[NYTr] LA Times Edit'l: No to Nukes

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

sent by Ed Pearl

[I've never see a stronger editorial from a major newspaper. -ed]

Los Angeles Times - Jul 23, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-nuclear23jul23,0,378363.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Lead Editorial

No to nukes

It's tempting to turn to nuclear plants to combat climate change, but 
alternatives are safer and cheaper.

JAPAN SEES NUCLEAR POWER as a solution to global warming, but it's paying a 
price. Last week, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake caused dozens of problems at 
the world's biggest nuclear plant, leading to releases of radioactive 
elements into the air and ocean and an indefinite shutdown. Government and 
company officials initially downplayed the incident and stuck to the 
official line that the country's nuclear plants are earthquake-proof, but 
they gave way in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Japan 
has a sordid history of serious nuclear accidents or spills followed by 
cover-ups.

It isn't alone. The U.S. government allows nuclear plants to operate under a 
level of secrecy usually reserved for the national security apparatus. Last 
year, for example, about nine gallons of highly enriched uranium spilled at 
a processing plant in Tennessee, forming a puddle a few feet from an 
elevator shaft. Had it dripped into the shaft, it might have formed a 
critical mass sufficient for a chain reaction, releasing enough radiation to 
kill or burn workers nearby. A report on the accident from the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission was hidden from the public, and only came to light 
because one of the commissioners wrote a memo on it that became part of the 
public record.

The dream that nuclear power would turn atomic fission into a force for good 
rather than destruction unraveled with the Three Mile Island disaster in 
1979 and the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. No U.S. utility has ordered a new 
nuclear plant since 1978 (that order was later canceled), and until recently 
it seemed none ever would. But rising natural gas prices and worries about 
global warming have put the nuclear industry back on track. Many respected 
academics and environmentalists argue that nuclear power must be part of any 
solution to climate change because nuclear power plants don't release 
greenhouse gases.

They make a weak case. The enormous cost of building nuclear plants, the 
reluctance of investors to fund them, community opposition and an endless 
controversy over what to do with the waste ensure that ramping up the 
nuclear infrastructure will be a slow process - far too slow to make a 
difference on global warming. That's just as well, because nuclear power is 
extremely risky. What's more, there are cleaner, cheaper, faster 
alternatives that come with none of the risks.

Glowing pains

Modern nuclear plants are much safer than the Soviet-era monstrosity at 
Chernobyl. But accidents can and frequently do happen. The Union of 
Concerned Scientists cites 51 cases at 41 U.S. nuclear plants in which 
reactors have been shut down for more than a year as evidence of serious and 
widespread safety problems.

Nuclear plants are also considered attractive terrorist targets, though that 
risk too has been reduced. Provisions in the 2005 energy bill required 
threat assessments at nuclear plants and background checks on workers. What 
hasn't improved much is the risk of spills or even meltdowns in the event of 
natural disasters such as earthquakes, making it mystifying why anyone would 
consider building reactors in seismically unstable places like Japan (or 
California, which has two, one at San Onofre and the other in Morro Bay).

Weapons proliferation is an even more serious concern. The uranium used in 
nuclear reactors isn't concentrated enough for anything but a dirty bomb, 
but the same labs that enrich uranium for nuclear fuel can be used to create 
weapons-grade uranium. Thus any country, such as Iran, that pursues uranium 
enrichment for nuclear power might also be building a bomb factory. It would 
be more than a little hypocritical for the U.S. to expand its own nuclear 
power capacity while forbidding countries it doesn't like from doing the 
same.

The risks increase when spent fuel is recycled. Five countries reprocess 
their spent nuclear fuel, and the Bush administration is pushing strongly to 
do the same in the U.S. Reprocessing involves separating plutonium from 
other materials to create new fuel. Plutonium is an excellent bomb material, 
and it's much easier to steal than enriched uranium. Spent fuel is so 
radioactive that it would burn a prospective thief to death, while plutonium 
could be carried out of a processing center in one's pocket. In Japan, 200 
kilograms of plutonium from a waste recycling plant have gone missing; in 
Britain, 30 kilograms can't be accounted for. These have been officially 
dismissed as clerical errors, but the nuclear industry has never been noted 
for its truthfulness or transparency. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki contained 
six kilograms.

Technology might be able to solve the recycling problem, but the question of 
what to do with the waste defies answers. Even the recycling process leaves 
behind highly radioactive waste that has to be disposed of. This isn't a 
temporary issue: Nuclear waste remains hazardous for tens of thousands of 
years. The only way to get rid of it is to put it in containers and bury it 
deep underground - and pray that geological shifts or excavations by future 
generations that have forgotten where it's buried don't unleash it on the 
surface.

No country in the world has yet built a permanent underground waste 
repository, though Finland has come the closest. In the U.S., Congress has 
been struggling for decades to build a dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada but 
has been unable to overcome fierce local opposition. One can hardly blame 
the Nevadans. Not many people would want 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste 
buried in their neighborhood or transported through it on the way to the 
dump.

The result is that nuclear waste is stored on-site at the power plants, 
increasing the risk of leaks and the danger to plant workers. Eventually, 
we'll run out of space for it.

Goin' fission?

Given the drawbacks, it's surprising that anybody would seriously consider a 
nuclear renaissance. But interest is surging; the NRC expects applications 
for up to 28 new reactors in the next two years. Even California, which has 
a 31-year-old ban on construction of nuclear plants, is looking into it. 
Last month, the state Energy Commission held a hearing on nuclear power, and 
a group of Fresno businessmen plans a ballot measure to assess voter 
interest in rescinding the state's ban.

Behind all this is a perception that nuclear power is needed to help fight 
climate change. But there's little chance that nuclear plants could be built 
quickly enough to make much difference. The existing 104 nuclear plants in 
the U.S., which supply roughly 20% of the nation's electricity, are old and 
nearing the end of their useful lives. Just to replace them would require 
building a new reactor every four or five months for the next 40 years. To 
significantly increase the nation's nuclear capacity would require far more.

The average nuclear plant is estimated to cost about $4 billion. Because of 
the risks involved, there is scarce interest among investors in putting up 
the needed capital. Nor have tax incentives and subsidies been enough to 
lure them. In part, that's because the regulatory process for new plants is 
glacially slow. The newest nuclear plant in the U.S. opened in 1996, after 
having been ordered in 1970 - a 26-year gap. Though a carbon tax or carbon 
trading might someday make the economics of nuclear power more attractive, 
and the NRC has taken steps to speed its assessments, community opposition 
remains high, and it could still take more than a decade to get a plant 
built.

Meanwhile, a 2006 study by the Institute for Energy and Environmental 
Research found that for nuclear power to play a meaningful role in cutting 
greenhouse gas emissions, the world would need to build a new plant every 
one to two weeks until mid-century. Even if that were feasible, it would 
overwhelm the handful of companies that make specialized parts for nuclear 
plants, sending costs through the roof.

The accelerating threat of global warming requires innovation and may demand 
risk-taking, but there are better options than nuclear power. A combination 
of energy-efficiency measures, renewable power like wind and solar, and 
decentralized power generators are already producing more energy worldwide 
than nuclear power plants. Their use is expanding more quickly, and the 
decentralized approach they represent is more attractive on several levels. 
One fast-growing technology allows commercial buildings or complexes, such 
as schools, hospitals, hotels or offices, to generate their own electricity 
and hot water with micro-turbines fueled by natural gas or even biofuel, 
much more efficiently than utilities can do it and with far lower emissions.

The potential for wind power alone is nearly limitless and, according to a 
May report by research firm Standard & Poor's, it's cheaper to produce than 
nuclear power. Further, the amount of electricity that could be generated 
simply by making existing non-nuclear power plants more efficient is 
staggering. On average, coal plants operate at 30% efficiency worldwide, but 
newer plants operate at 46%. If the world average could be raised to 42%, it 
would save the same amount of carbon as building 800 nuclear plants.

Nevertheless, the U.S. government spends more on nuclear power than it does 
on renewables and efficiency. Taxpayer subsidies to the nuclear industry 
amounted to $9 billion 2006, according to Doug Koplow, a researcher based in 
Cambridge, Mass., whose Earth Track consultancy monitors energy spending. 
Renewable power sources, including hydropower but not ethanol, got $6 
billion, and $2 billion went toward conservation.

That's out of whack. Some countries - notably France, which gets nearly 80% 
of its power from nuclear plants and has never had a major accident - have 
made nuclear energy work, but at a high cost. The state-owned French power 
monopoly is severely indebted, and although France recycles its waste, it is 
no closer than the U.S. to approving a permanent repository. Tax dollars are 
better spent on windmills than on cooling towers.