$50 Billion Debate vs. Pro-Nuker Patrick Moore on Democracy
A coalition of environmental groups are calling on senators to remove a controversial provisions from the $900 billion stimulus bill that could lead to the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants. We recently hosted a debate between independent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman and Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder and member of the pro-nuclear Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. The transcript follows:
Amy Goodman: As the Senate continues debate on President Obama's $900 billion economic stimulus plan, a coalition of environmental groups are calling on senators to remove a controversial provision that could lead to the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants.
The Senate bill includes a proposed $50 billion in federal loan guarantees that would likely go to nuclear power and liquid coal technologies. The amount is just a fraction of what the nuclear power industry is seeking. Last year, the industry asked Congress for $122 billion in loan guarantees in order to build twenty-one new nuclear reactors.
No nuclear plant has been built in the US since the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. Critics of the proposal question the safety of nuclear energy, doubt the federal loan guarantees would provide much of an immediate stimulus to the economy. But supporters of nuclear energy say nuclear should be considered a clean, safe and emissions-free source of power.
We're joined now by two guests to debate the issue. In the early '70s, they were both prominent members of the anti-nuclear movement. Today, they take opposing views on the future of nuclear energy. Harvey Wasserman is with us, an independent journalist, longtime anti-nuclear activist. In the early '70s, he helped found the grassroots movement against nuclear power in the US and helped coin the phrase "No Nukes." He joins us from Ohio via DN! video stream. Patrick Moore is with us. He's co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace. He now serves as co-chair of the pro-nuclear Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, known as CASE. He's joining us from Boston.
Let's start with you, Patrick Moore. Why do you support this provision in the stimulus plan?
Patrick Moore: Well, first, it's important to set the record straight on when the last nuclear plant was built. There were forty-seven nuclear plants commissioned in the 1980s. Three Mile Island was in 1979. So it's not as if Three Mile Island really marks the end of building nuclear in the States. About nearly half the plants in the United States were built after Three Mile Island or commissioned after Three Mile Island.
I support nuclear power simply because I think we all made a big mistake in the 1970s by confusing nuclear energy with nuclear weapons. Greenpeace started against US hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We were all scared as young people back then, myself at the University of B.C. doing a Ph.D. in ecology, that we were going to be wiped out by an all-out nuclear war. And we thought everything nuclear was evil. That would be as foolish as thinking that nuclear medicine was evil.
Nuclear medicine is a very beneficial use of nuclear technology, and the medical isotopes that are dangerous otherwise are used to diagnose and cure many, many millions of people every year. Those medical isotopes are made in nuclear reactors in the same way that we can make electricity in nuclear reactors, and I don't think we should mix the destructive versus the beneficial uses of nuclear technology up in the way we did back then.
AG: Harvey Wasserman, why are you opposed? Why do you want this out of the stimulus plan?
HW: Well, there's no reason for the United States taxpayers to get stuck with another $50 billion tab for building new reactors that Wall Street won't fund. Nuclear power has failed utterly in the marketplace, and it's back at the taxpayer trough trying to get more money.
And this is a time when we actually need stimulus in our economy, and no nuclear plant that's funded now with taxpayer money could come online for at least a decade. It's a complete waste of money. It has no business being in the stimulus package, and people need to call their senators and Congress people to stop this from happening. It's a real perversion of the stimulus package. And the Senate may vote on this as early as this week, possibly next week, and we have a very difficult struggle to get rid of this $50 billion boondoggle going into the stimulus package. It has no business being there.
And what's more, the reactors that would go under construction will be dangerous. They will be terror targets. We have had experience with atomic reactors causing cancer, leukemia, birth defects in the nearby neighborhoods where they've been built. We have fifty years of experience with atomic power, and it's all been bad. So, we have wind and solar and tidal and geothermal technologies that are ready to move ahead, along with the restoration of mass transit and the increasing efficiency in our economy. This is where our energy money needs to go, not to a failed twentieth century technology that cannot get private funding and, by the way, that cannot get private insurance.
The United States government and the taxpayers are still on the hook for the financial impacts of any major catastrophic meltdown. The public was told in 1957 that soon private insurers would come forward and insure nuclear power plants against major disasters. That has not happened. And to this day, the taxpayer is on the hook if we have a catastrophe by terror or error, and it seems to me that that needs to end.
AG: Patrick Moore?
Patrick Moore: Well, actually, Amy, there's 104 nuclear power plants operating clean and safely every day in the United States, more than any other country in the world. Nuclear energy provides 20 percent of US electricity, and that amounts to nearly 75 percent of the clean energy now being produced in the United States.
It is simply impossible to run the world on wind and solar energy. They are intermittent. They don't work when the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining, and we need backup power, base load power that's there 24/7. Unless we build nuclear plants, we've got to keep building coal plants and more gas plants, which are fossil fuels that release greenhouse gas and cause air pollution. The whole reason for the nuclear renaissance around the world is energy security and climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions into the air. And Harvey and the rest of the people in my old organization of Greenpeace are stuck in the 1970s mentality. They have to come forward in time and think about what it is we can actually do.
We're not going run the country on tidal power, Harvey. It's just -- that's a pie in the sky, and so is a lot of the other stuff about running the country on wind and solar. They have their place in the scheme of things, but they cannot run the country.
So how are we going to produce the thousands of megawatts of power we need every day, especially when we're going to start charging our cars, our batteries in our plug-in hybrids, which doesn't make any sense to charge a plug-in hybrid on a coal-fired power plant or a gas plant. It makes a lot of sense to charge it on hydroelectric, nuclear and wind, when the wind is blowing. But, you know, you've got to have something for when it isn't, the two-thirds of the time when it isn't. Unfortunately, every time you build a wind farm, you have to build a gas plant to back it up. And that's going to make --
AG: Alright, let's get Harvey Wasserman's response to Patrick Moore.
HW: Well, Patrick, unfortunately, hasn't advanced much since he's signed up with the nuclear power industry. Nuclear power is a failed technology. We have $50 billion lined up in the Congress that needs to stop and not come out of the taxpayers' pocket, because, among other things, the reactors that these $50 billion would fund cannot come online in less than a decade. We need the answers to our energy solutions now. It's nuclear power that's really pie in the sky. It's a failed technology.
The first reactor went online in 1957 in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, and we have a half-century of experience with this. The nuclear industry still cannot get private insurance against a major catastrophe. You do not have to take out insurance on a wind farm against an accident or a terror attack that will destroy an entire city.
We need to build technologies that will come online, will bring us energy within a year or two, and that's wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, increased efficiency. The plan is there. Take a look at Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free by Arjun Makhijani. There's plenty of other things, my own Solartopia book. We all have plans--
AG: Harvey, Harvey --
HW: -- that are very clear, but [inaudible] work.
AG: Steven Chu, President Obama's Energy Secretary, seems to agree with Patrick Moore. Among the things he said was -- this is Steven Chu -- "There is certainly a changing mood in the country, because nuclear is carbon-free, that we should look at it with new eyes."
HW: That's fine, but the fact is that we disagree with Steven Chu on that, and you also have to pay for these reactors. The Seabrook nuclear plant, Shoreham, Three Mile Island itself, Diablo Canyon in California, these reactors came in at more than 500 percent over budget. The average construction cost for a new nuclear plant in the last century, in the twentieth century, was twice as high as originally estimated. There are reactors now that are supposedly going to go under construction in Florida whose price -- estimated price has tripled, prior to even digging the first shovel at the construction site.
AG: Patrick Moore, what are you going to do with the nuclear waste?
PM: We're going to recycle it and use the 90 percent of the energy that's still in it. One of the great secrets that's been kept from the American people is that the used nuclear fuel, which does contain a small amount of waste that needs to be taken out of it before it can be recycled--the used nuclear fuel that is now at all the reactors around the country is one of the most important future energy resources, which is domestic, for the United States. There's twenty times as much energy in that used fuel as was produced in the original cycle when it went through the first time. But let me answer Harvey's point about tax --
AG: Wait. On that issue of --
HW: Amy, by the way --
AG: On that issue of waste, I want to ask -- get Harvey Wasserman's response to that.
HW: Oh, by the way, that's utter nonsense. Talk about pie-in-the-sky technology. The recycling of nuclear fuel has been a disaster in Britain, France and Japan. It is not workable technology. It creates much more toxic nuclear waste than was originally dealt with. And it's not economic. We have experience with attempting to reprocess nuclear fuel, and it has failed. That's why the $50 billion in this stimulus package has got to come out.
PM: And that's one of the reasons I left --
AG: Patrick Moore?
PM: One of the reasons I left Greenpeace is because people like Harvey spread this misinformation. The French are fueling twenty-two of their fifty-nine nuclear reactors on recycled fuel. Just go to COG La Hague. They've got a huge facility there. Japan has also built a $30 billion facility to fabricate and recycle fuel.
But on the point of taxpayers, every other country but the United States has state-owned electrical utilities -- Canada, France, Britain, you name it. The government takes 100 percent of the risk on electric utilities, because they are perceived as a monopoly and a national security issue in most countries. The United States is the only place where private capital is expected to pay for electricity infrastructure.
And the only reason wind and solar are being built is because of mandates and extremely high costs being paid to these technologies. It's political. If there was no subsidy for wind and solar, there would hardly be any wind and solar. People would be building base load power like nuclear and fossil fuels. But, you know, I'm not in favor of continuing to build coal plants. I think 50 percent is enough. That's how much electricity in the US comes from coal. And again, it doesn't make sense to charge a plug-in hybrid or run a ground-source heat pump on a coal-fired power plant. It just puts the pollution somewhere else.
HW: No, but it does --
AG: Harvey Wasserman?
HW: It does make sense to run them on wind farms. And Patrick, who is Canadian makes a good--and will not be paying, by the way, for the $50 billion bailout that the nuclear industry wants in advance here. And by the way, the congressional budget office has warned that 50 percent of the nuclear utility--the utilities that build nuclear plants will go bankrupt.
And he has -- Patrick has pointed out, you know, that the nuclear utilities in Europe are all government-owned. All this hype about the French reactors putting out so much energy obscures the fact that these are owned by the government. It is a national socialist form of electric generation. We don't want that in the United States.
And by the way, don't go anywhere near the La Hague reprocessing facility. Every country in Europe has asked France to shut down this reprocessing facility, because it's such a major polluter. It has put huge quantities of radioactive waste into the water bodies around it, and every other country in Europe is asking that this reprocessing facility at La Hague be shut down. The same with Sellafield in England, and the Japanese plant also, the reprocessing plant, has tremendous problems.
Reprocessing nuclear fuel is pie in the sky. We don't want this $50 billion rider stuck into the stimulus bill. People need to call their senators and Congress people and get it out. Patrick, you pay taxes in Canada. You want to pay for it up there, that's your issue, but don't tell us here in the United States that we've got to pay another $50 billion for a failed twentieth century technology that can't stand on its own.
AG: Patrick Moore, your response? Your response on the French plant that you just recommended?
PM: Well, first off, that's total misinformation that other countries are asking France to turn it off. It's just completely ridiculous. Most of the countries in Europe depend on nuclear energy for their electricity -- Slovakia, 60 percent; Belgium, 65 percent; France, 80 percent.
HW: That doesn't speak to reprocessing. Speak to reprocessing.
PM: Yeah, but that's the only way -- it's the only way to get the energy out of the used fuel, Harvey, and people are doing it around the world. The United States is thirty years behind.
HW: At huge cost. It's extremely expensive. It doesn't work. We have a $50 billion boondoggle coming down the line here.
PM: Do you think that if -- do you think that if it was --
HW: It's got to get out of this stimulus package.
PM: Do you think that if it was too expensive, the French would have 80 percent of their electricity coming from nuclear? They have a very --
HW: Yes, because it doesn't work in the marketplace. The French industry is national socialism. It's owned by the government. There is not -- the private money in the French industry is minuscule. The French reactors cannot compete in the marketplace.
PM: Since when have you become a champion of capitalism, Harvey?
AG: We're going to have to leave it there. We started with Patrick Moore, so we ended with Harvey Wasserman. And I want to thank you both for being with us.
HW: Thank you, Amy. Very good.
AG: Patrick Moore, co-chair of the pro-nuclear Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, based in Boston. Harvey Wasserman, independent journalist, well-known anti-nuclear activist.
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I really don't think Chu is the final authority on the nuclear power issue.
If the Nuclean Power Industry is such a great idea then why are the tax payers the only ones who will insure the nuclear power industry?
Ever heard of the Price Anderson Act? Billion dollar liabilities? Who pays to clean up Three Mile Island,
uranium waste sites, nuclear waste storage? Taxpayers. You don't see that mentioned too often. Now why is that?
Dr Chu?
Why does this Deadly Boondoggle of Nuclear power still survive the overwhelming evidence?
Mushrooms clouds from proliferation, dirty bombs, deadly million year, quadrillion dollar waste, environmental poisoning , mining, operational releases and disposal. Meltdowns.
Cannot get private insurance.
Limited fuels, resource wars, rapidly increase cost, shortage of US domestic supply. Reprocessing and breeder reactors create 100 times as much waste in curies and require weapons grade processing facilities.
The Slowest slowest to build, the most expensive energy,
I have listed all the links and references to prove every single point i have made.
I notice, no facts in the pro nuke responses.
Solar and wind are READY to supply ALL of our power needs. Cheaper, faster, safer, cleaner, free from fuel costs or resource wars,
Forever.
http://www
Steven Chu the energy secretary of the new administration in his confirmation hearing said:
"The point here is that nuclear power, as I said before, is going to be an important part of our energy mix. It’s 20% of our electricity generation today, but it’s 70% of the carbon-free portion of electricity today. And it is baseload. So I think it is very important that we push ahead."
Here is the whole testimony:
http://ene
There is a reason this man won the Nobel Price. So yes nuclear power has to be in our energy mix if we want to reduce our CO2 emissions.
His Nobel Prize had nothing to do with nuclear power. Just because of his prestige, doesn't mean he has the answers to all of our energy and environmental issues. Dr. John W. Gofman has more extensive credentials on the subject of nuclear power than Dr. Chu. I suggest you visit the website for the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility and read his curriculum viate and then proceed to his book: Poisoned Power, The Case Against Nuclear Power Before and After 3 Mile Island. He makes a compelling case against nukes that is hard to refute given his credentials. The book is available to read online on the same website.
Nuclear power has always been a scam. The $50 billion is just more good money after bad. Cost overruns are just standard operating procedure. I would like to hear of a nuke plant that was finished on time and at budget. Next the cost estimates never include nuclear waste or decommissioning costs that already are well into the billions with no solution.
What industry with toxic waste that will kill us for centuries and no plan to dispose of it after 50 years and billions of dollars should be given more free money? To call Nukes clean is a lie. Nuclear waste is the most toxic waste ever created. France has fooled their public but they still admit they have no solution to dispose of nuclear waste.
Proliferation is not to be ignored either.
I heard Admiral Rickover speak at Rice University when he said nuclear power is too dangerous an
issue to be handed over to the corporate world.
Why not give a billion to solar in Los Angeles as a test case? This area get plenty of sun and we are always in a crises at noon on a hot day every summer. It will create jobs, reduce our oil and coal
consumption, clean the air, and provide a permanent solution to the 20 million citizens in the region with clean energy from the sun.
How much energy does Los Angeles get from solar as of 2009?
Less then 1%.
I actually watched this interview and thought Patrick Moore came out much better than Harpey. Why can't we follow the example of countries that have already reduced their CO2 emissions. There are things that we can learn from countries that have a higher standard of living. For instance, France get 80% of their energy form nuclear they have the best quality of air and the cheapest electrical bill in europe, Sweden 50% nuclear and is about to overturn an ill conceived ban on nuclear power because they realize that they will not meet CO2 emissions quotas without it.(even though they are a leader in renewables):
http://www
I found it surprising that anti-nuclear suddenly became free market zealots when talking about nuclear. That was a very sharp comment from Mr. Moore. Why do we allow such a one sided debate in huffpost there are a lot of environmentalist like Mr. Moore that would gladly defend Nuclear power.
Look where France dumps it nuclear waste:
http://www
Not clean at all.
More mushroom clouds? For reactors licensed in the US, "fail-safe" design,a mushroom cloud explosion is not possible. Water is the coolant and the moderator (which sustains the reaction). THus a loss of coolant is also a loss of moderator which shuts the reaction down.
Once again discussing science topics in a political forum is pointless. Obama's green jobs will increase your taxes and raise your electricity rates.
If windmills and solar panles were competitive they would already be the rage.
Liar.
I didn't say the reactors would blow up.
I said the more nukes lead to more mushrooms clouds because of the increase availability of material and expertise.
Try reading, then commenting.
Go to my profile, read it, no more bs comments.
I never said reactors could explode.
If nuclear power plants were competitive they would be the rage with your 2nd generation reactors.
This raises the question of why you believe they are competetitve when Wall Street has already cast a vote contrary to the myth you are spreading. If nuclear power is so safe, then why wont the utilities assume full liability for accidents and remove all of the burden from taxpayers under the - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . Since you are so knowledeable, I will let you fill in the blanks when you respond.
Once again it is pointless for shills representing the nuclear power industry to do hit and run posts at Huffington Post. Not one of you, including Hollybork, Wreckinball, Kingcityguru and DMEEPhd, have posted a single comment that fully details why you support nuclear power from an economic, safety and environmental perspective. I emphasize the lack of detail you have provided to support your conclusions. You have not cited a single organization or respected scientist to verify your conclusions - as skimpy as they have been. In addition, you have called people ingnorant and dumb as opposed to using factual information to refute their positions. These are classic hit and run attacks indicitive of what Republican's, nuclear power and coal advocates are famous for - yelling and screaming without ever presenting evidence to the debate. Answer your critics in detail or just go away.
Nuclear power is a very close second to coal as our least expensive fuel, coal. Nuclear power is the only large base load emission free technology available, Windmills and solar panels will replace no existing generation because their fuel sources, wind and sun are variable and unreliable. Every subsidized dollar that goes to these sources will either add to your tax bill, your lectric bill or both
When discussing issues of electric power generation one should enlist an engineer, not a politician or an environmentalist.
See Melissa Rossi's Profile
Realistically, one should enlist all three -- and the head of a utility.
Not nukes.
More Nuclear power will lead inevitably to more mushroom clouds.
You know this, yet still want more?
Uranium fuel for once through reactors is limited. estimates reserves of just 85 years at 16% world electricity generation. 13 years of the worlds.
I know some of you have heard there is enough uranium for thousands of years.
Please go to my profile, check out the links.
Nuclear power: Bombs, Radiation, uranium wars in
The following costs are not calculated in the Kwh cost that shows up on your utility bill from the combustion of coal..
1) Acid rain as it relates to the destruction of health forests, agricultural crops, fresh water lakes and personal property such as the paint finish on your gas guzzling SUV.
2) Respiratory Illness from the air pollution generated from burning coal.
3) Mercury, arsenic and other heavy metal runoff into streams, lakes and oceans that eneters the food chain later to be consumed by humans.
4) Increase in the cost of Medical Insurance due to the inhalation and ingestion of the by products associated with the combustion of coal and black lung disease from mining it.
5) Open pit mining reclamation costs. Oh, and where they don't do that the loss of productive land and forests.
6) Government subsidies for mining, grid maintenance and installation, tax abatementsand regulation to the utility and coal industries.
These are indirect and externalized costs that don't show up on your bill, but are indeed costs. This is probably something your enegineer friend forgot to tell you about when he told you coal was cheaper than wind and solar.
This should give you enough to think about before we discuss energy efficiency and nuclear power in more detail later.
You started with what seemed like a rational argument and then you let the mask slip.
"add to your tax bill, your lectric bill or both". really?
you either know nothing about solar and wind power or you're a politician yourself.
nice try, but you didn't sell it.
if you're going to scam people, go to Fox news, they love fact-lite opinion-based "information"
All my calculations and links on solar wind nuke etc.. energy:
http://www
See Melissa Rossi's Profile
I wish Harvey would reply!
Here are my comments:
alvdh1 makes many great points, including:
a) Wall Street (even pre-crisis) isn't behind due to disastrous investments in projects like WPPSS in Washington
b) generating nuclear isn't as cost-effective as other options
c) energy conservation is essentially a resource
hollybork: most new plants are natural gas-powered, there are some coal, few use oil for electricity -- oil is for transportation. 104 nuclear plants now operate in US, others shut because of construction cost overruns, age, hazards, protest. big probs remain with nuclear waste.
kingcityguru: nuclear energy, while not producing CO2, is not green, clean, or safe. Problems:
a) don't have radioactive waste disposal down -- see MIT report re Yucca http://mit
Recycling in US has been debacle, big probs elsewhere. see http://www
b) reactors are targets (9/11 commission uncovered that original target planned was nuclear plant See http://www
c) radioactive waste frequently goes missing -- could be dirty bomb material
one ex: http://www
as you note, there's NOT a shortage of uranium worldwide, but india and north korea as "research" noted did get their bomb material from nuclear plants and enriched uranium facilities) -- the worry with iran.
The is only 85 years .1% uranium usable for reactors.
That's 13 years of all the worlds energy.
Uranium has gone up 8 times in the last few years.
We are willing to mine the grand canyon, uranium is that scarce.
http://www
Thanks for acknowledging my points.
See Melissa Rossi's Profile
Just got this today from the Center for Media and Democracy's PR watch prwatch.or
Moore's group -- Clean and Safe Energy Coalition -- is a classic "front" group for corporate concerns. I was shocked when I found out about them while researching one of my books -- What Every American Should Know about Who's Really Running the World.
PRwatch.or
If someone truly believes that nuclear energy is the way to go despite the significant problems, which I get into the next post -- I can respect their opinion. When they're paid off to switch from one side to the other, I loathe them -- I saw it happen with one of my favorite professors. Alarming trend.
More nuclear power = more mushroom clouds.
India Pakistan, Korea.
Nuff said.
That's just dumb.
Nuclear energy is C02 and, more importantly, pollution free. It is the ultimate, consistent and reliable green energy.
If you like Mushroom clouds, nuke power is great.
If you like a million years of deadly wast, nukes are great
If you like running out of easy uranium in 13%, nukes are great.
My profile has data and links to prove what I say.
Does this mean that the enriched uranium just sits in the reactor and doesn't need to be split with a neutron to release the energy. Wow, kingcityguru has just come up with a new reactor that doesn't produce any radioactive wastes. Just think, there will be no more alpha, beta or gamma ray producing radiation generated at nuclear power plants.
Can this process be transferred to atomic bombs? Man, you are going to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Chemistry. This is fabulous because we can shut down the 1st generation plants that produced the equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima sized bombs of radiation every year of operation based on a 1,000 megawatt power plant. No more uranium miners will ever have to die again from lung cancer do to radon gas inhalation- an alpha emmiter.
Are you going to go on the lecture tour? I can't wait to see the electric vehicles you have discovered to mine and move the uranium to the processing plant for enrichment. Or the solar powered electricity used in the enrich ment process, fabrication of the fuel rods and transporting them to the reactors. Finally, no CO2 generated in the entire nuclear fuel cycle. This is truly a green pollution and co2 energy source. I am at a loss of words.
Mr. Kingcityguru,
Does the cat have your tongue or did you see the light?
I support construction of new atomic power plants. It is short sighted to think we can replace fossil fuels with wind and solar at this time given the limitations of wind distribution and battery technology.
I am an environmentalist, a democrat and a liberal. Nuclear technoloy is much safer and more efficient today than it was 40 years ago. We cannot continue to power our electric plants with coal and oil when they produce pollution and excess C02. We need to preserve the oil for things like drugs and chemicals rather than burning it.
I am glad that you exposed the fact that you are a democrat and a liberal. I am sorry that you have not done your research to support the position you have taken on nuclear power. Therefore, I will help you do your research so that you can continue to be a Democrat and a liberal. If you are unwilling to visit the sites that I am sending you to, then you are not really a Democrat or a liberal.
Browser: Wall Street Funding for Nuclear Power Plants. Result = Zero Funding
Browser: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility: Result = Dr. John W. Gofman the Founder.
When you visit this site, please pay particular attention to his curriculum vitae. After reading his curriculum vitae, so that you are fullly aware of his credenitals as a nuclear scientist and as doctor,
please proceed to his book called: Poisoned Power, The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants Before and After Three Mile Island.
Energy efficiency investments cost 3-4 cents per Kwh. Nuclear power plants cost 15-30 cents per Kwh to construct, dependending on the design, and 2-3 cents per Kwh to operate. Operating costs do not include the nuclear fuel cycle or decommissioning.
Continued from above:
Nobody wants to discuss energy efficiency. It is easier to save a Kwh of production than it is to produce a Kwh while employing people to do it in the process. We can easily reduce electrical consumption through energy efficiency by 50%. With the proper incentives for installing LED lighting, replacing antiquated heating and cooling systems with geothermal heating and cooling systems and by developing advanced energy efficient appliances, the need for additional nuclear power plants can be eliminated. In fact, we can start decommissioning existing nuclear power plants.
Coal fired power plants, especially outdated plants, can be replaced with natural gas fired power plants in the interim. We are busting at the seams with domestic supplies of natural gas. Smaller, peaker natural gas power plants can cheaply be built with few environmental hurdles.
Germany has been replacing nukes with solar, wind and conservation for the past several years.
13 years of nuclear uranium.
Uranium is already so scarce we are trying to mine the Grand Canyon!
That's just dumb.
There is over 200 years of uranium presently identified. If prices rise, the amount that becomes economical to mine will also increase. That said, since spent uranium retains 95% of its energy generating capacity it is recyclable -- Israel does it already.
At tripple the cost of the 1st generation reactors.
Patrick has a very valid point -- where are we going to get the 24/7 electric power from? There is very little additional power available from dams, solar panels produces power only when the sun shines, and wind turbines are only about 30% effective. If we all agree that coal/oil powered plants need to be phased out, than we must develop new power sources to provide the needed 24/7. Geothermal is only effective in a small area of the country and I see many problems for tidal power to ever become effective. And the burning of waste/bio materials only creates more of the pollutants which we are trying to stop.
Natural gas. The peaking power we already use.
Eventually phased into hydrogen.
The biggest problem with hydrogen is the amount of energy you must use to first separate hydrogen from other elements.
See Melissa Rossi's Profile
Harvey, thank you for posting this, wish I'd seen before. I was worried they would be panning off nuclear as green -- and guess that's no surprise given Steven Chu's background. While I am concerned about global warming, this is not the answer. As you point out, it's not cost-effective, It's not green, it's toxic, radioactive, impossible to dispose of safely, and means we're building terrorist targets and providing means for dirty bombs, since so much waste just gets lost. So, the stimulus package passed with this incentive in it? What to do now? Patrick really troubles me, he seems to be a "bear hugging" victim. Not to pass judgement, but i think i can smell the green in his former greenpeace badge. Well, let me know what I can do.
Neither Harvey, nor you Melissa, have any facts to support your hollow assertions. This absurd fear of nuclear power generation harkens back to medieval superstitions against astronomy and chemistry.
Based purely on ignorance and a failure to honestly analyze and understand the technical issues, your positions have very little merit when exposed to the light of discovery of the evidence and the facts.
Makes me ashamed to be a member of leading environmental groups when the membership is clouded with such morons.
I fully agree with DMEEPhD. Nuclear definitely has some issues, but the scaremongering and ignorance of the technical aspects of electric power generation and distribution just makes a lot of the anti-nukes sound as silly as some of the creationists and pro-lifers on the right.
Freaking out over the costs and pork for nuclear while ignoring the same criticisms for wind and solar is hypocrisy in its finest form. The same goes for environmental concerns: solar PV puts out 3-4x more CO2 and uses lots of nasty heavy metals and solvents in their manufacture, chemicals that are strong carcinogens, but I get the feeling that a lot of anti-nukes would love to cover every roof in America with PV panels. (Besides the tremendous amount of land (some habitat loss) required for wind turbines and their associated transmission lines, they are pretty green.) As far as safety goes, I don't hear anti-nukes wasting nearly as much breath on chemical plants, which would kill way more people if attacked by terrorists and are far, far easier to attack, or on medical isotopes, which are way more effective in dirty bombs and way easier to acquire than power reactor fuel.
There are legitimate issues about nuclear power, but the Chicken Little arguments seem a little ridiculous and distract from more pressing concerns, like getting rid of coal plants.
Your ignorance of safety issues and costs surrounding nuclear power is evident in your post. Explain to me why Wall Street will not finance the construction of new nuclear power plants? Explain to me why spent fuel rods are sitting in holding ponds at every commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S.? Explain to me why we should rely on an energy source that creates large quantities of radioactive waste that will have to be stored for hundreds of thousand of years in exchange for 50-60 years of operation? Plutoinium, one of the most toxic substances created by and know to man, has a half life of 24,000 years and requires 10 half lifes to become innocuous. Explain to me why the nuclear utility industry refuses to assume full liability for the operation of their nukes if they, as you claim , are so safe? Explain to me why the taxpayers fund the enetire nuclear fuel cycle on behalf of the utiltity industry which eliminates the cost from their calculation of costs per Kwh? I am surpised that the enevironmental groups you are a memeber of, haven't helped you through all of these issues. For a more detailed analysis of the economic and safety issues surrounding the nuclear power industry, please visit the website of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility to read Dr. John W. Gofman's book:
Poisoned Power, The Case Against Nuclear Power Before and After 3 Mile Island.
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