We don't need OPEC or ANWR . . . haven't we harnessed the atom?

Great Debates
1

Look, I’m an environmentalist. I recycle. I own a SULEV car, I carpool, I ride the bus. I grow my own vegetables, I keep a small lawn (and will be xeriscaping soon). I strongly support alternative fuel sources. I oppose strip-mining, clearcutting, and uncontrolled grazing. I love my country and my planet, and I want to leave a better place for my children. I’m not a nut–I don’t want people to live in caves (as a coworker immediately assumed yesterday when I dropped the dreaded “e” word on him). But I do think that we humans have the means to nurture and protect our environment without sacrificing civilization or scientific progress.

So why am I considered an asshole for supporting nuclear power?

I simply do not understand the opposition among environmentalists to nuclear power plants. They provide extremely cheap power in huge quantities, with no air or water pollution. The arguments seem specious at best, blindingly deceptive at worst. Little help here?
Here are the arguments against nuke plants that I’ve heard:

  1. Nuke plants are dangerous. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are most often cited for this. But Chernobyl was built by the Soviets, who consistently made “lowest bidder” sound like gold. And while TMI was a disaster, it posed no threat to populace and we’ve learned from it. There may be cockups in the future, but nothing like TMI is ever going to happen again.

And, of course, nuclear plants cannot blow up. They aren’t Hiroshimas waiting to happen.

  1. We don’t know what to do with the waste. Well, no shit. But reprocessing makes a HUGE difference, up to 97% recovery. Glassification technology has developed to the point that high-level waste poses no threat to people or the environment. Sure, it’s still going to hang around for ages, but so are copper mine pits–and with full-scale fuel reprocessing there would be a helluva lot less to dump into WIPP.

Further, we don’t know how to recover salmon runs on the Snake river. We don’t know how to remove toxins from our air and water. But we’re trying. Just because we don’t know now does NOT mean we’re fucked for all time.

2a) Reprocessing is dangerous. The Japanese sodium fire was caused by a number of factors, all of them based in human error. There have been some health concerns, most notably a possible increase in childhood leukemia, around breeder reactors. I have a young child–I’m not about to downplay that. But we need to confirm or deny it–and then we can fix it, by god.

Yes, fast breeder reactors are fucking dangerous. Unlike other plants, these could conceivably explode. But we can overcome that–the technology and safety standards are in place. We aren’t banging sticks together and praying for lightning anymore, dammit. As our fires have become bigger, so have our safety precautions.

  1. Poisonous and radioactive nuclear waste products will last essentially forever. Maybe, maybe not. Pop cans don’t have to around forever, nor rubber tyres. But even if we assume no use will ever be found for rad waste, and no way will ever be found to make it harmless, why should that stop us? People dying of asthma and emphysema during the winter in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque will be dead forever. So will those who die in Houston, San Antonio, and LA during the summer. We have time to throw resources at nuke waste.

  2. Nuke plants are expensive. This is less of a concern at the moment, as natural gas, coal, and oil prices continue to rise. But it would be a valid concern if not for the fact that people seem to omit a part. Nuke plants are expensive to build. They’re gawdawful cheap to maintain, and they pay for themselves quickly. And we know for a fact that fossil fuels are not infinite. Prices will only go up.

  3. Nuke plants are terrorist targets. Possibly–for very stupid terroroists. Security at plants is very tight. A large group of psychos could possibly make a plant melt down, but they couldn’t make one explode. The only real risk is theft of fuel, and that’s difficult enough without security (fuel rods weigh a helluva lot).
    So, based on the above, I don’t get it. Help me out here, Teeming Millions. What am I missing?

2

You’ve touched on most all of the arguments against nuclear power that I can think of. But I think you dismiss too readily some of the concerns.

Says who?

To find an accident at a nuclear plant, you have to go all the way back to Sunday. Yes, nothing serious developed. What’s to say it couldn’t have?

You rather gloss over that we don’t know how to deal with nuclear waste in an effective, fully safe manner. And upon what do you base this assertion?:

Your point 2a - That’s supposed to make me feel safe at night? Ditto your point 3.

Point 4, I agree, is largely irrelevant.

As for Point 5, I think you may be over-estimating the security of nuclear facilities. There’s a plant less than 20 miles from my house. I’ve toured it. I’m sure it has a great many security measures, and I did see security guards. I did not, however, see anything that would lead me to believe that a concerted effort by an elite terrorist squad would invariably be thwarted.

I agree with you that much of our research effort (and dollars) should be channeled to nuclear energy, with particular attention paid to making it safer, and dealing with the waste.

Clearly, nukes are our best hope for the future. If you saw the PBS Nova special several months ago on the world’s impending energy crisis, you realize that pretty much no other solution is going to work, long-term.

People still are a little skittish about energy technology that can wipe out their county, make it uninhabitable for decades, and make them, their children and their children’s children susceptible to deadly diseases. Rightfully so.

3

Nuclear fusion! Nuclear fusion!

Fission is, indeed, our best bet for power. And while the results of an accident are much more severe than if a coal-burning plant screws up, it’s normal operation does ZERO damage to the environment. Even the best-running coal, gas, or oil plants produce pollution, guaranteed.

Guaranteed pollution versus potential disaster… that’s the balance you’ve got to find. Personally, I think the risks are worth it… bring on the nukes!

4

Well, says me, of course. But the amount we learned about the chain of events at TMI is vast. Hardware and design were changed drastically, redundancy has increased, people are trained differently (and better). Stricter licensing, more oversight, better emergency preparedness.

Who’s to say that the Taiwan problem you linked couldn’t have been serious? The facts that it was a small fire in a redundant egnerator, that the plant was immediately shut down, and that the fire immediately extinguished. Its for just such bizarre incidents that redundancy is so high.

I’m not sure what you mean by this, Milo. We do know how to deal with waste in an effective, safe manner. Here’s a decent article on glassification.

As for point 2a, you drive a car daily knowing you might die in it. But yes, I admit that fast breeders require more precaution–my point it that we can take those precautions.

As for point 3, I certainly hope that the idea of developing emphysema from metro air pollution keeps you up at night. How is keeping relatively small amounts of rad waste worse than the shit we suck down commuting to work?

Absolutely true. But I think it’s a strawman. The scenario would require, as you say, a “concerted effort by an elite terrorist squad” . . . on US soil. I’d like to hope that’s a stretch. But even if it isn’t, why would they make the effort? They won’t be able to cause an explosion (again, with a standard plant), and would have to be highly trained in order to bypass the hardcoded redundancies to even cause a meltdown. And to what end? To cost us money? And in order to steal fuel, they’d need monstrous trucks and heavy gear–it’s much safer, quicker, and cheaper to buy fuel black market elsewhere in the world.

So yes, security at some plants, maybe all plants, could be overcome. But I can’t for the life of me think why it would be.

Rightfully so, indeed. And yet, we overplay those concerns until they loom larger in the mind than acid rain, poisoned rivers, and brown clouds. IMHO, that’s foolish.

5

SPOOFE Bo Diddly Brought up the point of nuclear fusion:
fueled by the most abundant element in the universe (Hydrogen), and only has minutely radioactive helium as a by-product.

Only problem is…WE AIN’T GOT ANY!!!

Ever since the 50’s, they’ve told us that a viable fusion reactor is only 30 years away. Today they tell us… its only 30 years away.

True, we have test reactors that do achieve fusion in their cores, bot don’t pass the break-even point. That is, don’t produce more energy than they take in, thus providing a self-sustaning reaction.

6

What, you don’t believe in cold fusion?? Die, apostate scum! :stuck_out_tongue:

7

enolancooper wrote:

Well … sort-of.

The most promising nuclear fusion technologies we’re currently looking into involve the fusion of deuterium (a heavy hydrogen isotope that accounts for roughly 1/6000th of the hydrogen found in nature) and tritium (a really heavy hydrogen isotope that hardly occurs in nature at all because it’s radioactive with a half-life of only 12 years). These forms of hydrogen hardly qualify as the most abundant in the universe.

8

Well, scientists have managed to actually implement controllable fusion in reactors… unfortunately, the amount of power required to control the process is greater than the amount of power returned.

Basically, yes, we’ve got nuclear fusion… it’s just not viable at the moment.

9

I’ve asked myself the same argument as the OP many times. The best reason that I can come up with is that environmentalists watch ‘The Simpsons’ too much. Everywhere that you build a nuclear power plant, three-eyed fish will show up in nearby ponds. :rolleyes:

Of course, there is the danger of accidents, but since when should we throw out an entire industry based on a very small threat? Of course Milossarian is right that we will never be 100% safe, but any form of energy generation will carry some danger.

10

1.) I do think we’re going to need nuclear power plants for energy in the future.

2.) The experiences of the U.S. Navy and of France in standardizing design and keeping a well-trained staff on hand shows how well things can be run.

3.) Glassification has been around a long time. I don’t know what the latest on it is, but the entire method seems feasible (although I have to agree with Heinlein’s arguments in “Expanded Universe” – we will probably want to get at that waste sometime in the future when it becomes usable).

BUT…

4.) We still don’t have a functioning nuclear waste dump. A lot of stuff is still in cooling ponds at the power plants. I strongly suspect that not all technical challenges are licked (glassifying some samples of waste is one thing. Handling large quantities of actual nuclear waste from start to finish is something else). There is an immense political problem, not only in siting such a storage facility, but even in arranging for the waste to travel to the facility – so many places have enacted laws against transporting the stuff.

5.) The nuclear industry itself has a history of evasion and coverup that does not foster trust. I am not talking here of the normal sorts of spin that accompany any large enterprise, but about a heavy-handed policy of stifling criticism and ignoring problems. (And I want to point out that I’m NOT anti-nuke.)

11

andros:

**
I understand that glassification makes the waste easier to deal with. But as that article points out, the glassified waste is still just as radioactive. And where do you put it?

What CalMeacham said in his point No. 4. We’ve got spent fuel piling up at plant sites in cement casks all over the country. (I personally am not too keen on that. Especially since the casks in my locality are about 200 feet from Lake Michigan.) The disposal site in Nevada (?), promised long ago, still isn’t ready to effectively deal with the waste.

BTW … anyone see Vice President Dick Cheney on MSNBC’s “Hardball” last night?

(It was hard to watch. Regular host Chris Matthews is on vacation, and the guest host was former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, who was, frankly, terrible.)

Anyway, as you know, Cheney has been tapped by President Bush to lead this panel developing a long-term energy policy for the US. He indicated strongly last night that nuclear energy will be a key component of that.

He noted that there hasn’t been a new nuke licensed since like the mid-1970s. He also said the U.S.'s energy needs are going to require the construction of 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants nationwide in the next decade, up to 90 new plants per year.

Uh, trust me. We aren’t building close to that many right now. And ask the folks in Cali how that ends up working out.

Here’s a story on Cheney’s “Hardball” appearance.

12

There may be a solution. According to an article in The Onion:

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

13

Dear god . . . Alan Simpson hosting Hardball? Yeeeshh. What’s next–Cranston hosting O’Reilly?

I can only hope and pray that the Bush administration will take an active role in promoting more nuke research (and not just because the DOE pays my salary, either). But I don’t think it’s going to happen. So far, they’ve seemed more inclined to waive pollution statutes and drill for more oil–and kiss OPEC’s ass. But then, I’m a cynic.
I’m all with y’all on storage. I grew up in New Mexico, hearing about LANL, Sandia, and WIPP. I lived in Utah when Teflon Mike Leavitt blocked the Goshutes from accepting waste. I currently live in Eastern Washington, near the Columbia River, and hear constantly about the Hanford Reservation and the leaking tanks.

It sucks big fat ones. We can limit the amount of waste, we can make it easier to store and handle, but you’re right–we can’t make it any less radioactive.

I reckon the best we can do is secure the waste with an eye for the future (unlike what was done at Oak Ridge and Hanford), and continue working on finding uses for spent fuel and high-level contaminants.

(Aside: Larry Niven wrote an essay called “Another Modest Proposal,” discussing the disposition of hot waste. Get it, read it.)

And, yes, the various nuke agencies in this country have a piss-poor track record. To a certain degree, I blame the consistent lack of a coherent nuke policy on a federal level. Nukes for peace my ass.
Still and all . . . even without reprocessing, the amount of waste generated by nuke plants is relatively small. IMO, the benefits of nuke power outweigh the negatives. I’d still like to hear from someone who believes otherwise.

14

I have always been a proponent of nuclear power. It is by far the cleanest source of power that we will have for a long time. People should remember a few things:
(1) the nuclear plants we have running in the USA are nearing 30 years old, in some cases. These are going to HAVE to be replaced. These plants were based on designs from the 1950’s-and we have MUCH better and safer designs now.
(2)The waste problem is overblown-the volume is quite small. And, a deep-burial scheme (in New Mexico) has already been built-it hasn’t been licensed yet, because of the anti-nuclear carazies.
I personally think that nuclear wastes could be put to good use-for irradiating sewage, heating process water, etc. We should not throw it away-it may even be possible to “burn” it in future-high-neutron flux reactors of the future. This would transmute it into harmless lead.

15

Fusion power of course would be awesome but till then…
Actual power generation station designs are MUCH safer than they once were. Inherently safe reactors are almost a reality (reactors that don’t require power or human intervention to keep from melting down…natural physical process will do it for them). Saying a nuclear plant will never have a serious problem ever is begging for trouble ala the ‘unsinkabkle’ Titanic but nevertheless a nuke plant should easily be an acceptable risk.

The biggest issue I see is the waste. I don’t know much about glassification techniques but nuclear waste is a real bastard. So we bury stuff in New Mexico or wherever. Will those sites be safe 10 years from now? 50 years? 100? 1,000? 10,000??? The nuclear waste will still be deadly dangerous far beyond 10,000 years and I doubt seriously any engineer can say with certainty that those sites will not leak into ground water or anything else that far out. This is majorly nasty stuff you’re talking about here.

So, solve the waste issue via neutron-flux reactors or inherently safe rockets to launch the junk into the sun or whatever. Once that issues is out of the way I see almost no reason to not have them all over the place.

Believe it or not nuclear plants are cheaper to build today than they once were. The technology for them is ‘old’ (i.e. initial research costs have already been absorbed and don’t need to be recovered) and ‘inherently safe’ reactors gain much of their newfound safety by being less complex than their older counterparts.

16

Deep ocean burial is a possible solution as well. There is virtually NO transferance of material from deep ocean to the surface. Glassify the stuff so it won’t leach, seal it in concrete, and dump it in a subduction zone in the deep ocean, never to be seen again.

What I think is crazy is that we demand 100% safety from nuclear power, and refuse to use it if that unrealistic goal isn’t attained. I’m a big proponent of nuclear power, but I can promise you that there WILL be more accidents in the future, just like there are with every other energy production system. When that Dam let go in China, how many were killed? 10,000? If that had been a nuclear plant that killed 10,000 people, it would have been treated like Chernobyl, at the top of the news for months or longer.

The bottom line is, every form of power generation is dangerous. Concentrated power has to be handled carefully. The difference is that the average person sort of understands the process of energy creation in a Dam or a gas turbine, or whatever. It’s just a big mechanical thing. And people have grown accustomed to the risks of big mechanical things. But along comes a nuclear plant, which sits there silently, with these invisible nuclear things flying around in the air making you sick when you don’t even know you’re in danger, and it drives the process of hysteria.

I’ve seen Three-Mile-Island described as a ‘disaster’. Would that all our disasters should have the same result - not a single person injured. The radiation exposure at the gates of the facility was no more than what you get from your television set. But people were TERRIFIED, because they didn’t understand.

Tens of thousands of people per year die from the consequences of power generation - emphysema, black lung, mining accidents, etc. Widespread ecological disasters have occured in the form of oil spills, dam bursts, etc.

The question to ask is not whether we can make nuclear perfectly safe, but whether or not on balance we’d have a safer and cleaner society with it than without it. And I believe that question is absolutely YES.

17

Here is a more relevant link to a story on Cheney’s “Hardball” appearance, regarding his statements on nukes.

18

Well, my man, I think you’re right in that nuclear power is the future for this country (and the world). However, you are ignoring the painfully obvious.

1)We do not have control over anything. Anything can happen at any given time.

2)TMI was NO joke. I live within ten miles of the place. If something happens I will be among the very first to die. Even if it doesn’t explode (which I have been told is IMPOSSIBLE) :rolleyes: , the radiation leak will get me. No, I’m not excessively paranoid, it’s just that we were told how safe it was in 1979 and then 2 months later my family was scared shitless by the whole episode.

3)Hi, Opal (sorry, but it’s pro forma)
So, I think nuclear power is just great, as long as we are willing to sacrifice thousands of people in the event of an accident in order to watch TV or toast a bagel. Maybe someday we’ll have a better grasp on how to safely exploit it and dispose of the waste, but until that day, I’m just fine with things being the way they are.

My .02.

19

thedoorsrule1045 makes the points that are in the public mind, which is why I think that the EEPIC report that Anthracite mentions in this thread is being unrealisticly optimistic in thinking that public and pressure group opposition in nuclear power may have died down enough to build new reactors by 2020. However, I would point out that:[list=1]
[li]“We do not have control over anything” must be interpreted to include cracks in hydro dams, big smudgy fires in tank farms just outside of major cities, and bad weather killing people depending on an Iron Age technology. (Actually, we do have a lot of control over these things, we just don’t have absolute control – and never will.)[/li][li]TMI was a bit, ahem, overblown by the media (given that the alternative was reporting on the Carter administration, I can understand, if not condone, this action). There was also a good bit of spin by the various components of the nuclear industry. Of course, people never find, “There’s one chance in a million that this will kill you, not that you weren’t going to die anyway” as satisfying as hearing, “Oh, it’s perfectly safe, nothing could possibly go wrong”.[/li][li]Lack of electricity kills. No, not inconveniences people; it kills them.[/li][li]Fusion sucks (somebody has to say it). Those who believe that it will be perfectly clean and safe are:[list=1][/li][li]Absorbing too much propaganda[/li][li]Kidding themselves[/li][li]Both of the above[/li][/list=1][/list=1]

20

Life is a constant tradeoff between risks and benefits. If you don’t think coal burning power plants don’t kill people you are sadly mistaken. How many miners die from balck lung disease? How many deaths a year are laid at the feet of air pollution (and what percentage of that is from coal)? I don’t know the numbers but I’d wager you’d find them to be much more than just a few people.

Think of it in terms of air travel vs. auto travel. Autos kill far more people every year than planes but what makes headline news when a crash happens? When a plane goes down it’s a spectacular event that kills a few hundred people. Car crashes usually only take out a few people…not nearly as ‘exciting’. Add up the numbers however and the car is clearly more dangerous than the plane.

Also, you seem to suggest that being told a nuclear power plant can’t explode is questionable. FTR the record it is not questionable. Nuclear power plants cannot explode ala a nuclear bomb. A containment vessle may rupture and steam and whatnot may explosively escape (which woudl still be pretty bad) but do not confuse that with a nuclear bomb type explosion vaporizing everything within a mile. Can’t happen in a power generating station even if they actively tried to make such a thing happen.

Why do you think fusion power is so bad and everyone is being hoodwinked?

Fusion power uses deuterium or tritium for fuel. While these forms of hydrogen are somewhat rare given the sheer amount of water on this planet the fuel is essentially unlimited.

Fusion plant designs show no sign of being dangerous in their operation. There are no chain reactions to worry about (that could lead to an explosion).

The waste from the fusion process is radioactive for about 100 years at which point it is no more toxis than waste from a coal burning power plant. Figuring storage for these materials for 100 years is certainly feasible. Also, the waste from a fusion reactor can’t be nabbed by terrorists or rogue states and used for anything nasty.

If I have been hoodwinked please let me know. I’d be interested to learn why fusion would be a bad power source (assuming it ever becomes economically feasible).