In an effort to offer their own solution to our energy woes, some in Washington are declaring that if we're really committed to lowering electric bills and having clean air, then the U.S. should build 100 more nuclear power plants rather than spend billions in subsidies for renewable energy.
Following this announcement, I received a number of e-mails from folks who wanted to know my thoughts on this. After all, I am an advocate of clean energy generation, and many consider nuclear to fall into this category, as nuclear power plants don't carry the same carbon burden as coal-fired power plants.
Nuclear, however, does carry an environmental burden of uranium mining and of course, nuclear waste. So no, nuclear is not clean. But that's not my purpose for writing this today.
If you're a supporter of nuclear energy, my environmental take on this is not going to sway you. And that's fine. But for investors who continue to believe nuclear is the answer - well, they're going to be sorely disappointed. Because no matter how bad the bureaucrats in Washington want it (on both sides of the aisle), 100 new nuclear power plants will never happen in the U.S. Here's why...
Peak Uranium?
First there is the issue of uranium depletion. As my colleague, Chris Nelder, wrote in the book, Investing in Renewable Energy...
"The best ores of uranium have been mined, leaving mainly low-quality ores left to exploit. To the casual observer, this might seem at first like a ridiculous statement. Uranium is a very common element, found in about the same abundance as tin worldwide, in everything from granite to seawater. Almost all - 99.3 percent - of the uranium found on Earth is uranium-238, an isotope of uranium containing 238 protons per atom. The remaining uranium - 0.7 percent - is uranium-235, and that's what is used as fuel for our 'light water' nuclear reactors."
Nelder also hightlighted a 2006 study that was conducted by the Energy Watch Group. This particular report, "Uranium Resources and Nuclear Energy," suggested that under best-case estimates, uranium production could peak before 2050. And that's based on today's rate of use, and doesn't include an additional 100 nuclear power plants.
Even the president and CEO of Cameco Corporation, Gerald Grandey, told reporters at a 2007 press conference that he expects demand to grow at 3 percent annually for the next decade, but doesn't see uranium mining being able to keep pace with demand.
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The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security has stated that if all cars on the road were hybrids, and half were Plug-In Hybrids by 2025 -- U.S. imports would be reduced by 8 million barrels per day. That's about 80% of our daily consumption!
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Waste Not, Want Not
There's also the issue of waste disposal.
Certainly by now you've heard about the Yucca Mountain Repository. This is where all of our spent nuclear fuel and waste is supposed to be stored.
Last year, it turned out that the Yucca Mountain repository would cost $96.2 billion (in 2007 dollars), with 80 percent of that cost falling on the ratepayers.
While these bureaucrats sit there and make the claim that we should build all these nuclear power plants instead of spending billions in subsidies for renewable energy, they conveniently forget the $77 billion that ratepayers may already have to shell out just to store 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, that technically still doesn't have a home. Certainly this is not a cost that consumers or investors should ignore.
And we haven't even gotten to the construction costs on these things.
A 2008 report from the Congressional Budget Office found that on construction costs, you're looking at $144.6 billion (in 1990 dollars) for 75 nuclear power plants. That's $235.3 billion today. And according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the estimated cost on a 1,000 megawatt reactor could run as high as $7.5 billion!
The typical budget for a 20 MW geothermal project constructed by geothermal developer, Ormat Technologies (NYSE:ORA), is around $70 million. Or $3.5 billion for 1,000 megawatts.
Of course, with that geothermal power plant, you also have the added benefit of no waste disposal costs, no uranium costs, and no billion-dollar decommissioning costs. And geothermal power plants, by the way, also have a capacity factor around 90 percent - or about the same as a nuclear power plant.
Bottom line: 100 nuclear power plants is nothing more than a political pissing contest. For the sake of long-term, sustainable growth - nuclear offers little more than high-priced energy, a wealth of environmental headaches, and fat campaign contributions in Washington.
And it sure as hell won't help consumers with electricity costs either.
To a new way of life, and a new generation of wealth...
Jeff
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What has happened to energy conservation as part of the solution?
My focus for over 30 years is the planning,design and development of sustainable communities. (Green communities of 50,000 to 100,000 population each)(large enough for a full set of services)
Your article on Nuclear Power is informative and right on.
One thing you might add to your list of reasons to stop building such things follows:
The amount of water they use to cool down their operation on a daily basis is massive. Case in point - the NP Plant just west of Phoenix uses virtually all of the "waste water" from sewer plants across the Phoenix Metro Area - to cool down their beast. Water that could be cleaned up and reused in very helpful ways.
As the value of fresh water goes higher and higher the wasting of billions of gallons a year by NP Plant Cooling - will add greatly to reasons to stop their use.
Our very insulated [by their money] Politicians are Still busy making excuses and continuing to put more Gold [Ours!] on the Roof [USA] instead of working on the Foundation [Jobs!]
Good Article, Thanks, GWS
1. That there's an "environmental burden in uranium mining". Well all mining (think lead, copper, gold for example) has the potential of such a burden. Local mining permit regulations are in place to mitigate this, and generally are effective in doing so, for uranium as well as the others.
2. That the nuclear waste issue hasn't been resolved. Agreed, but this is being worked on and is soluble. Other current sources of energy, coal for example, have issues too.
3. That nuclear is not clean. Come on Jeff, if you're talking about emissions, nuclear is clean. Period.
4. That the "best ores have been mined". How can your reference (Chris Nelder) say that? How can anyone say that? New, commercially viable, uranium ore bodies are being discovered all the time, as we speak, across the globe.
5. That uranium supply won't keep pace with demand (ex Cameco's Grandey). This is merely a cyclical phenomenum, sometimes yes, sometimes no, with the major impact being reflected in the price of uranium, which is not a major cost factor in the nuclaer energy mix. In saying that Grandey may well have been indirectly talking up Cameco's share price.
6. That the consumer will bear the cost of nuclear energy. The consumer is going to have to bear the cost of all energy as carbon taxes, and subsidies for your renewables, enter the mix.
Bottom Line: Nuclear energy is needed in a mix of energy sources since it provides the (clean) baseload power that your renewables won't.
Kansas State Univ. 1957 BSNE with
30+ years experience in commercial
nuclear power!
In 2007 the DOE stated the US imported over 92 percent of the nuclear fuel used with over 1/3 comming from Russia. Some people are worked up about our imports of oil (60 percent). We are way more dependent on imported uranium than oil and it comes from less stable places.
You have really disappointed me with the incomplete and almost incompatent coverage of Nuclear Power in the 21st century. Today, new 1100 MWe Reactors are under construction in US for $5.5-6.0B each. These are pre-approved NRC designs.
Nuclear fuel is not running low... new souces are being discovered all the time, just like gold. Isn't it great we get to buy Russia's leftovers to keep it off the terrorist's market?
Bottom line is most renewables can't even come close to the 98-99% capacity factor that a well run Nuclear Plant is capable of... the plants in my state reached 99.5% in 2007 & 2008. Well run plants are lasting beyond the original 30 year design life, and the NRC has begin license renewals of 10 to 20 years additional of life at full output. If this additional lifetime were put into the calculations for the true cost of nuclear power at New Plant today, the real costs of Nuclear energy would drop well below 8 cents per KWH; a price so low many of us wish we had it right now...
Many new ideas exist about disposal, if they wont open Yucca Mt. Then begin reprocessing into new fuel, the tech for that has already been proven... and would be a new driver to lower the costs of power.
If you really want to have electric based transportation, and make a real dent in GHG, Nuclear's share of the energy Market must grow as transportation's energy loads can't be met with the capacity factor of renewables... for wind power the Highest capacity factor allowed for a utility in my state is 80% in the winter and 40 % in the summer... (we all know solar is even less and costs twice as much); the lowest CF for wind drops to under 10% in September, so you can't plan on charging your "plug-in hybrid" with wind in the summer... the necessary energy is just not there.
How about you do a little more reasearch and be a little less biased with the facts on your next electrical power analysis, and it would be great if we all had geothermal available, but we don't! It's just not "hot" in my state.
According to my info. the Chenese are building pebble-bed reactors; There areno radiactive byproducts, the only byproduct is hydrogen.
What You think about that technology?
deede
This guy is biased, don’t believe what he says.
Let me quickly address his two arguments:
1) Peak Uranium – He is assuming that only newly mined U-235 will be used in reactors. U-238 can be put in sleeves, dropped into existing “hot” reactors (running above a certain neutron production level) and U-235 will be “created” from the U-238 that can then be separated and used to fuel other reactors. This is nothing new (breeder reactors), it was done in the 1950’s! The downside is Plutonian is also created (the best Nuclear Fission Bomb material available (much better than the U-235 the North Korean’s and Iranian’s are using) and also a material (in practice) required for a thermonuclear (fusion) bomb because the fission of Plutonian is SO HOT that it will start a Fusion Reaction if you put the right concentration of Tritium (H-3) nearby). So, no one likes breeder reactors but that is a different issues – we can and should develop nuclear fuel in breeder reactors – and deal with the Plutonium issue head on. Also the people he references as experts are the people MINING Uranium. They are the political group MOST AGAINST breeder reactors. In a strange irony, they fund this anti-nuclear BS so they don’t have to compete with breeder reactors!
Even if you don’t believe me: Consider the peak production prediction argument: HOW MANY TIMES have you seen a Oil Peak Production prediction be passed by in your lifetime? My favorite is Food Peak Production, remember the panic that food production would peak in 1975! I was a child when that book Famine 1975 came out. Technology for mining and refining Uranium will continue to improve and new sources found, just like with Oil and Food. That is, until central government planning kills off any useful R&D in this country and diverts money and talent to other useless projects.
Final Point: I believe we will have Fusion power generation in my lifetime. I am going to get Meghan working on it J . I would hire Alex, but we don’t hire St. Joe’s or UMD grads (sorry, I had to take that stab – it was just too easy! But I am just joking)
2) Waste Disposal – Again, it is a management issue. The cost of “temporarily” storing waste is paid every year by people whose electricity comes from nuclear (20% of US electricity) as the power companies have to pay for it now on an ongoing basis. Also, Since the 1970s Superfund era, the States and Feds have required 30-year escrows be paid into by the nuclear power plant operators so when the plants are out of service funds are available for decommissioning and perpetual “temporary” storage of nuclear material (Temporary storage is much more expensive than perpetual storage so these accounts are overfunded). Guess what? Despite all these costs, the most profitable electricity generators are nuclear! People who get their power from nuclear now pay the lowest rates in the country! Operators have learned how to be very efficient and minimize radioactive waste as it is very expensive for them to create. The VAST majority of the costs he is referring to comes from GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS at their Research Labs and Weapon Production Facilities not power generation. The taxpayers have to pay that in any case. Building 100 more nuclear reactors is NOT going to drastically increase the cost and whatever marginal increase there is will be paid for by the consumers of the electricity, not the taxpayers. His argument confuses legacy methods and costs, government mismanagement and waste, with current commercial practice.
Even if you don’t believe me: Let’s say he is right and the number doubles – then that is still less than the money put into just AIG! And we get to pay the money over time into the future, not borrow it to pay up right now in full.
This Green Energy tax spending/subsidy thing is A TOTAL WASTE!!!!! I could write ten times as much on why and why these people, who I admit have good intentions, are idiots (basically following their hearts and not science or logic). Unfortunately, I need to get back to what I am doing now at work so that essay will have to wait. Capitalism is out of favor now, but MUCH SMARTER people than work for our government have been researching alternative forms of energy production since the 1970s and ANY EFFICIENT FORM of energy production or improvements on current methods, green or dirty, are immediately put into commercial production and practice: There is just too much money spent on energy in this country for anyone to not do so. The last time the government stuck their nose into energy it was Ethanol: A complete and total waste. No one who know energy production and thermodynamics will tell you what we are doing now makes any sense. And the Government got a two-fer – not only do they waste a huge amount of money domestically on the tax subsidy and make US cars less efficient, but they also STARVE 20% of the world in the process. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be comical.
--Chris