UPI: Analysis: Report, nuke reality don't mesh

UPI: Analysis: Report, nuke reality don't mesh

United Press International - Energy - Analysis

Published: April 23, 2007 at 6:55 PM

By BEN LANDO UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON April 23 (UPI) -- A new report by the Council on Foreign

Relations makes broad characterizations about humanity as a whole

and those who want to increase the amount of nuclear energy for

electricity generation, purportedly as a way to halt and reverse

global climate change.

"According to a prevailing belief, humanity confronts two stark

risks: catastrophes caused by climate change and annihilation by

nuclear war," begins the report, "Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads,"

released last week.

The climate-change issue has momentum; U.S. media, the White House

and Congress all talk it up regularly. But the CFR report says

proponents "advocate a major expansion of nuclear energy" that

"oversells the contribution nuclear energy can make to reduce global

warming and strengthen energy security while downplaying the dangers

associated with this energy source."

"To realistically address global warming, the nuclear industry would

have to expand at such a rapid rate as to pose serious concerns for

how the industry would ensure an adequate supply of reasonably

inexpensive reactor-grade construction materials, well-trained

technicians, and rigorous safety and security measures."

That's true, the nuclear industry says. Its main goal is to maintain

nuclear's electricity share.

"Nuclear energy is not a silver bullet," said Mitch Singer,

spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.S. nuclear

industry's trade group. Rather, Singer said, it is one piece of the

overall picture, which includes renewable energy, clean-coal

technology and energy conservation and efficiency. (Two top NEI

officials served on the advisory committee for the CFR report, but

not all of their comments were included in the final draft, the

Brookings Institution's Susan Rice wrote.)

While nuclear-power proponents are trying to make talk of the

"nuclear renaissance" in this country a reality, after a nearly

30-year absence of new nuclear activity, the industry is merely

trying to maintain.

"To be able to do that, we have to build 35 new reactors by 2030,"

said Adrian Heymer, senior director of new plant deployment at NEI.

Nuclear energy feeds about 20 percent of U.S. electricity demand and

16 percent of worldwide demand, which is expected to triple by 2050.

No nuclear plant has been licensed since 1978, before a chill

brought on by accidents at Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile

Island in Pennsylvania, and a move to coal and natural-gas plants,

the latter which, at the time, had low fuel costs.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects applications for at

least 30 new reactors in the next few years, pushed largely because

of a new -- though untested -- streamlined application process and

various subsidies and tax breaks in energy legislation passed in

2005. There are 103 reactors operating now.

The NEI and other nuclear proponents are keen to point out nuclear's

near zero carbon dioxide emissions -- "clean-air energy" -- which is

true compared to standard coal, oil and natural-gas operations.

Nuclear power does emit, however, if you take into account its

entire cycle, which includes mining and enriching the uranium to

fuel the reactor, as well as construction of the plants.

Most of the climate-change-causing toxins are related to

transportation. The United States imports more than 60 percent of

the oil it uses, the vast majority of it being used for

transportation. Nuclear power can't replace that.

There is much in the CFR report that the nuclear industry echoes,

and vice versa. It costs $3 billion to $4 billion to build a plant,

much more than other electricity sources, though nuclear plants are

big baseload generators that have, in the United States, operated at

more than 90 percent capacity.

An already tight supply of material and labor would squeeze further,

and costs would go up if there was an all-out blitz -- either in the

United States or worldwide -- to replace fossil-fuel electricity

generation with nuclear. Other issues would be exacerbated as well:

There is no general consensus on what to do with the nuclear waste

created by nuclear plants; the additional spent fuel is a risk for

weapons proliferation, as is the enrichment needed to get the fuel

reactor ready; and if, in the midst of the expansion, another

Chernobyl were to happen, the boom would immediately stall and

possibly bust.

Instead of relying on nuclear power to address global warming, the

CFR report recommends the U.S. government "should shift from

providing subsidies to holding all energy sectors equally

accountable for their external costs. ... The costs incurred through

carbon pollution are a debt unpaid."

Polluters should be charged for polluting, which "would act to level

the economic playing field among high-carbon emitters such as

traditional coal-fired plants and no- and low-carbon emitters such

as highly efficient natural gas plants, nuclear plants and wind- and

solar-generated electricity."

The CFR's nuclear energy report appears, rather, to be advocacy for

creating a more equal footing for energy sources to compete for

their place in the mix. As the report puts it: "Nuclear power will

remain part of this mix for the foreseeable future."

(e-mail: energy@upi.com)