An Energy Revolution By Robert Zubrin An Energy Revolution

Do you have any sources to back up your data about generation costs? The costs we need to see are the fully loaded cost at the corporate level for say, a nuclear utility, and Whole Foods Market. That means all the plant-level overhead, regulatory overhead, and corporate overhead has to be included to get a valid comparison. Note that solar panel users would have a fairly high capital investment but very little manpower required to operate and maintain the panels once they're in place, unlike coal and nuclear. If you do the calculations correctly, I would expect distributed solar costs to compare reasonably well with nuclear over the long term. I was a corporate finance guy for 11 years and nobody is going to fool me with faulty cost calculations. I know all the tricks used to hide costs and understate support overhead to try to justify capital investments. I'm not saying that you are trying to fool me, but if you are, don't waste your time.

Here's the press release about the new Sterling engine solar plant designed for California. They don't say what the kwh generation costs are for this technology but they say the costs are "favorable for ratepayers" and are lower than other solar technologies. You have to give the solar engineers time to catch up with nuclear in their technolgy. It's a fairly new industry but they're improving rapidly.:

Press release from SCE Corp.

Another guy said the cannisters are made out of "steel and concrete." But whethere they're concrete, steel, or ceramic, in any event they have never been tested for hundreds of years in the real world with a corrosive radioactive substance inside them. So nobody knows for sure how long they will really last. There is a substantial risk of cost escalation for waste disposal.

Your calculation of the amount of space taken up by all the waste is totally meaningless. I took a lot of chemistry classes in college too, so I'm sure the reason why the waste has a fairly limited volume is because it contains a lot of very heavy elements like uranium, plutonium, strontium, etc. Thus is has an extremely high density and every liter of waste is extremely heavy. The waste is also highly radioactive and the amount of radiation generated by all the waste is massive. So if you measure its "amount" in terms of radioactive output, it's a huge amount of waste.

If you folks want to have a serious discussion about comparative costs of various energy technologies, you can't just post your chart and expect everyone to accept it. You have to research and list all the assumptions and methodology used in the cost calculations: capital costs, depreciable life of capital assets, maintenance costs, fuel costs, plant-level overhead costs, corporate overhead, project size, amount of power produced, etc. It's very easy to manipulate cost calculations to suit the agenda of whoever is presenting the costs. We need to know the full methodology and assumptions and then review it to know if the costs comparison are valid.

Just one more thing WOSG, did you count all the low-level nuclear waste sitting in cooling ponds at power plants in your calculation of the total volume of waste? BTW, I agree with the other poster that volume of waste material is meaningless and what counts is the total amount of harmful radiation generated by the waste and the total size, weight, and number of long-term storage cannisters.

To the best of my knowledge, the solar power generation at Whole Foods market is not a publicity stunt and it does generate most of the power for the entire store during the daytime. At least that is what the company says, and I doubt that they would fabricate such a statement just for publicity. That kind of tactic can backfire badly and cause terrible negative publicity.

Your statements about the physics involved in solar power generation are off the mark and solar power technology is much more powerful than you realize. Please see post #122 for SCE Corp. press release about their new solar generation facility, which I believe is currently in the design phase. The technology is improving rapidly and historical conclusions about solar energy by pundits are now largely obsolete.

"If you folks want to have a serious discussion about comparative costs of various energy technologies, you can't just post your chart and expect everyone to accept it."

This is why I linked to a 30 page PDF that outlines the actual economics of nuclear power today and compared 7 worldwide studies on it. In all the studies that assume the same cost of capital for nuclear, coal and gas, nuclear came out cheapest, and this was in 2004 when fuel price assumptions were lower than today.

"You have to research and list all the assumptions and methodology used in the cost calculations: capital costs, depreciable life of capital assets, maintenance costs, fuel costs, plant-level overhead costs, corporate overhead, project size, amount of power produced, etc."

This is true, and so I found it interesting that of the studies that claimed nuclear energy is not competitive, they were using costs of capital at 11% to 12%, loading on one-time build costs, and making very conservative generation loading assumptions (eg 80% utilization, when US nuclear industry is 95% +); yet on the fuel cost sides were using price assumptions about 1/2 of what they are today for coal and gas. OTOH, the ones with more realistic assumptions show that, as of today, nuclear is slightly ahead of coal on the economics. There is a good reason why the nuclear power-owning utilities are doing quite well these days (eg Excelon).

it's interesting that Finland, China, Russia, and several other countries are going for nuclear energy, while it is still being questioned here.

"Just one more thing WOSG, did you count all the low-level nuclear waste sitting in cooling ponds at power plants in your calculation of the total volume of waste?"

YES. This was the total waste stream for entire US industry. Most of that waste stream is now sitting on site at nuclear power plants (both in cooling ponds and in dry stoarge), quite safely, and could remain there for decades until a repository is set up. Again, the entire volume of used nuclear fuel for the entire US industry is smaller than the volume of a small municipal garbage dump.

" BTW, I agree with the other poster that volume of waste material is meaningless"

Well, then, the word 'substantial amount' ought not be used when 'relatively small' is more appropriate.

" and what counts is the total amount of harmful radiation generated by the waste and the total size, weight, and number of long-term storage cannisters."

Since no human has been harmed or killed by radiation from US nuclear power plants, one could well call the amount of 'harmful radiation' ZERO. Nuclear plants have had zero emissions. It's all contained by the various devices and containment vessels. If you want to count the whole amount of containment material as part of the waste stream, you can. This NEI PDF file explains that for every ton of nuclear used fuel there is about 4 tons of protective shielding, so multiplying by 5 would be your rule-of-thumb:

http://www.nei.org/documents/Safely_Managing_Used_Nuclear_Fuel_Part1.pdf

NEI Statement on this:
" The environmental policies and practices at nuclear power plants are unique in having successfully prevented significant harmful impacts on the environment since the start of the commercial nuclear industry more than 40 years ago. As a result, the nuclear energy industry is the only industry established since the industrial revolution that has managed and accounted for virtually all of its by-product material. By reducing, eliminating, or managing their waste, nuclear facilities have prevented or lessened adverse impacts on water, land, habitat, species and air from releases or emissions in the production of electricity. Throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, the small volumes of nuclear by-products actually created are carefully contained, packaged and safely stored. As a result of improved process efficiencies, the average volume of waste generated at nuclear power plants has decreased significantly in the past two decades."

Carl, I gave the amount in tons ... whether you measure it by volume *or* by weight, the waste stream from nuclear energy is miniscule compared to the waste stream from practically any other industry.

Nuclear power waste: 2,000 metric tons of used fuel annually.

Total US waste (all our garbage) in a single year was: 232 million tons in 2002.

So the waste by weight of the entire US nuclear power industry was 1/100,000th of the total waste generated in the US!!! And yet generated 20% of US electricity.

"The waste is also highly radioactive and the amount of radiation generated by all the waste is massive."

Define 'massive'. Coal plants in the US spew out far far more radioactive waste than zero emissions nuclear power.
Radiation that is behind 1 foot of concrete and a steel-line shell may be big or small, but it is effectively harmless.

You get "massive" doses of radiation, say, moving to Denver from sea level. Or, living near a coal power plant:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

"Former ORNL researchers J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco made this point in their article "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants" in the December 8, 1978, issue of Science magazine. They concluded that Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation remains true today and is addressed in this article. ...

How does the amount of nuclear material released by coal combustion compare to the amount consumed as fuel by the U.S. nuclear power industry? According to 1982 figures, 111 American nuclear plants consumed about 540 tons of nuclear fuel, generating almost 1.1 x 10E12 kWh of electricity. During the same year, about 801 tons of uranium alone were released from American coal-fired plants. Add 1971 tons of thorium, and the release of nuclear components from coal combustion far exceeds the entire U.S. consumption of nuclear fuels. The same conclusion applies for worldwide nuclear fuel and coal combustion."

So, if you talk about "massive" radiation, you need to be talking about something other than zero emissions nuclear power plants.

"The waste is also highly radioactive"
NOTE: Highly radioactive stuff is the stuff with the shortest half-life. That stuff 'cools off' quickly, and so the level of radiation is reduced by an order of magnitude after year 1, another order of magnitude by year 10, etc.
After several hundred years, the radiation level is no higher than the radiation level of natural uranium deposits.

"But whethere they're concrete, steel, or ceramic, in any event they have never been tested for hundreds of years in the real world with a corrosive radioactive substance inside them. So nobody knows for sure how long they will really last. There is a substantial risk of cost escalation for waste disposal."

Asked and answered, Carl. These things are massively over-engineered and there is no reasonable model that leads to your conclusion. This is groundless fearmongering.
If we thought about space exploration the way you denigrate nuclear power, we'd never get off the ground.

It's sad. Groundless, irrational fears have held a safe, effective, economical and environmentally friendly industry back for decades. We could have cut pollution massively had we moved from coal to nuclear. We could have cut our fossil fuel bills had we relied more on nuclear instead of gas turbines. Despite a 30 year track record of safety, despite the fact that the US nuclear industry is one of the few industries to manage its own entire waste stream, we have held this industry back that could be the savior and lead us to energy independence.

Sad, sad, sad.

"Wind, solar, tides, all are dependent on the whims of Mother Nature. The energy may be there when you need it, or it might not be."

"With this statement, you certainly qualify as a master of the obvious. Obviously wind and solar power are not viable alternatives in some regions of the US and the world."

It goes beyond that. Chimera has made the correct point that sources like wind create variable and hard-to-manage power inputs into the electricity grid. Electrical grids are complex systems with difficult control feedback mechanisms, and you cant subject it to variable uncontrolled inputs without risk to the whole grid. For that reason, wind cannot be the baseload power generator, and only a supplement. You'd have to throw in massive capacitors or some variable-load compensation to make up for it if it is too large a part of the whole load. You probably would need to keep wind to under 10% of your overall generation to keep it manageable ...

"Wind power now provides about 8% of all electric power in Germany."

... Touche. Nuclear power now provide about 70% of the power generation in France. This is doable in the USA. 8% of power generation with Wind (if they get the price down by 1/2 to compete better with nuclear and coal), is doable... but more than that? Doubtful. It is not economical and not baseload-generation-friendly.

"You don't necessarily need a costly storage system, instead you need a more flexible power generation system with several different kinds of generation facilities that can be ramped up and down flexibly during the day and night in coordiation with solar and wind facilities."

Hydro fits the bill, but that's not everywhere either. Coal and nukes like to be 'steady as she goes'. You are left with gas peaker plants, which are hardly cheap, and so much for 'green' energy.

You present a lot of good information. IIRC, some people working in various sectors of the nuclear industry have been harmed by radiation, although that is probably the result of sloppy management and work practices more than the inherent risk of the production processes. Your analysis of radioactive emissions from coal is highly informative and it shows that the radiation from coal is a bigger health risk than anything from nuclear plants. After reading through this thread, I think now that the biggest risk with nuclear power in a global sense is the possible illicit transfer of the spent fuel rods to rouge nations and terror-sponsoring nations. These nations would then have the industrial capability to extract the plutonium from the spent fuel to make nuclear weapons. Core meltdowns, terror attacks on trains carrying cannisters and events like that are not significant risks (and in fact in the US the chance of a core meltdown is effectively zero.) But there is a long term global risk of the spent fuel rods falling into the wrong hands, especially as we build more nuclear plants in countries were corruption is rampant. Lately I've seen a few news articles saying that Iran is trying to buy plutonium from North Korea, which they pulled out of spent fuel.

This looks a lot like another case of terror sponsors like Iran and North Korea screwing up a good thing. That's the advantage of alternatives like NG, wind, solar, hydropower, etc. They don't generate any materials that could fall into the wrong hands and be turned into nuclear weapons.

"All the time in the world will not change the laws of nature. And the biggest one is, you can't get more out than you put in. All of the systems for "alternatives" that have been tried or proposed have one thing in common: the energy source is intermittent and diffuse."

This is a key point.
The path of energy technology has been towards greater energy concentration. steam/coal beat animal power, which was greater than human power. The 'green' technologies that are diffuse have a 'low tech' appeal to greenies, but that is exactly the source of their biggest hurdle. The diffuse nature of the energy makes the costs of collection higher. Solar usually is talking about $3,000 per rated kilowatt (which only comes on 4-10 hours of the day).

A single 1GW nuclear power plant uses 20 tons of fuel each year to make 8,000 or so GW-hours. This is a metric no other form of energy can match.

The solar plant (SCE press release) will be a 1MW pilot plant. Good luck, but the world need 4700 *Gigawatts* of new electricity generation in the next 20 years.

Many of the ideas for solar are 'neat' but they run into the challenge of how much solar energy can we pick up per square meter? I dont think the world could or should devote thousands of square miles and trillions of dollars building the solar plants for those needs.

"After reading through this thread, I think now that the biggest risk with nuclear power in a global sense is the possible illicit transfer of the spent fuel rods to rouge nations and terror-sponsoring nations."

(er, rogue nations... :-) ) ... I agree. Given the Iran and RPNK issues, this is a reasonable concern. Further, it presents a problem *whether or not we build nuclear power plants*.

Other countries *are* and *will* build nuclear power plants. It happening and will continnue, no doubt, and the reasons are clear: Economics and energy security. It's why Japan, South Korea, and tawian have built in recent years, they are not resource-rich. The USA has the luxury of lots of coal deposits, but many Asian countries do not. This issue is all the more reason for us to get back into nuclear energy research to find solutions to creating proliferation-resistent nuclear energy. Carter stopped US fuel recycling for this reason, but alas, it was 'bass-ackwards'; we *need* to manage the whole fuel cycle so 3rd world countries dont get tempted into doing it themselves.

"These nations would then have the industrial capability to extract the plutonium from the spent fuel to make nuclear weapons."

This is only true if those countries are 'on their own' wrt nuclear technology and 'owned' the whole nuclear fuel cycle.

The solution is simple: It was the deal that was given to Iran by Russia but was spurned - let the nuclear powers be the 'managers' of the fuel cycle for non-nuclear nations wanting nuclear energy. We can and should create 'proliferation resistent' fuel assemblies. This is done by simply mixing the weaponizable isotopes with similar isotopes that are not weaponizable. Alternatively, there are ideas for 'cartridge-style' reactors where the whole assembly is shipped and the nuclear power plant does nothing at all with it. Also, the Pebble bed nuclear reactor has an assembly that is reasonably proliferation resistent.
Using these assemblies and then shipping them and getting them back for reprocessing and storage, we could manage and monitor what is going on with all the world's nuclear fuel.

"But there is a long term global risk of the spent fuel rods falling into the wrong hands, especially as we build more nuclear plants in countries were corruption is rampant. Lately I've seen a few news articles saying that Iran is trying to buy plutonium from North Korea, which they pulled out of spent fuel."

I just reiterate. Those risks will be there whether US builds nuclear power plants or not. The way to fix *that* is to create a 'no excuses' proliferation resistent civilian nuclear energy 'offer' for other nations: We (US, France, maybe Russia) will manage the fuel cycle for other nations wanting civilian nuclear power. IAEA could monitor.

bottom-line: This is is a legitimate issue, but one which the US could manage by getting out in front and supporting an international civilian energy system that eliminates proliferation risk. The technical answers are known, they just have to be be engineered into the nuclear power technologies that these other countries use.

I feel the easiest and most efficient way to get off foreign oil is to utilize electricity in our transportation system. The United State is rich in coal resources and the president promised more nuclear power plants in the SOTU, so it seems electricity is the answer.

A plug-in hybrid could reduce my gas consumption drastically if my batteries could get me 30-40 miles with a top speed of 45. Cal-cars has a prius with plug-in, so the technology is available."

Dittos on that. Thinking about the "PATH TO ENERGY INDEPENDENCE", I came to same conclusion. How did I come to it? By looking at all the alternatives, and figuring out which ones were 'real' and which are pipedreams.

Let's assert the problem 20 million barrels/day consumption, 9 mbd used by cars, 14 mbd imported.

If we wanted to end oil imports our options are:

1) More domestic oil and gas production
Solutions: ANWR, offshore, govt lands
- key opportunity is to exploit oil shale resources.
- incentive options: increase relative incentives (oil tariff)

2) Higher energy efficiency
- Technology solutions: hybrids; lighter cars; engine improvements
- incentive options: Higher gas taxes (disincentive for use); CAFE standards; subsidies (current policy wrt hybrids)

3) Alternative motive power for vehicles
3.1) hydrogen
- issue: how to generate it?
- two configurations: fuel cells, hydrogen+ICE
3.2) Methanol, ethanol and bio-deisel
- make fuel from agricultural products, etc
3.3) electricity
- plug-in hybrids and EVs
- requires battery technology improvements, more electrical generation
3.4) LPG, LNG

4) Other transport means based on electricity
- PRTs (personal rapid transport)
- trains (the main impact here might be to replace some air travel on short intercity links)

These options are complementary. Should certainly do #1. The technology solutions in #2 make sense, but will do no more than cut demand by 30-40%. So, President Bush was right to tout alternative fuels. Yet he didnt mention that the bio-fuels option would be costly and require huge agricultural inputs to make a dent. (And what the heck is 'sawgrass' anyway?) Plug-ins are as promising if not more-so because the battery technology has more room to improve and if and when it does, it opens up larger opportunities to change vehicles drastically: Smaller, cheaper, pure EVs for city driving; enabling all cars to be hybrids at low cost overhead, increasing efficiency, etc.

Bio-fuels is complementary to plug-in hybrids. In other words, you could have a 'flex fuel' plug-in hybrid that runs deisel or bio-deisel. Such a vehicle would be very energy efficient, 2X current cars, get 1/2 of its energy supply from plug-in electricity and 1/2 from the pump.

Net amount of oil used is 1/4, which in turn could be made mostly via ethanol or bio-fuels. End of imported fuel need for cars. That leaves 10 mbd for other needs (heating, plane jet fuel, etc) if need be get it from domestic oil
production via shale oil etc.

Stick as close to free-market principles as we can while getting us off of imported oil should be our policy.
We will get there by getting America into driving flex-fuel plug-in hybrids.

That's some interesting data on the uranium content of coal; I haven't seen that before. It's clear from your post #128 that I did not clearly express what I was intending to say in my earlier posts to you and "rocketeer." I try to keep my posts as short as possible but it looks like those were too short and I didn't provide adequate explanation.

It's clear that you know a lot about nuclear power generation. I have to admit that I've read the posts on this thread very rapidly because I've been really busy (coincidentally) trading energy stocks the last few days. IMO, this is really an important issue adn one that interests me a lot, so I'm going to go back and read all of your posts and the whole thread again, including your PDF file with the cost analysis. Then I'll get back to you, but I'll just say right now that I'm not a fear monger. I'm staying in the Phoenix area for the winter and the Palo Verde nuclear plant is about 35 miles west of me. I have absolutely no concern whatsover about the nuclear plant, and my concerns about nuclear waste disposal are primarily financial concerns.

On a preliminary re-read of this thread, I concur with posters who say that the nuclear proliferation issues are the major risk of nuclear power, and not waste disposal. As you state, there may be ways to engineer around this problem, although you have to always consider the possibility of a nation like Iran withdrawing from the IAEA and seizing the nuclear power plant to extract plutonium for weapons use. The mixed isotope issue is interesting and scientifically complex, so I'll have to take a look into that elsewhere.

But this is an important issue and we're forming a useful online focus group here.

After reading through this thread, I think now that the biggest risk with nuclear power in a global sense is the possible illicit transfer of the spent fuel rods to rouge nations and terror-sponsoring nations. These nations would then have the industrial capability to extract the plutonium from the spent fuel to make nuclear weapons. Core meltdowns, terror attacks on trains carrying cannisters and events like that are not significant risks (and in fact in the US the chance of a core meltdown is effectively zero.) But there is a long term global risk of the spent fuel rods falling into the wrong hands, especially as we build more nuclear plants in countries were corruption is rampant. Lately I've seen a few news articles saying that Iran is trying to buy plutonium from North Korea, which they pulled out of spent fuel.

Fuel rods from a power reactor would be a poor choice as a source of plutonium. The neutronics of an LWR power reactor core just aren't favorable for plutonium production. Sure, you make some, but quantities are limited for the trouble you go through, and it is in a form that is difficult to extract, which would take a lot of specialized technology, things that we could be on the lookout for.

I did some consulting work for DOE when they were considering shutting down plutonium production in this country. One thing we looked at was tapping into the civilian spent fuel stream as a source of plutonium. I can't tell you the details, but the overall conclusion was that it would be better to either keep all or some of the production reactors we already had, or build new ones, if our goal was to keep a fresh supply of plutonium in the pipeline. This was during the Clinton years and the decision eventually made was that we didn't need any fresh plutonium, and if we ever did we could get it from "recycled" warheads. That is probably the wrong choice for various reasons, but was what was settled on. In any case, power reactor fuel was found to be lacking as a viable plutonium source.

What you want if you are in the plutonium production business is what is called a production reactor. In this, specially-designed uranium targets are irradiated by neutrons in an optimized neutron environment. The targets are made in such a way as to facilitate plutonium extraction. Ideally, the plutonium extraction facility is located at or very close to the production reactor to minimize handling. This country had such an arrangement at the Hanford reservation in Washington State, with any number of production reactors providing feedstock to a plutonium processing facility.

But the bottom line is that you're appealing for controls on technology. I don't know how you limit the spread of knowledge. A country with a reasonably capable cadre of technical personnel can figure out how to do it from first principles of physics, exactly as we did in the 1930s and 1940s. You can't do away with knowledge unless you destroy all the records and liquidate 99.999999999% of the world's population. And even then, someone will likely rediscover the knowledge. So what then? Well, you do what we and other countries are trying to do, keep the technology out of the hands of those who would misuse it by the tools we have at hand, diplomacy, sanctions, threats, and, if all else fails, direct action. That means limiting access to materials and facilities. History shows us that sometimes things short of direct action work, sometimes not. All we can do is be ready and willing to do what we have to.

Your analysis of radioactive emissions from coal is highly informative and it shows that the radiation from coal is a bigger health risk than anything from nuclear plants.

Not a lot of people know that fossil plants emit more radiation than a nuclear plant. There was a nuclear plant under construction that was trashed and converted to coal burning because people were bullied by outsiders into being afraid of the nuclear plants. I did a trace element study (using neutron activation) of the feed coal used by local facilities as well as the fly ash emitted by the combustion process, quantified the uranium and thorium content, developed the dispersion models, and calculated downwind radiation exposures from the effluents of the fossil-fueled plant. They were anywhere from 2 to 7 times higher than for the nuclear plant, depending on location and weather conditions. I presented these results at a public hearing and you should have seen the reaction. Everyone was up in arms about the data. "You're wrong, that can't be true!" was the general response. I presented my analytical procedures and protocols and they were not found lacking. So how am I wrong, I asked? The usual answer was, "Well, I don't know, but you must be, because I have heard that nuclear plants are just so much more dangerous and worse for the environment than coal plants!" Sad, indeed.

Here is another thing that you won't read in the paper or hear from "environmentalists". There is another form of power generation that releases more radioactive material to the environment than nuclear plants. And that is, ta da, geothermal energy, that darling of greenies everywhere. Why is that, you ask? Well, it turns out, to get the heated water from deep underground, that water often passes through geologic formations that contain uranium, and where you have uranium, you have radium, and radon gas. Some of that radon gets entrained (and a small amount even dissolved in the minerals contained in the water) in the heated water. When processed through the power plant, where some of the water flashes to steam, and some is released to streams and ponds, that radon gets out, and results in an airborne radiation source. This produces downwind exposures to persons breathing the air. In fact, if the one geothermal plant in California were regulated by the NRC, it would be shutdown because of high releases of airborne radioactive material.

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