Lost On The Shore

Some Nuclear Issues

'TJH' has added an excellent comment to my recent post on nuclear energy options and raised some issues which I think need to be explored a bit more.  Basically, he makes three points:

• The nuclear waste disposal problem is not being solved,
• the cost of new nuclear generation is not competitive with coal without massive government subsidies, and
• the comparison of deaths due to nuclear energy to deaths due to coal is not a valid measure of nuclear safety.

He also asserts that carbon sequestration is likely to be available before the solution to nuclear waste disposal problem.  Let's look at each of these.

Nuclear Waste It's true the nuclear waste disposal problem has not been solved - at least in the United States.  The problem seems to be as much a political problem as an engineering problem.  Currently the standard which the engineers are supposed to meet would limit radiation exposure to 350 millirem for ONE MILLION YEARS taking into account the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanos, asteroids falling from the sky and other, unknowable, factors.  It's worth noting in this context that the entire recorded history of the human race is about four thousand years.  If such a standard were applied to other kinds of industrial waste, including carbon dioxide, most modern industry would shut down immediately.

Other countries seem to have solved the problem.  Canada has developed a system for burying nuclear wastes in batholiths some 500 to 1000 meters beneath the surface within the Canadian Shield - one of the most geologically stable formations on Earth.  The batholiths were formed some one to two billion years ago and have been stable since then.  Sweden has developed a method called KBS-3 which, after some interim storage during which the radioactivity is sharply reduced, buries the waste in bentonite clay some 500 meters beneath the surface.  The Finnish government has begun building a similar site.  France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Russia reprocess spent fuel.

Cost What will be the cost of electricity from a new generation of nuclear plants?  No one can say for certain.  The primary difficulty in estimating the cost is that a large part of the eventual costs are the up-front capital costs of the plant, and that depends largely on how long it takes the plant to be built.  The nuclear power industry does not have a good record in this regard.  They argue, however, that with standardized designs which are pre-approved, the time required to build new nuclear plants will be shorter and more predictable. 

The evidence is mixed.  A plant being built in Finland is significantly behind schedule and over budget.  Several others under construction in Japan, however, are both on time and under budget.  A study completed by MIT in 2003 found that nuclear power would be about 60 percent more costly than coal or natural gas power.  Another, by the Royal Acadamy of Engineering in 2005 put the cost of new nuclear energy at 2.26 pence per kilowatt-hour vs. 3.64 for natural gas power and 3.33 for coal.  This report has been disputed by many, though who argue it doesn't account for government subsidies to the nuclear industry and understimates disposal costs.  Nuclear power does receive some subsidy from the government.  Of course, coal, natural gas and renewables all receive signifianct government subsidies.

I believe that with experience, problems with the construction of nuclear plants will be resolved and the construction period will become shorter and more predictable leading to a cost per kilowatt that is competitive with coal.  Of course I have no data to back that up, but neither do those who say the cost will be much higher.  We won't know until we build a few plants.

Safety Of course, the number of deaths is only a rough indicator of the relative safety of nuclear power vs. coal.  And certainly, as TJH points out, the accident at Chernobyl devastated a significant amount of land.  But coal mining devastates a significant amount of land every year.  And coal is not only unsafe to mine, it's unsafe to burn.  Coal-fired power plants spew out an amazing amount of pollutants - 59% of total US sulfur dioxide pollution, 18% of total nitrogen oxides, 50% of total particulate pollution and 40% of total US carbon dioxide emissions.  These pollutants contribute to smog that threatens the health of tens of millions. According to the Sierra Club, particle pollution from power plants alone causes some 30,000 deaths a year in the US.  Coal-fired power plants are the largest single man-made source of mercury pollution.

There's lots else I could say about coal.  Sure, nuclear power has safety issues but they pale in comparison to what we're doing now.  We need to stop building new coal plants and get rid of the ones we have.  The only feasible alternative at the moment is nuclear.  Effective carbon sequestration from coal plants is making little progress- the Department of Energy recently pulled the plug on the FUTUREGEN demonstration project saying it did not make fiscal sense.

Sure, nuclear power is dangerous.  The eventual costs are only rough estimates and the waste disposal problem has not been resolved.  But where are the alternatives to generating the reliable quantities of electricity we need to allow us to retire the coal plants that are killing us.

[The photo is of the Bruce Nuclear Plant in Canada - the second largest in the world]

The Wrong Approach

State Senator Paul Pinsky has introduced legislation that would put into place a 'cap and trade' system to limit the amount of greehouse gases emitted by Maryland industry and eventually reduce them by 90%.  The legislation has the support of Governor O'Malley and many others.  Under the proposal the state would use a system of rewards and penalties to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Generally, under a cap and trade system, companies and other polluters are issued emission permits and are required to hold allowances which represent the right to emit a specific amount of of pollution, such as carbon dioxide.  If the company wants to emit more, it must purchase more allowances from some other company which needs less.  Thus, heavy polluters are penalized while those that reduce pollution are rewarded.  In theory, those who can reduce the pollution easiest will do so, thus reducing overall pollution at the lowest possible cost to society.

There are a number of problems with this approach.  It's bureaucratically cumbersome, requiring a system of monitoring, trading and management, it creates a potentially unstable market making investments riskier, it is prone to corruption, particularly in the allocation of credits and, to the extent that it involves allocating permits based on current emissions, it provides incentive to increase emissions in the short term.  Further, it's not clear what would happen to such a state system once a national greenhouse gas policy is put into place.

I prefer a carbon tax.  It has the advantage of simplicity - everyone understands it and it's transparent.  It's easier to administer.  The predictability of such a tax encourages businesses to invest in a way that minimized emissions and it can easily be merged into a national system when such a system is established.

A carbon tax recognizes and places a price on external costs and, by doing so, levels the market in a way that encourages cleaner forms of energy.  Let me explain.  A significant cost of generating electricity from coal is the air and water pollution that are a by-product of the generation.  Since the generating facility doesn't pay for these, the cost is not included in the price of electricity.  Thus, electricity from wind power, solar power and other, cleaner technologies can't compete on price.  If the price of electricity generated by coal included the cost of the pollution it caused, the cleaner technologies could compete very effectively.

Such a tax would raise a significant amount of money on an annual basis, allowing the state to reduce or eliminate other taxes such as the sales tax or the corporate income tax. 

Most of us are concerned with global warming.  We want to do something.  But let's not jump into this so fast that we use the wrong tools to attack it.  A carbon tax is the way to go.

[The photo shows breaker boys at Breaker #9 in Pittston, PA around 1911.  Boys as young as eight were employed by the coal companies to separate out bits of shale from the mined coal which flowed by in chutes under their feet.  They weren't allowed to wear gloves.  When they grew older, they became 'door boys' who controlled the doors that helped control ventilation in the mines.  Later they became miners themselves.  When black lung disease affected them so they could no longer mine, they went back to being breaker boys.  Click on the photo to see a larger version.]