A sum of all of my Facebook posts in discussion groups. This is largely meant as a reference source for myself, I'll use these in future discussions, since similar arguments are brought up against nuclear energy by different people.

Global Climate Change

Staying on topic and being objective, there is a consensus on anthropogenic global warming by the following organizations:

- IPCC
- National science academies of the G8+5
- InterAcademy Council
- International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
- European Academy of Sciences and Arts
- Network of African Science Academies
- National Research Council (US)
- European Science Foundation
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Federation of American Scientists
- World Meteorological Organization
- American Meteorological Society
- Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
- Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
- Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
- Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
- International Union for Quaternary Research
- American Quaternary Association
- Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London
- International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
- International Union of Geological Sciences
- European Geosciences Union
- Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences
- Geological Society of America
- American Geophysical Union
- American Astronomical Society
- American Institute of Physics
- American Physical Society
- American Chemical Society
- American Society for Microbiology
- Institute of Biology (UK)
- World Federation of Public Health Associations
- American College of Preventive Medicine
- American Public Health Association
- American Medical Association
- American Statistical Association
- Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)
- Water Environment Federation
- Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
- Federal Climate Change Science Program (US)

That is neither political, bad science, or pseudoscience.

- Greg Proulx

Fuel Storage on Site

fuel is delivered to nuclear plants and placed in the spent fuel pool to ready it for loading into the reactor during the refueling outages. used fuel is also kept in spent fuel pools after it is removed from the reactor. the spent fuel pools are large enough to have the original life fuel held in them (which was 40 years for most facilities). with life extension for license renewal approaching at - the spent fuel pools are becoming full. so at most nuclear sites around the US it is then moved to independent dry fuel storage facilities (ISFSI) on site. eventually we hope that the fuel will go to a permanent repository - or someday - be reprocessed.

Energy Independance - Doesn't decrease D oil

I agree with you; Nuclear Energy will not reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Like you said, oil produces a very small percentage of our electricity in the US. Yet, with the same logic, the 3MW wind turbine that produces as much electricity as 12k oil barrels won't reduce our dependency on foreign oil either... Yet, these turbines will help to prevent hundreds of tons of greenhouse gasses from being produced at a fossil fuel power plant.

Yes, the majority of Uranium in US reactors come from foreign countries. However, this isn't necessary something bad. Canada and Australia combined, which are stable modern counties, have about half (~45.3%) of know uranium reserves. Also, unlike gas, there is no equivalent of OPEC to mess with uranium prices. Importing things isn't always bad; take the Japanese Toyota Prius or German Wind Turbines made by Siemens.

Yes, we have a huge waste problem. The "used" fuel from running reactors over the past decades has to be stored. Thus, if we have to find some type of storage solution for the waste we already have, then lets just make that storage a little bit bigger and run our existing reactors for a while longer, as we make a large and expensive transition to other "environmentally sustainable energies".

The attention should shift from Nuclear to Coal. While Nuclear produces electricity without emitting ANY greenhouse gasses directly from plant operation, coal literally spews tons of harmful gasses into the atmosphere, every hour. Also, mining for coal is also disruptive to the environment, literally moving mountains to get to the coal...

Besides, Obama should help allocate more money towards the development and installation of renewable like wind, solar and water, which is great!

http://www.uxc.com/fuelcyc le/uranium/production-uran ium.html

MOX, Breeder, Pu, and Encironmentally Sustainable

They could have carried out the nuclear research in a way that more environmentally sustainable without compromise. Their damaging of the environment is a testament to poor project planing and management.

For the application you are describing, breeder reactor isn't necessary. They are more applicable to heavy use of fertile 232Th and 234U. An increased use of 239Pu is more along the lines of a MOX reactor because 239Pu is already fissile. Since Pu isn't anything new, the nuclear design teams probably knew about 239Pu as an option when the they built reactors, but for whatever reason chose 235U as the primary...

For commercial power generation, it goes far beyond sustaining a fission chain. Power firms with Nuclear reactors need to burn their fuel up efficiently, evenly and deeply to maximize the amount of power generated per unit of fuel. While I am not well versed on how 239Pu changes the reactivity of the core, commercial power plants are still choosing to purchase with U as the most important element.

I agree that the Carter ban is now not necessary and impedes progress.

The progression of Fusion engineering to the point that it creates a viable commercial reactor only eliminates the production of new waste. At that point, we still have all of our current waste to deal with.

Thorium

Thorium is a fertile isotope that changes into 233U (fissile isotope) after neutron absorption and beta emission. Thus, a reactor cannot run on Thorium alone. By requiring a neutron to become something that can fission, an Thorium in a reactor will decrease reactivity by adding neutron sinks. I am unsure what the fission products of 233U (made from Th) are, but they are probably close to 235U. I would like to see more evidence before I believe that Th does not eventually contribute to Pu Production.

A MOX (Mixed Oxide) reactor could use fuel with higher Thorium concentrations. Yet, increasing the amount of Thorium 232 in a reactor will decrease how "thoroughly" the core can be burned up, since Th absorbs neutron that could have caused fission. However, this won't be a problem if the fuel is reprocessed. The "thoroughly burned" fuel assemblies would yield significantly more fission reactants than standard fuel in a reprocessing operation. Although reprocessing relatively frequently in this manor may not be cost effective, it certainly decrease the amount of U that reactors would require, extending current supplies of U.

Probably, nuclear design teams knew about Thorium when the they built reactors, but for whatever reason chose 235U...

Grid, Regulation

To have an efficient electric utility, there should only be one set of power lines between the power plant(s) and consumer, which inherently creates a monopoly. Thus, to assure that the consumer receives the lowest price, the government regulates the electric utilities, preventing an the few power firms from controlling prices.

In a hypothetical electrical "free-market" with many competitors, yes, it green energies would be used ONLY if the consumers wanted the power source. However, it is next to impossible to set-up such a competitive electric market, while maintaining grid that is effective overall.

Besides, power firms, for better or worse, have invested a relatively small percentage of their over revenue into renewable technology. You have seen no significant increase in your power bill from the addition of renewable energies by your power supplier. The government action of setting price ceilings is necessary to ensure that your power rate remains low.

Foreign Oil related to electricity - Domestic Energy Production

Jenna,

Nuclear power will not reduce our dependency on foreign oil imports. Only 8% of our electricity comes from oil -- both domestic and foreign. Of this, half is used in "peak-load" (quick start-up) oil fired plants used on the hottest days of the year and in emergencies. Nuclear plants take too long to start up, and cannot be used as "peak-load" plants.

Ironically, the first year these pro-nuclear ads ran, over 40% of the uranium fuel used in U.S. reactors had come from foreign sources!! So much for reducing our energy dependence on foreign imports.

Clean energy also has the potential to be big business for America. I don't understand why Americans wouldn't want to invest in clean energy instead of nuclear energy. In one year, a 3-megawatt wind turbine produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of imported oil!!!!! So why the hell would we want to spend 7 to 12 years to build a nuclear power plant that produces radioactive waste that we cannot store?!


P.S. Here's what you should know about base load and renewable energy: http://www.global-greenhou se-warming.com/myth-of-bas eload.html

Me,

Yucca Mt.

All other political issues aside, Obama believes
"that in terms of waste storage, Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site"
- and -
every state should handle their own nuclear waste, rather than shipping it outside their own borders.
- and -
no regional nuclear waste sites should be created without local populations having veto power over the site.

The DOE says,
"Customers who use nuclear power pay for the disposal of spent fuel. The federal government collects small fee of one-tenth of a cent/kWh of nuclear-generated electricity from utilities. This money goes into the Nuclear Waste Fund. As of late 2007, payments and interest credited to the Fund totaled $27.2 billion."


Since 1983, over 25 years and 9 billion dollars have been invested in Yucca Mountain! Thus, is Obama's stance on Yucca mountain right?

Sources:
http://www.barackobama.com /pdf/factsheet_energy_spee ch_080308.pdf
*page 6-7 of speech
http://firstread.msnbc.msn .com/archive/2008/01/17/58 5257.aspx
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/i nfo_library/newsroom/media guide.shtml

Proliferation - Weapons

Grant,
Is your concern that the USA would develop more nuclear weapons or that countries that obtain new nuclear power plants would begin such a program?

Here are some things to keep in mind about the relationship between nuclear plants and nuclear weapons:
- A country does not need a nuclear reactor to obtain fissile uranium to make a weapon.
- Nuclear fuel is only about 4% fissile uranium, far from the required 80% + required for a weapon.
- Weapons are liabilities - cost centers - and reactors are profit centers. The motive to make money is often a better motivator than violence.
- Using spent fuel is a terrible way to go about refining usable material for a weapon.
- Some reactor designs such as the thorium reactor are totally impracticable or next to impossible to be a part of the proliferation process.
- Procedure safeguards and security is extremely tight in a nuclear facility, in addition the process of pilfering something worth having would be dangerous and require a team coordinated effort with proper heavy equipment - cranes and such.
- A rouge group would be more likely to try to obtain an existing weapon from the former soviet union as making one is extremely costly and difficult.
- By comparison, it would be much easier for a rouge group to develop a chemical weapon.

There are many more reasons but that should get you started to understand more.

Reactor Age and Radiation,

On aging reactors,
The nuclear industry is heavily regulated. Any extensions beyond designed operating life are approved after heavy scrutiny by the NRC. If the reactor cannot meet the safety inspection, it is not licensed to operate.
http://www.nrc.gov/about-n rc/organization/nrrfuncdes c.html

Between 1970 and 1992, more people died from coal, natural gas, hydro related energy production than nuclear, both in total and on a per kWh basis.
http://www.new.facebook.co m/group.php?gid=2204720375 #/photo.php?pid=4325915&o= all&op=1&view=all&subj=220 4720375&aid=-1&id=81816050 3&oid=2204720375

On radiation exposure,
The radiation generated by a Nuclear reactor, both during fission and from waste, is shielded from the public. So much so in fact, that I could sleep ~20ft. from the reactor core at my school and still receive less radiation than flight attendants. If you were to live ~50 miles from a nuclear reactor you receive only 1/3 the radiation of a single smoke detector.
http://www.new.facebook.co m/group.php?gid=2204720375 #/photo.php?pid=45233356&o =all&op=1&view=all&subj=22 04720375&aid=-1&id=2810935 7&oid=2204720375

Nuclear Power is the safest way to produce cheap, clean and reliable base load electricity that doesn't emit any greenhouse gasses.
http://www.new.facebook.co m/group.php?gid=2204720375 #/photo.php?pid=36837417&o =all&op=1&view=all&subj=22 04720375&aid=-1&id=2002984 &oid=2204720375
http://depletedcranium.com /aeo.jpg

Nuclear Plants do not cause cancer in the general public or reactor operators! I cannot believe you would make baseless accusation without any type of empirical evidence or reputable sources.

You would receive more radiation from a transcontinental flight than if you were to stand at the gates of a nuclear power plant for an entire year.
http://www.new.facebook.co m/group.php?gid=2204720375 #/photo.php?pid=36837469&o =all&op=1&view=all&subj=22 04720375&aid=-1&id=2002984 &oid=2204720375

IPCC (Non directly related to Nuclear

A single professor at MIT is much less reputable than "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," which consists of hundreds of scientists all over the world that work with IPCC as authors, contributors and reviewers. This is truly an reputable source, since it is managed, written and reviewed by hundreds of experts in the field.

Many people have submitted claims against the theory of Climate Change, which the IPCC address and debunk in their constantly updated reports.

The organization is associated with World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Program. If anybody knows their stuff, it's these people.

http://www.ipcc.ch/index.h tm

Nuclear Subsidies VS Wind (Paraphrased)

To paraphrase Mike Zagorsky's post from another group,

In 2007, US Nuclear reactors generated 806,487,000,000 Kilowatt Hours of energy. At the average US electric rate of ~$0.09 per KwH, ~$73 Billion worth in electricity was generated by nuclear energy.

Electricity from nuclear is subsidized at 4% of retail price or $0.003 per kWh.
Currently, wind energy via the Production Tax Credit is subsidized $0.019 per KwH.
Therefore, Wind is subsidized 633% more than nuclear. Does it really need more? It's already got a lot...

Your statement of, "there are few, if any, start-up and operation costs involved for conventional sources" is completely false. The amount of capital investment required to stat ANY type Power Power plant is immense, conventional or otherwise.

Subsidies VS Carbon tax

Pure economic theory defines market failure (i.e. price distortion) in this situation to be when there is either a positive or negative externality, since in either case the private costs are not equal to the social costs.

Negative externalities like pollution or giving money to your enemies call for taxing the polluters (e.g. via carbon credits) or enemies (e.g. via tariffs) to bring their private costs up to the level of the social costs, or, alternatively, subsidizing all other possible alternatives that don't have those negative externalities.

The taxation approach is easier, because, if you subsidize, but forget one viable alternative, you distort the market to bias prices away from that alternative. Subsidies force you to judge in advance which alternatives will work out better. But we can't be sure of which ones will work better. The advantage of letting the market decide is that everyone's ideas have a chance, even ideas no one else has even thought of.

Carbon credits are good as long as you know how much carbon is the acceptable maximum to allow. Then an auction can determine how much those carbon credits are worth. Buyers of those carbon credits can sell them for a profit if they can figure out how to produce with less pollution than before. Any technical improvements that reduce pollution then go directly to profits via the sale of their excess carbon credits. Firms are highly motivated to reduce pollution in any way that they can.

To reduce the maximum allowable carbon over time, governments can buy up some carbon credits each year and take them out of the market. In this way carbon can be reduced over time without causing a disruption (i.e. recession) in the first year.

Lawrence C. Marsh (Notre Dame)

Pu and Bomb

Although any fission reactor produces Pu, Plutonium 239 is a fissile isotope that can undergo fission to produce MORE energy. The left over Pu in spent fuel rods that isn't burned up can be reprocessed into higher concentrations for weapons applications. However, the concentrations of Pu directly produced from nuclear reactors is not weapons grade. Basically, nuclear reactors alone are not bomb factories...

We're still looking at an irrefutably small carbon footprint for nuclear and wind energy, associated with any major construction process.

Can the same techniques that are used to "increase the concentration of Pu for weapons use" be applied in a reprocessing technique? This would effectively separate some unused fertile nuclides from waste.

Is any other isotope besides Pu 239 produced? The only reaction I could find that involved U 238 and Pu is below:

232U + 1N --> 239U + Gamma
239U --> 239Np + Beta + Gamma
239Np --> 239Pu + Beta + Gamma

If this is the only isotope of Pu produced, reprocessing the fuel and burning this fertile nuclide again will create a closed loop of 239Pu production.

Safety, Waste and Green

Although this brought up a lot of points. The majority of the arguments by protesters weren't backed up by any sources or references.

The protesters were completely out of line by interrupting a valuable educational service offered by Dominion. I'm glad the justice system worked swiftly and decisively. If they wanted to stage a protest, there are plenty of peaceful ways to demonstrate their opinion.

To address, "Dominion is failing to address the problems of climate change." How is operating several nuclear power plants that don't emit any greenhouse gasses NOT addressing the problem of climate change?

"dangerous new reactor" is far from it. Nuclear energy is safe and reliable. Page 178 of the link below shows that nuclear energy has less fatalities on a per kilowatt basis than other fuels, including wind.
http://www.inference.phy.c am.ac.uk/sustainable/book/ tex/cft.pdf
http://www.lbl.gov/abc/wal lchart/chapters/appendix/g raphics/piechart.gif

"Among his concerns is the proximity to Washington" Reactor housings are very safe, so much so that they can sustain an impact from jet aircraft. There are so many safety systems and scrams in place that prevent a power reactor from having an uncontrolled super critical reaction. It is virtually impossible for a terrorist group to use a nuclear power reactor as a weapon.
http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=--_RGM4Abv8

"...when it has no place to put the waste" is a completely false statement. Yucca mountain will hold all of our nuclear was safely.
Brian Kiedrowski said in a previous thread, "As for disposal, the utilities do contribute to a fund that will pay for a repository. In other words, Yucca Mountain is essentially paid for already by the nuclear industry."
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/

Wide range of Attacks on Nuclear - Mostly Safety

Although this brought up a lot of points. The majority of the arguments by protesters weren't backed up by any sources or references.

The protesters were completely out of line by interrupting a valuable educational service offered by Dominion. I'm glad the justice system worked swiftly and decisively. If they wanted to stage a protest, there are plenty of peaceful ways to demonstrate their opinion.

To address, "Dominion is failing to address the problems of climate change." How is operating several nuclear power plants that don't emit any greenhouse gasses NOT addressing the problem of climate change?

"dangerous new reactor" is far from it. Nuclear energy is safe and reliable. Page 178 of the link below shows that nuclear energy has less fatalities on a per kilowatt basis than other fuels, including wind.
http://www.inference.phy.c am.ac.uk/sustainable/book/ tex/cft.pdf
http://www.lbl.gov/abc/wal lchart/chapters/appendix/g raphics/piechart.gif

"Among his concerns is the proximity to Washington" Reactor housings are very safe, so much so that they can sustain an impact from jet aircraft. There are so many safety systems and scrams in place that prevent a power reactor from having an uncontrolled super critical reaction. It is virtually impossible for a terrorist group to use a nuclear power reactor as a weapon.
http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=--_RGM4Abv8

"...when it has no place to put the waste" is a completely false statement. Yucca mountain will hold all of our nuclear was safely.
Brian Kiedrowski said in a previous thread, "As for disposal, the utilities do contribute to a fund that will pay for a repository. In other words, Yucca Mountain is essentially paid for already by the nuclear industry."
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/

Coal plants also release Thorium and Uranium as waste products, along with nitrous and sulfurous oxides responsible for acid rain, whereas nuclear power releases only water vapor.
The worst radiation case in the Three Mile Island incident was about a third of the normal background radiation a person gets in a year.

Nuclear power currently provides approximately 20% of the US power supply.

Nuclear Deaths in Perspective

~150,000 Chinese died in a dam failure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/Banqiao_Dam

Plane speeds into containment grade concrete http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=--_RGM4Abv8

Chernobyl

Very true, positive temperature coefficient cores have been operated safely in the past without problems, but the fact that there was zero containment means that Chernobyl could be the disaster it was. If Chernobyl had a Western style containment facility it would not have been nearly as catastrophic and shocking as it was. The containment would have prevented the radioactive material from leaking into the environment and protected the surrounding populace from exposure. The Chernobyl site itself would still be pretty hazardous to go inside, but the surrounding populace would have been fine. That is why I feel that poor design along with poor operation (IE performing government ordered experiments with the safeties disabled), that resulted in the disaster being so huge. Also, the positive temperature coefficient core is what cause it to react the way it did, which means that it contributed to the disaster. Western reactors are designed to be protected from everyone, even their own operators in a sense, (and I'm not just talking about safeties which can be disabled I am talking about the fuel itself in how it is designed).

 - Jeremy Smith

Plutonium

Regarding the previous statement that Plutonium 239 is dangerous,

Although Plutonium 239 is created within a nuclear reactor, it is also destroyed. Plutonium 239 is a fissile isotope and will fission to produce MORE ENERGY!!!

The radiation generated by a Nuclear reactor, both during fission and from waste, is shielded from the public. So much so in fact, that I could sleep ~20ft. from the reactor core at my school and still receive less radiation than flight attendants. If you were to live ~50 miles from a nuclear reactor you receive only 1/3 the radiation of a single smoke detector.

Besides, roughly three decades of research has been done on Yucca mountain to ensure that it will be a safe repository of hazardous materials for centuries to come.

Radiation and Land Use

The amount of radiation I pick up while at work is so miniscule to the background radiation I pick up by just going about my everyday life, I have absolutely no reservations or fears about working at a nuclear power plant (although I was honestly somewhat unsure of the hazards I would be exposed to before starting my job). After learning about/seeing the ridiculous number of safety systems and procedures in place to ensure no radiation or radioactive material is released into the environment, I really don't see how anyone who has actually researched the scientific and engineering aspects of the operation of a nuclear power plant can say nuclear energy is unsafe. Yes, HIGH-DOSE radiation is very deadly and there is no permanent storage solution for nuclear waste, however, nuclear waste does not kill people. It's safely stored in spent fuel pools inside nuclear power plants (very cool to see by the way). How many people do you think die each year from the toxins emitted into the air by coal fired plants?

Everyone can point to wind and solar energy as alternatives, but do you realize how much land it would take to create the same amount of energy from wind turbines? To produce 1,000 megawatts (comparable to most current nuclear power plants), it would take 200 to 300 square miles of land, while a nuclear power plant occupies about 1/3 of ONE square mile. The manufacturing of solar panels involves the use of toxic materials that are carcinogenic, in addition to taking up at least 50 square miles to produce 1,000 megawatts per year. That said, how can you say wind and solar are truly sustainable? Much less, neither can provide base load electricity, as my other informed counterparts have already mentioned.

ANY form of energy production is going to have adverse effects on the environment. Nuclear power IS the most economical, least harmful source of base load electricity generation we have right now. If you would just open your eyes and realize wind and solar cannot provide us with the base load electricity generation we as Americans cannot live without, you would see there is no better option than nuclear.

- Daniel Hawkins

Nuclear vs Other Renewables

I hope you realize there is no such thing as clean energy. There is only "cleaner" energy. Solar panels and wind turbines require metal smelting, toxic chemical processing, heat production, electricity, plastics from oil, transportation and every other industrial process that a refined manufactured product requires. This is undeniable.

Each solar panel and each wind turbine has a carbon "debt" for lack of a better way to put it, to pay back before its electricity generation can be considered "clean". Solar companies will often say in their marketing the time it will take for their panels to arrive at this clean state, typically 1-3 years. Moreover, solar panels and wind turbines each have about a 20 year life span, and thus their carbon to energy ratio would be dependent on the weather and deployment choices. 1 GW worth of wind energy would require more steel, concrete and copper than 1 GW nuclear plant. I have sources to prove this if you are interested.

When you consider that wind installation would only have a 25-30% capacity factor, that wind farm will have a much larger carbon footprint per unit of energy than the nuclear plant over its life span. Consider the wind turbine has a 20 year life span and the nuclear plant has a 60 year life span that profile gets worse for wind. Not only does wind have a higher carbon footprint, but also will cost substantially higher per unit of energy.

Obviously you have made up your mind and no amount of data, logic, or evidence will persuade you to give nuclear energy any credit or consideration. You cite many sources which are decidedly anti-nuclear. It is this sort of adamant bias that most rational people see right through, which may be part of the reason why 74% of Americans in a poll released this week support nuclear power expansion.

I will give a tip for you though, if you really want to attack nuclear for its feasibility, if I was an anti-nuke, I would go for the history of bad project management, bad waste management policies, and lack of trained workforce to fill an expansion campaign. The "carpet bombing" argument method of the anti-nukes just isn't working. Right now, you are placing yourself in the campaign of crackpots who will say anything valid or not against nuclear to scare people who are gullible enough to be easily swayed.

If you attack nuclear on its economics, clean energy, scientific prowess, or safety; nuclear easily wins and stands on a strong record. Yes, it's received subsidies, but so have renewables. Yes, there have been accidents, but more people have been killed by wind turbines in the USA than in nuclear accidents and there has not been one radiation related death either in the USA via nuclear power or waste.

 - Jason Correia

New Reactors Expected

16 new reactors are under review by the NRC.

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col.html

Nuclear vs Wave

One 1,100 MW nuclear power plant would need ~1460 wave machines made by this Scottish firm to equal it's generating capacity, assuming the wave machines always produce their rated power. The US has 104 Nuclear power plants.

To rival the amount of power generated by nuclear energy we would need over 1.5 million of these wave machines, placing a high demand on manufactures.

Source:
http://expedition.toptotop .org/archives/Pelamis%20ov erview%20forTop%20to%20top .pdf

Nuclear Accident

"Nuclear energy has all of these potential problems... I just believe that it's not worth all of these risks."
All right, let's talk about risk, not in an abstract sense but in a quantitative scientific sense. For a specific event, risk is the chance of occurrence times the magnitude of the damage incurred by that event. Therefore, even a low probability event can have a high risk if the impacts are high enough. However, with this way of looking at things we can objectively measure and compare risks.

Now, humans are naturally very bad at assessing risk. We tend to overemphasize very rare, catastrophic events and permit regularly occurring less dramatic ones. Take the comparison of taking an airline flight versus driving to school/work. Which one is more risky? Surveys would say the airline flight. However, the truth is that you are far more likely to be killed in a car accident on your way to school/work. In fact, the risk of a car crash is far higher than being in a plane crash, yet people worry.

Now let's compare nuclear to wind. If you look at the online textbook I referenced earlier you will find a plot where two separate studies try to assess the risks of various energy sources. The measure used is deaths per unit of energy produced from a various source.

The conclusion is that WIND HAS A HIGHER DEATH RATE THAN NUCLEAR. (all caps done for emphasis and not meant to shout)

How is this possible? Well, deaths from wind are more routine. People falling during construction, wind turbine explodes and sends shrapnel, electrocution during servicing, etc. Deaths from nuclear seem far more dramatic, but in reality occur far, far less frequently than they do from a wind turbine accident.

So what does this mean? If we build 500 nuclear plants and the energy equivalent of that in wind turbines and study the deaths from each, we would find that more people will be killed from wind related activities.

Now my question to you is: In light of this new information, how can you say that nuclear is not worth the risks while at the same time wind is worth it, even though wind has been demonstrated to be riskier?

 - Brian Kiedrowski

Wind and General Electrical Production

"What's the downside to wind?"
Wind is a fine energy source, but it is ultimately limited. It's primary environmental impact is land usage. Wind is inherently a diffuse energy source and as such requires a whole lot of land to generate a significant amount of electricity. Such land can lead to the deaths of certain sensitive species of birds and bats if the sitting is not done with great care. Also, you still need to mine iron, copper, and other materials in abundance (because of low energy density) which also has a major impact on local ecologies.

Beyond this, the suitable land is limited. You cannot build a wind plant anywhere. For instance, a 1000 MWe wind farm in Illinois would take up a significant fraction of the state. While there are areas far more suitable, using a possible "wind only" grid would inherently lead to non-regional power generation. The harm is that other regions with poor wind resources will become dependent upon reasons with rich wind resources. My particular home state of Wisconsin is particularly sensitive to this issue.

However, the largest downside is that it can only provide peaking power. While we need power to handle daily spikes in demand, we still need large quantities of base load power to handle our infrastructure of factories, hospitals, etc. Be that wind is intermittent, you cannot rely on it being there when you need it, so it is unsuitable for base load power. Nuclear, on the other hand, is just the opposite and can fill that role quite well.

Furthermore there is the issue of cost. Current cost estimates depend on their being cheap coal and nuclear electricity to fabricate the components. If we use more wind, we will generally drive up costs. Also, to make wind suitable for base load we will need energy storage, which is very expensive currently.

Solar has similar issues except that it is much more expensive. In the case of Solar PV, the materials you need to fabricate the panels are far more toxic and because of the low energy density, generates as much waste as the equivalent nuclear plant.

So yes, we need to be responsible. However, to do so, we need to look at all of the benefits and disadvantages to every energy source. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no perfect electricity source.

 - Brian Kiedrowski

Safety and Recycling

"..companies...would be more willing to spend money on working sirens and research as to how to deal with spent fuel. I don't really understand the concept of recycling spent fuel."

I agree, we should have working safety and security mechanisms that should be tested with regularity. As for spent nuclear fuel, that is difficult because legally the US federal government owns the nuclear fuel; it leases it to utilities so the government is really responsible for it. We can argue whether this should be the case, but under the current system, the utility does not own the fuel but is responsible for it.

Now, there is a lot spent on dealing with it. At the plant, companies are investing large sums of money to ensure that the spent fuel pools are removing heat safely and being properly maintained. Furthermore, many companies are investing heavily into dry cask storage. So yes, companies are investing in handling spent nuclear fuel, albeit not research into ultimate disposal.

As for disposal, the utilities do contribute to a fund that will pay for a repository. In other words, Yucca Mountain is essentially paid for already by the nuclear industry.

Recycling. Basically, spent nuclear fuel still retains 96-98% of its energy content. If one can chemically separate out the fission products (the waste), and the actinides (uranium, plutonium, etc.) the volume of the actual waste package can be dramatically reduced by a factor of 20 at least. The actinides can act as nuclear fuel for future reactors and as such we have minimized the waste stream extensively. Recalling my football field analogy, all of the actual waste (fission products) could fit into the end zone of that stadium.

 - Brian Kiedrowski

Insurance

"And if they're so safe, then why do all insurance companies and the industry itself refuse to provide insurance for a nuclear accident."

All right, insurance is a complicated issue in the nuclear industry. Again, this comes down to actual risk versus perceived risk. Large chemical facilities manage to get insurance even though their risks of severe environmental damage are much higher than nuclear plants. It really is a perception problem created by a false nuclear exceptionalism.

Now, how does insurance work in the US under the Price-Anderson Act? There are three main tiers of insurance under for a nuclear accident. For the first, a utility must buy the maximum coverage available on the open market. If the accident exceeds this, there is the second tier where all US nuclear utilities pay into a collective fund up to $10 billion that would be paid out. In the extent it exceeds this (which is highly unlikely), there is the possibility that the US federal government will cover anything in excess; however, the utilities may still be fined to recoup the loss.

So this is a possible subsidy for the US nuclear power industry, but really a subsidy for the insurance industry. To understand the cost of a severe accident, consider Three Mile Island which is one of the worst accidents a US design can have. The total cost ended up being about $150 million which was covered under primary insurance. The nuclear industry funding pool was never accessed and, most likely, never will be.

The Price Anderson act is not anything too original. Similar protocols are in place for the airline industry. Furthermore, the US federal government always acts as the insurer of last resort in the event of a major catastrophe whether natural or manmade; the economic bailout is a recent example, which will far exceed anything the nuclear industry will ever require and we do not see people wanting to ban banking because it is too expensive to insure.

 - Brian Kiedrowski

Operating Extensions

"However, all of these nuclear power plants today are being pushed way passed their intended life span,"

That is a valid argument, but it deserves more analysis. The first question is what is the intended life span. Licenses were originally set for 40 years to err on the conservative side. Back in the 1960s, this was a topic of much dispute and the 40 year (as opposed to the arguably more realistic 60 year) standard was chosen. So while plants are being pushed further than the original licenses, it is not past the intent of the design -- there is a difference.

So what about getting a life extension? One has to go through an extensive review process to ensure that the plant will be able to operate with acceptable safety margins for 60 years. What this comes down to is a predicted severe accident (core melt) frequency. Essentially, it has to be shown that for the entire time, the reactor will have a less than 1 out 10,000 per year chance of undergoing an accident during the rest of its life.

Further note that current designs would be licensed for 60 years with the possibility of extension to 80. Now that more is known about these systems, we can say with higher confidence what the actual lifetime is.

 - Brian Kiedrowski

Cost and R&D

The reasons stem from high capital investment costs which equates to high risks for investors. A high risk (or really a perceived high risk) necessitates a higher interest rate on loans. This makes investors unwilling to invest in nuclear power plants.

So, how does one lower the risk? The problem primarily stemmed from the old regulatory system which caused many utilities to lose large sums of money. A new regulatory system allows 95% of the site evaluation to be done prior to the massive investment of construction; the remainder is to ensure that the construction adheres to the plans agreed upon in the license. This improved system should reduce risk.

Unfortunately, investors will not be convinced until the regulatory system can be proven effective. However, in order to prove this, one has to invest the money to build a plant. However, one cannot get the money unless the regulatory system is proven to be effective. Essentially, we are in a classic Catch 22.

In response to this, the US has created an incentive in the form of loan guarantees and tax credits that match renewables. While we can argue about the latter, the former is really the most important. Under the provisions, for the first six nuclear plants, a utility will provide 80% of the capital costs on the project prior to commitment, at which point the federal government will cosign the loan to ensure that if the project fails due to the regulatory process, and the company defaults, the government will be responsible for the rest of the loan.

In reality, this will probably end up costing the taxpayer very little, if anything, because it is in every party's interest to have the plant constructed. However, this does allow for lower interest rates and overcomes the dilemma we currently have.

Now to address your main point on subsidies, that is not true. I reference the following report (see page 3):

http://www.misi-net.com/pu blications/NewsReleaseSubs idies-230908.pdf

Nuclear has received a lot of research and development (67 billion), but even this number is deceiving because much of this has been on experimental designs that have not (yet) directly benefited the nuclear power industry. You may read the rest of the report for information on methodology, etc.

In the end, taken together, nuclear energy has received less than 10% of US energy subsidies. Now, renewables are even lower and perhaps should be increased. However, if you take the dollars of subsidies per unit of energy produced, nuclear comes out very well compared to renewables.

So in conclusion, most of the subsidies have been in the form of research and development, much of which has not been a direct benefit to the commercial nuclear power industry. Thus far, government has not played a major role in keeping costs down; in fact, empirically it has done the opposite for better or worse.

 - Brian Kiedrowski

Subsidy vs Wind

In 2007 US Nuclear reactors generated 806,487,000,000 Kilowatt Hours of energy.
The average US electric rate is about ~$0.09 per KwH.
That's about $73 Billion worth in electricity generated by nuclear energy.
So that 'heavy' subsidy is to the tune of 4% of retail price or $0.003 per KwH.
Currently, Wind energy via the Production Tax Credit is subsidized $0.019 per KwH.
So Wind is subsidized 633% more than nuclear based on your claim of a $3 billion subsidy.

 - Mike Zagorsky

Safety, Chernobyl, Cost

It is very expensive to build a nuclear plant. However, once operating, the electricity produced is the cheapest on the market. Note that if there were no subsidies aside from basic research and every energy source had to dispose of all byproducts like nuclear, nuclear would, in all likelihood, come out ahead.

As far as dangerous, not really when you look at the numbers. The total number of people injured or killed from Three Mile Island was zero. Even then, large reforms have been made in the nuclear industry, so such an accident occurring again is highly unlikely. As for Chernobyl, the design was inherently unstable, operated with a complete lack of regulation, and lacked appropriate containment structures. Such a plant is impossible to operate here and no designs are like it. Comparing Chernobyl to a modern nuclear power plant is like comparing a Corvair to a Prius.

Current designs have a core melt frequency of 1 out of every 500,000 years or so. The total deaths in the public from US commercial nuclear power are zero. If we really want to do a numerical analysis, consult the URL below at pages 167-168, although the entire book is a good read. It compares predicted deaths per energy produced. Nuclear comes out ahead of most sources, even wind. I recommend reading that whole section, really.

http://www.inference.phy.c am.ac.uk/sustainable/book/ tex/cft.pdf

As for spent fuel, it is an issue, but not an immediate one. The volume of all spent nuclear fuel in the US could easily fit on an American football field. Add to this that with recycling techniques, the volume of waste can be reduced by a factor of 20 and the resource can be extended for a very long time. Again, read the section on nuclear of that online textbook.

 - Brian Kiedrowski