The Nuclear Debate
Author: anne | Date: August 29, 2007 | Please Comment!Should Alberta embark on nuclear energy for electricity production? This is the question being posed by Energy Alberta (not to be confused by the government body – Alberta Energy!). I think two basic questions need to be answered, based on the best science and balanced with Albertans’ views of their long term best interest:
1) What will it cost compared to other electricity generation?
I have listened to a number of experts in nuclear energy, both in favor and against its development. Depending on the type of reactor, labor and material costs and the cost storage of waste, nuclear energy over the long term (during which expensive upgrades of the plant are needed) is more expensive than most conventional electricity production, the advantage being lower Greenhouse gases. Extra cost often includes public subsidies along with the insurance liability and waste monitoring (for thousands of years) which may mean higher costs overall.
2) What are the human and environmenal risks?
Again, the experts tell me there are health risks (as there certainly are with coal-fired electricity and its air pollution) in the various stages of mining, transporting, refining, and waste management – including the re-cycling process that extends the life of the fuel rods). Extensive protection for people and the environment are essential to minimize risk of accidental spills and terrorism. Health impacts with signficant exposure are serious or fatal.
Greenhouse gas emissions are reduced over the whole lifecycle of nuclear energy compared to fossil fuels but natural gas (cogeneration – capturing both the waste heat and the electricity) is fairly close.
Some parts of the world have developed nuclear power extensively, such as France, without serious incidents so far. And Alberta is not the likeliest target for terrorists, even if we do supply the US with substantial fuel.
On balance I believe we all need to use less electricity, develop renewable energy (like wind and solar and biogas) and think seriously about how we’re going to reduce our environmental footprint so we never have to risk nuclear power in Alberta.
Now I want to know what you think!
Read some articles:
Globe and Mail (August 29): Alberta Upstart Pitches Nuclear Power
Financial Post (August 29): Nuclear Just Too Hot for Alberta
National Post (May 20): Is Nuclear Power the Green Alternative?
Check out both sides of the debate through these citizen groups:
Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy
Keep Alberta Nuclear Free
1:05 pm on August 29th, 2007
You might find this an interesting look at nuclear power from the inside. Adds a lot of perspective, good and bad. http://Raddecision.blogspot.com
11:35 am on March 16th, 2009
Dr Swann, I recall with pleasure hearing you speak in St Peter’s church on Elbow Drive some time ago.
Sorry for posting to this rather old blog post. It seemed like the natural place to start a conversation on this important topic.
I think your questions are appropriate – cost and risks – although I’m not entirely convinced that there are two question; there may be only one, where costs and risks are two aspects of the “consequences” of our electricity generation choices.
Considering cost, it’s very hard to compare plants that are heavy on construction costs, like nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, with plants that are heavy on fuel costs, coal and gas. For new plant construction costs to be minimum, we would build gas turbine plants. But costs can reasonably be extended to expected future costs, and a charge for carbon dioxide emission cannot be very far away. So clearly a composite view of costs is essential. Under this view nuclear is not particularly expensive, even including reasonable provision for regulation, waste handling and decommissioning costs.
The question of subsidies is often raised. I see on the Internet much misunderstanding about the level of US subsidies, including allegations that US plants do not carrry insurance (false) or that the government carries all liability (false), or that the government carries regulatory costs (false). I am not as up-to-date on Canadian regulation, to my chagrin. There also seems to be a touch of double standard in the subsidies which are usually available to wind and solar, which are quietly ignored during discussions of any nuclear subsidies. If we are willing as a society to encourage the growth of low-carbon electricity then we should do so correctly.
Natural gas cogeneration is not a close competitor of nuclear in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. Not at all. Cogeneration, because of the need to remove heat in a way that is not optimum for the electricity generation process, can even be worse than the same fuel used more efficiently for electricity. The reference document I would recommend for greenhouse emissions in general arises from the EU ExternE study, http://www.externe.info/expolwp6.pdf and Table 6 gives the relative grennhouse scores for different technologies. CANDU does not figure but even nuclear power with enrichment (which of course CANDU does not need) is second only to hydro power for low greenhouse gases.
I’d be interested to know who the experts are that give such a wide-ranging view of the health risks of nuclear, and I hope that these are not the generic “there’s risk in everything” type statements. Certainly regulation is in place to address these issues. I would recall that a major sources of deaths in construction are falls; and many proposals I have seen talk about solar panels on roofs ignore this risk completely (although not many have the chutzpah to suggest such a scheme for Alberta anyway, given snow coverage)
I think we should move to prefer electricity, if possible, over other fuels, precisely because it is an energy mode that can be sourced from such a variety of generation options, and it amazingly flexible in the uses to which it can be put. So I disagree that we should be specifically reducing electricity use, although we shold definitely look to build more energy efficiency into the Albertan infrastructure, probably through the use of building codes and more government-aided retrofitting.
The major issue with a plan that any deep reliance on wind and solar is that they are not continuous on-demand sources. They are what I call “opportunistic” power – you get them sometimes but without regard to when the demand is present. A proportion of electricity supply, maybe 20-30%, from such soruces is tolerable, but more becomes a big drain on the electrical grid, and would require extensive rapid-response backup, which would typically be gas turbines, especially for wind, or where possible hydro. While I’d support more wind and solar, despite the higher costs of such facilities, the displacement of the coal baseload supply falls naturally to a continuous generator like nuclear power.
Looking forward to your thoughts on the matter
regards
Jon Wharf