Environmental Magazine Weighs the Options on Nuclear Power

But they're being met by equally powerful arguments from the scientific community that nuclear power has never been and never will be a solution to global warming. Nuclear has far too many problems, they say, not the least of which is its waste, which stays radioactive for thousands of years and will only be a bigger problem if the technology goes on line more substantially. And even if plans for storing the waste deep underground at Nevada's Yucca Mountain are ever completed, say opponents, deadly waste will need to be transported across the country, through communities, subjecting people to unacceptable risks.

Industry proponents argue that new nuclear plants are safer than previous generations, and that Chernobyl-like accidents are unlikely. But critics say that the results of an accident or terrorist attack could be devastating, and that nuclear facilities also emit low-level radiation, a public health issue potentially more serious than fossil fuel emissions.

The nuclear industry, which hasn't received an order for a new power plant since 1974 and hasn't built one since Tennessee's Watts Bar in 1996, is on a public relations offensive. Industry advocates say nuclear technology is neither polluting nor unproven, and that it is "climate friendly" and available right now to help solve our unique and growing 21st century energy dilemma.

Nuclear power has already won some powerful allies in the environmental community. Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense says, "We should all keep an open mind about nuclear power." Jared Diamond, best-selling author of Collapse, says, "To deal with our energy problems we need everything available to us, including nuclear power." Even James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory about the planet's self-regulating systems, has called for "a massive and immediate expansion of nuclear power."

But in most cases, these environmentalists see nuclear as only a temporary fix, a holding action until a renewable-based energy economy can be put in place. According to NASA's Dr. James Hansen, who in recent years sounded alarms about global warming to the chagrin of both his employer and the Bush Administration, "there is tremendous potential in energy efficiency and renewable energies, including solar power, wind energy, bio-fuels and geothermal."

Nonetheless, the nuclear industry, aided by a very supportive Bush Administration, is moving ahead with its attempt to revive commercial nuclear power, but it's unlikely to happen quickly. Although 30 new nuclear power plant licenses are pending, the first of these probably won't be on line until 2015 or 2016.

Will these proposed plants (some employing new and supposedly safer designs) actually be built? And given our global warming challenges, should they be built? It may be that the funding issue alone will derail the nuclear push: A Standard and Poor's report last year priced nuclear at $1,500 per kilowatt -- twice the cost of a new coal plant. And cost overruns, it said, "are highly probable." The base price for a plant is $3 billion today. Most of the proposed new nuclear stations are in the Southeast, and (partly to minimize local antagonism) most are on the site of existing units.

A much-quoted MIT report, released in 2003, says that nuclear power "is not now cost competitive with coal and natural gas," but it concludes that nukes "could be one option for reducing carbon emissions." However, the industry's "stagnation and decline" makes that unlikely, the report concludes.

But to get the public to accept a major expansion of nuclear power, the industry will have to convince Americans terrified by the specter of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and intentional terrorism-related sabotage.

E - The Environmental Magazine distributes 50,000 copies six times per year to subscribers and bookstores. E is also the publisher of EarthTalk, a nationally syndicated environmental Q&A column distributed free to over 1,300 newspapers, magazines and web sites throughout the United States and Canada ( www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/aboute.html). Single copies of E's July/August 2007 issue are available for $5 postpaid from: E Magazine, P.O. Box 2047, Marion, OH 43305. Subscriptions are $19.95 per year, available at the same address. E is also on the web at www.emagazine.com.