Aug 28 2009
Part Two: nuclear power, a perspective
By Pat Mahony
Pat Mahony is an Environmental Researcher at ANSTO and former president of the Young Scientists of Australia. This is Part Two in his nuclear power guest blog. Part One is here.
So, is nuclear power a low-emissions technology?
Nuclear power generation is a low-emissions technology, with virtually no greenhouse gases produced. A common anti-nuclear argument is that this claim does not take into account the fossil fuels that are consumed in mining and processing uranium, fabricating nuclear fuel and transportation and storage of fuel and waste. Greenhouse gas emissions would also increase as mining companies started mining lower quality ore bodies.
Even taking into account these greenhouse gas contributions, if the world used the current known resources of uranium to generate electricity, instead of the equivalent amount of coal, this would prevent the release of 180 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is important to note that similar greenhouse gas contributions (e.g. for mining, processing, transport, etc) also arise from ‘green’ technologies such as solar energy.
Solar power. Image: Australian Greenhouse Office
What about radioactive waste?
Radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants is one of the greatest disadvantages of nuclear power, and one of the public’s greatest fears. Radioactive waste consists of everything from spent nuclear fuel (high-level waste) to paper, office furniture and packaging used in a nuclear facility (low-level radioactive waste).
By far the majority of radioactive waste consists of the relatively low-risk, low-level radioactive waste. The high-level waste is of much more concern, and there is currently no long-term, effective waste repository in use anywhere in the world. Despite this, the world’s first, deep geological repository will be constructed in Scandinavia, and there is consensus among the world’s experts that deep geological repositories are an effective method for the long-term management of radioactive waste.
It is important to remember that all humans are constantly exposed to radioactivity – it is a naturally occurring phenomenon, and humans encounter radioactivity from before they are born.
Activities such as flying, having an x-ray and using granite bench tops in the kitchen all increase exposure to radioactivity.
The extra exposure from a nuclear power plant would be minimal, due to the strict regulations that would be mandatory for any such facility.
Is nuclear power dangerous?
To date, the disaster at Chernobyl is the only nuclear power incident that has resulted in fatalities. While there were many factors involved in the Chernobyl disaster, essentially what happened was an unsafe piece of technology being used inappropriately, and essential safety measures being circumvented. The design of reactor used at Chernobyl would never have been approved for use in the developed world, and nuclear safety has developed light-years ahead of the technology used in previous generations. To say that we should stop nuclear power because of the faults of Chernobyl is like saying that we should ban all automobiles because one model of one company has faulty brakes.
The abandoned city of Pripyat with Chernobyl plant in the distance. Image: wikipedia
When compared to other energy technologies, fewer people have died as a result of nuclear power than from coal, gas and hydroelectricity. The added risks of nuclear power mean that it is tightly regulated and controlled. This results in a better safety record than almost every other energy technology. Removing the data from Chernobyl (which is not comparable to the Western context which Australia would fall into) results in the following statistic: Zero deaths from nuclear power incidents in the Developed world. This statistic cannot even be closely matched by any other current energy technology.
Will nuclear power plants increase the risk of terrorism and nuclear weapons?
The development of the nuclear weapons is known as “nuclear proliferation”. Australia is a signatory and staunch supporter of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This Treaty essentially bans signatories from constructing nuclear weapons, and calls on those already possessing them (such as the USA, France and China) to begin dismantling them. As a supplier of uranium, Australia has strict compliance standards for the use of its uranium: only countries that are signatories to the NPT can buy Australian uranium (for example, India is not a signatory to the NPT and thus cannot purchase uranium from Australia), and even then they are subject to the world’s strictest conditions and safe guards.
Non-proliferation and nuclear security are monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA conducts regular inspections and audits of nuclear facilities around the world to ensure compliance with the NPT and to counter the risk of terrorist attack or the development of nuclear weapons. All the proliferation incidents in the last few decades have arisen from rogue states, undeclared laboratories and undeclared nuclear material (much of it in the former Communist bloc), not from the diversion of legally obtained, declared nuclear material from power plants.
The risk of nuclear proliferation as a result of introducing nuclear power into Australia would be minimal.
While it is true that radioactive waste contains small amounts of materials that can be used to produce nuclear weapons (such as plutonium), the level of technological sophistication required to extract this material (without killing themselves) is beyond the capabilities of even the most organised terrorist organisations. Australia also has the necessary political, bureaucratic and security infrastructure to prevent this material falling into the hands of terrorists.
How long would it take to establish a nuclear power plant in Australia?
Nuclear power is currently banned in Australia, by both Commonwealth and State legislation. Australia would also need to develop the necessary security, safe guards and environmental processes and infrastructure. Large amounts of effort are required to change public and political attitudes: nuclear power is still feared and misunderstood by large sections of the community, and neither of the major political parties have pro-nuclear power policies.
Given the long construction times required for nuclear power plants, as well as the time required to find a suitable site, conduct rigorous environmental impact studies, etc, it is unlikely that Australia would have a functioning nuclear power plant until at least 2025.
The Powerhouse Museum is currently hosting an exhibtion called Nuclear Matters. It closes on Sunday August 30th, so see it this weekend!
Thanks Pat, glad to see some sensible science-based advocacy on a potentially controversial issue.
Of course politically Nuclear Energy is completely infeasible. Sad world we live in where self-styled environmentalists will sabotage one of the most potentially useful weapons we have in the fight against climate change.
I grow weary of public discourse dominated by ideologues. Scientists should spend a little more time injecting rationality and evidence into policy debates instead of just being latched on to by political parties whenever the data happens to be favourable to their causes.
Pat,
I’m a supporter of nuclear power, I think from a scientific point of view it’s a lot better than coal.
However, does it compete for price? I am curious as to how much cheaper it is compared to fossil fuels.
Nuclear power is not a solution to climate change, but an answer to the threat of a vastly expanded renewable energy industry.
By keeping a large, centralised power system, generators can ‘crowd out’ thousands of mums and dads, small and large businesses from generating energy close to where it is used.
Nuclear power produces dangerous waste, is dangerous, is extremely expensive and, there is only a limited amount of material (uranium). Certainly not enough for a ‘nuclear power renaissance’.
There are plenty of mistruths in the claims made by the author of this post, as are there resources that debunk the myths continually peddled by the nuclear industry.
Here’s what greenpeace says, but there are plenty more.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/solutions/nuclear_fallacy
Radioactive waste: I’m just wondering how burying the waste deep into the ground is going to work with the underground water tables.
Also, just wondering if you can include some facts about the water use to cool a nuclear power plant and thoughts about the potential leaking of radioactive waste and radiation into this water.
Cheers, Simon.
This is ridiculous. To say that Nuclear is better than other solutions because it uses less than other is silly. It still causes pollution and problems, PERIOD. You cannot ignore the fact that there are other, non polluting, non harmful, environmentally conscious solutions out there that don’t leave nuclear waste in holes in the earth. Even low level nuclear waste is too high when compared to a solution that is NO LEVEL nuclear. Stop trying to sell something that should not be sold. Replacing petrol cars with hydrogen is only an idea insomuch as it is moving from big oil to big hydrogen. We won’t be moved from big coal to big nuclear when there are other, zero pollution, zero hazard, zero capitalist agenda solutions.
One of the most often forgotten reasons (not mentioned above) why NP is retailed soooo cheap is that the producers do not have 3rd party insurance like every other power industry. Why? Because no-one would insure this technology – and no NP industry could afford it! So who pays for all the waste stored in factory halls around the world (there is no final storage as yet – and there’s a lot of waste!) – the taxpayer does. Whether you want to or not – but who gets the profits? Exactly…
All accidents and incidents (of which there are many each year) come usually down to human error and can never be eliminated as a risk.
It is not renewable, it isn’t healthy, it isn’t safe, the waste will be around long after you and your children are dead and YOU probably don’t want to live anywhere near it for very good reasons.
If I’m wrong pick a place on this map and move near one, Europe looks ‘good’ or the US east coast:
Select: “Nuklearbrennstoff”
http://www.wikienergy.de/index.php
Sigh.
Yeah, solar panels are a massive economic threat to all other existing forms of power, and it is a conspiracy by coal, oil, nuclear, and all the other energy industries that holds them back from economic viability. Of course that’s what it is.
All forms of power generation have drawbacks. Renewables have yet to take over the world because they are currently too *expensive.* And how much things cost is *important*, as much as certain ideologues seem determined to pretend otherwise.
Every additional dollar you spend per kWh produced by renewables that could be produce in nuclear reactors is a dollar that could be spent on something else. Research into treating nuclear waste, or into curing malaria, or extracting existing CO2 from the atmosphere. Hell it’d buy a fair bit of rice for starving children in Africa.
Meanwhile climate change is the greatest single anthropogenic threat to the environment we face, a far greater threat to life as we know it than nuclear energy could ever be; but we can’t use fission to combat it in this country because of ridiculous attitudes like this.
Greenpeace should hang their heads in shame.
At least, with luck, our uranium will be mined regardless of protests, and end up overseas in the reactors of countries like France, America and China. Thank heavens for free markets.
“I’m a supporter of nuclear power, I think from a scientific point of view it’s a lot better than coal.
However, does it compete for price? I am curious as to how much cheaper it is compared to fossil fuels.”
Nuclear energy is more expensive than, say, coal. However, pretty much everything is more expensive than coal, when it comes to clean energy generation. Something like solar power, for example, is far, far more expensive than coal, and more expensive than nuclear energy.
So, if you only ask how much it costs, and that’s all you care about, it’s impossible for any clean option to compete with coal – unless you factor in the massive external costs associated with coal, for example the grave risk posed by tens of millions of tonnes of dangerous coal waste in the form of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere each year by every coal-fired generator.
Since corporate beancounters never factor in those external costs themselves, the idea of a carbon tax or emissions accounting scheme is ostensibly to force the free market to factor in that cost.
“By keeping a large, centralised power system, generators can ‘crowd out’ thousands of mums and dads, small and large businesses from generating energy close to where it is used.”
In general, centralized generation is used because it is cheaper, more efficient, and is subject to economies of scale, and larger plants are more efficient and easier to run and maintain.
“Alternative” generation technologies such as wind and solar are usually strongly associated with decentralised, small scale generation, because they are intrinsically diffuse, distributed sources of energy, and require huge areas for any practical energy generation on the grid, and they just don’t scale up.
Usually, opposition to larger centralised generators stems not from any technological argument, but simply from the idea that larger centralised generators symbolise capitalism, or business, or ‘The Man’, concepts that one may be opposed to.
“Nuclear power produces dangerous waste, is dangerous, is extremely expensive and, there is only a limited amount of material (uranium). Certainly not enough for a ‘nuclear power renaissance’.”
Civilian commercial nuclear power in the Western world, outside of the notorious Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has never hurt anybody. Doesn’t sound very “dangerous”, does it?
How many examples, with a demonstrable factual basis, can you show me where a person has been injured or killed by ionising radiation* in connection with nuclear power generation throughout the history of the technology; excepting Chernobyl, which is simply totally irrelevant to all nuclear energy today and to the entire history of nuclear energy in the Western world?
(* The rare case of “Woman hit by car at nuclear power plant”, or “man falls off ladder at nuclear power plant” for example does not, of course, count as a nuclear accident.)
The answer I’ll give – again, feel free to try and disprove this if you can do so in an academically credible way – is none. Not one person ever hurt by ionising radiation in conjunction with nuclear power, except for Chernobyl.
Similarly, can you demonstrate that this “dangerous waste” has ever hurt anybody?
There is sufficient uranium, if it is used efficiently and not wasted, to meet the energy needs for all of humanity – to supply ample energy for development – up to the point where the evolution of the sun extinguishes all life on the planet. The use of nuclear energy from fusion of the light elements and from thorium as a fission fuel is all additional on top of the uranium resource.
“There are plenty of mistruths in the claims made by the author of this post, as are there resources that debunk the myths continually peddled by the nuclear industry.”
Is that so? Well, let’s see you provide good, credible evidence that that is the case, and resources to that effect which stand up to fact checking, to science and to skeptical enquiry. Please.
Thank for your comments, they are much appreciated. a number of you have raised queries and issues with some of the points raised in my article, so I will seek to address them.
First the question of price:
The economics of energy generation are complex, and vary from country to country. For instance, the cost of nuclear power in established nuclear power economies (such as France) is significantly cheaper than it would be in a country introducing nuclear power for the first time (like Australia). The final cost will also depend on the financial model used to fund the construction and operation of the plant. In established nuclear power economies, nuclear is cost-competitive with coal.
Just some other points on the economics of nuclear power:
* To claim nuclear power is “extremely expensive” is a gross oversimplication. Nuclear power does have very high capital costs: it is much more expensive to build a nuclear plant than a coal or a gas plant. However, it is also expensive to build solar photovoltaic power plants.
However, nuclear power plants are extremely cheap to run. The fuel costs form a very low portion of overall costs, so the price of generation is stable. So that is the trade-off: high capital costs, but very low operating costs.
* The issue of paying for the disposal of radioactive waste was raised: the price of nuclear power includes the cost of waste disposal and decommissioning of plants. Essentially, the environmental impact of the plant is included in the price of electricity. Nuclear power is the only power generator to do this (for instance, the cost of coal power does not include the environmental and health costs of emissons).
*Luke Weston was right in his assessment of the competitiveness of coal: in the current economic climate, no other energy source, renewable or non-renewabl, can compete with coal.
Uranium Resources
Nuclear power is not a renewable resource, and I never claimed it to be. However, reactor technology is progressing rapidly, and with it, significant advances in plant safety, reactor efficiency and fuel reprocessing. If Australia were to build a nuclear power plant, it would be a Generation III, which have huge advantages over the majority of plants currently in operation.
If Generation IV reactors become a reality (which is likely to be sooner than clean coal and carbon-capture and sequestration technology), then this will extend the life time of existing fuel reserves, as well as use existing spent fuel and waste as a fuel source.
Nuclear Safety
To the best of my knowledge, nuclear reactors now employ “fail-to-safe” engineering. What this means is that when a component of a reactor fails, or is used inappropriately, the system shuts down in a way that is intrinsically safe.
sgneist, you alluded to the number of nuclear incidents and accidents. What is your source on this statistic? I reiterate the point in my article, and repeated by Luke Weston, that, other than Chernobyl, nobody has died from a nuclear incident.
Simon raised a very good point about the impact of radioactive waste on underground water tables. Obviously the process of burying radioactive waste is more sophisticated than just digging a hole anywhere and dumping it in, and of course, not every site in the world is appropriate. Factors such as water tables, accessibility and seismic activity are just some of the many factors that would be assessed in determining the suitability for a deep geological repository. Any final waste site would meet stringent safeguards to ensure the protection of the environment and health of the community, and do so on geological timescales (that is, tens of thousands of years).
In relation to cooling water: nuclear reactors require water as a coolant. In a water-scare environment as Australia, this presents a number of challenges. Sea-water is an option, so an ideal Australian site could be on the coast. The excess energy from a nuclear reactor could also be used to run a desalination plant, lessening the impact on local water supplies.
The idea of nuclear power being better than others was criticised as being “silly”. I’m not sure exactly what the author meant by that comment, but I personally don’t think it’s silly to take into account all options for tackling climate change and assessing them on the basis of their merits, using a set of reasonable, rational and realistic criteria. I think that’s what Australia needs.
I also don’t think it’s silly to consider options that are available right now, and to think of practical measures we can take using a proven, existing technology to address the problems of today.
sgneist also suggested that I have been dishonest, claiming that I wouldn’t want to live near a nuclear power plant, because deep-down, I know they’re dirty, dangerous and just plain bad. This is completely untrue. I came to my pro-nuclear stance through a thorough examination of the facts and resources, considering various opinions and sources based on their merits of reliability and accuracy and through lengthy debates and discussions with people on both sides.
I would like to go on the record as saying that I would have no problems with living near a nuclear power plant, however, the suggestion that I move to live near one is about as logical and useful as suggesting that I move to Los Angeles because I like movies.
A word on renewables: just because I am pro-nuclear does not make me anti-renewable. I support the Government introducing Renewable Energy Targets, and I believe that renewable energy resources are crucial to maintaining energy security in Australia. Unfortunately, many people on all sides of the fence, try to reduce the solution to Climate Change to a single, magic bullet solution. This is short-sighted and unrealistic.
The key to maintaining energy security so that we can maintain our economic prosperity is diversity: having the bulk of our power from one source is not a good idea, be that coal, nuclear or renewables. My opinion is that we need to diversify our energy sources, which includes a mix of coal, gas, hydro, nuclear and renewable energy.
Let’s not also forget that the first steps to combating climate change should be reducing our energy consumption and increasing energy efficiency, regardless of where it comes from.
Environmental and pro-renewable groups, as well as the pro-coal and pro nuclear lobbyists need to lose this “us vs them” mentality. Instead of sniping at each other, and calling those who disagree liars, slaves to big business or misinformed rabble rousers, let’s actually work together to address what could be one of the greatest threats to human society in history.
I think that’s the best approach for Australia, and what everyday Australians deserve.
“Let’s not also forget that the first steps to combating climate change should be reducing our energy consumption and increasing energy efficiency, regardless of where it comes from.”
I have to disagree with that. Energy is abundant, and a fantastic boon to human civilisation. Why should we want to consume less? Consumption is not a bad thing in and of itself – it is harmful consumption that matters.
In this case the problem is the cheap energy we’ve had for generations having an unwanted side effect of releasing climate altering gases into the atmosphere.
While increasing energy efficiency is a nice idea, it can counter intuitively increase rather than decrease energy consumption. Google “Jevons Paradox.”
Really, a fair price on carbon is the way to go. Then nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric and others can become cost competitive with fossil fuels and we can enjoy energy without disturbing the Earth’s climate.
[...] to be built. According to ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) Researcher Pat Mahony, “given the long construction times required for nuclear power plants, as well as the time [...]