Among environmentalists these days, the mark that you are a hard-headed realist committed to stopping climate change is that you have come to support nuclear power. (See Patrick Moore, one founder of Greenpeace, in the Washington Post.) While appealing in principle, the argument goes, renewable sources of energy just can’t generate the oomph we need as an advanced industrial society – at least, not quickly enough to get us out of the hole we’ve been digging ourselves into through fossil fuel dependence.
I am sympathetic to the argument. A good case can be made for employing considerable caution when dealing with something as essential and imperfectly understood as the Earth’s climatic system. Nuclear power is strategically appealing – it could reduce the levels of geopolitical influence of some really nasty governments like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. It is appealing insofar as carbon emissions are concerned, though it is not quite as zero-emission as some zealots claim, once you take into account things like fuel mining and refining, transport, and construction. It is appealing insofar as it can generate really huge amounts of power, provided we can find people who are willing to have reactors in their vicinities.
The big problem, obviously, is nuclear waste. Nuclear reactors produce high level radioactive waste, as well as becoming radioactive themselves over the course of time. The scales across which such waste is dangerous dwarf recorded human history. Wastes like Plutonium-239 will remain extremely dangerous for tens of millennia. As The Economist effectively explains it:
In Britain only a few ancient henges and barrows have endured for anything like the amount of time that a nuclear waste dump will be expected to last—Stonehenge, the most famous, is “only” 4,300 years old. How best, for example, to convey the concept of dangerous radiation to people who may be exploring the site ten thousand years from now? By that time English (or any other modern language) could be as dead as Parthian or Linear A, and the British government as dim a memory as the pharaohs are today.
In fairness, we have some reason to believe that future generations will be more capable of dealing with high level radioactive waste than we are. There is likewise some reason to believe that we can bury the stuff such that it will never trouble us again. Much of it has, after all, been dumped in far less secure conditions. Chernobyl remains entombed in a block of degrading concrete, and substantial portions of the Soviet nuclear fleet have sank or been scuttled with nuclear waste aboard. (See: One, two, three) Off the coast of the Kola Peninsula near Norway, 135 nuclear reactors from 71 decommissioned Soviet submarines were scuttled in the Berrents Sea during the Cold War. In addition, the Soviet Union dumped nuclear waste at 10 sites in the Sea of Japan between 1966 and 1991.
In the end, I don’t find the argument for long-term geological storage to be adequate. We cannot make vessels that will endure the period across which these materials will be dangerous. As such, I do not think we can live up to our obligations towards members of future generations if we continue to generate such wastes – though that is unlikely to matter much to politicians facing US$100 a barrel oil. Pressed to do so, I am confident that a combination of reduction in the usage of energy and the development of renewable sources could deal with the twin problems of climate change and the depletion of oil resources. The short term cost might be a lot higher than that associated with nuclear energy, but it seems the more prudent course to take.
All that said, I very much encourage someone to argue the contrary position.
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Dr Anderson said the separate demands of the transport and heating sectors meant that nuclear power supplied only about 3.6% of total UK energy used. Replacing nuclear reactors with gas and coal power stations by 2020 would raise carbon emissions by 4%-8%, he said. “We could very easily compensate for that with moderate increases in energy efficiency. If you’ve got money to spend on tackling climate change then you don’t spend it on supply. You spend it on reducing demand.”
(From The Guardian)
“Off the coast of the Kola Peninsula near Norway, 135 nuclear reactors from 71 decommissioned Soviet submarines were scuttled in the Berrents Sea during the Cold War. In addition, the Soviet Union dumped nuclear waste at 10 sites in the Sea of Japan between 1966 and 1991.”
While unfortunate, this is surely a red herring. What importance does it have for deciding whether responsible states should use nuclear power in a civilian capacity or not?
In case you’ve not yet noticed, your brother has a new video.
And, with a vermillion flash, it was an Everything2 node!
Milan,
I’ve heard, but never bothered to check, that, quite apart from the problem of disposing of the waste (on that, wouldn’t one possible solution to dump it in space?), there’s not actually very much uranium left.
Rob,
Given that the very best launch systems in the world still have a rate of catastrophic failure of about 1%, launching high level waste is risky. Since the entire core of a nuclear reactor becomes high level waste, it is also quite improbable.
As for the availability of uranium, I have never heard any concern expressed about running out of it.
According to Wikipedia:
[Uranium] is considered to be more plentiful than antimony, beryllium, cadmium, gold, mercury, silver, or tungsten and is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum. It is found in many minerals including uraninite (most common uranium ore), autunite, uranophane, torbernite, and coffinite. Significant concentrations of uranium occur in some substances such as phosphate rock deposits, and minerals such as lignite, and monazite sands in uranium-rich ores (it is recovered commercially from these sources)…
The ultimate supply of uranium is very large. It is estimated that for a ten times increase in price, the supply of uranium that can be economically mined is increased 300 times…
In spite of Australia’s huge reserves, Canada remains the largest exporter of uranium ore, with mines located in the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan. Cameco, the world’s largest, low-cost uranium producer accounting for 18% of the world’s uranium production, operates three mines in the area.
On space disposal of wastes:
“In 1997, in the 20 countries which account for most of the world’s nuclear power generation, spent fuel storage capacity at the reactors was 148,000 tonnes, with 59% of this utilized. Away-from-reactor storage capacity was 78,000 tonnes, with 44% utilized. With annual additions of about 12,000 tonnes, issues for final disposal are not urgent.”
The capacity of the Space Shuttle, the world’s largest capacity launch vehicle, is capable of carrying about 25 tonnes into space. It would therefore take more than 9000 missions to dispose of just the high level waste from just commercial reactors in twenty countries. Rockets would be cheaper than the Shuttle, but the scale of the problem remains.
MIT reports that the world is running out of fuel for our nuclear reactors due to production limitations and an aging infrastructure. Nuclear power has gained popularity as a carbon-free energy source in recent years, but Dr. Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at MIT’s Center for International Studies, warned that fuel scarcity could drive up prices and kill the industry before it gets back on its feet. Passport has pulled together some interesting numbers: there are 440 reactors currently in operation and 82 new plants under construction. The demand for fuel has driven the price of uranium up more than 40% in the last few months — 900% over the last decade.
Speaking across the ages
Oct 22nd 2007
From Economist.com
How to design a future-proof nuclear waste bunker
THE environmental lobby often laments mankind’s unfortunate obsession with the short term. People, by and large, don’t tend to think ahead (two-thirds of Britons lack wills, for example, leaving them unprepared for one of life’s few real certainties). Politicians, with one eye always fixed on surviving the next election, are particularly guilty of short-termism. That is a problem, since human time-scales don’t always match environmental ones. A razed rainforest may take decades to regrow. Climate change will remain a problem for centuries, even if carbon emissions were to cease tomorrow.
One of the thorniest long-term problems is what to do with nuclear waste. Many western countries may build new nuclear plants; they see the energy as clean and secure. But their publics remain dubious, and nuclear waste tops their list of worries.
Two Evils
On nuclear vs. coal
By Umbra Fisk
16 Jan 2008
“Cursorily, nuclear power is a potential Xtreme disaster waiting to happen both in terms of operation and of “homeland security,” cannot save us from our immediate crisis, and is a completely unresolved toxic-waste issue that we are handing down to the next hundred generations. Coal is and will increasingly be a major contributor to air pollution and climate change, not to mention what its extraction does to the ground and nearby residents. Neither industry has sufficient government oversight, and both have too much government support. Right now nuclear gets some low-greenhouse-gas positive traction; maybe back in the ’80s when nukes were non grata, coal looked all bright and shiny. But neither is good, neither is better. Neither, despite your protestation, is the only answer I can give…”
Sodium cooled reactors?
Video tape of Monju sodium spill
Nuclear power is now offered as an alternative to coal power. But, in actuality, Big Nuke is Big Carbon’s mad-scientist cousin. Both externalize their costs: To the land, to the atmosphere, to miners, to consumers, to communities near the mines and refining facilities, and especially to future generations who will live with the long-term consequences of our short-term gains. The damage that both do is, of course, justified as necessary and unavoidable.
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