Nuclear Energy Is Back…..Kind Of

Last week, many customers of PGE received their Trojan refund checks - a refund associated with the Trojan nuclear power plant which closed more than a decade ago. This seems like a good time to revisit the question of nuclear power.

After decades-long moratorium on new nuclear reactors in the United States, nuclear energy is once again on the scene, thanks to the concerns of global warming and the need for alternative energy resources. However, at the same time as it stalemated domestically, nuclear power grew in popularity overseas. Nuclear power has been popular in Europe and Asia both as a solution for meeting climate goals and for mitigating the effects of volatile oil prices.

In 2007, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received applications for new nuclear plants for the first time in decades. With a “nuclear renaissance” occurring in Europe and extending an arm to the United States, it’s time to figure out: what “color” is nuclear energy?

Shaded Green or Not?

The term “green energy” applies to those types of energy which are environmentally-friendly, coming from natural, renewable resources such as solar, wind, water (hydro, wave, tidal), and biomass. It has also often come to mean low carbon emissions. Development and deployment of green energy sources is meant to decrease use of “brown energy” sources, meaning “dirty” fossil fuels like natural gas, oil, and coal that result in high carbon emissions and are finite resources. However, nuclear energy may not fall cleanly (if you’ll excuse the pun) into either of these categories.

Three years ago, CUB responded to the question, “How Clean is Nuclear Energy?” We decided that, “Free of carbon emissions it may be, but trouble-free it is not.” Safety and waste concerns outweighed the carbon-free benefits for us. However, nuclear energy was in a suspended state three years ago — no new plants had been approved since the 1970s and production was steady. Now, recent activity in the green energy blogosphere about a possible “nuclear revolution” has caused us to revisit the issue. Blogs such as the New York Times’ Green Inc. and the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital are examining the green, renewable, and supply characteristics of nuclear energy.

Not Green: Low in GHG, But Still Dangerously Dirty

Those who argue that nuclear energy is the answer to global warming concerns and future fuel needs point out that nuclear energy does not produce green house gases (GHG). From an investment standpoint, this makes nuclear plants at least decent candidates as new energy facilities because the energy they produce won’t be strapped with carbon premiums and could benefit from a carbon cap-and-trade system. It’s true that if the United States wants to meet future emissions targets - which would effectively require cutting out a large section of U.S. electricity currently supplied by coal - while still meeting load demand and keeping prices reasonable, the energy industry will have to make big changes.

However, as we wrote in 2006, to call nuclear power “clean” is a stretch when you take into account that it produces a waste product that remains toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. Radioactive waste is a sticking point for opponents of nuclear energy, though proponents of nuclear energy argue that the new generation of reactors are increasingly safe and produce less waste. But less of something that is highly toxic is still not a good thing.

President Obama cancelled the nuclear waste storage plan at Yucca Mountain earlier this year, which has some nuclear power proponents worried about nuclear energy’s place in America. But Scientific American published an article in August 2009 by Matthew L. Wald, who argued that the lack of a clear plan from the government may actually be a good thing for the nuclear waste storage problem, or at least an opportunity. Yucca was never a strong candidate from a scientific point of view and, “while the problem of nuclear waste remains unsolved, there are a number of reasonable candidate solutions.” These candidate solutions are now being developed and given consideration as a result of the current national debate (see the article for a full discussion.

While this opportunity is good in terms of storing waste from existing plants, the fact that storage ideas are still in the development stage doesn’t advocate strongly for the construction of new nuclear facilities. Nuclear energy may not cause carbon emissions, but it’s still hard to call it “green” - the best colors to characterize nuclear energy with are probably still the black and yellow of the pinwheel symbol for radioactive hazards.

Not Renewable: Uranium’s Not Like Wind, Wave, Solar or Biomass

Even if nuclear energy may not be “green,” proponents of nuclear energy proliferation argue that it could be considered “renewable.” A number of Republicans tried to get nuclear energy included in the national Waxman-Markey climate change bill, but have been held back by Democrats who argue it is neither renewable nor new, and therefore shouldn’t get any provisions from the bill. Atomic Insights blogger Rod Adams takes issue with this, arguing that if waste-to-energy and biofuels qualify as “renewable,” then recycled uranium and thorium-based fuels should too. However, the issue of “renewable” nuclear energy took a hit on the international scale in July 2009 when the head of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) dismissed the idea of promoting nuclear power among as a renewable resource.

Wall Street Journal reporter/blogger Keith Johnson’s take on the matter is this: uranium isn’t renewable, but it is low-emission, so if the “game in Washington is meant to be about producing electricity with fewer emissions of greenhouse-gases, it seems odd that nuclear power wouldn’t be under consideration.”

Nuclear Energy’s Comeback

Well, it is under consideration. Whatever color it is, nuclear energy is making a comeback. The number of reactors in Europe continues to increase, causing some bloggers to term the trend a “nuclear renaissance.” Even in the United States (where it currently meets slightly more of the electricity load than natural gas), nuclear power is now getting a second look by government officials, researchers, developers, and power companies.

The percentage of U.S. electricity load met by nuclear energy has held relatively steady around 20% since 1990. The lack of growth is due to the two-decade de facto moratorium placed on new nuclear plants by uneasy public opinion and high fixed costs. The application by NRG Energy in September 2007 to build two new reactors in Texas was the first time a company filed for a license to build a new nuclear plant since the 1970s. Seventeen other applications have been filed since then and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) expects more to follow as power companies try to avoid the rising price of fossil fuels and take advantage of federal incentives for nuclear reactors.

Although Oregon no longer has a nuclear power plant of its own, research and facilities in the state are instrumental in the ongoing development of nuclear energy technology. The nuclear reactor at the Oregon State University in Corvallis is used for design and licensing of new reactors by the NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy. Recently, OSU was an integral part of the certification testing program for the Westinghouse AP600 and AP1000 nuclear plant designs, which received NRC design approval. Westinghouse touts its AP600 design as a small, advanced, simplified plant that uses fewer resources and is cheaper to construct, operate, and maintain. Westinghouse has signed contracts for four reactors in the United States and four AP1000 plants in China, which hopes to have 100 by 2020 according to Westinghouse’s CEO.

Nuclear Energy Is No “Manhattan Project,” Nuclear Advocates Say

Around the time that NRG Energy announced its intention to renew nuclear plant construction, Environmental Capital published an editorial blog by author and nuclear power advocate William Tucker, asking for “some love for nuclear power.” He said that Americans are scared of nuclear power because they first became aware of nuclear energy through warfare, and still view nuclear power plants as dangerous. This is not helped by the energy bloggers who refer to nuclear reactors as “nukes,” the popular moniker for nuclear weapons. But Tucker argues that nuclear power is actually a safe source of energy. He suggests changing the name of nuclear energy to “terrestrial energy” to remove the stigma of nuclear weapons and accidents from every mention of the resource.

He also argues that the problem of radioactive waste has been grossly exaggerated; more than 95% of the material in a spent fuel rod can be recycled for energy and medical isotopes. Tucker contends that America only has a nuclear waste problem because it abandoned reprocessing in the 1970s due to political reasons (people were scared the recycled materials would fall into enemy hands, an issue that may still have some relevance today). Further, he writes, France now gets over 75% of its electricity from nuclear power and has proved that reprocessing works. Tucker writes, “With a fully developed nuclear cycle, the French now store all the waste from 30 years…beneath the floor of one room at La Hague in Normandy.”

Unresolved Problems

Keith Johnson paraphrases the conclusions of a new study by the Electric Power Research Institute this way: “to overhaul the country’s electricity system and keep things affordable, America needs to make a very big bet on clean coal - which doesn’t yet exist - and nuclear power - which has plenty of problems of its own.” A 2003 report produced by MIT on “The Future of Nuclear Energy” summed up nuclear power’s four unresolved problems: high relative costs; potential safety issues; environmental and health effects; potential security risks stemming from proliferation; and unresolved challenges in long-term management of nuclear wastes. Even six years later, these unresolved problems still remain.

Traditional large nuclear power plants do not come close to being economic as compared to alternative sources of energy. Energy efficiency, natural gas and wind all cost significantly less than nuclear power.

One proposed solution to the price problem is the production of small nuclear reactors currently being engineered by U.S. companies. Small-nuclear proponent Rod Adams says that small reactors could benefit from ”diseconomies” of scale.” The construction of many small reactors, rather than a few large reactors, allows for mass-production of components, thus theoretically causing construction prices to decrease.

In Siberia, four small reactors have been in use since 1976, providing energy much more cheaply than fossil fuel alternatives in the Arctic region. Italy is planning a “nuclear renaissance,” and expects its French-made reactors to be very cost-effective, though critics argue that its estimates are too low.

The problem with “mini reactors,” however, is that none of them have been approved by the overburdened U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (which is dealing with budget cuts, staff layoffs, and more design applications than it’s had to handle in decades), so it will be years before the small reactors can be added to the national energy mix.

So, Where Does All of This Leave Us?

Yes, nuclear energy is relatively “clean” in terms of carbon emissions, but there is still that pesky problem of nuclear waste. Safety concerns as well as the relative expense of nuclear power suggest that there are likely better solutions to our country’s fossil fuel dependence. States that already have many nuclear reactors may start to take part in the “renaissance,” but the memory of PGE’s Trojan power plant and state policy will likely delay or prevent Oregon’s participation. In 1980, Oregon voters passed the “no new nukes” law prohibiting the construction of more nuclear power plants until the problem of safe nuclear waste storage is solved, and further requiring that a new nuclear plant after that point must be approved by voters. With Yucca Mountain still closed to waste and continued public unease over nuclear power, the construction of nuclear reactors in Oregon any time soon seems extremely unlikely.

Despite talk of a nuclear resurgence, CUB’s position on nuclear power remains unchanged: in regulatory-speak, nuclear power isn’t “prudent.” Oregon utilities are required to conduct 20-year Least Cost Plans and to choose resources that are economic. In PGE’s current resource plan, a nuclear option is examined, but the analysis makes clear that it does not come close to being the least-cost resource. It is much, much more expensive than energy efficiency, wind, and natural gas.

As we said before, the Northwest has a large existing base of energy resources - including hydroelectric plants. Its potential for economic wind power combined with an abundance of solar and geothermal resources, and thousands of megawatt hours of energy efficiency that can still be achieved all make it unlikely that nuclear power will revive itself in this region. CUB opposes Oregon utilities investing in nuclear power because we believe that the safety risks, economic costs, and legal obstacles for nuclear power in Oregon outweigh the benefits.

To keep up with CUB, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

• Share this post on Facebook.
• Share this post on LinkedIn.
• Share this post with email.

« Back