Nuclear Power?

IT WAS May 2004 and John Howard was looking for an exit clause. A Federal Government scheme to kickstart Australia's renewable energy industry had proved successful beyond anybody's expectations. Wind, the cheapest and most viable source of renewable energy, was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the mandatory renewable energy target.

Giant wind turbines were sprouting all over the country, turbine blade and engine manufacturers were setting up shop, and cash was pouring in from foreign and domestic investors. It seemed Australia was finally tackling its greenhouse gas emissions by getting some clean electricity.

But not everyone was happy with the mandatory target. Leaked minutes from a meeting in the chilly confines of Canberra's political corridors show the Prime Minister had called on some of Australia's biggest contributors to global warming - including the coal and uranium miners Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton - to help the Government devise a way to pull the rug from under the wind industry, but still be seen to be tackling climate change.

Two years on, it has become clear just how deadly that meeting was for wind power. The Government's refusal to extend the mandatory target has left hundreds of renewable energy projects unable to secure contracts. One developer last week cancelled two wind farm proposals worth $550 million, while the future of another $250 million project is in doubt.

The Australian Wind Energy Association says as much as $12 billion worth of proposed wind farms is at risk. On top of that, the Government has tried to kill wind farm projects in Victoria and Western Australia and has called on state governments to sign a development code that would give local councils the power to veto wind projects because of community opposition - something that does not apply to new coalmining ventures.

Sydney Morning Herald

Part of the pro- and contra-nuke debate is muddied by a  dirty, knockdown fight by the Old Technology (coal and nuclear) interest groups to suppress, downplay, or muddle news of success in cleaner energy technologies, and to prevent such technologies from getting anything like the subsidies that the extractive industries have enjoyed for over 200 years.  One doesn't have to believe in "secret carburetors that run on water" to understand that an established, very large, very politically connected power bloc will fight like hell to prevent any competitors from appearing on the scene.

Rio Tinto, now that's a name to conjure with...

As with many of these dirty little kicking matches, some of the "grassroots groups" may be astroturf and others may be -- unwittingly -- acting as proxies for the power players (much as the US and USSR manipulated and lesser regimes to fight their proxy "bush wars" during the Cold War).

[...]At a time of near unanimous scientific agreement that large greenhouse gas cuts must be made soon to avoid dangerous changes in world weather patterns, how is it that wind has become a dirty word?

Environment groups say it is all tied up with Federal Government reluctance to impose any kind of cost on fossil fuel industries and its desire to sell more uranium to nuclear weapons states such as China and India. They say it is no coincidence that wind - which could in time be a strong, clean competitor to fossil fuels - is being demonised while nuclear power is being promoted as a solution to global warming.[...]

Those who oppose the project are happy with Campbell's intervention. Among them is the discredited British environmentalist David Bellamy. In late 2004, at the height of the campaign against the Bald Hills project, Bellamy visited the area to support the anti-wind cause. "It's the last place on earth you'd contemplate building them," he said during a visit to the South Gippsland town of Foster, paid for and organised by Channel Nine's 60 Minutes. "Think of the damage they are doing, and for no return at all," he said.

Not long before his visit to Australia, Bellamy said man-made global warming was a myth and wind power was not a renewable source of energy.

It is misleading claims such as these and connections with anti-wind campaigners overseas that have raised suspicions about Australia's anti-wind activists. The Australia Institute's Clive Hamilton believes the sprouting of local opposition groups is not entirely spontaneous. "I believe there is a network of anti-wind activists associated with climate change sceptics who are fuelling the fires of local opposition," he says.

Research by the Herald shows that a loose association of anti-wind farm groups that goes by the names of Landscape Guardians or Coastal Guardians relies heavily for its information and campaign tactics on overseas groups that have been linked to the nuclear power industry.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

wow, master blogging...

thanks for this well written round up of the attitudes around this issue, pro and con.

deanander, you seriously rock.

'moral odium'...now there's a phrase!

off to pt 2...

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.

dammit I made a typo in the Poll and it doesn't appear to be editable.  apologies to all german-speakers.  that should be Jawohl, not Jawoll [there's a brand of sock wool called Jawoll which I was looking at earlier today in a catalog, must be neural print-through].

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

The choices in the poll don't offer much in the form of nuances, cornering me to a somewhat provocative vote...

Pierre

Although two points

Some of the things you mention are not memes are complete narratives and even myths.

You forget the support among some scientists, even of the left liberal kind.

I considered myself an enviromentalist but I support strongly the replacements of the old nuclear reactors for new.

I know not a lot of people thinks in this terms in the general frame of things. But supporitng a replacement but not expansion of present nuclear reactors have subset of narratives that are not present in a typical debate:

-They are more secure than the ones working now.
-The level of nuclear waste would manageable
-Nuclear fuel would indeed last more than 200 years at present U consumption
-It would not force out renewables since all new capactity should be made with renewable..giving it time to catch upon capacity.
-It provides the margin we need to change the grid/router and make the big jump, without going to coal, from a central to a central-disperse system (I would not promote a completely disperse system, it is not a very good idea as far as I understand network theory)

Of course, reaplcemente implies that if you do nto have nuclear you will need other sources of energy...and it will.. and it will be coal now...the cheapest.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

There is something else that has to be taken into account: our energy needs are not just electric. We use tremendous amounts of heat of chemical processes, metallurgy, manufacturing. Of course, this could be cut down if production/consumption as a whole was down. But I don't feel that it can be eliminated. Quite the contrary, if we are to produce fertilizers one day with hydrogen that comes from water, not natural gaz, convert other plastics manufacturing to biomass feedstocks for CHON that could be energy sinks instead of sources like fossil fuels double up today in most process where they are used as materials also.

When you need heat, a fuel is at an advantage against electricity: you get 100% of the energy in it, not just 45% as limited by thermodynamics when converting to electricity. It is very wasteful to generate heat with electricity that has been slowly accumulated with renewables. Some newer nuclear plants address this need (PBR, IFR, super-critical water reactors...). The EPR does not. But in my view it is clearly a stopgap to cope with the obsolescence of current plants, with only incremental upgrades to PWR, doesn't qualify as true 3-rd gen in any way.

Pierre

I think this is an excellent summry, and each of the pro/con position deserves a diary by itself... Now there's a community project.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

Nicely set out but one observation of bias and one quibble.

You describe the pro-nuke folks as 'spokespeople for the nuclear industry' and the anti-nuclear folks as simply 'opponents' of nuclear power. That implies that the pro nuke people are simply paid PR types, and ignores that they tend to believe in what they say.

The quibble is about anti-nuclear activists not playing a role, and cost being the determining factor. For the most part I think you are right, but are ignoring the power of local opposition to thwart nuclear power. Local pols tend to be quite responsive to intense feelings among their constituents - if they aren't they're out in the next election.  In cases where a nuke plant was abandoned after being mostly completed it seems likely that anti-nuke opposition was the reason - the capital investment was already mostly completed and AFAIK nuclear power is competitive in its operating costs.

It is (and who could doubt it? ;) mostly true that --

(E) We have reason to be optimistic about steady and often radical improvements in technology; scientific "miracles" produced by the efforts of academic and/or commercial elites have occurred in the past which produced wonderous returns for consumers, and more of the same can be expected to continue indefinitely until everyone on Earth enjoys a First World lifestyle and/or humanity colonises the solar system, etc.

-- except that it is far from certain that these developments will be of net benefit, given their side effects and potential misapplications.

However, this part of the statement --

But to reach this Promised Land we will need lots of energy, so we must not permit our energy consumption and production to fall.

-- is clearly wrong. The requisite technological developments, and their deployment, need not consume more than a negligible fraction of current energy resources. Learning to diddle with molecular systems just isn't very energy intensive.

Regarding two other points:

(A) skepticism about the Infinite Growth model of economic theory....

This is on solid ground. Regardless of technology, in the long run Malthus will be proved right.

(B) conviction that it is not physically possible for everyone on Earth to live a First World lifestyle....

This conviction is unwarranted. The amount of energy and matter needed to keep a person supplied with better-than-First-World goods and services is small compared to what is available from the Sun, the air, and rock -- provided that one looks beyond today's incredibly crude technology. (If we're near the grand culmination of the evolution of technology, pressing close to physical limits, why do photovoltaics cost so much more per square meter than do leaves?)

Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.

I think I'm going to try to briefly react to each of the 'talking points' that De lists here...

For Nuclear Power:
a) Nuclear power is "unlimited" — agree: in the limited sense allowed by De of "for the next couple hundred years".
b) Nuclear power is "carbon neutral" — agree: there are some emissions due to all the activities involved in nuclear power production that use fossil  fuels for transportation or for electricity generation, but they should be negligible.
c) Nuclear power is "safe" — disagree: no reason why it shouldn't in principle, but in practice safety is the first victim of efficiency and the risks involved in a nuclear accident are too large.
c1) Nuclear power is "safer to build than to import" — disagree: this makes no sense to me.
d) Nuclear power can replace almost every application of fossil power — agree: using nuclear energy to power synthetic fuel production [though scaling synthetic fuel production to the current output of oil refineries would have problems of its own].
d1) Nuclear power can provide a reliable energy baseline &mdash: strongly agree: it already does.
e) Nuclear power is more cost-effective than renewables &mdash: strongly disagree: one word, "externalities"; also, as Jerome tirelessly points out, fuel-based power plants appear cheaper only because the cost of the fuel is pushed into the future.
f) New fission reactors solve the problems of "old, bad" designs &mdash: agree: but that doesn't mean they don't have [unknown or underestimated] problems of their own (see "safety" above).
g) New developments are just around the corner that will make nuclear energy even more efficient and safe — disagree: this must be taken on faith. I do have a problem with De putting fussion in the same category as fission.
h) Just because incompentent nations or companies have built lousy plants doesn't mean that nuclear power cannot be managed properly — agree, but incompetence and mismanagement cannot be discounted, so I don't see how this proves anything.
i) There is no reason to fear nuclear accidents or technology more than other industrial process or externalised cost — disagree strongly, nuclear accidents have the potential for greater damage, for longer time, than other modes of energy production.
j) The nuclear industry has been held back over the last 20 years by unfair fear, prejudice and activism — disagree strongly, I think the political opposition to nuclear power is nor unfair.
A) The energy and climate situation is dire and some urgent remedial action is needed — agree strongly, but concluding that nuclear energy is necessary is a non-sequitur.
B) Nuclear energy is the only practical alternative to fossil fuels — disagree strongly
C) Opponents of nuclear energy are scientifically illiterate, superstitious or ideologically biased — disagree strongly though it is dismaying that many people cannot or will not discuss the technical details of nuclear energy
D) Quality of life is strongly correlated with per capita power consumption — strongly agree, but again jumping from this to the need for nuclear power is a non-sequitur.
E) We have reason to be optimistic about steady and often radical improvements in technology — disagree I used to be a believer in progress and rationality, but I am increasingly sceptical.

Conclusion: I agree with most of the premises, but not with the conclusions, which means either I am inconsistent or the pro-nuke arguments are mostly fallacious.

Against nuclear power:
a) Nuclear power is not safe — agree: given the devastating nature of accidents, they cannot be made unlikely enough.
a1) Nuclear waste management is an unsolved problem and waste is toxic "forever" — disagree: my intuition is that nuclear waste management should not be any harder than any other kind of waste management.
a2) Uranium mining is associated with poor worker safety, contamination of water sources, etc — agree, but this is an argument against mining, not against nuclear power.
a3) Safety is sacrificed to efficiency, accidents happen and then they are covered up — agree but  this is not specific to nuclear power
a4) No private insurer will insure a nuclear plant; if nuclear power were safe it would be possible to insure it — agree it is probably true that nuclear accidents are too costly even if they are very unlikely, but what are other activities that cannot be insured privately?
a5) Nuclear power is a stalking horse for the nuclear weapons industry — agree but this is again not a problem with nuclear power, but with the lack of political commitment for nuclear nonproliferation, or (in the case of depleted uranium) the callousness of the military industrial complex.
b) The public does not trust the reassurances of nuclear scientists and industry spokespeople, and rightly so — agree, but although one should not trust what the industry says about itself, I don't think it's "right" that the public won't trust anything nuclear scientists say in favour of nuclear power. At least they know what they're talking about.
c) Uranium mining is a politically dirty business — agree, but again this is not an argument against nuclear power but against mining. Uranium mining in Canada and Australia is presumably not on the same league as uranium mining in Niger.
d) Nuclear power is centralised, high/heavy technology, difficult to understand, and makes power consumers into helpless clients — agree, but all infrastructure is centralised, as is all heavy industry. You'd be hard pressed to find an average consumer who understands how the products they consume work... This is not an argument specifically against nuclear power.
e) Nuclear power is coupled to national security, nonproliferation, and other risks which inspire or require rigorous security which is inherently secretive and undemocratic — disagree there is nothing inherently secretive and undemocratic about security: if your security systems require secrecy they are not secure. This is also not an argument against nuclear power but against security, which is absurd.
f) Radiation is undetectable without specialized equipment and people cannot tell if they are being exposed, having to rely on the word of (untrusted) authorities — agree, but tell me how this is different from most chemical or biological contamination.
g) The health effects of radiation are insidious, as they can take years to develop and may include genetic damage which does not become visible until gestation and birth of children — agree, but again not different from chemical contamination or even natural radioactivity like radon from building materials.
f) Uranium is no more an infinite resource than fossil fuel — agree, but will not run out of it within the life of a nuclear power plant built today.
g) Nuclear power is not cost-effective and benefits from hidden subsidies — agree
g1) Old nuclear plants are very expensive to repurpose of clean up — agree, but is this enough to make nuclear power uneconomical?
g2) Nuclear power plants are costly to build, require expert personnel to operate, and have high complexity and high failure costs, all of which is expensive — agree but so what?
h) Simple, cheaper, cleaner and less scary options than nuclear power include conservation, renewable energy and localised energy production — strongly agree
i) Nuclear power is not a nimble solution for urgent problems (such as climate change or peak oil) as it takes 10 to 15 years to bring a nuclear power plant online. — agree but this says nothing of the desirability of building nuclear power plants for the medium term.
j) Public protests have not been a decisive factor in holding nuclear power back, but rather inadequate return on investment and unmanageable risks — agree
k) New miracle technologies either fail to deliver on their promises or incur significant externalities — agree same comment on "progress" as above.
A) The infinite growth predicated by economics is a myth, it is environmentally and socially unsustainable and does not guarantee progress — strongly agree but what does this have to do with nuclear power?
B) It is not physically possible for everyone on earth to lead a first-world lifestyle — strongly agree (ditto)
C) Nuclear weapons are utterly morally wrong — strongly agree but we're talking about energy, not weapons.
D) promises of technological miracles are a case of hubris and carry hidden costs — agree but I am not asking for miracles.
E) anarchism/libertarianism:
E1) Authority should be resisted, and large centralised governments or corporations mistrusted — strongly agree but with transparency it should be possible to carry out large-scale projects if they are needed.
E2) community/grassroots efforts and local organisation and provision of services should be more highly valued — strongly agree
E3) government may fall, or policies change, leaving nuclear plants in the wrong hands — agree but like many other arguments above this seems to advocate inaction through paranoia.
F) a decent lifestyle for the majority of people could be attained with common sense, reasonable frugality and fairness — agree strongly: I note that "quality of life is not correlated with energy use" only given a substantial reconfiguration of our societies, and even then for a given organization more energy will lead to a higher standard of living.

Conclusion: I again agree with most of the premises, but I disagree on the connection that is made to the nuclear debate. After going through this exercise I see too much ideology and too little reasoning on both sides.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith