Nuclear power: It's aliiiiivvve .. or, oh wait ... is it? (November 2004)
It's aliiiivvve ... Or at least, there was a sad attempt to conjure up the grinning old gollum of nuclear power in the 2004 Senate Energy Bill, passed this year by "dont-tax-but-spend" Republicans (deficits R us).
Remember nuclear power? Too cheap to meter? Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon and the China Syndrome? The Clamshell Alliance and the protesters screaming "no nukes"? The scientists screaming that oppostion to nuclear power was "literally insane?" It was all hot stuff back then.
But by the Year of our Lord 2003, a collective national yawn was the rather telling response. Its partly because no new nuclear power plants have been built in the US since 1979, and none are likely to be in the future, unless of course the government builds them.
Chief nuclear advocate and former Senate budget chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) believes we made a "giant mistake" putting nuclear energy on the back burner for so long. Dominici insists on making loan guarantees available for six new reactors. This is not cheap stuff, at $2 to $3 billion each (estimated cost at time of delivery in current funds; not responsible for fuel enrichment, decommissioning and waste disposal; taxpayers assume all risk at time of licensing).
Critics, according to an Associated Press article, are "grousing."
Given that the chances of loan default are spectacularly high according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office, the critics are keeping it pretty well in check. Or maybe they see something Sen. Dominici doesn't. Maybe they see the embarrassing truth.
This technological turkey is history. .
Everyone has heard of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. But let's not forget, the third most embarrassing moment in the history of nuclear power Ð the 1983 $2 billion default on loans in Northwest's Washington Public Power Supply System (called Whoops).
So in fact, whether you are pro- or anti- nuclear doesnÕt really matter any more. The ideological phase of the debate is over. It is moot.
Nuclear power is so fantastically expensive that unless the US government embarks on a set of projects of pharonic scale, all on its own, nuclear power will never attract a dime of private investment.
Yet the nuclear industry still lives in the past, claiming that they are only held back by red tape.
Its the old excuse. The Carter administration used it in 1978, and Energy Secretary James Schlesinger called a press conference in the Old Executive Office Building to announce, in his famously sardonic tone, a new construction initiative to help nuclear power get beyond the red tape of environmental hearings and the excesses of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
At the same press conference, some intrepid bureaucrat quietly distributed copies of a General Accounting Office study, even as Schlesinger spoke. The GAO found that only one year of the 12 years of delay in a nuclear power plant construction program could be attributed to red tape. The rest had to do with equipment backlogs, safety problems and union difficulties. Naturally, the report undercut the secretary's own press conference, but then, given that Schlesinger was the former CIA chief, you never knew what back door was opening when you heard a front door slam.
Needless to say, the move to cut red tape was laughed down before the first press conference was over. And that was back in 1978, when the nuclear industry had a fig leaf of credibility.
The nuclear industry still claims that nuclear power is cheap. Perhaps they should first explain why we have the Price Anderson Act. (This is the law that says that if there is a massive nuclear melt down Ð and they will tell you it can't happen here -- but if, just if, this terrible thing were to happen, well, the nuclear industry would be off the hook after the first few hundred million in damages. Which, in proportion, would be peanuts.) Perhaps they should also explain why each of these proposed new nuclear power plants requires a subsidy, if they are so cheap. Perhaps they should explain why nuclear power is easily five to ten times the cost of the nearest and most expensive next option.
The nuclear industry still claims that nuclear power is safe.
Nuclear power's safety problems start with plant security in a time of terror, continue with aging plant operations and safety procedures, and go all the way through the chain of production to the disposal of deadly wastes. Safety is not necessarily impossible, but it only comes at a very high cost. And that cost is far higher in comparison with safer, cheaper, cleaner energy sources. It is by far the most expensive way to generate electric power compared to the vast array of other energy sources: hydro, coal, gas, oil, wind, solar and others.
The words that will dispense the fog around the issue are simple: It's just too damned expensive.
At a time when state and federal budget cutters are telling teachers and cops to go stuff it, and turning widows and orphans out to starve, massive subsidies for nuclear projects would be just about as cruel and as stupid as it could get.
For once, the news media seems to have gotten it right. (See below) Editorial opinion ran heavily against the Senate's nuclear power initiative -- and especially on the cost issue.
Decades ago, energy analyst Amory Lovins told solar engineers not to worry, that the cost issue would kill nuclear power. He turned out to have been right all along.
It is worth mentioning in closing that Lovins, a nuclear physicist by training, pointed out that the capital investment in enormous nuclear plants took money out of other energy sectors such as home insulation contracting. These sectors deserved to compete on an equal footing, without subsidies for nuclear power. Would you rather have one hundred nuclear engineers or ten thousand insulation contractors? he asked. The contractors would be cheaper, and many thousands of jobs for less skilled workers would be created.
Which do we want? How do we see technology? Is it a monument to our achievements? Or a way to get important things done? Do we want an elite corps of experts? Or a fully employed workforce?
And will we ever evolve the collective maturity to resist the seduction of over-engineered systems and technological vanities? Can we begin to use technology with conscience, to benefit the vast numbers of people instead of powerful but tiny elites who lure the masses along with tinsel and glitter?
That is the issue.
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Editorial Opinion:
Congress is working on an energy bill that seeks to give nuclear power an important place in the country's energy mix. This would be worth doing - if the nuclear industry could carry its own financial weight. But it can't - which is why the bill seeks to bankroll the industry through $16 billion in federal subsidies. Such subsidies, however, won't just shortchange taxpayers; they will also undermine America's long-term energy security. -- Detroit News, June 26, 2003
(The) energy-independence theme is among many being played on behalf of the nuclear-power industry by Pete Domenici: The chairman of the Energy Committee has just put his considerable torque to work gaining Senate approval of loan guarantees for a new round of nuclear-plant construction. The loans, says New Mexico's senior senator, are crucial to the nuclear industry's survival. Which makes us wonder: * Is that industry's survival a good thing? * If it is a good thing, then won't it thrive on its own? * If it isn't a good thing, why should America's taxpayers stand good for $16 billion or so if the new power reactors wind up being abandoned? -- Albequerque New Mexican, June 16, 2003
Links:
Union of Concerned Scientists reports on nuclear power and reaction by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Nuclear Power: A Future Technology Whose Time has Passed, by Amory Lovins