Climate Change and Nuclear Power

David Wright, physicist & co-director, Global Security

January 28, 2014

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently received by email an open letter by four nuclear scientists and engineers—Andrew C. Kadak, Richard A. Meserve, Neil E. Todreas, and Richard Wilson—titled “Nuclear Power’s Role in Responding to Climate Change.” Below we look at some of their arguments.

U.S. electricity generation by fuel, 2012 (Source: EIS)

The authors state that “… nuclear power can deliver electric power in a sufficiently safe, economical and secure manner to supplement supply from other carbon-free sources.”

UCS is deeply concerned about climate change and its impact on humanity and the Earth. We believe that nuclear power must remain on the table as a means of combating climate change.

However, new reactors are not currently economical compared to electricity generation from natural gas or from other low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar. The environmental community, which some blame for crippling nuclear power, has in fact pushed for a price on carbon as a way of building the societal costs of continued carbon emissions into the economics of electricity production. This would in effect create a significant incentive that is currently missing for nuclear power compared to natural gas. Congress has stymied such proposals, and until that changes it is difficult to see what will drive growth in nuclear power, regardless of concerns about carbon or the variability of solar and wind power.

The economics of nuclear power would look even worse if there were another nuclear accident. TEPCO, the owner of the Fukushima plant, estimates that compensation costs for the tens of thousands of people displaced by the accident in Japan will exceed $50 billion and that it will cost about $20 billion to decommission the plant. This does not include the cost of eventually decontaminating the surrounding area, which may also run to $50 billion.

We do not believe nuclear reactors are yet sufficiently safe and secure. UCS has served as an industry watchdog for over four decades, and we have repeatedly seen that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not enforce its own safety regulations. For example, half of U.S. reactors do not currently comply with fire safety regulations, which were first put in place in 1980. Yet according to the NRC, fire represents half the risk of accidents that result in core damage.

In discussing the issue of nuclear waste, the authors of the letter point to geological storage and the Blue Ribbon Commission’s recommended path toward interim and final storage as the solution, but there is currently no movement forward on this front. An effort by the Senate to legislate the Commission’s recommendations is faltering and is likely dead. In the meantime, nuclear waste continues to accumulate at nuclear reactor sites, with nearly three-quarters of it sitting in increasingly crowded cooling pools, with no end in sight.

While there are clear steps to increase the safety of spent fuel while waiting for long-term storage—such as moving a large fraction of it from cooling pools to dry casks—the industry refuses to implement these steps on its own and the NRC refuses to require them. A recent NRC report purports to show that the risks of continued spent fuel storage in pools is very low, but does not, for example, include the possibility of a terrorist attack on the pool. The NRC analysis is not convincing.

More generally, the authors talk about the possibility that future technologies will provide reactor designs that are safer, more secure, and less of a proliferation risk. However, as we have pointed out in our analyses, whether that is true depends not just on the technology but on the safety and security requirements for these new designs. In particular, if cost considerations result in the industry cutting corners on safety or security systems, then the situation in the future could be worse than today, not better.

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Panic has already ensued: that is why we stagnated... FEAR!

We all know climate change is real!

Nuclear Power will be built to cater for large populations that can't make the switch in time... yes, cost comparisons will keep the number being built to a minimun and will basically make the case for Renewable Energy stronger so in the end you're right it will act as a case for Renewables but more Nuclear will be built due to panic in leaving things too late in the near future.

# wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2014 at 3:13pm:


How does that make David Wright an expert of Nuclear energy?

lee wrote on Feb 4^th, 2014 at 10:24am:


Not really. Nuclear explosive weapons, and nuclear reactors are very different technology

lee wrote on Feb 4^th, 2014 at 10:30am:



Exactly.

Sure, let’s debate nuclear power – just don’t call it “low-emission”

Mark Diesendorf
6 February 2014, 2.54pm AEST


Nuclear power is back on Australia’s radar. In its recent issues paper released as a preface to September’s Energy White Paper, the Abbott government reopened the debate thus:
Quote:

This sentence appears in a passage dealing with the “move to low-emissions energy”, and although nuclear is not explicitly described as a low-emission option, it certainly looks as if the government is prepared to consider embracing nuclear power as part of an alleged move away from fossil fuels.

Is nuclear energy really low-emission?
Unfortunately, the notion that nuclear energy is a low-emission technology doesn’t really stack up when the whole nuclear fuel life cycle is considered. In reality, the only CO2-free link in the chain is the reactor’s operation. All of the other steps – mining, milling, fuel fabrication, enrichment, reactor construction, decommissioning and waste management – use fossil fuels and hence emit carbon dioxide.

Several analyses by researchers who are independent of the nuclear industry have found that total CO2 emissions depend sensitively on the grade of uranium ore mined and milled. The lower the grade, the more fossil fuels are used, and so the higher the resulting emissions.

In one such study, the nuclear physicist (and nuclear energy advocate) Manfred Lenzen found that CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle increase from 80 grams per kilowatt-hour (g/kWh) where uranium ore is high-grade at 0.15%, to 131 g/kWh where the ore grade declines to low-grade at 0.01%.

Other experts, such as nuclear energy critics Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith, using assumptions less favourable to nuclear energy, have reported an increase in emissions from 117 g/kWh for high-grade ore to 437 g/kWh for low-grade ore.

For comparison, the life-cycle emissions from wind power are 10–20 g/kWh, depending upon location, and from gas-fired power stations 500–600 g/kWh. So depending on your choice of analysis, nuclear power can be viewed as almost as emissions-intensive as gas.

Making the grade
The quantity of known global uranium reserves with ore grades richer than the critical level of 0.01% is very limited. With the 2013 contribution by nuclear energy of about 10% of the world’s electricity generation, the high-grade reserves would at best last several decades. It doesn’t make sense to invest vast amounts of money in a technology that will emit more and more CO2 over time.

Are there alternative future pathways for obtaining nuclear fuel that could have lower emissions? Although there are vast quantities of uranium oxide in the Earth’s crust, almost all of such reserves exist at very low concentrations, typically 0.0004%. At this grade, 1000 tonnes of ore would have to be mined to get 4 kilograms of uranium in the form of yellowcake.

In this case the energy needed to extract uranium would be orders of magnitude greater than the energy output of the nuclear power station. There is a limit to how much the uranium industry can be expected to chase diminishing returns. For instance, seawater contains uranium, but at a concentration of about 0.0000002%, meaning that a million tonnes of seawater would have to be processed to extract just 2 kilograms of uranium.

The technology trap
Could new types of nuclear power station solve the problem? “Fast breeder reactors” produce more nuclear fuel than they use and so would theoretically have much lower life-cycle CO2 emissions than existing “burner” reactors. But in practice breeders are even more complex, dangerous and expensive than burners. As a result they have been stuck at the demonstration stage for decades and even some nuclear proponents admit that breeders are unlikely to be commercialized for at least another two decades, if ever.

The government’s issues paper mentions the possibility of nuclear reactors based on the thorium fuel cycle, but these are also more complex than uranium-based nuclear energy and there are no commercial systems operating as yet.

Advocates of another possible option, nuclear fusion on Earth, recognize that it unlikely to become a commercial reality for at least three decades, if ever.

To sum up, based on existing commercial technology, nuclear energy is not a solution to the global climate crisis, because it will soon become too emissions-intensive. It is also not a short-term solution, because it is a very slow technology to plan and construct. It is dangerous and very expensive.

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Mark Diesendorf: I think I told this forum a few years ago(maybe I even posted the results of the hindmentioned- did I just make up a word  - interview???!!!  )  I was having an extra curricula activity with another forum (lol) and they had internet interviews with people whereby the forum could post questions and the chief in charge would email those questions to the interviewer and post the answers. We could request who was interviewed and I requested we interview Mark Diesendorf and guess what: we got the nod and three of my questions got asked and answered by Mark Diesendorf himself,.. um, ahem- unless it was his secretary lol...

Cool- go the Markus Diesdendorfus experience I say!!   

** "YES,... I really have been EXPERIENCED thanks Jimi for asking..." 

** "Party on Wayne Party on Garth: Party on Bill,.. Party on Ted... IRON MAIDEN, EXCELLENT:...WHOAH! ...!!"                           

# wrote on Feb 6^th, 2014 at 7:43pm:



..we have much fatted cows to trim: the sheeple must wake up NOW!