The writer has
stated a good case against burning more fossil fuels. He has
also described the dangers of nuclear waste, which will
persist longer than human civilization has to date. But I’m
puzzled by his conclusion that we need more nuclear
waste.
Let’s try a thought
experiment. Suppose that 15 years ago I offered $20 billion
to produce, say, 4 billion watts of clean electrical
capacity. You could have accomplished that in a few years by
investing in solar and wind power. And with the money left
over, you could build another 5 or 10 billion watts of
supply.
For probably less
money, one could invest in energy efficiency. For example,
use some of those billions to replace existing residential
baseboard heaters with high-efficiency heat pumps. And
insulate the walls while you’re at it.
Alternatively, you
could have begun construction on four nuclear power plants –
two in South Carolina and two in Georgia. By 2017 you would
have blown the entire amount in South Carolina, but you’d
luck out because you could charge the overrun to the hapless
ratepayers there, even though the project would be
abandoned, with no power ever produced. (This actually
happened.) Meanwhile, the $10 billion price in Georgia would
double as well. Supposedly this latter project will be
complete next year, but it’s still too early to make an
informed bet on that.
So, for $40 billion,
you’ll get 2 billion watts of power that still costs more to
operate than wind or solar. And it will have taken at least
a decade to produce any power.
Incidentally, the
article mentions the fossil fuel inputs required to build
solar and wind power plants. Has the writer done a
calculation of the energy input for the massive concrete and
steel structures of nuclear power plants?
Giant nuclear
stations have pretty much fallen out of favor in the United
States, due to situations like the ones described above.
Now, the nuclear industry’s interest has shifted to an
untried, unproven approach spearheaded by NuScale, the developer of
small modular nuclear reactors. These reactors have the
following features: they cost more to build per unit of
capacity than traditional large reactors, and they likewise
produce more nuclear waste. Because of the loss of economies
of scale, their power output will also cost more. And a
discerning customer, recognizing all this, will stay as far
away as possible. There’s a good case study: the Utah
Associated Municipal Power Systems, NuScale’s sole US
customer to date. It has only been able to attract
participants for about a quarter of a proposed plant’s
output. (See
http://nuclearfreenw.org/modular.htm .)
[My apologies to the
writer for confusing him, in an earlier version of this
response, with the person of the same name who works in the
nuclear industry.]
