dealing with the waste. All is stored in "long-term, temporary" sites in hopes something will be worked out eventually.

5. Safety is hugely improved since the 1970's but the waste issues remain unresolved.

6. Nuke energy gets huge government subsidies on many levels including government taking responsibility for liability insurance, tax breaks for building the plants and taking over responsibility for storing waste

I have been told by nuclear activists that waste is not a problem anymore, that it isn't so expensive to build, that the government doesn't subsidize, and that it only takes 3-5 years to build a plant. Yet this guy's comments supports everything I have heard and quoted before as problems with nuke energy from many sources. The bulk of nuke advocates seem to be going against what the Union of Concerned Scientists AND the Federation of American Scientists are talking about.

I will note some other details that have been brought up relating to some of these points.

With regards to reprocessing, although it only deals with 1% of the waste, some people feel that more than 95% of the waste is non-radioactive and therefore not a problem This would mean that reprocessing could deal with MORE than 20% of the dangerous waste. First off, this is not how the FAS representative presented it, so I am not sure that it is true that almost all the waste is safe. More importantly, the assumption is that if it is non-radioactive it is safe, which is not necessarily true. So from what I understand almost all the waste is toxic, and a portion of it is severely radioactive. Reprocessing can mitigate the latter issue, but not the general toxicity. The waste is still a problem and one that has not ever been adequately addressed.

The subsidies issue is another hot topic. There is much debate about what precisely is a subsidy. But what has been pointed out to me is this: fossil fuels get more subsidies than either nuclear or clean energies. Getting rid of subsidies for fossil fuels would be of benefit for both the nuke energy and the renewable energy industries. It is possibly the main area of agreement between these two groups.

Finally, I should note that the nuke advocates keep claiming that alternatives can't meet our energy needs. In so claiming they are not adequately taking into account the COMBINATION of energy efficiency with alternatives like solar and wind with alternatives like biomass, small hydroelectric, and geothermal. Generally they ONLY address wind and solar, ignoring all these other alternatives. I would add tidal but I am not sure it's applicability to the current debate.

So beware the nuke advocates. They will mislead you. This does not mean they are completely wrong. There may well be a limited role for nuclear energy in our future. I don't rule that out. But they too often mislead on the promise of other energy sources, mislead regarding nuclear waste, mislead on safety (which is a shame since in general they are right that the American industry has improved safety a great deal), and overstate the promise of nuke energy. They also usually ignore the costs and environmental impact of building the plants and mining the fuel.

For now I think wind, solar, biomass (biodiesel and methane from trash and manure in particular) and geothermal are our main energy sources we need to throw money at. After that might come tidal and nuclear, which have huge cost and technology issues that might be soluble. Keep this in mind when you hear energy debates.