Politicians and industry advocates are using spiraling concerns over greenhouse gases to breathe new life into the old nuclear debate, a trend that Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club’s global warming program, describes as being “like giving up smoking and taking up crack.”

Pelosi, Clinton, Obama Favor More Nuclear Plants

The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an old debate: whether nuclear power should play a role in any federal attack on climate change. Congress, with added impetus from a Supreme Court ruling last week, appears more likely to pass comprehensive energy legislation. But nuclear power sharply divides lawmakers who agree on mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. And it has pitted some on Capitol Hill against their usual allies, environmentalists, who largely oppose any expansion of nuclear power.

... Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) - all presidential candidates - support legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and provide incentives to power companies to build more nuclear plants. - Commondreams

It's interesting to note, here, that the supreme court ruling was primarily aimed at the regulation of vehicle tailpipe emissions - something nuclear power cannot influence...

But, it doesn't take long for those with a financial interest to make their move. A recent victory may have a bitter aftertaste if TXU's new plans go ahead - as intentions to build new coal-fired power stations have transformed into a nuclear determination instead:

TXU Corp. is seeking to build a series of 1,700-megawatt, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.-designed nuclear power plants in Texas, officials from both companies said this week.

The nuclear plants effectively would replace the utility's plans for 11 new coal-fired power plants that it was seeking permission from Texas to build prior to its $45 billion buyout in February by a group of private equity firms led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Texas Pacific Group.

... But Mitsubishi's reactor design -- the U.S. Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor -- is not approved by U.S. regulators for use in the country. Nor does TXU have permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to proceed with its plans. Utility officials say they are working on the necessary paperwork and will submit documents to NRC this year and next year. TXU wants one new reactor operational by 2015.

NRG Energy Inc., Exelon Corp. and Amarillo Power also have said they may build nuclear power plants in Texas - Rebecca Smith, Wall Street Journal, April 10

Meanwhile, Helen Caldicott, an outspoken critic of nuclear power and founder of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, and author of a new book entitled "Nuclear Power is Not the Answer" says that nuclear power is not only dangerous, but, when taking all the processes for construction, production and waste disposal into account, is by no means cheaper than coal-fired plants. She suggests that the massive funding and subsidies that are going into nuclear would be better spent on encouraging efficiencies, and subsidising renewable alternatives like solar panels and solar-powered water-heating systems for residential homes. Watch her speak on OnPoint. While you're there, check out the interview with John Coequyt, Greenpeace's U.S. Energy Specialist, as he talks about how an emphasis on energy efficiencies combined with investment in renewables could halve, or more than halve CO2 emissions by 2050.

Al Gore expresses similar concerns:

Mr Gore said nuclear power was unlikely to play a significantly bigger role in the climate change battle. "Even if you set aside the problem of long-term waste storage and the danger of operator accident and the vulnerability to terrorist attack, you still have two others that are more difficult," he said.

The first problem was one of economics.

"Nuclear power plants are the costliest to build and they take the longest time and at present they come in only one size — extra large."

The second was nuclear weapons proliferation. "For eight years when I was in the White House, every problem of weapons proliferation was connected to a reactor program," he said. - The Age

Mark Hertsgaard, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, puts it well:

But environmentalists on both sides of this argument are overlooking the strongest objection to nuclear power, even as the nuclear industry hopes no one notices it. The objection is rooted in energy economics, hence the oversight.

... The case against nuclear power as a global warming remedy begins with the fact that nuclear-generated electricity is very expensive. Despite more than $150 billion in federal subsides over the past 60 years (roughly 30 times more than solar, wind and other renewable energy sources have received), nuclear power costs substantially more than electricity made from wind, coal, oil or natural gas. This is mainly due to the cost of borrowing money for the decade or more it usually takes to get a nuclear plant up and running.

Remarkably, this inconvenient fact does not deter industry officials from boasting that nuclear is the cheapest power available. Their trick is to count only the cost of operating the plants, not of constructing them. By that logic, a Rolls-Royce is cheap to drive because the gasoline but not the sticker price matters. The marketplace, however, sees through such blarney. As Amory Lovins, the soft energy guru who directs the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado think tank that advises corporations and governments on energy use, points out, "Nowhere (in the world) do market-driven utilities buy, or private investors finance, new nuclear plants." Only large government intervention keeps the nuclear option alive.

A second strike against nuclear is that it produces only electricity, but electricity amounts to only one third of America's total energy use (and less of the world's). Nuclear power thus addresses only a small fraction of the global warming problem, and has no effect whatsoever on two of the largest sources of carbon emissions: driving vehicles and heating buildings.

The upshot is that nuclear power is seven times less cost-effective at displacing carbon than the cheapest, fastest alternative -- energy efficiency, according to studies by the Rocky Mountain Institute. For example, a nuclear power plant typically costs at least $2 billion. If that $2 billion were instead spent to insulate drafty buildings, purchase hybrid cars or install super-efficient lightbulbs and clothes dryers, it would make unnecessary seven times more carbon consumption than the nuclear power plant would. In short, energy efficiency offers a much bigger bang for the buck. In a world of limited capital, investing in nuclear power would divert money away from better responses to global warming, thus slowing the world's withdrawal from carbon fuels at a time when speed is essential.

Mainstream environmentalists do argue that energy efficiency, solar, wind and other renewable fuels are better weapons against global warming than nuclear is. But they will fare better if they go a step further and point out that embracing nuclear is not just unnecessary but a step backward. - San Francisco Chronicle

The hands of the famous Doomsday Clock were moved forward recently partly due to these very fears - that global warming will bring a resurgence in nuclear development. Exchanging one dirty and dangerous addiction for another is a terribly short-sighted way of using this historic opportunity to clean up our act. This is true, regardless of economics, but with these factored in as well, it makes a pro-nuclear stance frighteningly absurd.

 

 

 

Further Reading:

• Uranium Hits Record High