Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

[necron99]

I began preparing a long comment under today's article about the United Auto Workers, because EJ and others brought up the issue of nuclear power as a tangent. I thought it might be better to move that discussion to another thread.

I think this is very relevant to the iTulip investment community, because a large program of nuclear power construction will require a staggering amount of capitalization, in other words, investment. People could make a lot of money investing on the ground floor -- or, people could lose truly Titanic amounts of money, destroying their retirements, if the big new nuclear construction program turns out to be a market flop. A very typical iTulip conundrum for "contrary investors".

Here's my take...

I am in total agreement with the apparent consensus on cars:

The only way the US can win is for the US to do what it does best: invent the next generation of cars and build them better than anyone else. That will require major economic and political changes.

However when people start discussing nuclear power, I get a bit frightened. Since EJ apparently places confidence in pebble-bed reactors as part of a solution to energy independence and environmental problems... what does the iTulip community think about the cost and insurance problems associated with nuclear power?

It's never mentioned, but I assure you, from growing up in California, the original cause of the infamous California Power Crisis of 2000-2001 was our two nuclear reactors. Construction overruns and projected decommissioning costs indicated that power from those two plants would ultimately cost ratepayers 150% the cost of electricity from non-nuclear sources. Large energy-using businesses such as aluminum foundries wanted to escape this $14 Billion extra burden and foist it off on less-informed home ratepayers, so they pressed State Legislators for the ability to pick and choose their power stream, by importing power from other states with cheaper sources. This led to the Energy Deregulation Bill, which ultimately caused blackouts during periods of extremely low power demand, plus tens of billions of dollars of fraud committed against California and her citizens (remember Enron?), only something like $3.6 Billion of which, the corrupt FERC ever allowed California to recoup.

But California's nuclear energy costs are not an isolated incident. In 1986, the U.S. Department of Energy compared nuclear construction cost estimates to the actual final costs for 75 reactors. The original cost estimate was $45 Billion. The actual cost was $145 Billion!

Nuclear-industry P.R. guys claim that they have a handle on this problem now, and that cost compliance is much closer to the rest of the construction industry. But on the other hand, they've barely built any new plants in the last 20 years. I am deeply worried that if the United States embarks on a crash-course nuclear construction program in order to fix the greenhouse-gas problem, it will bankrupt us as a nation. As with any governmentally-favored project, we will end up getting profiteering and cut corners at the same time as overbilling, like the military getting billed for $15,000 hammers and $2,500 toilet seats. (Plenty of examples of those during the Iraq War.) Remember that construction commodities are shooting up right now, too, due to the weak dollar and China's expansion.

I am much less worried about that happening with renewable energy sources, since most of these sources are by definition de-centralized, much more modular, inviting more competition from suppliers and builders, and therefore needing far, far less intensive capitalization to get started. I may be biased from my experience in California, but I think the country and the world's long-term energy future is for individual homeowners to drastically reduce their consumption and at least partly provide their own power -- through solar panels and windmills, as well as participation in larger projects such as hydro and geothermal power, perhaps at the Home Owner's Association (HOA) level -- because the government and the private power companies will be blatantly competing to see who can rip off consumers worse, while providing shoddy blackout-filled service. I think out of sheer necessity, electricity will become something that each individual homeowner has to worry about providing for themselves, at least to some degree -- and most homeowners cannot afford to mine uranium nor refine petrochemicals in their backyard.

I think the age of centralized power generation is drawing to a close, just like the age of centralized economies (socialism and big-government capitalism) is drawing to a close -- and that bodes ill for nuclear power, since nobody but a big government can afford to build a nuclear power plant.

I am also curious about the iTulip community's take on the problem of insurance. It is well-established that liability costs for a nuclear accident are far beyond the ability of the free market to provide; to this day, nuclear plants can only be built with gargantuan insurance subsidies by the Federal government.

The Price-Anderson Act, [link leads to a PDF file], re-authorized in 2005 for another twenty years, basically states that each nuclear power provider company need only come up with $300 Million of private insurance, plus $98.5 million per plant -- in other words, in the case of a major accident at a single nuclear plant, private insurers are only on the hook for less than $400 Million in public damages (health claims, reparation costs, environmental cleanup costs, etc.) This has been estimated at less than 2% of the actual cost of a major accident.

The Federal Government -- that is to say, your tax dollars and mine -- are required to pay the rest of the damages. Ummm, that would be, 98% of the damages.

Nuclear power P.R. men like to say that this is a small risk because nuclear power is so safe. But there are myriad unanswered objections to that attitude. For example, we know that terrorists would like to target U.S. nuclear facilities. Even if we assume that the private nuclear industry is perfectly willing and able to provide good security while cutting costs -- and past history doesn't inspire confidence -- terrorists are clever, creating a huge risk factor. Decentralized power, such as most renewable sources, avoids that vulnerability entirely.

Quite apart from terrorism and security concerns, nuclear power P.R. men also like to state that there has "never been an accident" at a U.S. nuclear plant, except for Three Mile Island. But this is blatantly false. The nuclear power industry is a big industry handling large amounts of dangerous chemicals while trying to cut costs, so just like any similar industry, there are serious accidents almost every day, including releases of radioactive substances. They just don't usually make the news like Three Mile Island did. (Could that be because many news networks are owned by corporations such as G.E. and Westinghouse, which build or run nuclear power plants? Well, that's an issue for a different post.)

Here are some examples and sources for literally thousands more records of accidents:

Public Citizen, the consumer watchdog agency, reports that:

• Other U.S. nuclear reactors that have suffered meltdowns include the Experimental Breeder Reactor in Idaho Falls, Idaho; Westinghouse Testing Reactor, in Waltz Mill, Penn.; Stationary Low Power Reactor, in Idaho Falls, Idaho; Fermi 1, in Lagoona Beach, Mich.
• “From October 1996 through May 1999, 102 of 111 nuclear reactors have reported over 500 instances where they have been splitting atoms while ‘outside design basis.’ ” The Public Citizen report notes 384 separate incidents of this.

http://www.totse.com/en/politics/gre.../nukacdnt.html

"A survey of official records since the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in 1979 shows there have been more that 23,000 mishaps at U.S. reactors -- and the number is increasing. In 1986, there were more than 3,000 reported incidents -- up 24 percent since 1984."

#1032. 1990, 21st November - FARALLON ISLANDS, off U.S.A.

Marine scientists have produced graphic evidence that drums of nuclear waste are leaking in part of the northwest Pacific which happens to be a rich fishing area and a marine reserve. At least 47,500 drums are known to have been dumped near the Farallon Islands, 50 km off San Franciaso, between 1946 and 1970. Images show fish swimming among corroded and collapsed drums scattered over an area of 48 square km. (The Age, 22/11/90)

#1031. 1990, October - HANFORD, WASHINGTON STATE, U.S.A.

A potentially explosive situation was reported by safety inspectors at a nuclear waste tank (codenamed 101-SY) at Hanford. The waste slurry had formed a thick crust which is trapping hydrogen being continuously generated underneath. One calculation has it that an explosion equivalent to 230 kilos of TNT could occur. The tank has uncertain chemistry and contents.

>>> Necron99’s comment: ‘uncertain chemistry and contents.’ Doesn’t that just fill you with confidence about the nuclear industry? “Uhh, that tank contains – well – uhh, sumptin’, all I know is that I wouldn’t go wading in it if I were you.”

Up to 66 tanks at Hanford are believed to be leaking, 22 are accumulating hydrogen and a further 22 are potentially explosive. (New Scientist, October 1990; The Canberra Times, 28/12/90).

#1008. 1990, 23rd February - OKLAHOMA, U.S.A.

An undated, but apparently recent accident at Seguoyah Fuels Facility in Gore, Oklahoma (US) resulted in a spill of 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of depleted uranium tetraflouride powder. ("The Nuclear Monitor" 26/2/90, WISE 329 9/3/90 )

#882. 1988, May - U.S.A., ATLANTIC

A 14-ton canister of uranium gas en route to the U.S. rolled overboard in rough waters in the mid-Atlantic. The news of the accident was reported in a weekly sheet read by Mariners, but not carried by the wire services. According to the New York based Radioactive Waste Campaign, it is "apparently common for container ships to lose cargo in heavy seas". ("Waste Paper" (US) Fall 1988, WISE NC 4302, p6. 25/11/88)

#963. 1989, August - MILLSTONE, U.S.A.

The US Sub-committee on nuclear regulations has requested that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission focus its investigations on US $15,000 offered by North East Utilities to John Delcore, a worker who exposed poor safety practices, to silence him. Further focus will be the Texas Utility Electric Company which gave a nuclear builder $15,000 and his attorney $20,000 to keep quiet about problems at the Comenchi Peak Nuclear Plant. The Committee's Chairperson Senator John Breaux said that "it turns the licensing process into a sham, if witnesses can be paid money to withhold their testimony". The NRC did levy US $50, 000 fine on Millstone in April 89 for failing to complete safety modifications required since the TMI accident, three years after the modifications were to have been made. A recently released report by the Washington based Nuclear Information and Resource Service shows that over 1 half (59 out of 112) of operating nuclear powered reactors in the U.S. have not completed these modifications. ("Radiation & Alternatives Bulletin" RadBull Aug.89; WISE-319 20/10/89).

#964. 1989, August - FUEL FABRIC, PENNSYLVANIA U.S.A.

A recent US General Accounting Office (GAO) report has found severe radioactive contamination at nine civilian nuclear sites, all of which had been declared decommissioned or decontaminated. Contamination levels were discovered to range between two and 730 times above federal standards. The sites were Westinghouse Fuel Fabrication Plant in Cheswick, Pennsylvania, The Combination Engineering Site in Hematight, Missouri, The Texas Instruments Plant, South of Boston, Mass., The Gulf United Nuclear Corporation Fabrication Plant near Pawling, New York and the KERR McGEE in Cushing, Oklahoma. All five sites have ground water contamination higher than the Federal drinking water standards allow. Additionally, the KER McGEE Cimarron Uranium Enrichment Facility in Crescent, Oklahoma, has ground water contamination 400 times the EPA's drinking water standards and the Nuclear Fuel Services site in Erwin Tennessee has contamination levels 730 times above drinking water standards. ("The Nuclear Monitor" 21/8/89. WISE-319 20/10/89).

Then again, I dunno, I’m not an expert, but I would also call an incident where almost 100 million gallons of radioactive water was spilled into the Rio Puerco River in New Mexico -- which by-the-way empties into Lake Mead, which you are probably drinking out of right now if you're reading this in Los Angeles -- a “serious accident”. Sure, this was back in 1979, but the accident released substantial quantities of Thorium-230, which has a half-life of 80,000 years and is believed to be as toxic as Plutonium. The radiation in the water at the spill site was 6,600 times the maximum standard for drinking water. By the time it gets to Lake Mead, it’s well diluted, of course. But is this the kind of thing we want to see happen again?
http://www.sric.org/uranium/PUERCO92.html
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Kil...rOwn/KOO9.html



Also:

• http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nucl...nts/index.html

This next website is a little bit "breathless", but if you follow each "Next" link at the bottom of the page, it lists 1,054 nuclear accidents worldwide between 1947 and 1991. Quite an impressive record! To say there has "never been an accident" at a nuclear plant besides Three Mile Island is simply a patent absurdity.

• http://www.prop1.org/2000/accident/facts1.htm

Finally, there is some debate that, if the world really does turn towards nuclear power as petroleum runs out or is made uneconomical by Greenhouse Gas concerns... we may well experience "Peak Uranium" !
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2379
Exactly as with Peak Oil, the problem is not that there aren't enormous geological reserves of uranium still waiting to be tapped. There are. The problem is that we have a finite ability to mine and process the resource, and the "good stuff", the high-grade ore, the low-hanging fruit, the easily processed stuff, is being depleted rapidly. This means that the use of the resource becomes more and more expensive and cannot keep up with spiraling demand, even though there's plenty of uranium still left in the ground.

Once again, most renewable energy sources avoid this problem, because by definition, they are for practical purposes not finite, so there is no "crunch", there is no "bottleneck"; the problem is simply to set up each individual as a producer rather than just a consumer.


I think two has been a charm for Iraq: the U.S. public is only now souring on the Iraq War, because we've done it twice and the results keep appearing to get worse. Similarly, two might be a charm for nuclear power: if we have a second major nuclear accident (terrorist or otherwise), after Three Mile Island -- a new accident which the government and the media can't downplay -- the public may very well sour completely on the idea of nuclear power, even in the face of Greenhouse Gas problems.

Hence, I feel this is an important discussion for the iTulip community -- because if the huge nuclear expansion proposed by the Bush/Cheney Administration, favored by nuclear power advocates goes forth, investors in nuclear power might make huge profits, or might be terribly burned. (Let's hope, not literally.) Even people who don't actively choose to invest in nuclear power, might be deeply involved, since these enormous capitalization pools for nuclear plant construction will likely be very attractive to mutual funds and so forth.

Even more resources (some are PDF's):
http://www.totse.com/en/politics/gre.../nukacdnt.html
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/KillingOurOwn/
http://www.citizen.org/documents/FatalFlawsSummary.pdf
http://www.citizen.org/documents/nuk...sisupdated.pdf

[necron99]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

Ooops, in my ignorance as a Junior Member, I did not dig deep enough into the "Economics" topic to find that there is a separate heading for "Energy" issues. My bad, very sorry. Rather than repeat my lengthy post about nuclear power, which I placed under "Education and Resources," I'm just going to put a link from Energy to my post.

I swear I looked through the forum topics in advance to see if anyone had posted something similar, but obviously I was not thorough enough.

(Any moderator has my permission to move or otherwise edit/change this nuclear power post, of course.)

Thanks, --necron99

[unlucky]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

Well, here's my two cents worth.

Nuclear has the advantage of being a "proven" large-scale power generation technology, as compared with renewable/distributed power generation which has not yet been proven on a large scale. We are also familiar with the disadvantages of nuclear, while we are not yet familiar with the possible disadvantages of large scale renewable/distributed (but we hope they will be less severe).

If hydrocarbons start to get scarce before renewable/distributed is proven as an alternative, then there's little doubt that we will build lots of nuclear. And we will try to avoid "peak uranium" by using plutonium extensively as fuel. That will cause weapons proliferation risk. But we will accept that risk along with all of the other risks.

Alternative energy needs more research to prove it out. But don't forget that nuclear can also benefit from more research - pebble-bed reactors and other types of sub-critical reactors didn't exist 20 years ago. It's not inconceivable that the boffins will come up with a design which overcomes the current disadvantages. Back in 1991, Carlo Rubbia and others proposed a design which does not use a chain-reaction, does not produce waste, and cannot produce weapons material. Too good to be true? It's still a research project, of course! (See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcritical_reactor).

So taking these facts together:

1. Nuclear is a proven (but risky) technology already;
2. Nuclear can benefit further from research, in the same way that renewable/distributed power can;

I would say that nuclear is likely to be a very important part of the equation in the future.

[hugh_lawson]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

Of the three types of power plants I visited in the 1980's while working for Westinghouse, nuclear plants were the ones I would least object to living near. They were clean, safe for the workers, and non-polluting. Coal-fired plants, on the other hand, were not watched by regulators. They were often dirty, often un-safe for the workers, and always heavy polluters.

Take the coal plant in Wilmington, NC for example, which used to pump sulpher into its exhaust stack to lower the 'opacity' of its smoke. Opacity in this sense is just the thickness of the smoke coming out of the stack. Because opacity was used by regulators to evaluate a plants emisions, sulpher made sense. Never mind the acid rain it caused a few hundred miles away.

One day while I was still working at this same plant, an executive based at the Southport, NC nuclear plant came over for a visit. He left his dosimetry badge hanging on his belt. A dosimetry badge measures how much radiation a nuclear plant employee is exposed to over a year's time. This executive made the mistake of visiting the coal ash yard behind the plant. The trace amounts of radioactive elements present in all coal had been concentrated in this ash yard by burning most of the coal away. The executive managed to max out his badge for the year that day. He had been walking in ash that, had it been created at a nuclear plant, would have been classified as high-level nuclear waste.

Does the fact that coal is highly polluting mean nuclear is clean? No, but I think nuclear is much cleaner than coal or gas.

Does the danger of coal mean nuclear energy is safe. No.

I have an aunt who died from years of washing her husbands work clothes from the highly un-regulated Savannah Nuclear Plant. She is still the only person ever to die of cancer from my mother's large family, so we are pretty sure Savannah River did it. He also died of cancer. I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that place.

So there is no doubt that nuclear power can be very dangerous and should be regulated. My point is that all industry has serious safety and pollution problems that need to be addressed. Because we are aware of the dangers present in nuclear, those dangers have been addressed at nuclear plants. And the fact that nuclear does not contribute to greenhouse emmisions makes it a logical choice for power plant construction in the near future.

The idea of de-centralized power production is very appealing, but it is not yet economical enough. Once the price drops, it might be a good choice for home and office power. But you will need to think about the dangers posed by all those explosive lead-acid batteries (for night storage) in everyone's basements. Plus windmills and solar cells will never supply the power necessary for industry. So I think we will need a power grid for the foreseeable future.

If we need a grid, we need a way to generate lots of electricity for that grid. Right now, nuclear seems like the way to go.

I have not worked in the power industry for a long time, by the way, and sold my Westinghouse stock long ago.

[necron99]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

I am very grateful to Hugh Lawson and Unlucky for replying to the post. Although I'm a Civil Engineer, (knowledgeable about construction issues but not a specialist in electricity), and although I did a huge amount of research during the California Power Crisis...

(I wrote about 50 pages, not including dozens of graphs, for a book that would ultimately be 300 pages, but 79 publishers rejected the proposal in Fall 2001, some with notes such as "If the power companies really are pulling some kind of scam on California..." )

...anyway, my point is, that despite research, I'm not an expert, so I'm grateful to hear other viewpoints, particularly someone who's worked at a power plant. Nobody hears that viewpoint very often.

Now I intend this thread to be nonconfrontational, just an exchange of ideas and experiences and resources... so please believe me, I don't mean this next part with any rancor or bad feeling or argument or whatever.

Still, I must point out, neither of you answered my two main questions:

1) What about cost overruns?

2) What about insurance?

If Hugh Lawson was a worker at a power plant, on the ground floor, he probably wouldn't have much direct knowledge of those two topics. But it's not totally clear from Hugh's post, what roles he has played in the power industry.

The construction [and decommissioning] of a nuclear power plant is, of course, a very energy-intensive process, and obviously a nuclear plant can't use its own power to construct itself. Therefore, it seems very reasonable to suspect that as fossil-fuel power, the mainstay of our power scheme, becomes more expensive, we will continue to see large cost overruns in nuclear plant construction -- when you also consider the spike in construction commodities (unlikely to be relieved for decades as China becomes a world-class economy), the fact that the newer, nifty-er nuclear plant proposals are basically untested, and the fact that we have newer and more severe terrorism/security concerns than when the older generation of plants was constructed... I don't have much confidence that future nuclear plants will be any more economical than the existing, expensive ones.

Both of you raised excellent points. "Unlucky" mentions the fact that nuclear power is a cutting-edge industry, with new breakthroughs that might address existing problems. Still, I should point out, nuclear power has received billions of dollars of R&D subsidies for fifty years (approximately $66 Billion since 1950), whereas renewables have received roughly half that amount (split among several very diverse energy producers such as Solar vs. Biomass vs. Wave Power vs. Geotech), and only relatively recently.

Obviously there is a decades-long time lag between R&D and consumer benefits -- there certainly was for nuclear power -- yet even today, with a relative disadvantage in R&D spending, it seems like solar power follows "Moore's Law" (capacity doubles every 18 months). Last December, researchers announced yet another doubling of efficiency. Hugh, we are only just now, this decade, starting to reap the benefits of solar research begun in the 1970s; solar power is going to become much more powerful and affordable very, very quickly in the next 5 or 10 years.

Nuclear power advocates can't hear this without assuming I'm a granola-crunching hippie who wants to destroy Capitalism. But it sure seems to me like, going forward, our government R&D subsidy money would be better spent bringing the latest renewable technologies to marketability, than supporting nuclear power. Because (as "Unlucky" mentions) we expect the disadvantages of renewables to be less severe than the known, existing disadvantages of nuclear power -- yet the ultimate potential of mature renewable technology seems very optimistic, as noted above.

Nuclear power advocates get very peeved about this, but I think it's the truth... for example, just doing cursory research, a Nuclear Energy Industry website (pro-nuclear -- helpful for the debate, with a lot of graphs and numbers) says "When I see claims that nuclear power gets all the subsidies, the numbers that are cited are typically only the Research and Development dollars. This has some merit because according to the table below, nuclear has received about half of the total dollars spent on R&D since 1950. However, I never see subsidies quantified by the opponents beyond R&D."

Yet it's very, very easy to find opponents quantifying other subsidies: Green Scissors mentions up to $6 Billion dollars of production tax credits, plus another $2.5 Billion for experimental reactors. Considering that solar has only received $32.6 Billion in total government subsidies over its lifetime, we can't just brush this $8.5 Billion in subsidies for the nuclear industry under the table. Green scissors also points out less-easily quantified subsides such as loan guarantees and the Price-Anderson Act. Solar power, of course, does receive a production tax credit and certain loan guarantees. But again, not at the level of nuclear power. Here are some other descriptions of subsidies, for example subsidies for Uranium mining, or the hugely expensive Yucca Mountain waste depository:
http://www.greenscissors.org/energy/index.htm
http://www.taxpayer.net/energy/nuclear.htm

Going forward, if we put the same subsidies into renewable energy as we currently do for nuclear, we might very quickly have a fully developed, consumer-ready renewable energy production industry. But those same dollars might be a better expenditure of our limited government funds, than nuclear, precisely because the disadvantages are likely to be less severe. The public and the investment community really needs to take a hard look at that priority.

Hugh points out that renewables are currently not able to produce anywhere near the electricity requirement for industry. Thanks for mentioning that, I only realized just after posting, that I had written the whole post from the point of view of a homeowner -- not a business -- but I figured somebody would very quickly bring up that topic.

Hugh points out, "windmills and solar cells will never supply the power necessary for industry. So I think we will need a power grid for the foreseeable future. If we need a grid, we need a way to generate lots of electricity for that grid." This is another interesting point -- the grid. The 1950's power grid we have now is deteriorating quickly -- didn't we just have another massive blackout a couple weeks ago in the Midwest? -- and nobody wants to claim jurisdiction over it, let alone modernize it. The Bush Administration has earmarked a lot of funds for grid repair, and around 2002 basically claimed "eminent domain" over the national power grid in order to force some action on it. But nobody believes these expenditures will be enough to truly bring the nation's power infrastructure back up to modern functionality, let alone keep up with population growth in urban areas.

Private power companies don't want to touch grid repair with a ten foot pole -- there's basically no profit in it. Particularly if deregulated energy schemes, which the power companies favor, mandate that the grid has to carry anybody's power instead of only their own proprietary power. Why build expensive grid if somebody else is going to reap the profits? On the other hand, it's a ridiculous waste to build more than one proprietary power grid into every house, in order to allow consumers a choice between private power generators.

So once again we find a situation where private companies want to foist off the basic unprofitable infrastructure work on a government that for its part) prefers to privatize everything, and doesn't have the budget or interest in keeping up traditional community infrastructure responsibilities anymore. Again, bodes ill for centralized power.

Distributed renewable energy, of course, sidesteps this problem completely -- if you are generating power on your own property, you don't need a grid.

The problem of the decaying grid is, frankly, a large part of what I meant when I said "the age of centralized power may be drawing to a close" -- because no entity truly 'wants' to repair the grid (there's almost no profit in it), nobody really has the manpower, money, or resources to do it properly.

I fully expect the existing grid system to 'limp' along for many decades or even a century. We will add shiny new grid extensions to upper-class yuppie gated communities, while inner-city residents will see their grid jury-rigged and patched to nominal functionality. But as we all should know by now, these systems are deeply interconnected, so blackouts and failures will simply become more and more common all across the nation. Power customers, (business and homeowners), will simply become more and more unsatisfied with paying ever-higher rates for shoddier and shoddier service, ergo I predict that the question of electricity generation will devolve back down to the level of the individual home-owner (/office-building-owner).

So I've written ten tons of criticism about the current system and "business as usual" practices going forward... you have the right to ask, What's my vision?

I totally, completely agree with both posters that nuclear power is likely to remain a significant component of our power mix for at least a century or so. My quibble is that I don't think the "crash course" of building hundreds of nuclear plants is going to solve our various problems. (For example, in 2001, Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force proposed a "crash course" which worked out to completing one nuclear plant every three weeks for 20 years, or something like that.) I think that's laughably unrealistic and would likely destroy a lot of investor money, maybe even ruin our nation's economy, if it were tried.

I suspect that nuclear power will remain around the 20% fraction of our power mix for decades or a century or so. This will indeed involve building a lot of new nuclear reactors, to replace the big batch which is due for decommissioning right now, and to maintain that 20% fraction in the face of population and demand growth. But I think the public is not going to support a significant increase of the 20% fraction, not in the face of enormous cost, risk, and security issues that I have raised.

I predict that poor service and rising rates (possibly with outright shortages) will soon force consumers to adopt power-saving technology, and will also make home generation of power commonplace.

Of course windmills can run all night, but solar panels don't. The large batteries for storing a family's needs are currently impractical, (but with research that could change very quickly). So what I envision is, the shoddy and unreliable grid will still be connected to everyone's homes, and new grid will be added to new homes. But tens of millions of homes with solar panels, windmills, or other means of power generation will sell their daytime power back to the grid, and only use the grid at night (in combination with some small degree of battery storage). They will be partly or nearly self-sufficient during the day. The existing centralized power generation system (large-scale plants, coal and nuclear and natural gas, etc.) will supply energy-intensive businesses with power during the day, and supply homes with power during the night (when business power demand tends to plummet).

In other words, I am envisioning a near- and medium- term future where the US doesn't increase its power generation capacity very much... not in terms of large, centralized power plants. Technology will reduce power demand -- your laptop probably uses half the power it did 12 years ago -- and personal, home, individual power generation will pick up the remaining demand which results from population growth. The personal/home power generation is likely to come from renewable sources because, as I say, most people can't or won't mine Uranium or refine heating oil in their backyards.

It is likely that (at first) consortiums of businesses, (then later) large individual businesses and local communities, will want to generate their own power if the national system becomes as unreliable as I suspect. But I don't think even large local consortiums will turn to nuclear power, because obtaining, transporting, and disposing of the fuel and waste is a National Security Issue. It's only commonplace now because of massive government subsidies, but the risk will continue to increase in the post-911 world. Nor will they turn to petrochemicals, because of the environmental, geopolitical and possibly geological (Peak Oil) problems. (Since the US still has a lot of coal resources, local/regional power customers may turn to that at first. But I really believe Global Warming is real, and its damages will become more evident and more expensive in the near future. Eventually public sentiment will turn away from all fossil fuels, the question is how much permanent damage will be done to our planet before that happens.)

Local/regional consortiums will build very efficient and effective solar and wind farms, and make commonplace other methods of storing energy... such as pressurizing air inside large caves, or pumping water into uphill storage. (Both these methods release the potential energy basically by running the resulting pressurized outflow through a turbine, and it's really quite efficient, not losing much.) There are plenty of other renewable technologies I haven't even touched on, such as OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) and wave power.

So -- once again -- I'm posting this lengthy treatise on iTulip, because if I were a major investor, those are the sorts of technologies and trends that I would bet on.

Of course, that's my opinion of what the United States should do. In reality, we might take any of several other courses -- from massive nuclear construction, to further foreign wars for control of oil resources -- but in my opinion, taking those other courses would prove disastrous to the US from financial and/or security standpoints.

[necron99]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

...aaaaaaaaaand, almost as if on cue -- in today's news:

Computer hackers blow up physical turbine in ageing U.S. Power system

President Bush's top telecommunications advisers concluded years ago that an organization such as a foreign intelligence service or a well-funded terror group "could conduct a structured attack on the electric power grid electronically, with a high degree of anonymity, and without having to set foot in the target nation." Ominously, the Idaho National Laboratory — which produced the new video — has described the risk as "the invisible threat."

Experts said the affected systems were not developed with security in mind.

"What keeps your lights on are some very, very old technology," said Joe Weiss, a security expert who has testified before Congress about such threats. "If you can get access to these systems, you can conceptually cause them to do whatever it is you want them to do."

[unlucky]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

There's two ways of looking at this: one is to take the small-investor standpoint and ask "what is likely to happen?", the other is to take the good-citizen standpoint and ask "what should happen?". Most people on iTulip will likely take the first standpoint, since that's the kind of forum it is. So, taking that standpoint:

If we experience an energy crisis while renewables are still not proven, then the world will start building lots of gas-fired, coal-fired, and nuclear capacity, with the emphasis on gas and coal. (The world is already doing this). These are the only proven large scale technologies available immediately.

If gas and coal become untenable due to scarcity or climate change concerns, and renewables are still not proven, then the world will build lots of nuclear capacity. I don't think cost-overruns or insurance issues would be show-stoppers in a crisis. They can be reduced through appropriately nasty legislation.

Nuclear may not experience a huge boom if renewables get proven out in time - which I think is unlikely - or if people don't care enough about climate change - which I think is quite possible.

The reason I think renewables are unlikely to be sufficient by themselves is that all of the arguments I've heard that try to make them add up, assume that people will use less energy in the future. E.g. we'll get rid of private cars. George Monbiot's arguments in "Heat" are good examples. I don't think that will happen as long as people have a choice that is at all palatable.
But I accept I could be wrong about that if the technology continues to improve quickly enough.

The main risk to a nuclear investor is that "people" (and here I include Chinese, Indians, and Africans) will accept climate change and use hydrocarbons for as long as possible.


That's my "investor" view. My "citizen" view is that I prefer nuclear to coal, and I would prefer renewables to nuclear. My fear is that the green lobby will scare people off nuclear to the extent that we end up with coal.

[necron99]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

Hey, I walked away from the Internet for a couple of days there. Thank you, "Unlucky", that was a succinct and reasoned answer to my original questions... of course, as you can tell from my post, I disagree, I think the cost/insurance issues will be significant, and posted some reasons why. You can't just legislate away the fact that the watts produced by nuclear power are significantly more expensive than other sources, while the risks are also higher than other sources. People, investors, and governments can of course simply ignore and mis-price the higher risk, but it only takes one very small needle to pop that balloon. Nuclear power's comparative cost disadvantage may well shrink down a little as other sources become more expensive [with scarcity or environmental concerns], but in that scenario, the cost of nuclear power will increase too, along with everything else in the economy.

You may very well be right, of course, that people or countries will turn to nuclear power anyway, but I think if they do so in a major way, it will cause economic problems which will also affect investors. So, as mentioned, this is a quandary for forward-thinking investors -- investors acting en masse can affect the economy that they live and work under -- so if investment money has a herd mentality and follows the path of least resistance (nuclear and coal vs. renewables), investors may commit the U.S. to an ultimately less profitable energy strategy, which would hurt investors in the long run. If investors today stay sharp and encourage smart energy strategy... (hey it's not as if renewables are some sort of pet-rock fad that will simply vanish in 10 years)... they can affect the entire economy and steer it to a more lucrative long-term strategy.

And also that I think renewables will be gaining a lot of ground in the near future -- perhaps in subtle ways at first, but my advice is to look for renewables proving themselves quickly, which may change people's investment strategy. (Also that investing in renewables might not only be idealistic, but also lucrative.)

As a trivial example -- Casio's solar-charging watches are now getting very cheap, I just picked up one for $22 on E-bay... to me it's very interesting to realize that I will never, ever need to buy a watch battery again. (Affects the market in small ways -- not just watch battery makers, but also watch repairmen.) The manual says stuff like "Date and time accuracy are not guaranteed if you are using the watch for more than 75 years." To me that's pretty amazing considering the actual solar-cell surface of the watch is only a tiny dark ring about 3mm wide circling the face, yet it'll keep fully charged from ambient light even without me removing it from my wrist and leaving it in the sun to charge.

Part of the secret behind that technology, of course, is that LCD displays use a fraction of the energy they used to use -- even, used-to-use 5 years ago, so the internal storage battery can be smaller. I think that is a real and growing trend with gadgets of all sorts, from lights and computers all the way up to refrigerators (note that your refrigerator[s] are typically at least 30% of your energy usage for your entire house). Trendy flat-panel computer monitors use well under half the energy that CRTs do, and that's a significant component of America's energy bill. Homeowners and businesses will consume significantly less energy in the near future, although certain major energy expenditures such as heating and automobiles are major exceptions to this trend.

Still, short of wholesale adoption of electric cars, the debate about nuclear vs. coal has little to do with transportation. Private cars are a separate issue anyway. We need completely different solutions for our transportation needs, and that could be the topic of several completely different threads. I was just talking about home/[business] power use.

[The Outback Oracle]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

While searching around on the topic of the BHP RIO takeover debate i came across this paper on Energy demand and Nuclear possibilities in China.


http://www.wapl.com.au/bbContentRepo...esentation.pdf

I don't know how to get the direct link in here but I guess a copy and past would work

[phirang]

Re: Will Nuclear Power solve Climate Change and Hydrocarbon Depletion problems?

Hey, I walked away from the Internet for a couple of days there. Thank you, "Unlucky", that was a succinct and reasoned answer to my original questions... of course, as you can tell from my post, I disagree, I think the cost/insurance issues will be significant, and posted some reasons why. You can't just legislate away the fact that the watts produced by nuclear power are significantly more expensive than other sources, while the risks are also higher than other sources. People, investors, and governments can of course simply ignore and mis-price the higher risk, but it only takes one very small needle to pop that balloon. Nuclear power's comparative cost disadvantage may well shrink down a little as other sources become more expensive [with scarcity or environmental concerns], but in that scenario, the cost of nuclear power will increase too, along with everything else in the economy.

You may very well be right, of course, that people or countries will turn to nuclear power anyway, but I think if they do so in a major way, it will cause economic problems which will also affect investors. So, as mentioned, this is a quandary for forward-thinking investors -- investors acting en masse can affect the economy that they live and work under -- so if investment money has a herd mentality and follows the path of least resistance (nuclear and coal vs. renewables), investors may commit the U.S. to an ultimately less profitable energy strategy, which would hurt investors in the long run. If investors today stay sharp and encourage smart energy strategy... (hey it's not as if renewables are some sort of pet-rock fad that will simply vanish in 10 years)... they can affect the entire economy and steer it to a more lucrative long-term strategy.

And also that I think renewables will be gaining a lot of ground in the near future -- perhaps in subtle ways at first, but my advice is to look for renewables proving themselves quickly, which may change people's investment strategy. (Also that investing in renewables might not only be idealistic, but also lucrative.)

As a trivial example -- Casio's solar-charging watches are now getting very cheap, I just picked up one for $22 on E-bay... to me it's very interesting to realize that I will never, ever need to buy a watch battery again. (Affects the market in small ways -- not just watch battery makers, but also watch repairmen.) The manual says stuff like "Date and time accuracy are not guaranteed if you are using the watch for more than 75 years." To me that's pretty amazing considering the actual solar-cell surface of the watch is only a tiny dark ring about 3mm wide circling the face, yet it'll keep fully charged from ambient light even without me removing it from my wrist and leaving it in the sun to charge.

Part of the secret behind that technology, of course, is that LCD displays use a fraction of the energy they used to use -- even, used-to-use 5 years ago, so the internal storage battery can be smaller. I think that is a real and growing trend with gadgets of all sorts, from lights and computers all the way up to refrigerators (note that your refrigerator[s] are typically at least 30% of your energy usage for your entire house). Trendy flat-panel computer monitors use well under half the energy that CRTs do, and that's a significant component of America's energy bill. Homeowners and businesses will consume significantly less energy in the near future, although certain major energy expenditures such as heating and automobiles are major exceptions to this trend.

Still, short of wholesale adoption of electric cars, the debate about nuclear vs. coal has little to do with transportation. Private cars are a separate issue anyway. We need completely different solutions for our transportation needs, and that could be the topic of several completely different threads. I was just talking about home/[business] power use.

You fall into the post-industrialist trap that most Americans do... you realize that without central thermal gen, there's really no way to have meaningful industry? You want dist gen? Fine: 150MW powerplants on-site for a factory, 300MW for a large mine, etc.

I was in Eritrea a few months back: they'd kill to have some nukes in their backyard. The airport was DARK when I landed, and the city was on power rationing.

Also, the Chinese will buy out our broken-down nuclear EPC's if we don't let nuke happen here...