Does Nuclear Belong in the Renewable World, Part II

Last month, in connection with an article about skyrocketing cost estimates for nuclear plant construction, we raised the topic of nuclear energy’s place in the world of renewables (as in, does it have one?) and in a low-carbon future.  You sent us a wide range of responses, of which only about 15% stood up for the technology.  Given the focus of Solar Nation, this can’t be called surprising.

It’s worth reiterating here that our emphasis at Solar Nation is on supporting solar power development, not on disparaging other power sources.  There are plenty of groups and web sites who take that latter tack, and we’ll let them do that.  Our complaint only comes when Government policy (and subsidies) favor other sources to the detriment of solar.  With that said, let’s look at your arguments.

The Nays

Of the adverse comments, many dealt with the potential for weapons proliferation of a program of uranium enrichment.  Some drew attention to nuclear’s life-cycle cost, both in terms of dollars and carbon emissions, while others pointed to a worldwide shortage of uranium to fuel large-scale nuclear programs.  Problems associated with a nuclear plant’s need for large quantities of cooling water as we enter a warmer, drier climatic period were also highlighted.  But the most common concern was the unresolved issue of long-term storage of radioactive waste.

The Ayes

All these comments are legitimate, and none have yet been satisfactorily answered by the nuclear industry.  But in the interests of full debate, we’re now going to delve into that relatively small number of views from Solar Citizens supporting nuclear.  Almost all of them saw nuclear as the most reliable way to replace coal and oil for baseload purposes in the climate change battle, with solar and other renewables devoted to providing peak power.  Certainly we can’t argue with the attraction of replacing massive carbon emissions with zero emissions during operation, but this argument leaves unasked the question of whether renewables could themselves perform this baseload function.

Who Gets the Baseload?

It has always been held that the intermittency of solar, wind, etc. prevents them from reliable 24/7 operation, but supporting technologies now in their infancy—power towers with molten salt or pressurized water storage, large-scale storage batteries based on vanadium, pumped hydro or compressed air storage—could, properly developed, go a long way to overcoming this problem.  And recent developments in geothermal power plants could, if properly scaled, lead to greatly expanded levels of full-time availability in many parts of the country.  The question then becomes one of practicality and cost:  can we meet our future baseload needs from these sources, as well as replace the output of existing reactors as they are retired, at some sort of manageable cost?  And how much hardware and acreage, not to mention reconfiguring of the power grid, will these solutions demand?  Even with technological breakthroughs, if renewables can’t meet these challenges the country may find the pro-nuclear arguments more compelling than those for coal (clean, dirty, solid or liquid) and oil from sands and shales.

And it must be said:  any consideration of our future energy portfolio must be done in the context of an  aggressive energy efficiency and conservation regime, including a re-imagined transportation structure.  None of our declining number of energy options will be adequate if the consumption curve continues to rise at anything like current rates.

“New” Nuclear

For nuclear apostles, the most interesting commentary received was on the subject of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR).  This is a design that uses low-grade nuclear fuel and consumes almost all of it by recycling it throughout the lifetime of the reactor;  what’s left is calculated to become safe after only two hundred years.  It’s also, apparently, almost impossible to produce weapons-grade material from the process.  Unfortunately, the only such reactor in the U.S., a prototype in Idaho, had its funding cut by the Government in 1994.

It’s dangerous in this column, we know, to be a nuclear booster.  And just as Solar Nation doesn’t try to disparage non-solar forms of power, neither are we here to wave pom-poms belonging to the cheerleaders of other teams.  But we wonder if it may be hypocritical to oppose a nascent alternative technology such as truly clean coal or an IFR system that works as advertised if we also deny it the chance to prove itself (or otherwise) through demonstrator or prototype projects.

Government, not Politics

It may be that there are as-yet undetermined barriers, in terms of environmental risk, full cost accounting, construction lead times, fuel availability, etc., to large-scale development of IFR technology.  On the other hand, it may be a legitimate future partner with solar and other clean technologies in keeping America’s lights on.  Given the magnitude of the challenge, we shouldn’t want any option left unexamined.  But more than anything else, we should want Government decisions to be taken in the full light of scientific evidence, and without political convenience or “realities” casting a shadow on that evidence.  And let’s be clear: current Federal policy does not seem to be aimed at seriously assessing the issues associated with really “new” nuclear or seriously “clean” coal, nor is the Federal government giving full and fair credit to the potential of  “real” renewables!