Nuclear Power

Listening to the radio the other day (this will probably be the first of several "Listening to the Radio the Other Day" posts if I ever get around to writing them), technically it was probably a week ago or longer at this point, and some panel on some show was discussing Prez Obama's energy bill. Which, as the savvier of you may have picked up from the title of this post, includes several provisions to increase the number of nuclear power plants in the US. This really makes no sense to me at all. And the more I read, the less sense it makes. And if it started out making no sense at all... Yeah. It kind of is that bad.

Leaving aside the various environmental/public health objections to nuclear power plants, for now anyway, these plants make very little sense economically. Apparently one of the reasons nuclear power is more prevalent in other countries, for instance France, is that their utility companies are a lot more massive than ours are. So, they can undertake 10 billion dollar construction projects without really breaking too much of a sweat. For one of our utilities, that's a large chunk of their net worth, so they're reluctant to borrow the amounts necessary. Apparently, owing more than your company is worth makes it harder and more expensive to borrow any more money, should you need to. You read that right earlier, by the way, a nuclear power plant is a 10 billion dollar investment. Which is freaking insane. 10 billion dollars!!!!??? But it gets better.

According to the discussion on the radio, the utilities think it would be awesome if the government guaranteed about 90% of the loans they need. So, for every 10 billion dollar nuclear plant out there, we'd be getting a bill for about 9 billion dollars. True, the money would presumably eventually be paid back. In theory. And really, we'd probably only get the bill in the first place if the project failed. Which, it turns out, most of them have in this country for the last 30 years or so. People just aren't keen to have nuclear plants in their back yards these days.

But let's consider the pro-nuclear argument for a few moments, forgetting the total absurdity of it for a bit and look at the upside. Yes, a nuclear plant costs 10 billion dollars, but you get a lot for that money. Typical nuclear plants that I've looked at seem to have two units with an installed capacity of about 1,000-3,000MW per unit. Nuclear plants are licensed to run for 60 years or so with proper maintenance and unlike solar or wind power plants they are up and running, producing electricity, for about 90% of that time. Not just during the day or while the wind blows. You can get similar, or even better results from much cheaper fossil fuel burning plants, but properly-run nuclear plants have no environmental impact and don't contribute to global warming. In addition, they are less expensive to run then fossil fuel plants as they require less fuel.

That's it, as far as I can determine. That's the entire case for nuclear power. It combines the generation capacity of a fossil fuel plant with the environmental friendliness of renewable energy plants, while still being incredibly fucking expensive. And the 10 billion dollars is only the beginning. Running a nuclear plant is a lot like running a fossil fuel plant, you still need fuel, you still need water for the turbines, cooling, etc. Over 60 years nuclear plants may prove to be as cost effective because the lower operating (fuel) costs eventually make up for the incredibly high initial investment. HOWEVER, we have finally arrived at the point where we have to acknowledge the 800 lb gorilla in the room - the radioactive waste generated by nuclear plants. All of the analysis of nuclear power cost-effectiveness and low environmental impact, by necessity, completely ignore this incredibly dangerous radioactive waste.

Now, I'm not trying to make nuclear waste a boogey-man or get hysterical about how it's a threat to all life on this planet or blah-blah-blah. I'm sure that eventually a practical solution will be developed to let us get rid of it. But we don't have one yet, and that solution won't be free. Which is my main problem with the idea of new nuclear power plants right now. Every analysis of comparative energy costs I'm aware of basically ignores nuclear waste. For some reason it is somebody else's problem. Storing it is not free, transporting it is not free; when we eventually figure out a way to get rid of it, that won't be free either. Yet everybody apparently assumes that this stuff is just going to vanish on its own, for free, at some point. Now, a little speculation, the government guarantees a 10 billion loan for the poor little electrical utility, for free - no interest. Then the government eventually takes charge of all the waste generated by that plant, for free - no charge. Then when gravity slingshots are developed capable of hurling shit into the sun, the government oversees the design construction and operation of these slingshots and the disposal of all nuclear waste via this method, all for free. I'm about 99.99% positive it won't be the utilities paying for all this shit. Nuclear waste is somebody else's problem, after all. They just make it.

Well, it won't be free. It will all have to be paid for somehow. I'm not against the government spending money. I'm not against the government spending a shitload of money. I wish they'd spend it on me instead of big corporations all the time, but that's another argument. I am against the government spending money just for the opportunity to spend even more money later, just so some electrical company can make money now. Especially when we could spend that money on something else and get the same result, without all the radioactive waste that's just piling up in various rural areas all over the country that we have no plan for. Gravity slingshots don't exist yet, you'll recall. Right now our "plan" is to just dump it all in a big hole somewhere. Which would probably work if we did it right, but, predictably, no one wants to host the big hole anywhere near where they live.

Suppose, just suppose now, that instead of spending 10 billion dollars on a nuclear power plant, or 60 billion dollars on 6 nuclear plants (this is the number of loan guarantee packages apparently included in this energy bill), what if we spent that money on renewable energy power plants? We could build a lot more than 6, let me tell you. And while it might take 10 solar plants to equal one nuclear plant right now, guess what? With 10 billion dollars you could build between 10-20 solar plants, depending on exactly how you went about it. Or about 10 wind farms as big as the biggest there is right now. And it would still be electrical utilities making the money. Don't worry about that. You will not make a dime from this. Big corporations will still be the ones making the profits, so relax. It's not like money from renewable energy power plants goes straight into Cuba's bank account or something.

Granted, solar and wind have their own problems. They take up more room than nuclear plants, that biggest wind farm I mentioned is several times the size of Manhattan. With our current technology, they generate less electricity, plant for plant, then nuclear plants. We can't just flip a switch and get power the way we can with nuclear plants, which means we'd have to upgrade the electrical grid to store power during surplus periods for use during peak usage times.

But every wind and solar plant (or wave power plant, or geothermal, or biomass, or whatever) has several advantages in terms of economics and environmental concerns, that nuclear and fossil plants just can't match. Firstly, building one of these plants is cheap, at least comparatively speaking. And once they're built they are hands down the cheapest to run. No fuel costs, vastly less water for solar plants and NO water for wind farms. Basically you just watch the things run, and fix something when it breaks. And when something does break in a solar plant or wind farm it doesn't have as much impact as in a traditional power plant. When you have to shut down a fossil plant or nuclear plant for any kind of maintenance, it is shut down. Producing zero, or else vastly reduced, electricity. If you have to take a wind turbine or two off line for repairs, big deal, all the rest are still working. Ditto if you get a couple of cracked mirrors in a solar plant. Oh, and they generate no pollution, no greenhouse gases and, hey check this out, no radioactive wastes that will be horribly dangerous to humans for thousands and thousands of years.

Anyway, my point is that it turns out that there is a ton of free electricity out there, just waiting for us to harness it. Why should we spend money on nuclear plants, and then MORE money cleaning up after the nuclear plants, when we could spend it on free electricity?