Nuclear power - no solution to climate change or peak oil
(this post is a summary, and a draft, I'm looking for the references to back it up).
With the recent call by John Howard and others to reopen the nuclear debate, it is worth addressing why Nuclear is not a good idea.
It boils down to three areas.
1: It won't solve Climate Change
2: Its not safe
3: Even if both the above were true, its not economic
Climate Change
Nuclear power stations, have a huge cost in terms of energy to build them, estimates are that a power station will not repay the energy or Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, used to create it for around 20 years of operation. So there is no net benefit in GHG emissions during the critical 20 years when we need to be drastically reducing emissions.
If nuclear was to become a significant part of the world's power source, there is not enough Uranium or other fuels available to last more than (20?) years. (see David Fleming's paper)
Safety
The nuclear fuel cycle is dangerous at all stages,
1: Digging it out of the ground, wherever it has been done has caused significant environmental damage, the impact typically happens to already marginalised people - the impact on Native American reserves having been particularly significant.
2: Operations: When it is claimed that nuclear hasn't killed nearly as many as coal since Chernobyl, what is missed is that nuclear accidents, while rare, have the potential for a huge disaster. Estimates for Chernoboyl range as high as 200,000 lives (Guardian article). In today's world of fear of terrorism, the risks are even higher.
3: Waste: Even after 40 years of nuclear industry, we still don't know how to get rid of the waste safely, both the smaller quantity of high-level waste, and the much larger quantity of low-level waste, and in particular that created when the power station is decommissioned.
Economics
Generating our energy from nuclear power is very expensive. It is already more expensive than the much more environmentally benign wind. And the cost of even one or two nuclear reactors would be enough to boost solar volumes to where it was being cost-effective.
These costs get obscured because they are externalised, in particular:
* Insurance costs shouldn't be capped (as they are in the US), the risks of major accident are calculable and can be reflected in insurance premiums.
* The cost of proper cleanup of the mine sites, including tailings dams abandoned by previous mining.
* The full cost of taking care of the waste, including securing it for as long - thousands of years - as it is dangerous
* the cost of securing the sites - for example surface to air missiles are reputed to be being installed around nuclear plants in the US.
All these costs need to be paid by the power companies, and included in the costing, not paid by the public.
Summary
So in conclusion, why would you want to use a more expensive, dirtier technology that won't solve the problem, when there are many solutions that will. Amory Lovin's detailed article compares the economics of a few of the alternatives with those of Nuclear Power.Posted by mitra at May 23, 2006 9:11 AM
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