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Combating climate change: with or without nuclear power?

Posted on: July 23, 2009 10:36 AM, by Jonas Meckling

The use of nuclear power in global electricity generation is on the rise, especially in Asia, says a report of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In the Western hemisphere, only a few countries have phase-out policies for nuclear energy, while most other governments are extending the licenses of existing reactors or are building new reactors. Yet, nuclear power is highly controversial. On the one hand, it bears high risks for humans and the environment, including the risk of nuclear proliferation. On the other hand, climate experts increasingly argue that nuclear power is an essential element of a low-carbon energy supply. What role should nuclear power play in the future energy mix?

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Comments

Difficult question. Some questions back to you.

Is it not the case that there is a nuclear power technology that does no produce a byproduct that can be used (fairly easily) for bombs?

Isn't there a process as well that produces byproduct that is less long term of a problem for storage?

Isn't there a technology (liquid metal) that has much lower risk of things going wrong?

Isn't it the case that all three of the above together would be good?

Isn't it also the case that all the rhetoric of what would work better, safer, cleaner, etc. with nukes comes from the nuclear power industry which, for decades now, has proven that it can not be trusted??????

Or have I got this totally wrong.

Posted by: Greg Laden | July 23, 2009 10:59 AM

Greg: Look up the integral fast reactor.

Posted by: Brian D | July 23, 2009 11:47 AM

I have yet to see where the nuclear power industry has shown they can't be trusted. Yes, TMI happened, but really, that was a case of bad operator decisions and all the safeguards working exactly as they should. Obviously they support themselves, but in my experience their arguments are logical.

In terms of the energy mix in the future, I think nuclear power has to be in it, at least for the next 50 or so years. The energy density is just unmatched by renewables.

Yes, it produces waste. But so does everything else! Conveniently nuclear waste is a solid rather than a gas, and the amount that is produced each year must be managed, but is a tiny fraction of any fossil fuel - and it's already captured. With reprocessing, 95% less waste and more energy out of the fuel.

In terms of lower risk of things going wrong, check out the pebble bed reactors, or helium cooled reactors. There are a bunch of designs now (which are getting built in china) which have all the lessons of TMI in them and then some. And if we decide to pursue them, the Generation IV designs all have useful features.

Nuclear has a lot of benefits which we need, particularly if we want (and need) to phase out coal in the next 10 years. The risks are highly manageable (just ask the Navy), and the waste is containable, if requiring a long term solution for at least some of it.

I vote yea.

Posted by: Alex TD | July 23, 2009 12:01 PM

Greg, there is more than one technology that satisfies your questions. Integral Fast Reactor is one, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is another, even Pebble Bed (which are being built in quantity today) meet those requirements.

Furthermore, IFR and LFTR hold out the possibility of being much cheaper than current nuclear technologies, possibly cheaper than coal. I've seen claims that LFTRs are well-suited for load-following electrical generation in addition to baseload generation.

All of which means we could go carbon-free with a large portion of electrical generation, which accounts for maybe a third of CO2 emissions.

Nuclear isn't going to heat homes or office buildings, unless they electrify. Nuclear isn't going to provide process heat for microrefineries or other industrial processes in populated areas. And nuclear doesn't seem to solve the problem that most transportation isn't going to be electrified in our lifetimes.

But why am I being negative?
I want all the nuclear power we can get!

Posted by: Duncan | July 23, 2009 12:30 PM

If we want to think of energy production as something to be voted on and decided via the democratic process, I think as a society we're in no way ready to do that. (I wish we were) I speak as someone who has worked in the US nuclear industry over twenty years. Most folks in the US have little understanding of the topic, and even most of the media experts have little experience in commercial generation - which has problems that are far removed from those facing academics and experimenters.

I think nuclear plants in less authoritarian and less culturally rigid societies do have some safety advantages because of a better "questioning attitude" by employees. So it gives me some pause when I think of plants in other regimes and cultures, but perhaps I am just stereotyping. I haven't visited them.

I have written a look at the nuclear industry for the lay person - a novel called "Rad Decision" - that is available free online at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com . Reader reviews are at the homepage. There's no advertising, no sponsors, no $$ for the author (even for the paperback at Amazon) - just the real world of nuclear, both good and bad (I'm defintely not a spokesman for the industry.) Unfortunately, my lack of media gravitas has translated into relative obscurity for the book. But deep-thinking icon Stewart Brand has commented: "I'd like to see Rad Decision widely read."

[This may be a repeat post, but first attempt didn't seem to go through]

Posted by: James Aach | July 23, 2009 1:22 PM

The answer hinges on two questions:

1) What storage technology is available to provide power on demand when [wind, sun, tides] don't?
2) If the answer to #1 is "none yet" then should we continue burning coal and oil until one is found?

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | July 23, 2009 3:35 PM

Everybody wants business as usual substituting one form of power for another. It won't do. It just won't. And sooner or later that is going to become obvious. The later it's obvious, the worse it's going to be for us.

Posted by: Lilian Nattel | July 23, 2009 5:26 PM

I somewhat agree with Ms. Nattel: a simple substitution of power supplies isn't going to do it, particulary if more of the planet adopts the West's energy hungry ways. The safest, cleanest, best energy is that which you don't use at all. Conservation, conservation, conservation. (After that, I'm not sure what the next items on the energy policy list should be - but we do seem to forget number one much of the time while focusing on what to build next.)

Posted by: James Aach | July 23, 2009 7:05 PM

Everybody wants business as usual substituting one form of power for another. It won't do. It just won't.

Perhaps not -- but on the other hand, telling people that the only alternative is to accept that there will be still, cold nights in the Montana winters when you just have to shiver in the dark isn't going to work either.

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | July 23, 2009 7:07 PM

My perspective on this....

It would be hard to imagine a sequence of nuclear accidents that could bring down human civilization. But it wouldn't be so hard to envision the collapse of human civilization as the result of an atmosphere loaded with CO2 to the tune of 1,000 PPM.

There's enough physical evidence left by events like the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum to tell us that doubling or tripling today's CO2 levels would be far worse for human civilization than any possible combination of nuclear reactor accidents.

Perhaps if we had gotten ahead of the curve on this CO2 problem two or three decades ago, we might not have had to play the nuclear card. But given the situation we find ourselves in now, I don't see any alternative to nuclear power as a part of solution to the atmospheric CO2-loading problem. I'm not about to dismiss solar/wind/other-renewables -- but at this point, I don't think that renewable energy sources alone will get us out of our current jam.

We need to work on developing "next-generation" fast-reactor technology for future decades while we aggressively exploit wind/solar/etc now -- the bottom line is, we have to minimize future atmospheric CO2-loading, and we need to play every card that we have. And that includes that nuclear card.

Posted by: caerbannog | July 24, 2009 1:09 AM

I have yet to see where the nuclear power industry has shown they can't be trusted.

You're not following the two next-generation EPR reactors currently being constructed in Europe then? Massive time and cost over-runs, ridiculous construction defects, missing safety design documents... See, for example, this article in New Civil Engineer. NCE is not exactly a hive of anti-nuclear sentiment.

Posted by: Dunc | July 24, 2009 6:46 AM

The concept of nuclear power is the promise of carbon free energy. Okay, so maybe some bungling fools have made a mess of things. So what? It's not as if that's a new event, in fact it seems pretty standard for us humans. Should that stop us from trying to improve things? No.

Posted by: Roger from Solar Power Facts | July 24, 2009 8:43 AM

caerbannog -

Actually, if the various Nuclear programs that were planed in the 1960s and 1970s hadn't been scaled down or canceled due to opposition from environmentalists and free-market economists, we could already be in the position of having very low electric-sector CO2 emissions with a clear route for dealing with domestic emissions (i.e. electric heating), and personal transport (EVs).

For instance, France has total CO2 emissions about 40% lower than the UK and Germany due to the nuclear electric grid. That's a serious drop.

Posted by: Andrew Dodds | July 24, 2009 9:16 AM

The simple fact is that nuclear is the only technology that has any chance of replacing coal. We need to accept that fact and move on. There really isn't anything to discuss.

Posted by: ppnl | July 26, 2009 8:24 AM