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Nuclear power is green power, says expert
January 16, 2007 - Exclusive By Dana Childs, Cleantech Group
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reprintWith so much focus on renewable energy, the industry would do well to remember the benefits—and, yes, the drawbacks—of nuclear energy, writes a columnist on the Cleantech Group.
In Nuclear power is particularly green energy: get used to it, Joseph Neil writes that nuclear plants create no greenhouse gas emissions, release less radiation into the atmosphere than coal, gas or oil, have the lowest overall long term cost structure of any fuel and cause less damage to rivers than major hydro projects.
Neil worked for 7 years for the French Commission d’Energie Atomique at Cadarache in Provence, France during the development of both the Liquid Sodium Fast Breeder Reactor technologies and the first fusion processes.
He's also worked in the oil industry and was CEO of HydroVenturi—a power-from-water startup in Europe.
"For two thousand years or more, we have mined the earth ferociously, polluting our backyard with toxic slurry and destroying surrounding agricultural land. We have been doing the same with coal fired power plants for nearly two hundred years, and we have been spraying large quantities of oil across the planet for well over one hundred years," writes Neil.
"We haven’t really done very much to aggressively control either of these industries, yet it's arguable that with nuclear power, we have gone too far the other way and indulged in emotional and irrational fears based almost exclusively in fact on one or two isolated incidents that have had far less impact on the environment than major oil spills or a normally functioning coal plant."
Normally-functioning nuclear plants release levels of radiation indistinguishable from natural background levels, he says.
"In other words, if you wanted to find a nuclear power plant using a Geiger counter, you probably couldn't."
There have been several major refinery explosions in the past decade in the USA alone, with more people killed in them than the 50 or so verifiable deaths directly attributed to Chernobyl, he writes.
"Oil incidents have given rise to much more horrendous pollution and loss of wildlife."
Opponents of nuclear energy argue that using more nuclear reactors poses greater risk of terrorist attack, and the possible resulting exposure to radiation. They also cite its contribution to fostering nuclear proliferation.
While the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 in the Ukraine still looms large in the minds of many, the accident was found to have been caused by a combination of faulty reactor design, the lack of a properly designed containment building, poorly trained operators and a non-existent safety culture.
Advocates like Neil argue that the cost effectiveness of nuclear and modern advances in its technology make it a clearly safer and more environmentally responsible option than gas, coal or oil—and more cost-effective than renewables.
Read Neil's column Nuclear power is particularly green energy: get used to it.
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Comments
Nuclear is neither Green, nor safe.
Submitted on January 16th, 2007 by InterestedReaderNice try, and sadly those who have not taken the time to study the history of the nuclear industry just might buy into this set of half truths and out right lies.
Suppose the half of one percent of America's electric energy that fuels the production of enriched uranium at the Piketon plant is CO2 free?
Oh...what about the mining, processing, reprocessing and so forth? Care to discuss the nuclear industry's plan to have large floating uranium mines on our oceans to mine uranium out of sea water?
I could go on, but will save my words for a more worthy article.
www.greennuclearbutterfly.com
nuclear is neither safe nor green
Submitted on January 16th, 2007 by InterestedReaderHmmm. Well, I have actually lived a nice part of the history of the nuclear industry, having worked in one of the most advanced research plants in the world for 7 years. I think I can claim with some truth to have studied it extensively.
However, I apologise if there are half truths and downright lies, as I tried hard to ensure my research matched the importance of the subject matter. Please be kind enough to point them out to us all in detail, it will be much more productive and satisfactory for the debate.
Mining uranium is obviously messy. All mining has an impact on the environment. Note that if you use any metal item whatsoever, such as a fork, or tooth filling, let alone a fridge, or a vehicle, you have financially endorsed mining (and processing, and reprocessing too). It is not about the act, which we cannot avoid given our current lifestyle choices, it is about the scale and type of pollution and how it is controlled.
If Piketon used (uses?) nuclear power to enrich uranium, then it would be almost totally CO2 free, yes. LMFB (Fast Breeder Reactors) are particularly good at this, recycling, burning, and reducing their fuel whilst producing ...more fuel of a higher grade, and therefore enabling us to mine less uranium. But in real life there is always a cost - in this case, we have to aggressively manage (glassify and store) the toxic waste for a long period.
I hadn't heard about the floating uranium mines. Maybe this is to mine a new lighter-than-water uranium... perhaps we can use it in Light Water Reactors ?
Nuclear Energy is green?
Submitted on April 5th, 2007 by InterestedReaderWhat about the waste? If you factor the cost of storage and liability insurance (if any company will underwrite) in with the cost of nuclear, it must be cost prohibitive.
Nuclear power is Green...
Submitted on August 20th, 2007 by InterestedReader..just like American money! The sad part of the joke is that in order to actually realize the potential of this energy source, we need to avoid things like the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters. What does this really mean? It means a change in the fundamental paradigms that have been the backbone of Industry and Government since the very beginning! No longer can we tolerate the petty, egotistical meddling of Management and Finance to dictate design, construction and operation of such complex and possibly lethal systems. We cannot allow the "Bottom Line" mentality of the beancounters to forestall required safety inspections or maintenance. A careful look at history show a willful disregard for the value of human life by such companies as Kerr-McGee, at best a group of wild cowboys from the Texas Oil Patch, and the US Government let people like this into the nuclear fuel rod business? This cannot continue, the basic guiding principle must be SAFETY, first and foremost. This also means building reactors with a common design, so that the economics of scale can bring the price of production and operations training down. Too often the American systems are "One-offs", with every plant being different. The French have a sterling record of keeping the designs and operational parameters of their nuclear power plants so alike as to virtually rule out problems of this nature. Their safety record speaks volumes about these issues - and goes virtually ignored by most of the people who eschew nuclear power. If you remove the incentives to award the contracts to the lowest bidder, and concentrate on the safety issues, then nuclear power can be green. Of course there are better ways to harness the atom than boiling water for a steam turbine driven alternator! Here's a hint: Bussard's Boron Fusion System.
Nucelar Power is Green..... safety and scale issues
Submitted on August 20th, 2007 by InterestedReaderWell, yes, I agree with some of the core statements here.
The current French production model put in place by AREVA (the quasi privatised verion of Cogema / Framatom - the pubicly owned nucelar engineering entities in France in the 70's and 80's). They have done a really good job in cookie cutter development of their plant, to the extent that they actually benefit from economies of scale - notoriously disfficult in the power industry of any kind and esepcially in nuclear, plus they manage to extensively test and build out the most obvious bugs from the system while upgrading the technology continually so these systems are very robust indeed from a safety perspective. Nuclear power operation is (or should be) a bit like working in space - safety based operational procedures are pretty much the basis of how a good plant operates (I suspect this is also true here) which is why there are so few major mistakes compared to gas / coal or refineries.
It is interesting to extrapolate - AREVA is actually based on 25 years of government operation and govt financed systems development, so too for space exploration etc. It is a point for reflection to wonder if in fact this is a safer development process for such technologies than leaving them to pure profit driven entities - after all it would be easy to architect a nuclear power plant that works with far less safety systems than included in most of them today - and they could be hugely profitable - but would that be acceptable?
Joseph
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