It has been suggested recently that, in light of the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, America needs to plan for a massive catastrophe at one of the country's 104 working nuclear reactors.
The concern for safety is critical, but the good news is that preventive safety work is already being done every day at our nation's reactors. In fact, the United States nuclear energy industry has accumulated an outstanding safety record since the days of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Worker safety in nuclear plants stands above any other American industrial sector, as measured by lost-time accidents. The nuclear power industry has devoted significant resources to continuously improving the safety and reliability of our nuclear power facilities against all manner of potential risks and threats with the result that, for more than 30 years, nuclear plants have delivered about 20 percent of America's electrical power safely and securely, without major incident.
Every nuclear power plant is designed, constructed and managed to prevent radioactive releases, even in the event of natural disasters, operational accidents or terrorist attacks. Since September 2001, the nuclear industry has spent in excess of $2 billion on enhancements to prevent physical or cyber breaches. In fact, analyses conducted by the independent Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) concluded that the structures that surround U.S. nuclear power plants would protect against a release of radiation if struck by a Boeing 767 jetliner. Steel-reinforced concrete containment structures protect reactors and redundant safety and reactor shutdown systems have been designed to withstand the impact of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods.
Apart from its own self-initiated safety efforts through the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the industry operates under the watchful eye of a strong regulatory authority, and with significant input from state and local officials. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds nuclear reactor operators to the highest safety and security standards of any American industry. Fuel, once used, will continue to be safely stored at reactor sites -- as has been the case for decades -- until a long-term repository is identified. Furthermore, federal law requires that energy companies develop and exercise sophisticated emergency response plans to protect public health and safety. A comparison of safety protocols governing the nuclear energy industry and other industries provides a stark comparison: Nuclear energy meets a higher standard for safety than any other American industry.
Of course, that does not mean the work is complete. Virtually every form of energy production -- coal mining and oil drilling come to mind -- involves significant safety risks. But not producing domestic energy represents another risk, in the form of greater dependence on foreign oil and other energy sources.
With our electricity demand poised to rise 23 percent by 2030, we are going to need to expand our portfolio of energy sources, not limit them. What the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has provided us is an opportunity to weigh the risks of each energy source as we seek to meet that growing demand.
Americans understand this, which is why nuclear energy has garnered such a broad-based consensus of support. The latest Gallup poll found that 62 percent of Americans -- an all-time high -- favor the use of nuclear energy to produce electricity. President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have made expanding nuclear energy a linchpin of their strategy to build a clean energy economy and to create jobs. The editorial pages of both The Washington Post and The New York Times have supported the industry's expansion, most recently in February when both papers lauded the Obama administration's decision to restart the nuclear power industry with its first industry loan guarantee to build two new reactors in Georgia.
This broad-based coalition of supporters has been drawn to nuclear energy because no other full-time electricity source offers the same kind of impact in addressing America's environmental and economic challenges. Nuclear plants produce virtually no carbon dioxide or other harmful emissions; U.S. reactors generated more than 70 percent of the country's emissions-free electricity last year. If the nation's goal is to curb its emissions in the future, then nuclear energy, the only clean base-load power, is uniquely positioned to contribute.
At a time when the country's jobless rate is hovering around a 27-year high, nuclear plant construction projections can put thousands of people back to work. In Waynesboro, Georgia, 700 workers have already been tasked with preparing the site for the two new reactors. This, the state's largest construction project, will ultimately employ up to 3,500 people. Over the past three years, in a period of economic constriction, the nuclear industry has created more than 15,000 new jobs nationally in anticipation of the industry's expansion.
While we must always be looking for new ways to improve safety, it is important to remember that: nuclear energy has a proven safety record, it is subjected to stringent regulatory oversight, and it is domestically produced and managed. As we look toward meeting our increasing energy needs, investment in nuclear energy, along with conservation and other clean energy sources, should be a priority.
Christie Whitman currently co-chairs the nuclear industry funded Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy), a national grassroots coalition that promotes the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear energy as part of a clean energy portfolio.
You are incorrect about the LFTF when you say it uses thorium instead of uranium. Thorium is fertile, not fissile, and cannot be used as nuclear fuel without uranium or plutonium. (The liquid flouride proposed for the LFTF is uranium flouride.)
Thorium augmented nuclear fuel MAY be a good idea for places like India becasue they have lots of thorium and little uranium AND because they don't already have a uranium fuel industry infrastructure. It won't happen in the US because it would take an entire re-tooling of the US nuclear fuel Industry.
Its largest problem for development however, ironically, is that its fuel is so cheap. The modern nuclear industry is modeled on fuel fabrication contracts, and with fluid fuel reactors that require no enrichment or fabrication requires a different business model.
Although the LFTR does need a certain amount of uranium to get started, it does not need to continue to use uranium; the use of uranium is only temporary. After that, the thorium is transmuted into an isotope of uranium that IS fissile, but not into U235 and not practical for weapon use.
If the liquid fuel for the LFTR were uranium fluoride, then by definition, it would not be a LFTR. The continuing fuel is thorium tetrafluoride.
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTF), which uses thorium instead of uranium, is safer and less expensive than uranium reactors. Moreover, it eliminates the risk of nuclear weapon proliferation. It eliminates most of the objections of those who oppose nuclear power.
Check out the following link:
http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/May/Too_Good_Leave_Shelf.cfm
Building 100's of new nuclear power plants will improve the economy, reduce dependence on foreign oil, create jobs, reduce pollution, and provide for future technological advancement.
I have been working with nuclear power for 30 yrs, I would be glad to have a new Nuclear power plant or used fuel storage facility in my community. My family and I live in a home within 10 miles of the longest running nuclear power plant in the USA. (Where I work) I understand the risks involved and I’m completely comfortable with a plant "in my backyard". I have confidence that our kids will be smart enough to treat the nuclear "waste" as a valuable resource, or at least handle it safely. If the cavemen thought their children would be too stupid to use fire safely, where would we be now?
Using Chernobyl as a reason not to build is like saying because of the Hindenburg I will never fly in a commercial airliner.
Nuclear power has the smallest environmental impact of any current energy production method per unit of energy produced. One fuel pellet about the size of a pencil eraser produces the same energy as burning 1 ton of coal, and if reprocessed most of what’s left can be reclaimed. Nuclear power is our best option for reliable, environmentally friendly base-load electrical power.
You present us with the usual tired, one sided litany of 30 year old anti-nuclear bumper stickers. You anti-nuclear types stopped thinking a generation ago, and are incapable of any originality.
Yes.
More people are killed in wind related accidents in the United States than are killed in nuclear related accidents
That is impossible to prove. How about some wild boar from Germany for your next dinner?
In today's Spiegel online is this: "According to the Environment Ministry, the average contamination for boar shot in Bayerischer Wald, a forested region on the Bavarian border with the Czech Republic, was 7,000 becquerel per kilogram.
It is referring to cesium-137, radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident of 1986.
So, how many Germans die every year from eating radioactive boar? Since you (nor anyone) can answer that, then I have to say your statement cannot be proven to be true.
The likelihood that an nuclear accident involving an American designed reactor will create a greater than $10 billion liability is something like once in the life of the universe
Haha, tell that one to the Deepwater Horizon victims.
It is extremely unlikely that the American tax payers will ever pay a dime in nuclear accident compensation.
Haha. Another good one.
Hydro electric dams?
I'll turn it around on you.
More people have been killed eating wild boar than from a hydo-electical dam accident.
The Deepwater Horizon accident involved technology and an environment that is fundamentally dissimilar to nuclear power. It is just silly to argue by analogy to the Deepwater Horizon accident.
Your claim that "more people have been killed eating wild boar than from a hydo-electical dam accident," is absurd. In 1975 following a torrential rain event in China, Banqiao Reservoir Dam and Shimantan Reservoir Dam along with 60 other dams in China's Henan Province failed creating a massive flood. The disaster caused an estimated 200,000 deaths. This disaster was the largest, but by no means the only casualty producing dam failure during the 20th century. Nearly 6 million buildings were destroyed in the Banqiao Dam disaster. There were no fatalities and no buildings destroyed by the Three Mile Island accident.
Now, taxes are indeed the price we pay for civilization, but that doesn't mean every tax, however harmful its side effects, is acceptable.
(How fire can be domesticated: http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/ )
"The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) described CASEnergy as a front group for the nuclear power industry, created by the PR giant Hill & Knowlton. [3]"
"The CJR criticised the Washington Post for simply referring to Moore as an "environmentalist" and a co-founder of Greenpeace — without mentioning that he is funded by the nuclear industry. A string of other newspapers followed suit, failing to mention that Moore is also a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry. CJR said it is "maddening that Hill & Knowlton, which has an $8 million account with the nuclear industry, should have such an easy time working the press".
The words "clean" and "safe" were deliberately used as part of the nuclear industry's multi-million pound campaign to repackage itself. It is interesting that the industry carries on using these words even after similar campaigns were found to be misleading.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clean_and_Safe_Energy_Coalition
And this: "Organizers released a list of 58 companies and institutions and 10 people who they said were members of a new Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which Mr. Moore said would engage in "grass-roots advocacy." A spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade association of reactor operators, acknowledged that it was providing all of the financing, but would not say what the budget was."
http://www.grist.org/article/the-clean-and-safe-energy-coalition-tries-to-buy-some-green-cred/
Doesn't imply they're untrue. US commercial nuclear power has killed zero people in the last 40 years, and produced almost no carbon dioxide and no secondary pollution products, like NOx, SOx, or particulate matter. Clean and safe. Just because they identified two environmental buzzwords that rightly apply to their industry doesn't mean they need denigrated for the effort.
What I mean is, private capital will not fund nuclear power, so the only way the industry can function is with TAXPAYER MONEY.
Because of the risk involved in nuclear technology, no insurance company will indemnify a nuclear plant, so the liability is paid for using TAXPAYER MONEY.
And the safety issues, along with no plan for the deadly radioactive wastes, have not been resolved.
Christine writes "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds nuclear reactor operators to the highest safety and security standards of any American industry"
That might be reassuring if it were true.
Here's Vermont's refutation of the 'safety' of nuclear power "The Vermont Yankee tritium leak reported Jan. 7 was from two pipes in a concrete tunnel. Water carrying tritium seeped into soil and groundwater because of a clogged drain."
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10198945
Well, accidents do happen, right? Probably a one time, isolated incident.
Oops " Vermont Yankee reported Friday afternoon that the radioactive isotope strontium has been located in the soil near where tritium had been discovered leaking at the Vernon nuclear power plant in January. Along with tritium, Vermont Yankee has acknowledged the discovery of cobalt-690, cesium-137, manganese-54 and zinc-65.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/23-2
They do. That's what "loans" are for. If you want "subsidies", look to solar and wind for your answers.
"And the safety issues, along with no plan for the deadly radioactive wastes, have not been resolved."
1) Store the deadly, but solid and shieldable radioactive waste in a secure location at the power plant site
2a) Bury the waste at a central location (Yucca mountain, stupid)
or
2b) Reprocess the waste into new nuclear fuel. Sell what mid-life isotopes are medically valuable, expire what is short-lived, and store the rest at the reactor site for about 300 years*
There are two clear plans for how to deal with waste. The problem is that no one in government wants to do 2b because they fear the plutonium separation of the PUREX process**, and the reprocessing industry is reluctant to move to pyroprocessing** as their main mode.
* Reprocessed waste contains no long-lived actinides. After 300 years, everything has settled down to background levels.
** PUREX, or Plutonium-Uranium extraction, separates plutonium from uranium. While this isn't necessarily a proliferation risk, as reactor-based plutonium would make a prematurely-detonating bomb, it is a concern from a political and security standpoint, since most people don't know the damned difference. Pyroprocessing allows you to separate actinides from fission products by gross mass, and the uranium and plutonium never part.
Exactly where I am looking. I would rather subsidize renewable energy with no environmental hazards than nuclear with it's dangerous potential. A nuclear accident would make for a rather inhospitable environment.
Store the deadly, but solid and shieldable radioactive waste in a secure location at the power plant site
For how long? 25,000 years?
Hope and pray for a technological solution before a leak or accident happens?
Bury the waste over the Yucca earthquake fault?
Bury it in your neighborhood?
Reprocess the waste? This idea has potential, but what about transportation and handling of the waste to get to where it is reprocessed. Every step is another potential accident for which we have even less answers than we do on deepwater.
Reprocessed waste contains no long-lived actinides. After 300 years, everything has settled down to background levels.
How reassuring to my great great great great great great grandchildren.
And it was entirely in the groundwater on the plant's property. Nothing made it into public water.
"Vermont Yankee reported [in late May] that the radioactive isotope strontium has been located in the soil near where tritium had been discovered leaking at the Vernon nuclear power plant in January. Along with tritium, Vermont Yankee has acknowledged the discovery of [cobalt-69], cesium-137, manganese-54 and zinc-65."
...and later they and the NRC found that the isotopes found were consistent with background levels that were resultant from nuclear weapons testing in the 60s and later, Chernobyl in the 80's, and is at roughly the same level worldwide.
Further, you haven't illustrated how minor leaks on plant property represent anything more than a maintenance concern for the plant. I mean, you're trying for safety hazard, and I'm just not seeing it.
The EPA has declared tritium in drinking water to be safe up to a level of 20,000 picocuries per liter of water. Test wells on the grounds of Vermont Yankee have produced levels as high as 2.5 million picocuries per liter in recent weeks.
http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/02/25/tritium-leaks-add-history-concerns-about-aging-reactor?SESS4d3c75fe1c13d1cd95c5586eb94cf836=gnews
It appears true that the wells offsite has not yet shown radiation, but if it is in the company wells, how long before it spreads? Do you know for sure that it can't or won't?
There are also concerns about ionized radiation and disagreements about how the levels are calculated, but the plant has exceeded this limit 3 times in 10 years.
As for the strontium90, I am not at all reassured by the fact that this may have come from the Chernobyl accident of 24 years ago.
And if this IS true, why don't they find it (ST90) in fish everywhere? Or do they?
And if they do, it's another argument (IMO) against nuclear power. The fact that an accident 24 years ago is still endangering all life on earth (apparently) is enough to convince me that we should follow a less dangerous alternative to oil/coal.
And what about that LIABILITY issue. Who is responsible for repairing the damage resulting from an accident?
Sadly, it's us.