For many Americans, the words "nuclear power" still conjure up images of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, fears of meltdowns or radioactive leaks. Those reactor failures helped drive the U.S. nuclear industry into dormancy in the late 1970s.
But there's an increasingly urgent need in this country for a clean, carbon-free energy source. And to nuclear advocates, the answer lies not in burning dirty coal but with old-fashioned atomic fission. America was the first to harness the awesome power of atoms for peaceful purposes (and not so peaceful purposes.) As for safety concerns? We toured a research reactor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and director Dr. David Moncton told us the significance of Three Mile Island has been misunderstood. "What happened there was the nuclear equivalent of landing on the Hudson," Moncton said. An accident all right, but one that was brought under control before anyone was harmed. As for the deadly explosion at Chernobyl, Moncton told us our reactors are designed with a completely different technology that would make such an accident here impossible.
But even nuclear supporters concede that nuclear power remains hobbled by its price tag and the unanswered question of what to do with all that leftover radioactive waste that nuclear power generates. So what if there was a way to build nuclear power plants that were smaller, more affordable, and that even solved -- or at least greatly reduced -- the waste issue? I recently met entrepreneurs and scientists with radical ideas to do just that.
Dr. Eric Loewen oversees advanced reactor designs at GE-Hitachi, in Wilmington, NC. He's peddling a new nuclear reactor called the PRISM that actually runs on the waste generated by current reactors. The technology exists to recycle spent fuel, he says, it's the political will that's lacking.
The PRISM has a rich pedigree that dates back to the early 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan launched a little-known research project in the Idaho desert. We traveled out to the Arco Desert and toured a moth-balled reactor with retired scientist Dr. Charles Till, where Till spent ten years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to prove that recycling nuclear fuel could work. Till told us the government pulled the plug on the project before it was 100% proven. It was a mistake, according to Till and Loewen. "They were completely wrong," Loewen told me.
While Loewen wants to recycle nuclear fuel, there's a brother-sister team that want to make nuclear more affordable, by shrinking it. John "Grizz" Deal and his sister Deborah Blackwell have a "hot tub" sized reactor, one they envision can be factory-produced and then transported by truck or rail wherever needed. Each reactor provides enough electricity for 20,000 homes. Perfect, they say for the developing world, small towns, or even military installations.
But these visionaries are getting ahead of themselves, according to Dr. Ernest Moniz, a renowned physics professor at MIT and a member of President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. "I feel like I'm a technology Luddite or something in saying this," Moniz told me, "For the next ten, twenty years, if we're going to build nuclear power, it's going to be fundamentally based around what you see and the so-called generation III+ reactors." In other words, more traditional, large nuclear power plants, financed with government help.
Whether the government is on the right path is a point of contention, but on one point, everyone I interviewed agrees. Nuclear power is the solution, they say, and it's time to get going. Their next challenge is winning over skeptics, who thought the horrors of Chernobyl killed the nuclear option a long time ago.
Dan Rather Reports airs Tuesdays on HDNet at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. This episode is also available on iTunes.
Bar none, nuclear power is the dumbest way ever conceived to generate electricity.
I'll say one thing: my respect for Rather is reinforced. (Sorry mate, but for posting here, you get this comparison) Compared to Harvey Wasserman's evidence-free whinging, Dan Rather shows us why TV news was once well respected.
He left out reprocessing, which is one answer - one that requires continuous improvement, engineering, and scaling - to the problem of transuranic waste.
The answer to fission products is, of course, separate, sell (many isotopes are valuable) and bury (some, like Cs-131, need to be vitrified and stored for a couple hundred years).
A. They know everything, and that therefore
B. This incredibly dangerous substance will be safe in their hands.
C. So just trust them.
D. And anyhow, even if they are wrong, they'll learn from their mistakes--the next nuclear accident
won't be half as bad.
Cf. GMOs. It is impossible the "experts" could foresee everything. Their opinions on the safety of what they are forcing on us are just that--opinions. It is absolutely impossible to foresee all effects widely disseminated GMOs will have. Absolute uncertainty. What is possible to predict is that the chances are infinite that one such major change in the biosphere will cause other such major changes--unforeseeable by dint of never before having existed.
Likewise nuclear power. It is impossible to predict what unforeseen problems might result. Too many variables. Enhanced oversight is a laughable bandaid. (Especially in a country fueled by rarified graft up to it's eyeballs, but I digress). Heres a grey matter piquer:
In a few weeks at most, an unattended nuclear power plant will melt down, and resulting radiation will have a half-life of 704 million years. Can you think of any ways in which a nuclear power plant might conceivably be left unattended?
http://books.google.com/books?id=UEt_xWoju_MC&pg=PA271&lpg=PA271&dq=nuclear+meltdown+the+world+without+us&source=bl&ots=-mqs25Ghp6&sig=5xdZydmrSQT9E3yJ8JGRgSTkir4&hl=en&ei=Q5l1TcPhHOjf0gHLjO3WBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
No, they are amoung our most guarded and closely watched facilities. There are no circumstances under which a Nuclear Plant be unattended for eben a few minutes, let along a few weeks. Besides the people running the plant there NRG government regulators on site at all times.
And I did click on your link and even it says " a failure would trigger an automatic shutdown", nothing bad would happen unless that failed.
You seem to be refering to a History Channel "Life after People" situation where all humans suddenly disapeared. In that situation the plants are designed as "fail safe", they simply shut down and stop producing power. But if all humans were gone, there would be no one left to care.
2) Install public radiation sensing points all around every plant and subsidize the local population to buy Geiger Counters to monitor radiation so that the pubic has confidence in nuclear power and the government again.
3) Ramp up to 300 power plants which will meet total electric demand in the US.
4) When stable sell off at reasonable prices to private enterprise.
"Ramp up to 300 power plants which will meet total electric demand in the US"
The American people want cheap energy AND no CO2 emissions. Half of our CO2 emissions come from electric generation. We could get ALL our power from Nuclear at a much lower cost than getting 25% of our energy from Wind and Solar.
To get ALL of our electric from Nuclear, AND CUR CO2 EMISSIONS 50%, we need 300 new nuclear plants. We will use the highest estimate of 8 billion per plant.
300 plants times $8,000,000,000.00 = $2,400,000,000,000.00
That is 2.4 Trillion dollars. But nuclear plants produce power for 50+ years.
The cost of 300 nuclear plants over 50 years would be just $120.00 per American per year.
But even better, we are going to use a standard design so the real cost will be much lower.
Dr Chu, Obamas Energy Czar, said “the new generation of nuclear reactors will be significantly safer than those built during the 1970s because of improvements in technology. This time around, the industry and regulators have streamlined licensing and are planning to use a standard design.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/16/obama-nuclear-plant-presi_n_463754.html
How does one become a Shill? I sure could use some extra cash.
This may not be the spoor of the benighted shilill. But it sure as gosh betokens the deadly word that starts with a "t" and who dwells beneath bridges.
Do you know the term "ad hominem" attack? That is the unfounded use of the word shill.
But most of the people supporting Nuclear see it as a "replacement energy" for much dirtier fossil fuel sources, mainly coal, not as simply providing "extra energy" as you say in your comment.
Cost of Uranium Mill Tailings Management
http://www.wise-uranium.org/udcos.html
Uranium Mining and Milling Wastes
http://www.wise-uranium.org/uwai.html
The French Nuclear Industry is Bad Enough in France; Let's Not Expand it to the United States
http://www.alternet.org/story/132852/the-french-nuclear-industry-is-bad-enough-in-france
Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686774,00.html
Legacy of Uranium Mining on Native American Land
http://www.mining-law-reform.info/WhyNow.htm
Aborigines and Uranium: No Nuclear Waste on Our Land
http://www.sea-us.org/blackuranium.html
While nuclear may be an improvement over coal, I think we would be wise to explore other options first. Besides, nuclear is a continuation of the old models that got us into this mess. Seems to me that we'd be better served by creating new models.
1) We need cleaner energy sources than coal & oil now.
2) Wind and solar as a percentage of production will take decades to become meaningful or dominate.
3) We can never be embargoed from nuclear energy unless we do it to ourselves.
I find the environmental argument about dangerously long half lives of spent fuel of thousands of years disingenuous since we are facing a global climate catastrophe now and cannot even decide what we will do for the next critical 20 years let alone the next 1,000 years.
Lets fix the immediate crisis through agreement and action now and then with cooler heads and a longer view decide what is to be done with the waste needing long-term storage.
Dr Chu, Obamas Energy Czar, said “the new generation of nuclear reactors will be significantly safer than those built during the 1970s because of improvements in technology. This time around, the industry and regulators have streamlined licensing and are planning to use a standard design.”
And just what "consequences” are you refering to since the safety and waste issue are solved as the article you are commenting on clearly states.
Excavating coal releases huge amounts of radon gas...burning coal releases natural radioactive elements into the atmosphere...far more than nuclear reactors ever have.
Why ? Because the companies who make and operate such plants have huge resources to contribute to political campaigns and candidates.
The new technology does not.
For goodness sake if the FRENCH can make this happen, you're telling me the US can't do it?
Mon Dieu!
Those sites will require tens of billions of dollars to be spent and require decades to rebuild the grid infrastructure to go down that route.
There is also the question of IF those sites have sufficient power considering the line losses through thousands of miles of transmission lines. Most of the sites for geothermal, solar, wind, tidal etc I have seen have large amounts of potential power but potential is not the same thing as on-demand deliverable power. Industiral wind facilities rarely operate above 30% capacity.
Bottom line: wind, solar, geothermal and all the rest of the alternative power generation sources still have to follow the basic rules of engineering.