McCain, Obama & the Trojan Horse of Nuclear Energy

"Nuclear power is among the surest ways to gain a clean, abundant, and stable energy supply." Those words came from John McCain' this week in Houston as he laid out his energy policy.

This week in Detroit, Barack Obama talked about making nuclear power "safe," and his website position paper says, "It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table."

Neither of them has spotted the obvious:

Nuclear power is the Trojan horse of the energy debate.

Using the guise of concern over climate change, proponents ask us to re-consider our aversion to new nuclear power plants. But hidden beneath the claims of zero carbon emissions are the same old problems that have stopped any new nuclear plant from being commissioned since the Three Mile Island incident in Pennsylvania in 1979.

So let's talk about what's inside the Trojan Horse. (I quote from a fact sheet by Leslie Lai and Kristen Morrison.)

• Proliferation Risk -- Plutonium is a man-made waste product of nuclear fission, which can be used either for fuel in nuclear power plants or for bombs. In the year 2000, an estimated 310 tons (620,000 pounds) of civilian, weapons-usable plutonium was produced. That's enough for 34,000 nuclear weapons of the same type used on Nagasaki.

• Accident Risk - Remember 1986. Chernobyl. An explosion at that nuclear plant killed at least 30 people at the site. Thousands more died of cancer. The fallout reached Scotland.

• Environmental Degradation -- The mining of uranium, its refining and enrichment, as well as the production of plutonium, all produce radioactive isotopes that contaminate the surrounding area, including the groundwater, air, land, plants, and equipment.

• Nuclear Waste -- A typical reactor will generate 20 to 30 tons of high-level nuclear waste annually. There is no known way to safely dispose of this waste, which remains dangerously radioactive until it naturally decays. And that's a very long time. (The half-life of Plutonium-239, one particularly lethal component of nuclear waste, is 24,000 years.) Opposition to the proposed Yucca Mountain depository is strong and getting stronger. No one seems to want to store radioactive poison in their state. How many homeowners would like it trucked down the highway through their neighborhood or carried in a train down the local tracks?

• Reprocessing Risk -- Though some countries reprocess nuclear waste (in essence, preparing it to send through the cycle again to create more energy), this process is banned in the U.S. due to increased proliferation risks, as the reprocessed materials can also be used for making bombs. Reprocessing is also not a solution because it just creates additional nuclear waste.

Now, I will state that as an employee of a 501 c 3 educational charity, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, I am not allowed to be partisan. And in fact, it is the stated policy of the Foundation to educate and advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons, but never to influence any campaign for elected office and never to ask any voter to do anything but vote their conscience.

However, education is vital for an informed voting public. And in a media environment that can accentuate the insignificant while leaving the issues unexplored, I see getting the basic policy facts out to voters as hugely important. Then citizens can vote their conscience.

So here are two key passages from the nuclear energy policies of our two candidates for President. I invite people to also check out these links to the complete energy policies of John McCain and Barack Obama.

John McCain ( speech on June 17, 2008): "As for nuclear energy -- a proven energy source that requires zero emissions -- we haven't built a new reactor in 31 years. In Europe and elsewhere, they have been expanding their use of nuclear energy. But we've waited so long that we've lost our domestic capability to even build these power plants. Nuclear power is among the surest ways to gain a clean, abundant, and stable energy supply, as other nations understand. One nation today has plans to build almost 50 new reactors by 2020. Another country plans to build 26 major nuclear stations. A third nation plans to build enough nuclear plants to meet one quarter of all the electricity needs of its people -- a population of more than a billion people. Those three countries are China, Russia, and India. And if they have the vision to set and carry out great goals in energy policy, then why don't we?... What is certain in energy policy is that we have learned a few clear lessons along the way. Somehow all of them seem to have escaped my opponent. He says that high oil prices are not the problem, but only that they rose too quickly. He's doesn't support new domestic production. He doesn't support new nuclear plants. He doesn't support more traditional use of coal, either."

Barack Obama (from his website "Plan to Make America a Global Energy Leader") "Nuclear power represents more than 70 percent of our non-carbon generated electricity. It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table. However, there is no future for expanded nuclear without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation. Barack Obama introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to establish guidelines for tracking, controlling and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants.To prevent international nuclear material from falling into terrorist hands abroad, Obama worked closely with Sen. Dick Lugar (R - IN) to strengthen international efforts to identify and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. As president, Obama will make safeguarding nuclear material both abroad and in the U.S. a top anti-terrorism priority. Obama will also lead federal efforts to look for a safe, long-term disposal solution based on objective, scientific analysis. In the meantime, Obama will develop requirements to ensure that the waste stored at current reactor sites is contained using the most advanced dry-cask storage technology available."

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is an educational charity that wants to encourage new US nuclear weapons policy. The Foundation is gathering one million signatures in a public education campaign, US Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World -- An Appeal to the Next President of the United States. The text of the Appeal sets out seven prudent steps -- such as de-alerting nuclear weapons -- that would make the world safer. The names will be delivered to the White House on Inauguration Day January 20, 2009.

People can read the US Leadership Appeal and sign on at www.wagingpeace.org/appeal.

Comments

[research]

There is only enough easy uranium for 25 years worth of the world energy needs,

Then the Uranium wars start.

Meanwhile we end up with 1 million years of intractable deadly waste.

1 trilliond dollars over 10 years devoted to

wind and solar, can completely

eliminate Nuke, Coal and imported oil.

Sustainable forever, cheaper than war crimes for oil and faster to implement then new nukes or drilling.

See my profile to detailed calculations and links.

[fabco]

You have listed plenty of excellent reasons why we should not build any more convential nuclear reactors. But wait, Pressureized Water Reactors are a first design, like model T's. Almost as soon as Dr. Weinberg invented them, he forsaw their inherent flaws and weaknesses and came up with a far better idea.

It is called the Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor. It burns all it's fuel producing 1/300th the waste. It is not perfect as it's waste lifetime is still a couple of hundred years, but that is a vast improvement over tens of thousands for today's conventional nuclear waste. It is not pressurized and cannot melt down, and does not produce plutonium as it's end product, and is far more poliferation resistant. An accident would be no worse than an industrial or refinery accident today, not a Chernobol or Three Mile Island disaster. It even qualifies as "sustainable" when operated on the thorium breeding cycle producing slightly more fuel than it uses. It can even convert today's nuclear waste into fuel making lemonade out of lemons. -a far better idea than yucca mountain.

To cap it off there is allready 6 times as much pure thorium energy as in ANWAR buried in the Nevada desert which is today considered as mere waste. Isn't this technology worth at least a look?

[research]

It's "Future tech" show me a link where I can buy one.

Breeder reactors don't work.

Even the French have given up repossessing: it's not worth it.
http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/vol_9/9-2/charpin.html

See my profile. You didn't, did you?

[incontempt]

Keith Olberman, finally, tonight discussed why fuel prices are up...ENRON and the loophole put into law with McCains assistance and with phil grahams direction... close this and oil/gas will drop by 25-50% OVERNIGHT....i want someone in jail....and McCain is directly linked to this corruption at the whole worlds expense...airlines failing....farmers quitting..the whole works.

The hammer is falling and the truth will be exposed....finally

[dschwarz]

OK so what carbon neutral or nearly carbon neutral energy sources do we have?

Solar, wind, tidal/hydro, and nuclear.

Does anyone believe the world can make the transition to carbon neutral energy sources without significantly increasing our use of nuclear power? If so, I'd like to see your figures. I believe we need to scale up our use of nuclear power dramatically, in the US and around the world, ASAP.

Anyone who calls themselves an environmentalist should be backing this, and at the same time backing stringent regulation, solutions to the waste disposal problem, and all the other problems mentioned above. We have newer / better technology now than was used in the Chernobyl and the TMI reactors. We should be deploying pebble bed reactors in the US rather than letting China take the lead.

[research]

Nukes suck! 25 years of power for 1 million years of deadly waste.

Solar and wind are forever.

[tribalypredisposed]

Nuclear as exactly as carbon nuetral as COAL is. Now how does that make it what an environmentalist should back? When you account for all the energy used in construction of the plants, mothballing of the plants, mining the fuel and making it ready for use, and dealing with the nuclear waste a nuclear plant and a coal plant make exactly the same amount of CO2 per kilowat. And the nuclear plant costs 12-16 times as much over its lifetime to do it. While there is still 400+ years of coal in the ground, uranium is increasingly scarce and that is bound to drive the price up. So these new nuclear plants will be using a very expensive fuel on top of all their other drawbacks. If we cannot do solar or wind for unknowable reasons...coal is still a far better choice than nuclear.

[CanadianAmerican]

Fission is not perfect (especially because of spent fuel storage), but is a better answer than burning fossil fuels (which are eventually going to run out anyways). Fusion is an even better answer. (Of course, even better are solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc., where and when available.) The leaders in new energy technologies will have huge economic advantages in the coming decades and beyond. We should be investing as much as possible in R&D.

[NL207]

"Fusion is an even better answer"

A patently false statement since there is not now nor for the foreseeable future will there be a sustainable fusion reactor of any kind much less one which is capable of generating commercial power. No such device exists. Therefore, no such solution may be chosen.

The rest of your post is only slightly less egregious prattle.

[kristycu]

I like how the author states "Neither of them has spotted the obvious" and at least in Obama's remarks he clearly addresses, not only the storage of waste but also containment of waste and he mentions the dangers of proliferation. Maybe he should read the papers a little more clearly before he makes a statement of that sort. because he clearly contradicts himself.

[Fez]

Nuclear power: Trojan Horse or White Elephant? Here are some facts about the mining and processing of uranium, the first step in producing nuclear energy in this country. First, the US still has large reserves of uranium. The largest are in the Gas Hills of Wyoming, with the second largest deposits occurring in the Grants Uranium Belt which runs along I-40 from Laguna, NM to Church Rock, NM and is about 20-25 miles wide. Several companies have acquired exploration permits to drill in the Grants District but there is major opposition from local Navajo residents. In fact, the Navajo Nation has passed a moratorium on all uranium mining because Navajos suffered (and continue to suffer) the most serious helth impacts of uranium mining. Just last week the state Cultural Resources Board passed a resolution declaring Mt. Taylor, which sits right in the middle of the Grants District, a Traditional Cultural Property at the request of the Navajo Nation and 5 pueblos. Future uranium mining in the Grants District would most likely use in-situ leaching, a technique that causes almost no surface disturbance but can pollute groundwater aquifers miles away from the actual drilling and leaching. Because of the squalid history of uraium mining in NM it is more likely that major mining will occur in the Gas Hills of Wyoming, where the few residents have only recently learned to walk erect and use a fork.