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The Daily Cardinal > Opinion

Take a clean look at nuclear energy

Nuclear energy deserves to be looked at as part of the energy solution, not the problem.

By By Rachel Slaybaugh

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Published: Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Updated: Tuesday, December 15, 2009

In 2007 Governor Jim Doyle created a task force to investigate how Wisconsin can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The task force identified short- and long-term goals and provided policy recommendations to achieve those goals. A variety of stakeholders, including environmental groups, utilities and citizen groups, participated and agreed to endorse the set of recommendations. This spring, Wisconsin lawmakers will debate the legislation that encompasses these policies. This legislation should be passed as a whole.

Recently there have been statements and articles in the news suggesting that some of the environmental groups that participated in the task force are withdrawing support of the part of the bill that deals with nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants are very low-emission across their life cycle, and they are a safe, proven, existing, ready-to-build technology. The reason the task force is proposing the nuclear legislation (and presumably that the environmental groups originally agreed to the recommendations) is “so that this option may be considered, among others, in the effort to meet the state’s emissions reduction goals over the long term.”

The new rules would make it easier to consider nuclear power plants but still require “the proposed nuclear plant must be built to meet Wisconsin needs at a cost that is reasonable and advantageous to customers in comparison with available alternatives, taking account of emission reductions benefits,” and “the Public Service Commission must find the nuclear waste plan for the plant is economic, reasonable, stringent and in the public interest, given the safety and other risks presented by such waste.”

These are great requirements, and nuclear should absolutely have to meet them. In fact, all electricity generation methods should have to meet them. It seems sensible to me that all sources should have to be economically reasonable and advantageous to customers and account for their waste. Why is it that only nuclear power is expected to be responsible enough to meet these requirements? The nuclear industry has always carefully tracked and accounted for its wastes. Had other generation forms been required to be responsible about their waste streams, e.g. coal CO2 emissions, we would have not needed this task force in the first place. I’m not suggesting nuclear should not meet these standards. I’m simply pointing out that other sources are not necessarily held to such high standards.

One of the strengths of the task force recommendations is the portfolio approach, focusing first on efficiency and conservation. The new rules about nuclear would only go into effect after the 25 percent renewable portfolio standards by 2025 legislation have been enacted and a revised energy efficiency program is approved. The idea of focusing first on efficiency and later on nuclear makes perfect sense. A recent study detailing the costs of carbon abatement found that in general, efficiency measures were cost negative and nuclear was very close to cost neutral.

The Global Warming Task Force wants to make it easier to consider nuclear power plants because they recognize nuclear could be part of a cleaner energy future. Existing coal plants provide 65 to 70 percent of Wisconsin’s electricity, and we will eventually need to replace these plants. Electricity demand may grow in the future if, for example, we switch to an electricity-based vehicle fleet. This electricity must come from somewhere. We should at least be able to talk about choosing low-emissions nuclear when evaluating the possibilities for how this electricity will be made.

There are many reasons to make good choices about how electricity is generated—ocean acidification, air pollution, resource scarcity, energy security, climate change and general good stewardship of the environment. We must conserve and increase efficiency. We must use more renewable electricity sources. It is fair to ask that all resources be comparatively advantageous for customers and to take care of their waste. The Global Warming Task Force legislation should be passed as a whole so all technologies will be available for solving our energy challenges while protecting the environment.

Rachel Slaybaugh is a Ph.D. student in nuclear engineering and a founder of UW Energy Hub. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author, and do not reflect the views of UW Energy Hub. You can send all feedback for the Green Room to opinion@dailycardinal.com. 

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9 comments

Rod Adams
Sat Dec 26 2009 06:20
I am not a Ph.D. or even a candidate for one at this point. However, I have been responsible for producing reliable power and had the opportunity to see the waste that is a very tiny "pile", even after 50 years of operating nuclear power plants in the US. The waste from the plant that I operated would fit under my office desk - even though it provided all of the fuel needed to power a 9,000 ton submarine for 15 years.

With regard to Bob's comment about uncontrolled waste streams, I would refer to many documented instances of semiconductor processing facilities that have become superfund clean up sites and ask what makes people believe that this issue would not arise again with solar cell manufacturing on a massive scale. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html I would also ask him if he has seen the failed wind farms in California or Hawaii and wondered when the owners were going to come and clean up their mess.

As has been pointed out already in the comments, solar and wind are not currently judged on a cost of power produced basis - they are heavily subsidized and mandated in every location where they are in use. The renewable industry is very honest with itself about the importance of subsidies and often gets the troops turned out for lobbying efforts when it appears that some of the support will expire in law. There is a reason why the PTC has been renewed for about 17 years now and why there is now a 30% grant in lieu of the PTC since so many solar "investors" no longer had any taxable income to shelter.

http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/09/12/will-ptc-become-permanent

Here is a quote from the lede of the article linked above:

"No one disputes that state renewable portfolio standards and the federal production tax credit have been the two biggest drivers for wind project development, especially over the past decade."

For Bill Christofferson - can you explain why, if nuclear waste is so deadly, no one has yet died from exposure even though we have been producing waste for more than 50 years in the US? I can explain - the material may be deadly if not controlled, so we control it. Simple application of the principles of time, distance and shielding are adequate measures to ensure that people will not be harmed. As time goes on, the material gets less and less dangerous.

It also happens to be a potentially valuable resource; in our current generation of nuclear power plants, we take out the fuel after only fissioning about 5% of it. The remainder still contains about 95% of the potential energy it had when it started. We do not worry too much about capturing the remainder because uranium is pretty cheap to mine, but if we need to, we can recycle the material.

It is also not much of a cost problem to keep carefully storing it - after 50 years of operation the US has only accumulated enough material to cover a single football field. The "mountain" of waste would not even obscure the goal posts if we did. In my book, that is a pretty tiny "mountain".

In contrast, think about that coal ash spill from the plant in the TVA system. One plant; 5.3 million cubic yards of hazardous waste released onto other people's property. There are still hundreds of lawsuits under review. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gOSC8EJfBHID-cwOmxNt3CcSmrfwD9COITU00

I am with Rachel on this issue - nuclear energy has proven itself worthy of consideration and capable of meeting stringent standards. It can and does compete well against all other alternatives, especially in markets where reliability is valued and rewarded and where every participant has to pay the costs of handling any waste produced.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
(BS and MS from a couple of "trade" schools - the US Naval Academy and the US Naval Postgraduate School)

Rachel Slaybaugh
Wed Dec 23 2009 12:14
The process of siting and constructing a federal repository is bogged down in the political system. In order to reduce emissions to address climate change within the necessary time frame we cannot wait for the federal government to sort out that mess. The new legislation is very sensible and reasonable as it requires the nuclear waste plan be "economic, reasonable, stringent and in the public interest, given the safety and other risks presented by such waste.” If these criteria are satisfied we should certainly be able to consider new nuclear.

I also want to point out that on site storage is a safe mechanism for storing spent nuclear fuel until a good long term solution is implemented.

Related to this discussion, this article is a good one: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_66caf92b-c246-5d18-b47b-eb833ebae3fb.html

Bill Christofferson
Sat Dec 19 2009 12:30
The existing law is common sense. It simply says that before you can build a new reactor there must be a federal waste disposal site. The task force wants to get rid of that requirement and let the PSC decide if it's OK to continue piling up the waste onsite. That is not a long-term solution. Once there is one, let's give nuclear power another look -- but not before.
Daniel Vega
Fri Dec 18 2009 16:32
I just read Dr. big-time University Wallace's comment - and he certainly seems to miss the point. Since we all are putting words in the future Dr. Slaybaugh's mouth, I'd add that her implication was that the accountability of an energy source can't be selectively targeted to one source. The fact that nuclear is a mature, reliable, and proven technology, necessarily implies its logistical challenges are more mature, and better understood.

She is right to say the hang-ups of emerging energy sources are downplayed. Solar and wind get MORE of a free ride when it comes to accountability so as not to stifle them - partly out of bias, but partly because the real logistical challenges evolve alongside the maturation of the technology itself. The technology will always seem rosier until it is put to numbers and into service. Steel shortages, O&M, safety issues, chemical waste - all of these may or may not be issues with wind and solar. But you can't just pretent these risks don't exist. That's just being dishonest.

What she's saying is that the depending on the power source, accountability and logistics baggage associated with a particular technology is not commensurate with it's risk. And she's absolutely right.

Daniel Vega (PhD candidate, and all around swell guy at a more major university than Bob Wallace)

Rachel Slaybaugh
Thu Dec 17 2009 13:17
Spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is being stored safely at plants in the US right now. There are a variety of possible plans for what to do with SNF in the long term. The Obama administration has commissioned a panel of experts to review these possibilities and determine the best course of action. However, whether or not there is a way to dispose of SNF right now is not the subject of this article.

No one is saying that nuclear power should be considered without some sort of plan for SNF. The Task Force says, “the Public Service Commission must find the nuclear waste plan for the plant is economic, reasonable, stringent and in the public interest, given the safety and other risks presented by such waste.” I am simply asserting that because nuclear power is a large-scale, low emission electricity source we should be able to consider as an option so long as it meets the criteria set forth in the Task Force's document.

Bill Christofferson
Thu Dec 17 2009 10:35
You don't need any kind of degree to understand that nuclear power reactors produce highly radioactive waste which remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years -- or that after 50 years of producing the stuff, the nuclear industry still has no safe, permanent way to dispose of it. We're always told the solution is right around the corner. Maybe when we have turned that corner we can consider new nuclear reactors, but to do so now makes no sense. Nuclear power is far from clean. Renewables are cheaper, safer, and cleaner.
Brian O'Connell
Wed Dec 16 2009 11:25
Wow, dueling Ph.D's, dare a less learned soul enter the fray?

I think the headline says it all. If we look ahead at the costs and likely constraints on use of fossil fueled electricity, each region should evaluate all possible sources of electricity, including achievements rather than platitudes about conservation and efficiency. Yes, to renewables that can be reliable and cost competitive and yes to nuclear. In those locations where it is feasible, yes to hydro and geothermal.
All have risks, all should be scrutinized and appropriately regulated. Anyone who has any experience with the nuclear power plants will tell you they are extremely tightly regulated.

Matthew Gidden
Tue Dec 15 2009 23:02
Hi Bob and Rachel,

First, Bob, I'm disappointed that you dispute Rachel's claim with a sideways ad hominem retort.

That being said, I agree with your point that nuclear has a unique waste stream problem. One can argue the merits of your suggestion that we have no viable long term solutions, but I will leave that for another debate forum.

In any case, when Rachel makes her claim regarding other energy sources meeting said requirements, she provides the example of coal CO2 emissions; in fact she later makes the claim that the use of renewable sources of energy should be expanded. However, here she chose to compare one base load source of energy with another base load source. While she did leave the comment relatively and perhaps ambiguously open, it was your decision to debate it in relation to non-base load sources (ie, wind, solar). Even in the brightest of lights, neither one of these sources will overcome intermittency issues without substantial investment in high voltage DC line infrastructure (greater cost).

Furthermore, you suppose that Rachel claims that wind, solar, etc. are not judged on the cost of power produced. Again, one could view Rachel's overarching comment ambiguously. However, as it stands today, neither wind nor nuclear power can compete on the wholesale electricity market with coal and natural gas; both require subsidies to do so. Additionally, solar, at the present time, has trouble competing on even the retail electricity market; government subsidies are also required and are provided for this energy generation form. Therefore (though I may be putting words in Rachel's mouth), I do not think that she is arguing against renewable energy sources. Even if one believes that she is arguing such, a reasonable claim could be put forward that nuclear power in more harshly judged in this regard.

Cheers,
Matthew Gidden (Future Ph.D., hopefully. Also from what I would consider a major university.)

Bob Wallace
Tue Dec 15 2009 19:45
Rachael, I hope you don't try to sneak something like this past your doctoral committee. If so, you might never be able put those letters after your name....

"It seems sensible to me that all sources should have to be economically reasonable and advantageous to customers and account for their waste. Why is it that only nuclear power is expected to be responsible enough to meet these requirements?"

Would you like to sit in front of a panel judging your ability to perform at a doctoral level and defend the implication that wind, solar, etc. are not judged on cost of power produced and that they are allowed to create uncontrolled waste streams?

And then would you like to argue that nuclear does not have a unique waste stream problem? ( And a waste stream problem for which we have no viable long term solutions.)

Bob Wallace, Ph.D. (From a very major university. One at which one would never be able to get away with stuff like that.)







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