May 1

May 1 Scuttlebutt: Nuclear Power

By Mitch McFarland

It really does remind me of The Emperor's New Clothes. You know, the story where there is a glaringly obvious fact that people completely ignore. That seems to be the case with nuclear power, the “Emperor” of our time. Even some people who call themselves environmentalists are so enamored by this carbon free energy source, that they blithely ignore the fact that it is the most expensive source of energy and the most dangerous.

I read a lot about energy issues and generally where there is a discussion of nuclear power advocates NEVER discuss the costs- economic, environmental, or as it relates to national security. They are so thrilled to see the Emperor that they eagerly ignore that he is naked.

The matter of economic cost is one that is not even disputed. Anyone who has paid 5 minutes of attention to the cost of nuclear power admits it is the most expensive way to produce electricity, but, for some, the carbon-free label somehow excuses that little drawback.

First there is the cost of building plants, which has been estimated to run up to $9 billion. Then there is the cost of decommissioning the plants when they are shut down. This is a huge sum of money. The Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Rowe, Massachusetts, took 15 years to decommission and cost $608 million. Taxpayers and ratepayers were forced to pay that cost. It will cost $1.2 billion to decommission the Vermont Yankee plant according to President Bill Mohl of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, owner of the plant.

Then there is the cost of dealing with the spent nuclear fuel. Yankee's spent fuel rods are still sitting around at the plant at a cost of $8 million a year to secure them, since there is no acceptable place to permanently store them. This, of course, is true at over 100 nuclear sites in our country . Those who read this column have read of the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending to work on “safe” disposal of nuclear waste. This is another cost that is conveniently ignored by nuclear advocates.

The environmental cost of nuclear power (and bombs) is hard to estimate because no one can tell when a nuclear accident may occur and what costs that would entail. We can, however, with some certainty, expect that some time in the future there will be more nuclear accidents. Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair, Gregory B Jaczko, resigned because he felt public safety was compromised by the dominance of the nuclear industry insiders on the commission, whose primary purpose, he felt, is supporting the industry ahead of public safety. He called nuclear power a “failed technology”. Speaking of costs, should we mention the estimated 10,000 lives that were lost as a result of Chernobyl?

I won't even bother to get too into the environmental and political cost of uranium mining. That could be it's own column.

Then there is the national security risk. We spend millions and millions of dollars to keep our nuclear materials from getting into the hands of terrorists. I can't argue with that expense, except to say that it wouldn't exist if we didn't have enriched uranium laying around at over 100 sites in America. But let's not worry about terrorists. I have some confidence that our vast national security apparatus can keep terrorists at bay. What is impossible to prevent is a foreign power targeting a nuclear power plant with a conventional ICBM. We could get nuked buy an enemy without them even using nuclear weapons.

Fortunately, there are many alternatives to nuclear energy and they are all cheaper in dollars, time, and risk. Pretty much everyone knows this, but the sight of the Emperor is, apparently, too fascinating to avert our eyes.

The U.S. has 3,797,000 square miles of land. Only about half a percent of that would be needed to provide enough solar energy to power the entire country. That's 21,250 sq. miles. “But Mitch, thats a lot”, you might say. Yes, it is, but compare that to the 40,223 square miles of the land leased by the oil and gas industry, 18,000 of which is on federal land. Or the 13,000 square miles of US land that has been impacted by coal surface mining. Or the 33,750 square miles of land set aside to grow the corn used to make ethanol, the gasoline substitute. And I can't help but mention the 2,200 square miles of Appalachian forests that had been cleared for mountaintop removal coal mining by 2012.

Fortunately, we wouldn’t need to use all 21,250 square miles. The National Renewable Energy Lab has a report conservatively estimating that rooftop solar alone could generate 34% of all U.S. electricity requirements. And we haven't even mentioned wind, which is cheaper than solar. Or geothermal, tides, algae fuel, and non-corn based ethanol.

At the current cost of 70 cents/watt it would take about $280 billion to electrify the entire U.S. from solar. The U.S. Department of Energy's 2020 Congressional Budget request was $31.7 billion. It will, of course, increase over the next 9 years, but if that kind of money was spent on alternative energy we could be carbon free by 2030.