As President Biden makes his way to the Glasgow COP26 climate summit, I have run across two articles in the last 24 hours, one by conservative Jonah Goldberg at The Dispatch and the other by conservative-ish Andrew Sullivan at the Weekly Dish, Both attempt to make the case that, in nuclear power, we have a ready-made solution to sustain our economy and our way of life without adding to the carbon load in the atmosphere.
Their respective cases make many of the same points. I won't rehearse them all here, but here are a few:
- Nuclear power generation doesn't require that we burn massive quantities of fossil fuel, so it is much more benign to the atmosphere
- The technology already exists and is well-understood. We already know how to scale it up to serve large numbers of people
- It is not subject to the vagaries of market supply and demand. We can generate as much as we need
- Nuclear power is safe. This seems counterintuitive, but they cite (or say that it's easy to cite) statistics that show that in the developed world, (almost) nobody dies from radiation at nuclear power plants, even from disasters such as occurred at Three Mile Island. They suggest that more many more people die in the production of carbon fuel energy, such as via mining accidents or accidents on oil rigs. They also claim that our ability to dispose of nuclear waste never has been quite the hazard that has been popularly portrayed, and we've gotten better at it over time.
They both cite the comparative experience of France and Germany. Angela Merkel had a policy of retiring Germany's nuclear power capability - essentially, shutting down its nuke plants. Today, that goal has mostly been realized. The result, both authors claim, is Germany's energy costs have gone through the roof. In addition, the policy has made her country vulnerable to the calculations and whims of Vladimir Putin, who controls the pipeline of Russian petroleum which Germany now relies on. By contrast, France generates 70% of its power from nuclear power. Its power costs apparently are considerably lower than Germany's, and so far there haven't been any major safety incidents.
I confess I fear nuclear accidents. My wife and I watched the Chernobyl miniseries on HBO, which is well worth seeing. The health effects of that catastrophe on the workers and the surrounding communities was anything but benign.
But ... perhaps we need to weigh the undeniable (but mostly manageable?) risks of nuclear power against the reality of climate change. In my early years, carbon fuel was (relatively) cheap and plentiful, and the downside of using it seemed to be nothing worse than smog. It seemed clearly preferable to the risks of nuclear power. But in our current situation, as with COVID, it may not be a question of eradicating the problem, but rather deciding how much ongoing risk we can live with. Does nuclear power make more sense now?
I can't resist making one more comment: thinking about the problem in this light - sustaining our way of life, and deciding how much risk we're willing to accept - provides good background lighting for Pope Francis's encyclical, Laudato Si. Francis doesn't frame the issue as one of politics, economics and public health. He sees climate change, not only as a problem in its own right, but as a symptom of our profound alienation from the created world, of which we are a part. It's impossible to summarize that 180+ page document (really, book) here, but if you haven't waded into it yet - do it.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has a series of articles on the subject. My take on their position is that they oppose the building of new plants but support the continued use of existing plants. There have been early decommissioning of nuclear power plants due to cheap fracked natural gas. Most people probably think it was protest. Here is a series of articles.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ucsusa.org/resources/nuclear-power-dilemma
When framed as "risks vs benefits" I have to say I am in favor of nuclear power. I was disappointed when one of the two nuke plants in our state was decommissioned after spending millions of dollars to upgrade it. The official explanation was that it was "no longer economically viable". I suppose coal fired and natural gas were cheaper, but both are adding to the carbon problem. There is only one nuclear plant accident (that I know of) that wasn't due to human error. That would have been the one in Japan that resulted from the tsunami. That type of problem can be prevented by locating plants away from coastlines and fault lines.
ReplyDeleteOf course the " magician's stone" of renewable power would be to get nuclear fusion to the point where it was economically viable. There wouldn't be the problem of waste disposal which exists with conventional nuclear.
About sustaining our way of life, I don't think it is wrong to want to heat our homes in the winter, and cool them in the summer, especially where the heat can be brutal. We talk about "paleo living", but people in the past had to rely on wood fires, which isn't kind to the environment.
I read the Goldberg article. Loaded with the usual conservative sneers (Obama, Thunberg). I think UCSUSA has the most balanced and unemotional evaluations.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with taking another look at nuclear power. To me, though, putting it in the hands of profit making entities is the biggest argument against doing it.
Beyond the safety fears, there are other problems. They are thermal engines. You need a cool heat sink and that means water. How much water are we going to have? What happens when rivers run dry? Also, global warming makes the water warmer and the plants less efficient. Goldberg doesn't even mention this in his broad brush picture. I'm afraid that conservative pundits prioritize technologies according to how much money it makes for big companies.
Europe is densely populated. We are not. Nukes may make more sense for Europe. We have vast unpopulated areas suitable for wind and solar. I don't see us needing nuclear. Also, ramping up renewables can be done a lot faster.
It is a shame that these things can't be evaluated with less emotion and rancor. They are important questions and I wish they could be discussed. But the Republican Party has, as with vaccines, turned it into a political volley ball.
"It is a shame that these things can't be evaluated with less emotion and rancor." Yes! I agree.
DeleteAbout wind and solar, they can supply a lot more power than they do at present, but I think we are always going to need backup capabilities. We can't put all our eggs in one basket.
Another thing that distorts the entire discussion is the propagandizing by the corporations. It worked for the fossil fuel corporations with respect to climate change for thirty years. We would have been in a much better position now if they hadn't warped the public's perceptions.
DeleteI don't think Goldberg and Sullivan are likely to be shills for Big Oil, but it wouldn't surprise me if large fossil fuel corporations propagandize. It's too late at night for me to go poke around on their websites, but I fully expect that they all claim now that they're committed to improving the climate, are spending buckets of money to improve the climate, etc.
DeleteI am far from an expert on these issues. From the little i understand of this complex issue, I am not totally opposed to nuclear power options, but over the long term, it seems problems could mount - for example, disposal of nuclear waste. And, over the long- term, expanding green energy would make sense.
ReplyDeleteKatherine mentioned location in relation to safety. I have driven between Los Angeles and San Diego many times. There is a long stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs between the ocean and Camp Pendleton marine base. Miles of apparently ( but not really) empty land. That’s where the San Onofre Nuclear Power complex was built in the 1960s. It’s closed now, being decommissioned because of some problems with safety related to the infrastructure. But it is also in an earthquake prone area. Not a good place for it. Obviously.
I read an interesting article this morning about the energy price problems in Europe now (France has them too, in spite of having nuclear energy).
https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/28/why-europe-s-energy-prices-are-soaring-and-could-get-much-worse
Anne, thanks for that link. This seems the section that explains the price spike:
Delete"Rising gas prices have driven up the general price of electricity by over 230% in the last year. The connection between the two is based on the rules of the EU energy market, which has become increasingly integrated over the past decades.
"Today, the bloc's wholesale electricity market works on the basis of marginal pricing, also known as "pay-as-clear market". Under this system, all electricity producers – from fossils fuels to wind and solar – bid into the market and offer energy according to their production costs. The bidding starts from the cheapest resources – the renewables – and finish with the most expensive one – usually natural gas.
"Since most countries still rely on fossil fuels to meet all their power demands, the final price of electricity is often set by the price of coal or natural gas. If gas becomes more expensive, electricity bills inevitably go up, even if clean, cheaper sources also contribute to the total energy supply."
I don't completely understand what is described here. I guess the EU regulation requires that suppliers offer cost-plus pricing (their cost with a bit of margin on top). Further, the rules dictate that the renewables go first.
Let's imagine a very simple market, with one renewable source of electricity (wind) and one fossil fuel (gas). Let's suppose my EU member country needs 20GW of electricity. The available supply dictates that half of my needs will be met with wind-generated electricity, and the other half with natural gas-generated. Further suppose that wind-generated electricity costs $8/GW to generate and is priced at $10/GW, while natural gas costs $16/GW to generate and is priced at $20/GW. So, if I understand this pricing correctly, the cost to my country is:
Wind-generated portion: qty 10 GW X $10/GW = $100
Gas-generated portion: qty 10 GW X $20/GW = $200
So, the total cost would be $300.
But now suppose my demand has increased to 30 GW. There is still only 10 GW of wind-powered electricity available. All the remaining demand must be made up by natural gas. So now the math is:
Wind-generated portion: qty 10 GW X $10/GW = $100
Gas-generated portion: qty 20 GW X $20/GW = $400
The new total is $500. My demand went up 50%, while my cost went up 25%. But my consumption of fossil fuel went up 100%.
I don't know enough about energy pricing to know whether this method is less advantageous than whatever prevails in the US these days. I do know the US is (or could be) considerably more self-sufficient than Europe in supplying its domestic energy needs. The situation seems to highlight the incentive for Europe to move to renewables as quickly as it can. And I suppose, if Europe operated on more laissez-faire principles, it would be burning a good deal more coal now.
Sorry, I shouldn't post so late at night - I'm more of a morning thinker :-) In the story problem I just hatched, my costs went up 67% ($300 to $500) as my demand when up 50%, and my consumption of fossil fuel went up 100%.
DeleteJim, That article had a strange way of expressing energy as "gigawatts per hour". The most recent way I've seen it expressed is mostly in megawatt-hours or MWh for short. The price usually comes out to be in the double digits. Of course, GWh is also ok. We all know the kilowatt-hours (KWh) in our bills. It's 1000 Watts times 1 hour or 1000 Joules per second times 3600 seconds equals 3,600,000 joules of energy. power multiplied by time equals energy. 95% of science and engineering is addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
DeleteGWh= 1000 X MWh = 1000000 X KWh
Hey Stanley, thanks. I was the one who came up with gigawatts. I don't know how much energy gets consumed on a macro/national scale - I was just guessing what the unit would be.
DeleteThe key point in the story problem isn't the unit, it's the impact on total price as demand goes up (the price increase is steeper than the demand increase). The EU market seems to be intentionally constructed that way, to incentivize the countries to generate more renewable energy. (And, the conservative cynic would say, to punish consumers for consuming more energy. But in fact, prizing low price over consumption is one of the behaviors that all of us need to rethink.)
Jim, it's just the physics training kicking in along with a bit of OCD. I always look at the units to make sure they are kosher. It's the basic bookkeeping. I guess it's the way some English teachers are about grammar. It's a Thing.
DeleteBoth approaches to nuclear fusion power, laser confinement and tokomak, have made progress. But they still have a long way to go and their eventual success is not guaranteed. Practical nuclear fusion would initiate a material paradise. Two other breakthroughs would be room temperature superconductivity (as elusive to date as fusion) and a space elevator (enabling economical asteroid mining and solar power stations in space). But, in the meantime, we have to make do with what we have.
ReplyDeleteI love that Stanley's vision isn't confined to our planet :-)
DeleteThe Bakken oil fields are popping up on FB a lot lately, usually in connection with Trumpy posts, and how much of an idiot Biden is. Which is puzzling because that has been known for decades (about the oil fields, not Biden!) The Bakken is producing but it's not problem free. The oil is dirty, and the natural gas requires fracking.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's all about cheap gas. That oil wouldn't even benefit Americans. They only want to process it in Louisiana and sell it overseas. Some Americans are willing to sacrifice democracy for cheap gas even though the Bakken oil fields and the pipeline have nothing to do with the increase in prices.
Delete