PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Nuclear Energy: The Answer is Blowing in the Wind
by Robert Dietrich II Thursday, Oct. 04, 2007 at 4:25 PM
thesigningstatement@gmail.com (email address validated)

This Essay looks at Nuclear Energy as the answer to our energy needs. It compares it to the green energy sources such as Wind And Solar energy.

You can download the article with sources at the website.

Author: Robert Dietrich II
Date: May 5th 2007

Nuclear Energy: The Answer is Blowing in the Wind
Nuclear energy has been touted as the answer to all of our long-term energy needs. Though there are many reasons for this change in policy, it is not a feasible answer to the energy crisis of this country or the world. We should not increase funding for nuclear power plants, but instead fund more green methods of amassing energy.

The problem of energy consumption and the demand that our country is experiencing is a complex and difficult issue. If we are going to resolve this issue in the near future it is going to take a major shift in the current attitudes of our government and the people of this country. We will only achieve this feat through education and knowledge. If the population were aware of the facts that surround the various options we have for sustainable energy they would start to change the way they think about energy. They would also become more politically involved in the debate.

The argument for the large-scale use and expansion of nuclear energy has many flaws and misapprehensions. First there is the cost involved in the expansion and maintenance of these plants. Since the beginning of nuclear energy the industry as a whole has received an estimated 1 trillion dollars in state support (Ward, Phillip pg 14). This is a staggering number that most of us are unaware of. By using subsidies the industry has been able to conceal the true cost inherent in nuclear energy production. Most consumers would not notice a great difference in their electric bill if they moved form a nuclear powered area to one powered by another source of energy. We don’t notice the real cost of nuclear energy because it has been concealed be government subsidies including tax breaks, loan guarantees and insurance assistance. If the true cost of this energy source was included in our electric bills people would be more concerned by it.

“The Energy Act of 2005 included more than $13 billion in subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives for nuclear power” (PSR pg3). Included in this act is the reauthorization of the Price Anderson Act. The Price Anderson Act limits the liability of nuclear energy companies by requiring them to take out an insurance policy for $10 billion dollars incase of an accident while the government would cover anything over this amount (Neff, Shirley pg 4). This provision not only saves nuclear power companies a huge amount of money in insurance costs but it also leaves the tax payers footing much of the bill if an accident were to occur.

The type of cost savings required to maintain this kind of energy is only going to increase with time, partially due to the rising cost of uranium. From January of 2001 to June of 2006 the cost of uranium went up 600% from $7.25/per pound to $45.40/per pound (Mariotte pg 2). In a more recent report from March of 2007 the cost has soared up to $85/per pound (Harding pg 2). With sharp increases in cost of resources required in nuclear energy process, the government subsidies will have to continue to rise costing the tax payers billions more.

If we compare these costs to those of renewable energy we see a great benefit in perusing renewable energy sources. The two most promising renewable energy sources at this time are wind and solar power. Wind power received a 1.8 cent per kilowatt production tax credit for new wind energy. (United States Senate. pg 5). This is a minute subsidy compared to those received by the nuclear energy industry. The natural resource that is needed for this from of energy is free and creates no byproducts. Once windmills are built the cost of operation and maintenance is very low (American Wind Energy Association. pg 3).

Solar energy is very similar to wind power in many respects. The solar power received a comparable tax break to that received by wind power (United States Senate. pg 5). The resource required for it is free and abundant. “Every hour more energy (from the sun) strikes the surface of the Earth than is consumed globally in a year” (Public Citizen. Renewable Energy pg 2). The cost of building these solar energy fields is more then that of wind and is still less then building a new nuclear power plant. There are also new ways of harnessing the power of the sun that are starting to become more popular. This new technology is less expensive to create and more efficient than older photo voltaic panels.

We measure cost of energy using kWh, which stands for kilowatt-hour. According to The Nation Magazine The Cost of energy from a new nuclear power plant costs about 7 cents a kWh (Bivens, Matt. pg 4). Now if we compare that to a new wind farm we see a rather large difference. Even a small inefficient wind farm of only 3 MW would produce energy at about $0.059 cents per kWh. A larger more efficient 51 MW wind farm would bring the cost down to $0.036 (America Wind Energy. pg 2). Solar power is still more costly than either nuclear or wind energy, but the cost is coming down, it is abundant and has no hidden costs. Stirling Energy Systems Inc. has created a thermal solar system that is less than ten cents per kWh. While solar power went from $2.50 in the early 80’s to less than $0.10 per kWh today, nuclear power has made little to no improvements in cost or efficiency despite its drastic government support. The cost of wind power has also decreased dramatically since its inception. In the last twenty years wind power has dropped approximately 90% (American Wind Energy Association pg 1). So while these two renewable sources of energy continue to become more efficient while dropping in cost this has all happened with negligible government support.

The environment is another major concern with nuclear energy. Though this energy may seem to be free of greenhouse gas emissions, it is not. There are many processes involved in the production of nuclear energy that must take place before any energy is produced. Some of these include ore mining, the enrichment of uranium, transportation of uranium and the storage of nuclear waste. All of these processes use fossil fuels to accomplish their tasks. Fossil fuels are the leading cause of green house gas emissions (Ward, Phillip. pg 9). This is one more of those hidden costs of nuclear energy.

We must also be concerned with nuclear waste. We currently have no long-term effective way to store or dispose of nuclear waste. This is troubling when we consider that for every 1,000 tons of uranium fuel we end up with approximately 100,000 tons of tailings 3.5 million liters of liquid waste. This waste will remain radioactive for 240,000 years or more (ward, Phillip. pg 15). With this volume of waste and length of toxicity it is becoming increasingly hard to find a real solution to this problem of storage. Yucca Mountain is an example of the government trying to find a solution to this overwhelming problem. The public has never been behind the Yucca solution for storage. It’s going to be hard to find anyone who will allow nuclear waste to be buried anywhere near their homes.
Renewable energy sources have very little if any impact on the environment. Wind power has been charged with such things as killing birds. Wind energy kills less than one bird for every 10,000 birds killed be humans (America Wind Energy Association. Myth pg 4).

There are no known negative environmental effects from solar energy. With this information it is easy to see how renewable energy is the most environmentally friendly source of energy.

Another problem facing nuclear energy is the fact that uranium is finite. At the current rate of use with out any increase in the production of nuclear power plants we have an estimated fifty-year supply. This does not account for the uranium that is non-cost effective to mine (Ward, Phillip. pg 11). If things go according to plan as laid out in The Energy Policy Act of 2005 we will be increasing the amount of nuclear power plants in the United States by 25 over the next 15 to 20 years (United States Senate. pg 1).

Wind and solar energy use resources that are plentiful and most are free. The new Stirling thermal solar dishes use the most abundant gas on the planet hydrogen to convert the sun’s energy. It would be a waste of time and money to continue to promote a technology that will be extinct in my lifetime. This is one of the main reasons we must start changing the direction of our energy policy immediately.

Many people are concerned that renewable energy will not be able to provide constant energy do to wind and solar energy’s intermittent characteristics. It is true that the sun is only up during the day and the winds can come and go. The good news is that these problems are being worked on and solved. Some solutions call for the use of under ground chambers that hold compressed air or gas. The compression takes place during times of surplus and then is used during times of low output. Other solutions involve linking energy sources across geographic areas and using a diverse mix of technologies. (Public Citizen Renewable Energy pg 3). If we start investing in these technologies at a much higher rate right now we can still continue to use nuclear and coal plants to help with intermittency while we solve this issue.

According to a survey done by the Pew Center 82% of Americans believe we should use Federal funding for alternative energy (Bisk, Tsvi. pg 4). The problem is that most Americans don’t know enough about alternative energy to see the immediate benefits it can provide. Currently it takes many hours of research to compile a comprehensive study of alternative energy sources and compare their benefits to our current energy sources. If we can get this information out to the American public it will get things started in the right direction. We must also find a way to convince our politicians that this is a viable and real solution to our current energy problems.

In conclusion nuclear energy is not cost effective because there are many hidden costs involved with it and wind energy now costs less while solar power is not far behind. It is not environmentally friendly because of the waste it creates and the greenhouse gases it emits during the mining and enrichment process. Nuclear energy is going to become extinct in the near future making it an obsolete technology.

Wind and solar energy are clearly the best policy for our countries energy solution. Wind and solar energy is cost effective now. After seeing the drastic drop in price of renewable energy in the past twenty years with a small amount of government support, we can only imagine what is possible if sizable funding became available. If this technology became mass-produced like other products in our country we would certainly see the cost per kWh drop even farther. Environmentally this technology has always been a front-runner. This has helped in the financing and development thus far of these renewable energy sources. There is no reason to believe that the sun will stop shining or the wild will stop blowing any time soon. If we develop these technologies to their fullest possibility we could have a very low cost energy that requires only free resources to power it.

If we start now our countries electricity could be energy efficient, clean and inexpensive. We must now get the information to the people and work out ways to get our public officials on board.

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