Does Nuclear Power Compete With Conservation, Wind, Solar and Biomass?
One of my frequent frustrations is getting involved in an energy policy discussion with someone that goes something like this:
Them: I am deeply concerned about global climate change and the effects of mankind’s continued use of dirty fossil fuels on our planet’s health.
Me: I used to operate power plants that produced zero emissions. What do you think about taking a new look at using nuclear power to replace fossil fuel consumption? Them: I do not like nuclear power. We can get all the power that we need by conservation, wind, solar and biomass.
Me: How do you expect for windmills and solar panels to produce power when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? Can you really shut down fossil plants if you build wind turbines and put solar panels on buildings?
Them: No, but the grid can provide all the back-up we need. We already have paid for building the existing plants and should not spend any money on building new ones while we transition to a new economy where we can live within our natural energy income.
Me: But that means that we have to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels when we could be building plants that make them unnecessary.
Them: I do not like nuclear power and do not want to replace one poison with another.
These conversations often go on far longer until either I or my opponent gives up from frustration or exhaustion.
As a technically trained power plant operator, I have apparently not learned the right words to use to convince people that comparing wind and solar power to a reliable electricity supply is a bit like comparing a bicycle to a city bus or a metro rail.
Sure, the sun and wind are forces that man can harness to do work or make electricity, just like a bicycle is a pretty good form of transportation in certain circumstances. However, I would look pretty silly trying to carry dozens of people on my bicycle. In fact, it gets pretty challenging just to carry enough stuff with me to provide a change of clothing and a raincoat in case of inclement weather. My legs are in pretty good shape, but I need a rest after about 25 miles.
When it comes to reliable power that is available on demand, it is hard to beat a fossil fuel powered generator, unless, of course you have a generator that runs off of the heat produced by an atomic fission reactor. As a guy who used to operate an electric power grid that ran almost exclusively on fission power – granted, it was a small, self-contained grid on a ship – I can personally testify that the system works fine and lasts a long (long, long) time. I have been an ocean sailor and spent enough days becalmed to also be able to testify that the sun sets every single day, making solar cells worthless as a power source until well after sunrise the next day, and the wind changes direction or disappears without any warning more often than many people care to admit.
Reducing fossil fuels for power production so that humans cause less damage to the planet is a big, difficult endeavor. It seems silly to undertake that challenge without using the best available tools. The photo accompanying this post is from just one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of the world’s operating coal mines that currently supply about 6 Billion tons of coal each year. That is my target competition when I think about the benefits of investing the time, effort and treasure required to build new nuclear power plants.
Help me, folks. Why is it so difficult to agree that uranium fission competes with fossil fuel combustion and that conservation, wind, sun and biomass “alternatives” are simply not in the same power generation league?
Related links:
First High Resolution Wind Map
Cost of Wind vs Cost of Nuclear to Replace Coal
Nuclear vs. Wind Farms Debate – rather misses the point.
Update (posted May 20, 2008 at 1800 EDT) There is a great article on the front page of Wired dated May 19, 2008 titled Inconvenient Truths: Cutting Carbon Is the Only Thing That Matters. One of the 10 inconvenient truths listed is that environmentalists should EMBRACE NUCLEAR POWER: Face It. Nukes Are the Most Climate-Friendly Industrial-Scale Form of Energy
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May 18th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Mr. Adams, I’ve been puzzling over this exact question for some years. In dealing with “them”, what I’ve found pretty consistently is that they grew up with anti-nuclear attitudes, which they acquired from misinformation in their school classes and the public media. To make it worse, their refusal to challenge their preconceptions proves, in their minds, their own sincerity and superior knowledge.
I’ll stretch the point for the sake of clarity. In colonial times, a person could prove his uprightness by accusing others of witchcraft. Any person who spoke against the accusations was in turn suspected of the same crime, so few people did. In the same way, anti-nukes consider their opposition to nuclear energy to be a moral position and anyone who says different is necessarily immoral and therefore untrustworthy.
You can show with simple arithmetic that there is no possible way to minimize the harmful effects of global warming without a major program of nuclear construction. But the people we are dealing with here would never allow arithmetic to outweigh ideological commitment.
I don’t suppose I’ve added to the world’s store of knowledge with this observation. Still, it’s an interesting question. Thanks for bringing it up.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I am still on the fence with nuclear power. I do understand your arguments and I must agree, that when compared to dirty coal, nuclear energy is absolutely better, there is no doubt about that.
I am still concerned about accidents and meltdowns. There is always that possibility and no one can guarantee a fool proof, safe nuclear plant, its just not possible. The issue with an accident is that just one meltdown could have a DEVASTATING affect on millions of people. In my opinion, its just not worth the risk, when there are other options.
Now there have been a lot of breakthroughs in the solar realm which would allow 24/7 electricity production. Instead of just photovoltaics, some of the top scientist in this field are recommending the use of mirrors heating water to run steam turbines by day. Then using stored energy from photovoltaics to run stuff by night. Its a lot more complicated than that, but you would have to read the full report to get it, but it is feasible.
I urge you to read this very fair writeup about nuclear before completely making your mind up one way or another.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/05/the-nuclear-option.html
May 18th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
People are scared. It is the job of a good nuke to sway the hearts, THEN minds of these folk. The French don’t have anti-nuclear sentiments like fear mongering Americans do…
May 19th, 2008 at 4:57 am
I see your point, truly, but…
Does the waste produced by spent nuclear fuel not count as a pollutant? I keep hearing nuclear energy proponents calling it clean, but it seems to me that there is little net difference between concentrating your pollution into incredibly dangerous little pellets (or rods, or what have you) and in spreading equally horrible little particles throughout the atmosphere and water table.
Wind, tides, solar, solar-thermal, concentrated solar, geothermal, hydro-electric – and nuclear – these all have their plusses and minuses. They are all better (in my opinion) than fossil fuels.
The intelligent way to decide which to use is to weigh ALL the pros and cons of each against the others, and find the right *combination* of sources, rather than emphasizing the pros of your pet favorite, and pushing for *only* that one.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Dubai just signed a deal with UK to build a NUclear power plant, and the news head lines was.”Dubai invests in RENEWABLE energy”. Can you clarify how is nuclear energy renewable energy. Is uranium so much abundant that there is no problem mining it.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:55 am
When talking with those people, I’d emphasize that no single technology is going to be sufficient to solve all our environmental problems, especially regarding climate change. Instead, a large variety of technologies will each be part of the solution. Remind them that this isn’t a nuclear vs solar problem, it’s a coal vs everything else problem.
While it may seem short-sighted to some people to replace the immediate problem of greenhouse gas emission with the long-term problem of storing spent rods that may be dangerous for 10,000 years, the fact is that if we don’t solve the immediate problem, the later problem isn’t really an issue.
So yes, nuclear has to be a part of the solution. So does photo-voltaic, especially in the form of distributed production (regular people with PV cells on their roofs). So does solar thermal, which holds great promise for large-scale production. Greater adoption of mass transit, hybrid cars, electric cars, and even fuel cell cars are also part of the solution.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:47 am
NeutralExistence.com, I read through the Mother Jones Article. It’s pretty painful to see such a phony compilation of anti-nuke propaganda decorated as a thoughtful analysis.
The incident at Three Mile Island and and the non-incident at Davis-Besse are portrayed as near-calamities. Guards caught napping in their break room are accused of recklessness.
The article pretends there is doubt about the health effects of operating plants. On the one hand there are professional, scientific organizations like the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation and the National Cancer Institute which say there aren’t any. On the other hand, there’s Greenpeace which says there are. I’m not making this up. The article actually cites Greenpeace as a source!
Well, why not? They cite every other paid anti-nuke. Why bother with the truth when lies are so much more fun? It’s deeply troubling that a person could read the article and describe it as “very fair.”
We’ve had a meltdown. The results of the accident at Three Mile Island were zero illnesses, zero injuries, zero deaths. If you want to worry about a calamity, consider that thousands of Americans die every month from the pollution from burning coal. Oh, but you’re against coal, too. Here’s the problem: without nuclear, the world has to keep burning fossil fuels. That’s because renewable energy only works if there’s a backup energy source. Do you have any idea how big a storage system would be required to power the US all night with stored solar energy? Go back to your uncited source and scope it with a pocket calculator. I guarantee you’ll change your mind about its feasibility.
Interestingly, children all get this: solar and wind energy don’t work when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. If there’s no nuclear energy, people will keep burning fossil fuels. I blame the schools for the inability of grownups to grasp this fundamental fact.
Tad, you’re wrong. There is a huge “difference between concentrating your pollution into incredibly dangerous little pellets (or rods, or what have you) and in spreading equally horrible little particles throughout the atmosphere and water table.” The small quantities of nuclear waste can be safely encapsulated and isolated from the environment. In fact, there has never been a case of harm resulting from nuclear-energy waste. In contrast, coal-fired power plants generate such huge quantities of toxic wastes that there’s no way they can be isolated. Their effects are already apparent in the form of poisoned aquifers. That’s in addition to the poisons distributed into the soil and water around the world.
My chief consolation is knowing that more people are catching on to the truth and the world is going nuclear. But we’re still capable of screwing this up. The same idiots who tied nuclear energy up in the courts before could do it again. If we were where we should be, global warming would be farther away and we’d be in a stronger position to deal with it. If anti-nukes have their way we’ll utterly destroy the environment.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Thorium.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
MySchizoBuddy asked how nuclear power can qualify as renewable.
Of course, it is possible to define words like renewable in many ways. The US DOE, for example includes waste to energy plants and plants that produce electricity by burning the waste products from the lumber industry as “renewable”.
Uranium is abundant enough to envision it being the primary heat supply for a system that supplies all of the world’s energy – including process heat and transportation needs. If the uranium is fully utilized by high conversion ratio and actual breeder reactors, it will last for thousands of years.
As C. Edward mentioned, that computation does not even consider the fact that thorium is also useful and about 3-4 times as abundant as uranium.
To answer Tad – there is a huge difference between a carefully stored, potentially valuable material like used nuclear fuel and a flat out waste material like the deadly waste products that are spewed out of a coal fired power plant. (You see, even engineering oriented people can use emotionally charged language if pressed.)
May 19th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Solar is becoming true more and more, and also it’s safer and abundant.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:23 am
Solar is available during the daytime if there are not too many clouds. It cannot power factories, vehicles, or ships. It is fine for certain applications, but it cannot support the world’s human population. I like humans and like their inventions. The ones that need power need something that is not dependent on the weather.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I think a lot of people don’t know that we actually DO build new nuclear powerplants, and they are getting better and better! They are sealed units that operate for 20 years without needing complex refuels/defuels! They are small, quiet, and efficient. They are run almost completely by computer, and are completely shielded and safeguarded. They power our newest submarines and aircraft carriers. Yes, they do not produce the power that a large nuclear plant would need. However the technology DOES exist to create a plant with the same safeguards, etc. And we trust these units to be put into a metal container with up to 5,000 people in close proximity, and place them in high threat environments near enemy waters. You can’t tell me that a nuclear plant in wyoming will be under more threat than a symbol of American military might abroad in the open seas.
I’m not making an arguement for or against nuclear power, that’s above my pay level, I wanted to simply throw some more information out for you take make your own mind up. If nothing else, the fact that these newest reactors can go 20 years without being opened for refuel/defuel is pretty amazing, IMO.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
true, the sun can’t make energy when it isn’t shining. but it can be stored.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 pm
the assertion that renewable (and non-harming) energy sources are not dependable is just false. just as the original poster said, the sun rises and sets every day. that mean it will, regardless of what happens, be shinging sunlight on the earth. that’s dependable. the night time is just a down time for solar power. that’s what energy storage is for. energy storage can come in many forms. Either chemical, like batteries; or physical, like compressed air or other forms of potential energy.
those who say solar and wind are not dependable just aren’t thinking about that hard enough.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 pm
I try to be open on the subject of energy storage, but I’ve done the arithmetic. Please look at http://gwperplexed.niof.org/pumped.htm and tell me what’s wrong with it. And batteries? Be serious.
Actually, the sun isn’t shining for much of the daylight hours. On average, most places only get about five hours of effective full sunlight on average, less in winter. Not only is the economic cost of solar energy higher than the cost of nuclear energy, the environmental cost is just as high. Please see http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/energy/
pdf/externe_en.pdf
May 24th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Solar energy can be stored with 90% high efficiency when using solar thermal technology that stores heat. A recent study found that 90% of our national supply of grid power can be generated using this.
http://cleantechnica.com/2008/03/27/solar-thermal-electricity-can-it-replace-coal-gas-and-oil/
May 24th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Sarah:
Though it is possible to store thermal energy with “up to 93% efficiency” that is not the same as saying that solar thermal energy plants can compete with coal or nuclear power to supply energy on demand.
The warm up period that you mention in the linked article applies to all large steam power plants, including those where the ultimate heat source is a stored container of hot fluid that was heated up by concentrating the sun’s energy. The steam cycle is an old, reliable system, but it depends upon high pressure piping and a working fluid (H2O) that changes phase between liquid and vapor.
When the steam piping is cold, the steam put into it first warms the piping. Some of that initial steam becomes water and must be removed from the piping before it can enter the turbines; high speed water droplets are quite damaging to rapidly spinning turbine blades.
Once the thick piping is fully warmed up, the loss of energy to keep it warm is rather small and the system works pretty well with just moderate condensation that has to be removed by a system of traps and drains. If power demands drop to the point where a steam plant can be shut down, it must continue to expend energy to keep the piping warm or go through the whole warm up process again.
Another thing to consider is Red Craig’s comment about the effective sunlight. If a given solar thermal plant only gets 5-7 hours of good strong sun and is planning to store some of that energy to provide power for a 24 hour day, it should advertise its capacity as the average power that it can produce over the whole period without completely expending the stored energy.
Unfortunately, solar promoters normally prefer to advertise their peak capacity. If a solar thermal power plant produces power at its peak rate when the sun is shining, there is no energy left over to store in the working fluid. If the solar thermal plant wants to be considered as a competitive baseload or on demand plant, it needs to built 3-5 times as much collector area as would be needed for the peak power demand. Truth in advertising and capacity planning is absolutely required in order to make good choices that our children will appreciate.
One more thing – why is it that so many people latch onto to the sales and marketing literature from a company like Austra, but when a nuclear professional tries to share his hard won knowledge he is often accused of being an industry shill?
May 24th, 2008 at 8:26 am
This argument or discussion needs to continue. Nuclear could possibly become a viable part of the solution including wind, solar and biomass. So far, though, there is no reasonable, economical or acceptable method for disposing of or reusing the spent fuel.
Instead of addressing the concerns over spent fuel, we have seen our government ignore the spent fuel issue, and push through lower standards for new nuclear plants. This simply is not acceptable.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Steve T, thanks for bringing the discussion around to its end.
Anti-nukes write about many things, but when pushed into a corner they fall back on wastes.
First, this argument ignores the fact that coal wastes are a problem many times greater. Failing to develop nuclear energy makes the waste problem much worse. Second, the “waste problem” of nuclear energy was always fictitious and, like all fictitious problems, was easily solved. Nuclear wastes are much smaller in quantity than coal wastes and thus are much safer. Spent fuel is being reprocessed, as it is in the UK, and more countries are setting up to do it, including the US. Reprocessing the wastes separates out the valuable uranium and transuranic actinides to use as fuel. The remaining wastes are only 3% of what was there before and lose their toxicity in much less time. chart] Many geologic places, such as caves or abandoned mines, could store those wastes safely. Besides that, proven technology exists to irradiate the wastes into other, shorter-lived materials. [source ] To deal with the wastes this way doesn’t require any technological breakthroughs, just a political decision. Meanwhile, we will have to pay the cost of the fictitious problem created by one of our least-successful presidents and we’ll be stuck with the bill for Yucca Mountain.
May 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Red Craig:
Since the “nuclear waste issue” has been a major point of discussion since the mid 1970s, I wonder just which president you are blaming for the fictitious problem?
The failure to understand that fission byproducts are valuable raw material is a bipartisan failure that is at least partially the result of the fact that both of the major parties have a strong addiction to the power and wealth provided by the fact that American consumers need energy. Our fossil fuel habit is a very strong one whose roots date back to the 19th century when the Industrial Revolution showed people just how valuable controllable power could be.
King Coal, Big (and little) oil, railroads, natural gas and big biofuels have long had a lot of influence on our political process.
All of them have strong motives for accepting and amplifying any arguments that slow the development of a key competitor for their markets. Waste is the issue normally considered to be the trump card in any discussion that points to fission as a solution to our energy challenges – especially by those people for whom a solution is a threat to their wealth and power.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Rod, I am referring to Pres. Carter. His reasoning was that, if the US reprocessed its spent fuel, North Korea or other unreliable governments would make bombs. And if the US didn’t reprocess, they wouldn’t make bombs.
The error in logic is apparent. When countries like North Korea decide to have weapons programs, the presence or absence of reprocessing in the US is not one of the considerations. And, of course, its absence didn’t prevent North Korea from proceeding; nor did it prevent any of the other newer bomb-possessing countries.
It’s just the way Mr. Carter did things. Not much else he did went right, either.
May 28th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
If it wasn’t for the anti nuclear crowd we would have developed fast breeder reactors by now and the nuclear waste wouldn’t be much of a problem. But because idiots continue to try and “help” the world, we are all worse off.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Looking at the list though it would seem that many people understand the merit in Nuclear power. I’m all for wind power, and even thinking of installing solar panels on my house. However I realize that while this can power my own needs many people in cities cannot choose to install or access these types of power sources. True it can be shipped to them but should we sacrifice the land of the west(where most of these power sources are found) to shade it with solar fields or wind fields. Nuclear power presents a way to concentrate our energy production, while creating virtually no emissions. The storage of the waste, which in some case may be reused if refined, with current regulatory standards in sufficient to protect the environment and humans from it’s baleful effects. While their is risk in some cases this risk has been greatly reduced with improved technology and procedures.
Let us not tear ourselves apart but recognize our need for zero emission technology which can be found in nuclear, wind, and solar power.
May 31st, 2008 at 6:11 am
iknoick:
I certainly wish that we could put together a coalition of the people focused on low emission sources. I tried for years to convince Tom Gray of the American Wind Energy Association that nuclear and wind have similar interests.
Unfortunately, he and his association have a strong interest in advancing the argument that wind pairs nicely with natural gas. Perhaps a good look at the membership of the organization and their funding sources provides an explanation for this position.
There are 358 members listed in the member directory at awea.org including such companies as Calpine, Chevron-Texaco Technology Ventures, Gastops, and others that love gas friendly official statements of the AWEA like “System operators can control, or dispatch, generators on their system such as natural gas-fired and hydroelectric generators.”
May 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
solar charger> Solar is not safer than nuclear. Wind for instance demonstrated that is is about 100x more dangerous than nuclear energy.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Early last spring I was walking through Barnes & Noble and, on the spur of the moment, I picked up a copy of the book, “Power to Save the World The Truth about Nuclear Power” by Gwyneth Cravens, published by Knopf with ISBN 978-0-307-26656-9.
This is a very careful and very interesting examination of the nuclear power industry starting with mining of uranium through power production to disposal of wastes. I’ve read the darn book three times and am now starting a fourth and I would recommend it for the uninitiated.
The author, once a Long Island anti-nuclear activist who participated in efforts leading to the tragedy of the closing of the Shoreham plant by judicial decree before it produced a single watt of power, as a result of her study of the nuclear power cycle, is now a nuclear power supporter.
Other notes: The nuclear power disasters at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island Unit Two incidents were vastly overplayed by a minimally competent, non-understanding media and have lead to the idea that a nuclear accident could endanger millions. Hogwash! The carbon dioxide emitted by coal fired power plants has done and will do far worse damage.
Yes, we (including France) can have and do have fool proof, safe nuclear power plants. Yes, we can reprocess spent fuel rods to extend the life of uranium deposits which are plentiful. Yes, we can store spent fuel rods safely and the Wast Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is an example of how to do this.
Yes, we need to also use renewables such as hydroelectric, wind power and solar energy but with the recognition that they will never suffice to provide all the electric power the world needs and the world needs more electric power every day.
Finally, the best newspaper article I’ve read in twenty years announced this spring that the Southern Company had applied for permission to construct two new nuclear steam generators in addition to its two existing 1215 megawatt units that have been on line near Waynesboro, Georgia since 1987. Finally! A bright, shining light in the gloom.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:32 am
It is truly amazing how the media pushes the liberal agenda. It is always referred to as the Three Mile Island DISASTER! Oh no! Scary.
The facts are that not one person was killed or even injured as a result of this incident. I toured the TMI plant, and heard a step-by step recount of the incident from the man who was the control room operator at the time. What should have happened as a result of TMI is that we should have LEARNED. Instead of taking our new knowledge of these largely human factors problems, the media painted this incident as a dangerous and catastrophic disaster.
The media continues to push this agenda today. What is the liberal media’s answer to our energy crisis? Conservation? Really?
We cannot force conservation. We cannot regulate conservation. Any attempts to would be silly. Are we going to monitor individual citizen’s houses to make sure they turn the lights off when they leave the room? Don’t be ridiculous.
We need more efficiency. And, as I think most of you fine posters have pointed out, you just can’t beat nuclear at efficiency. (or safety for that matter…check out some of the European news stories concerning wind turbine accidents.)
August 6th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Joe:
Thank you for your comment.
The nuclear industry workers and designers did indeed learn a lot from TMI. It has been used as a case study in countless training sessions, not just for the specifics of that particular incident, but also for some general understanding of how to respond in cases where there are confusing indications.
Designers have learned a lot about how to provide operators with better warnings and indications that do not overwhelm with thousands of flashing lights.
Unfortunately, the industry has not done a good job of advertising its improvements.
November 26th, 2008 at 3:15 am
Dear Rod:
One of the things that has always puzzled me is, Can nuclear fussion destroy the by-products of a nuclear fission reaction? If so then in 50-100 years we may be able to destroy these fission wastes when we develop fussion reactors. As you have said with breeder reactors we can minimize nuclear wastes and with reprocessing and nuclear fussion we can destroy the leftovers.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:08 pm
1. Its spelled fusion
2. yes reprossesing can make much less waste
3. there are no FUSION reactors only fisson
4. when fusion is made we will have a virtualy infinite supply of energy.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Think about the $7.1 billion required each year to make nuclear affordable…Your metaphor should be a bus with lead tires, and mutated crack heads.
Solar Thermal Power plants are more affordable, and are cost competative with Nuclear plants, even with the unfair incentives given to the nuclear industry. Do some research on Solar Thermal Power Plants and you will find they are the best renewable power source out there… unless the sun stops shining… Then Nuclear will be the only option.
January 31st, 2010 at 8:04 pm
People don’t think about the manufacturing process of solar panels and the batteries required to store the electricity. It’s not exactly a clean technology.