Posted on 04/06/2005 12:50:43 PM PDT by rface
Most anguished hand-wringing we see these days is over oil - its availability, its geopolitical implications, its cost, its environmental impact. Great, impassioned speeches are made in behalf of wind power, animal waste and other curious sources of energy.
But not much is heard these days about the relative merits of coal and nuclear power, the two most likely sources of energy for generating electric power. How come?
Most important, probably, is the fact we have plenty of coal stashed underground in our own country. Now that we are learning to mine and burn coal more cleanly, the largest rap against this ubiquitous source is diminished, leaving the huge promotional impact of the industry less unchallenged.
However, coal still is an air pollutant. Its extraction and handling are large environmental challenges in themselves. We have another advantageous source at hand, and we should prepare ourselves for its use as well. Of course, that source is nuclear power.
Among the large-scale energy sources at our disposal, nuclear power has strong advantages. The uranium-based raw materials are adequate. The production process is clean. And despite cooked-up frenzy to the contrary, nuclear power has a great safety record.
Quietly, unobtrusively, unnoticed, large nuclear plants such as the one to our east in Callaway County dependably produce millions of kilowatts without incident - despite the presence of a watchdog industry ready to seize on the slightest minor glitz, whose counterpart event at any other kind of power plant would go unnoticed.
The persistent rap on nuclear power, of course, is fear of radiation from handling or storing waste fuel materials. The accumulation of human injury and death from nuclear power is nil, contrasted with history’s litany of human poisoning from chemical and coal use. Yet we seem blasé about the latter and irrationally nervous about the former. It makes no sense. No doubt the angst is quietly promoted by competing energy industries. We should expose and see through such efforts.
Proof of impending danger is not a problem. Scientists have for years agreed nuclear materials can be handled and stored safely, yet nothing will stop the critics or give pandering politicians as much backbone as they need in developing policy.
As years pass, are we making progress? President George W. Bush continues to support the long-approved and long-delayed plan to store the nation’s nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, Nev., yet one has no idea of a firm timetable for implementing this plan.
Perhaps for now no news is good, but this ridiculous stalemate should end. Every day more waste is being produced and stored on site at the nation’s nuclear power plants. No crisis is imminent, but the sooner an effective waste storage operation gets going, the better. As it stands, development of new nuclear plants is at a standstill.
This hiatus is not mainly because of the storage issue. The United States has no shortage of power generation at the moment. But as the future unfolds, it only makes sense to have available one of our most advantageous energy opportunities. Let’s plan for it.
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Henry J. Waters III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune
the USA needs more nuke-u-lore power plants and more gasoline refineries
Coal contains varieties of hydrocarbons in the coal tar fraction that are invaluable to the chemical industry as raw material for a myriad of industrial processes and products that are currently supplied largely with petroleum refinery byproducts.
And we need more great big cats.
Fear is a powerful thing.
The other thing we need is the repeal of the Carter era presidential order to not reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
we could cut the amount of high level radiation being stored about 75% to 80% and reuse all the fuel and feed that back into all the nuclear power plants in the US.
Good find. Thanks for posting. The article is short, but to the point.
The author neglected to point out that the "coal system" (i.e., from mining to transportation to use as a fuel to disposal of the remains) has killed more people than the "uranium" system.
Makes me grin from ear to ear. I would have liked it if the author used a more explicit term than "curious," but there's something to be said for subtlety.
We need more of everything: more nukes, more coal plants with the latest scrubber technology, more wind farms, more refineries, more domestic exploration/drilling, more LNG facilities, and higher fuel efficiency standards on automobiles. Then our gas and electric bills will be about 25% of what they are today.
Correct pronunciation nuke-le-are.
And the question is not "coal OR nuclear"---the correct relationship is coal AND nuclear. Coal is a hydrocarbon, not hugely different from petroleum, and can be converted into gasoline, methanol, and a number of other fuels and chemical feedstocks. The USA has as much coal as the Middle East has oil.
And, in 500 years, when the easy coal is all mined, we can drill for the deep (1 mi down) that is too hard to mine with today's technologies, and pump hot hydrogen down, and get fuel oils, gasoline, and other products by insitu hydrogenation up. Oil companies are already trying to patent elements of such technology.
We'll see a 75% reduction in energy costs when Hades has a hockey team.
How much energy is produced when compared with consumption to enrich Uranium?
As I understand it, the primary argument for that silly order was that, by denying ourselves the reprocessing option, we'd show ourselves to be "good international citizens," thereby acting as an example that would induce others, like North Korea and Iran, to forego developing nuclear weapons. That idea has all the brilliance of posting a "Gun Free Zone" sign on your house.
Cost Comparison for Nuclear vs. Coal
To accurately compare the cost of nuclear against other energy sources, one must include the following costs:
1. Fuel costs
Costs associated with the fuel used in the production of energy.
For a nuclear plant, these tend to be lower even though the following steps occur in the production of the fuel assemblies used in the reactor:
Transportation costs are high for coal because of the amount of material needed to generate the same energy as the nuclear fuel.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Illustrative cost comparison. The table below compares nuclear versus coal specific item costs for similar age and size plants on a $ per Megawatt-hour (10 $/Mw-hr = 1 cent/kw-hr):
| Item | Cost Element | Nuclear | Coal |
|
$/Mw-hr |
$/Mw-hr |
||
| 1 | Fuel | 5.0 | 11.0 |
| 2 | Operating & Maintenance - Labor & Materials | 6.0 | 5.0 |
| 3 | Pensions, Insurance, Taxes | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| 4 | Regulatory Fees | 1.0 | 0.1 |
| 5 | Property Taxes | 2.0 | 2.0 |
| 6 | Capital | 9.0 | 9.0 |
| 7 | Decommissioning & DOE waste costs | 5.0 | 0.0 |
| 8 | Administrative / overheads | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Total | 30.0 | 29.1 |
The anti-anything-not-organic crowd has honed their strategy to a win-win process.
They argue cancer, radiation, bugs and bunnies, the children, absurd alternate energy sources and, after 8 to 20 years, collectively are struck with instant,total and permanent amnesia, and trot out their trump card:
Nuclear is too expensive!! Look at what's happening here, they've already spent a hundred million $ and haven't produced a single watt of energy! Woe is us! The poor rate-payer!
Works every time.
A coal power plant can't contaminate a 3 state region like a nuclear plant could. Nuclear has a much higher cost of failure.
What are reasonable odds that a clever terrorist nuclear worker could steal nuclear waste? One in 1 million attempts? Now say this terrorist sprayed the stolen waste all over New York City effectively causing $1.5 trillion in property damage.
Even though the odds of this happening might only be one in a million, the very high cost of failure makes it a bad bet. The higher the cost of failure, the lower your optimism should be that it could never happen.
North America has enough coal to supply our energy needs for the next 2,000 years. Let's use some of that time to develop more terrorist-safe nuclear energy technology.
300-400 years of coal, anyway.
Spent Fuel Management
Spent fuel is that which has already been used to generate electricity. We provide a comprehensive range of spent fuel solutions to UK and overseas customers.
One option available to customers is to reprocess the fuel. This is a chemical process for the recovery of around 97% of the used fuel, which consists of uranium and plutonium. It can then be recycled into new fuel. The remaining 3% is waste that is treated for safe storage. We are one of only two companies in the world that can offer the technology to reprocess and recycle.
We also:
· Manufacture Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel from a mix of plutonium and uranium
· Transport nuclear materials
· Treat and store the wastes associated with the processes.
A bunch of coal.
A major jag of carbon.
That is because the motivation of the critics has nothing to do with safety or the environment. Rather, leftists are against all viable forms of energy, be it nuclear, ANWR, or coal. This for essentially same reason Iraqi insurgents blow up oil pipelines. Leftists act to deny energy to the regime they wish to topple and supplant.
Nuclear they oppose most strenuously because it has the greatest positive potential.
Go nukes. Forget wind and solar, not even a viable option. We need to start building now so we have the production when we need it.
....and petrol systems have killed FAR more than coal, which killed far more than nuclear.
Common sense will NEVER be part of a debate in which most people think Hiroshima the minute they hear nuclear.
C'mon: the BEST way to clean meats and veggies before selling them in the grocery is with a radiation bath (irradiation.) Kills all kinds of nasty stuff that kills people.
But soccer moms don't like the idea that their darlings might be eating Atomic Bomblets--which is how they envision the stuff.
It has the greatest potential to fund socialism, which is why France is mostly nuclear powered. In reality though it doesn't succeed.
Leftists should be for nuclear power because of its ability to provide free stuff, and conservatives should be against it because of its high cost of failure. The rational political positions are reversed on this subject. The flip is probably because nuclear power means high pay work for mostly conservative Caucasian male engineers.
As you note, nukes would be better than coal but for ridiculously expensive regulatory and de-commissioning costs.
Ummmnhhh, your arguments are specious and/or void.
Coal-system killings are REAL and documented. Nuclear "coulda/woulda/shoulda" are just that: speculation.
Terrorists get the hot waste? And do what? Carry it off in their Jeeps? or on their horses? The stuff is not exactly portable by hand or mule...not to mention that trying to get past a nuke plant's security systems is fatal in the extreme. Those plant security people do NOT screw around with intruders, and if they think it's justifiable, homicide by full-auto weapons follows.
And that's just the light-arms. There's a LOT more heavy armament around those places than most people know.
By the way, what have you done about potential loss of life through astro-junk falling to Earth?
What if some of the plant security people ARE the terrorists? You think it couldn't happen?
Did you or anyone else foresee that 9/11 could happen like it did?
The respect we should pay to idle speculation should vary depending on the cost of the speculation coming true. There is nothing ever invented with a higher failure cost than nuclear energy. All wild speculation must be carefully evaluated and mitigated. We have discovered from real world experience that this drives up the cost of nuclear power beyond our alternatives.
That would be me.
You have YET to answer the first question: exactly HOW are those people (terrorists or plant guards) going to make off with this stuff?
Do you have any IDEA what those canisters weigh?
I assume you know that the rods, which COULD be carried by a few folks, are lethal on contact...
Yes, "wild" speculation, of which you are an able practitioner.
Frankly, Boeing 757's have killed 2500+ people in just one hour a few years ago in NYC.
Only "wild" speculators would have foreseen it--where the hell were you when we needed you?
You couldn't come CLOSE to proving this ridiculous comment--mostly because it is patently untrue.
What are reasonable odds that a clever terrorist nuclear worker could steal nuclear waste? One in 1 million attempts? Now say this terrorist sprayed the stolen waste all over New York City effectively causing $1.5 trillion in property damage.
1) Then you agree that the mining and transportation of coal, the health effects of coal particulates on people have killed hundreds of people in the United States, while mining and processing and transportation and use of of fission materials have killed less than a handful (karen silkwood comes to mind). The point is, when people discuss the safety of fission systems, most people ignore the fact that coal has killed and is killing people today.
2) If we look to the future, new technology is attempting to reduce the particulates from burning coal for power generation, and for mining the coal in order to reduce overall deaths from coal. That will be a good thing.
3) Similarly, if we look to the fission future, the pebble bed reactor makes a several state contamination from any kind of accident or terrorist act physically impossible (i.e., meaning the physics and chemistry behind the design). It is literally fail safe, unlike the "control rod" designs, whether cooled by water or by liquid sodium.
4) The dirty bomb scenario used by the recent PBS film used radioactive cesium waste from a hospital, not from a fission power plant. Dirty bombs can also be made from fission power plant waste that already exist. This problem will be with us regardless of whether coal or fission plants are used for power in the future.
4) Similarly, the waste problem is reduced by several orders of magnitude by the pebble bed design since the uranium is imbedded in silicon.
In other words, when circumstances change, you might want to re-examine some of your previously developed conclusions to see if they are still true.
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