A survey released a couple of days ago (yes, I'm still catching up), by the Civil Society Institute found that 61 percent of Americans are opposed to building more nuclear power plants to solve the energy and global warming crisis. Grist has already written about this, so I only have one thing to add:

I think the wording of the question is critical. Note that the survey examined the "energy and global warming crisis." I wonder whether it would have scored nearly as high if they had just asked about the "global warming crisis".

Other surveys/polls suggest that people are much more receptive to the "energy crisis" because it evokes the experience of rising utility bills and rising gas prices—very tangible events in their lives. While public awareness about global warming has shot up in the past few years, it isn't clear yet that it evokes a tangible experience. Do people think about last summer's drought or wildfire or tornado?

I think it is a smart messaging strategy to lump energy and global warming together—particularly since they are completely intertwined from a policy perspective.

I've documented McCain's love affair with nuclear power before, so that isn't the reason I am bringing up this story that ran in the Concord Monitor last week.

I just want to point out two things:

1) How absurd is this quote from McCain:

Nuclear power "is safe. The technology is here," McCain said, speaking to a crowd of about 200 at a breakfast hosted by The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women. "It's a NIMBY (not in my backyard) problem, and a waste-disposal problem. It is not a technological problem."

Uh? So the waste-disposal problem isn't a technological problem? Given that no one really knows what to do with this stuff, I'd have to say it's a technological problem.

2) And this is my bigger beef:

McCain pointed to France, which draws more than three-quarters of its power from nuclear plants

I am so tired of proponents of nuclear power pointing to this misleading factoid. Everyone in the U.S. must think that there are nuclear power plants on every corner in France; that the French are leading the world in nuclear power production. Wrong. The U.S. already is. While France may get a higher percentage of their power from nuclear, they still get WAY less electricity from it. The U.S. generates 763 billion kwh from nuclear power, while France generates 419 billion kwh. In other words, we ALREADY produce almost twice as much electricity from nuclear power, as compared to France. Which also means that we have twice as big a nuclear waste problem. Somehow that never makes it into stories.

To be fair, the environmental community used to make a similarly false comparison when talking about Denmark's wind capacity. But the media almost seemed to see right through that comparison, whereas you hardly ever see a reporter point out that the U.S., not France, is the leading producer of nuclear power—despite not having built a plant in 30 years.

A Grist interview with Al Gore about the climate crisis and the release of Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth spends some time on the role nuclear power can/should play as a solution to global warming.

Happily, Gore sees no bright future for nukes. And he goes through some of the problems: Waste disposal. Impossibly expensive to build. Vulnerable to terrorist attack. Nuclear proliferation.

It's a thoughtful analysis and the right one for the Grist audience, but it points to a problem the environmental community - or at least those of us who oppose a new generation of nuclear reactors - still wrestles with in addressing other audiences.

What's the 10-second sound bite, the one strong enough to counter the industry's succinct, simple repackaging of nuclear power as the solution to global warming? The industry makes its case in a handful of words. Nuclear: the clean air energy.

Displaying the foresight and urgency sorely lacking over here, a British government committee has released a report urging Blair to abandon his proposed revival of nuclear power, stating that there isn't enough time to wait 25 years.

As reported in the Independent

The committee chairman Tim Yeo urged ministers to return to the strategy laid out in the Energy White Paper of 2003 which focused on energy efficiency and renewables as the cornerstones of a sustainable energy policy. "The Government must be far more imaginative and radical in pursuing the twin goals of the Energy White Paper - energy efficiency and renewables," he said.

What a novel idea.

I knew that I should have slept in longer. Reading Patrick Moore's atrocious oped this morning was as rude an awakening as I've had in a while. Which lie or omission to begin with?

Actually, the best argument I can make against Moore is to take his argument head on. Let's place our salvation in nuclear power. Let's make it our primary strategy in displacing billions of tons of carbon emissions. Let's do it!

What would that take?

Stephen Pascala and Robert Socolow have produced one the definitive studies on this issue. The world's carbon emissions are projected to jump from 7 billion tons today to 14 billions tons by 2054. Pascala and Socolow undertook an analysis to determine what would be needed to displace the additional 7 billion tons of carbon emissions and maintain emissions at current levels.

What role could nuclear power play?

To displace one billion tons of nuclear power, we would have to double the number of nuclear reactors currently operating in the world. This means building another 440 reactors. Given that the U.S. produces a quarter of the world's global warming emissions and has roughly a quarter of the world's nuclear capacity—this would involve building another 100 nuclear plants in the U.S.

Now remember this would only displace 1 billion tons of carbon—or a seventh of the projected increase in emissions. Moore clearly wants to do more. So if we used nuclear power to displace half the problem, we would be looking at more than 1,500 new plants, or in the U.S. some 350 new plants. That's just one new nuclear power plant every two months from now until 2050. Easy, right?

According to Moore, it is only a myth that nuclear power is expensive. The average new plant would only cost between $1-2 billion. So we are just talking about $350-700 billion. Easy, right?

Note that Moore never addresses any of this. He builds up nuclear power but just leaves the reader to assume that this magic energy source could easily replace coal—even urging the reader to imagine a world in which coal and nuclear power were produced in reverse amounts. As if.

The bottom line is that nuclear power is too expensive to play any serious role in addressing global warming. We don't have the money to build 100 new plants in the U.S., let alone more than 350.

And although Moore would like to dismiss the waste issue in one short paragraph, the reality is that 50 years and counting and we still haven't discovered a safe solution for nuclear waste. And we'd be producing two times, three times or four times as much of it.

Easy, right?

Give it a rest, Patrick.

In his first budget as the new Governor of New Jersey, Jon Corzine included a proposal to require nuclear operators in the state to compensate the government for security costs. Corzine estimates that nuclear security costs the state government $4.4 million, which they will ask nuclear operators to cover.

Twenty years after the fact, farms in Britain are still living with the fallout from the worst nuclear disaster. The British Department of Health reported that 375 British farms (the overwhelming majority of which are in Wales) are still contaminated by the accident that occurred 1,500 miles away in Ukraine. While the nuclear industry is no longer building plants similar to the one in Chernobyl (and the U.S. has none using that design), the report is a sobering reminder of the serious impacts of nuclear power.

As Jean McSorley of Greenpeace states:

"Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident the world has ever seen but it is by no means the worst that could happen."

I'm not sure whether this back and forth with NEI would be of on-going interest to many of you. I suspect the debate would become more engaging once someone at NEI actually tried to make an argument to suggest that nuclear power, after 60 years and tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, is in fact worthy of billions more in federal support, and that it should not just be a last resort of serious desperation.

So for what it's worth, I placed my response to NEI's latest post in their handy little comments section. The full response is on the flip. The acerbic tone is part a function of my fatigue last night, part a function of the subject matter, and just part me. Like I said, nobody likes a smart ass...

I figured I would take advantage of NEI’s graciousness and post a comment directly on your blog. Thank you for the opportunity.

To stick with the subsidy issue first, it is worth noting that the oped by Lisa, which Eric directed readers to for his response, was penned prior to passage of the energy bill. A not-so-subtle way of avoiding the "point-by-point" response but still appearing to make his argument appear as a direct response. Thus, while the industry was still on the federal dole back then, Lisa makes no mention of the loan guarantees, the risk insurance, or the construction and operating subsidy for the Idaho plant. On the production tax credit for nuclear power, she writes this:

"The most recent proposal capped support at $125 million for up to 6,000 MW for the first eight years."

I’m assuming to keep the word count down (and the truth concealed), she was forced to cut out the all important word "each." That’s right, the industry is now eligible to receive $125 million for EACH of the first eight years of production. In other words, each of the first six plants can receive $1 billion (note again how important the use of the word "each" is in this last sentence—indicating that the total industry subsidy from this one provision is $6 billion). Also worth noting, the nuclear industry’s tax credit—passed in 2005—will stay on the books until 2025 (unless a more fiscally responsible and visionary government repeals it), providing the industry with a necessary long-term security blanket.

On Price-Anderson Lisa says this:

"For both property and liability insurance, commercial nuclear operators pay 100 percent of the premiums; taxpayers and the government contribute nothing."

Two things on this point. First, the industry is clearly subsidized because the cost of its premiums are reduced. If the federal government were to cover damages to my house above a certain amount, I’m pretty certain that Allstate or State Farm or really any company would be happy to charge me significantly less for my own insurance. Hence the obvious and often repeated statement that Price Anderson is a subsidy to the industry. But there’s more...not only are the industry’s premiums subsidized, but their liability is capped. To provide a sense of perspective, the cost of cleanup and compensation in Chernobyl was in the hundreds of billions of dollars; in the event of an accident in the U.S., the nuclear industry would only be liable for approximately $10 billion—a very small fraction of potential costs.

Just to make sure this overall point is clear: the U.S. nuclear industry will never build another plant in this country without billions of dollars in subsidies from the federal government; nuclear power still remains the least competitive source of electricity, which is precisely why many economists (and investors) including Amory Lovins are correct in signaling the demise of the industry. If it turns out otherwise, it will be because the federal government made the unwise and expensive choice to back a turkey.

To be fair, from my experience in talking and debating with the industry, they generally agree with the statement in bold. Clearly they believe in their product, but the honest ones will always recognize that the industry will never get off the ground without significant federal involvement—the likes of which no other industry (except perhaps oil) has ever seen.

Now onto the particular arguments against RMI. I’ll admit that when I posted the initial response to NEI, I didn’t re-read RMI’s press release and newsletter, which NEI critiqued. So it has been more than six months since I read RMI’s analysis. My second reading did surprise me. Did you notice that Amory also used the statement "Why bother?" in reference to investing in nuclear power? Apparently, I’m not as clever as I thought, but the question’s aptness remains.

Before we look at Bradish’s analysis let’s pull a key quote from RMI’s analysis:

"In 2004, decentralized cogeneration and renewables, excluding big hydro dams (any over 10 megawatts), added 5.9 times as much worldwide net capacity as nuclear power added, and raised annual electricity production 2.9 times as much as nuclear power did. By the end of 2004, these decentralized, nonnuclear competitors’ global installed capacity totaled ~411 GW*—12% more capacity than global nuclear plants’ 366 GW—and produced ~92% as much electricity. Thus the “minor”alternative sources actually overtook nuclear’s global capacity in 2003, rivaled its 2004 and will match its 2005 output, and should exceed its 2010 output by 43%. They already dwarf its annual growth."

Now it is clear that RMI’s analysis is analyzing several different parameters including total capacity, annual growth (increased capacity) and electricity generation. These can all become very confusing when they are muddled together in one short paragraph, which may explain part of the problem.

Let’s take each of David Bradish’s points in turn:

1)He demurs RMI’s decision to use capacity instead of generation. To be clear, RMI doesn’t mislead—they are clear about the fact that part of their research compared installed capacity of different energy sources. Measuring capacity is a legitimate (and often used) benchmark for comparing different electricity resources. NEI can quibble about RMI’s decision to graph one data point vs. another but what they fail to acknowledge is that RMI states clearly in the text that alternative energy sources produced 92% as much electricity as nuclear power. So while RMI emphasizes capacity graphically, they provide the electricity generation figure verbally. Hardly the basis for condemning an institution, but then again if you haven’t got much to work with…

Unfortunately that first point is actually the best critique that NEI could make. From there, Bradish’s straws getting thinner and thinner, but to his credit, he holds on tight.

2)In his second critique, David suggests that RMI didn’t examine total operating capacity in existence and instead only calculated yearly capacity increases. Unless I’m missing something, RMI explicitly did this in certain places—i.e. when they were comparing annual capacity increases—but in other places examined operating capacity. So in some places, the very point that RMI was making was that alternative energy sources are "growing" faster (measured as an increase of annual capacity) than nuclear power. How else would Brandish expect RMI to document the "increase in capacity"? When they weren’t measuring increases in capacity, they were referring to total capacity or electricity generation as the statement from RMI above indicates.

3)The third point against RMI’s analysis is itself confusing. Here’s the paragraph from NEI:

"The third reason the graph is misleading is because it uses five different sources for its information. For example, when conducting a search on EWEA, they said that wind could supply 12% of the world’s electricity by 2020. After doing some calculations, 1,250 GW (the amount needed to achieve 12%) would be a wind farm the size of Texas. Let’s be realistic here, right now the total capacity in the US of wind is about 4 GW."

Now is the critique that RMI used different sources or is it the result? Since it doesn’t make a difference, I may as well address both. The decision to use various sources is hardly a research flaw in and of itself—assuming a few things: you clarify your sources, use similar units, and don’t double count. Double counting is a definite no-no. Good scientists that they are, RMI follows these rules. But then it occurred to me that Bradish’s actual critique could be that the potential result is itself unrealistic. But Bradish doesn’t provide his own analysis to document where EWEA or RMI’s calculations are wrong he only suggests that 1,250 GW is an impossible figure. Forget for a minute that the folks at NEI are the same people who strongly "believe" that nuclear waste can be safely disposed of and that we will someday find an alternative use for spent fuel. Let’s dispense with the belief argument. Show me some numbers and then we’ll talk.

4)Finally, NEI disputes RMI’s decision to limit the analysis to 2010. Hmm. I doubt that NEI complained when the Joint Committee on Taxation decided to limit its analysis of the tax provisions in the energy bill to 10 years, thereby masking the $6 billion cost of the nuclear production tax credit. Let me go back and check whether Bradish raised this point with JCT, or whether someone raised this issue in NEI's blog—urging JCT to calculate the full cost of the nuclear production tax credit. Couldn't find anything. Maybe NEI’s Vice President sent a letter directly to the committee staff urging them to change the calculations? Eric, I missed that letter—please send me that letter when you find it.

This is truly the most pathetic argument of the lot, and I am embarrassed to have to spend five minutes responding to it. I could understand NEI’s frustration with RMI’s decision to limit the analysis to 2010 if the nuclear industry was planning for 20 plants to be completed and online in 2011—thereby clearly biasing their analysis. But how far does Bradish expect RMI’s analysis to extend? Would 2015 have been acceptable? 2020? As Bradish himself says at the end of his piece "In another 10-15 years, as the world has to make intelligent choices involving economic growth and environmental protection, it may begin skyrocketing again." Just because the industry "may" add capacity in 10-15 years doesn’t imply that every analysis should extend far enough to accommodate the nuclear industry’s dreams. And 2010—being a round number and the beginning of a new decade and all—seems like a pretty defensible end point for an analysis.

What is not defensible is that I've spent more than a half hour responding when I could just have easily said "Why does the nuclear industry bother?"

Eric--don't forget the letter, oh and an explanation of why you need ALL THOSE SUBSIDIES...

Between travelling yesterday and attending a conference on renewable energy today, I haven't been able to carve out much time to blog--despite my best efforts (would you believe the Mayflower Hotel in DC isn't wireless??). I'll write up a bunch on the conference in a bit, but I wanted to do some catchin' up first.

Despite Tony Blair's best efforts to revive nuclear power in Britain, a new report released by his own advisory panel strongly opposed the construction of new plants. The Independent reported on the story yesterday.

Its criticisms of nuclear power are nothing new but this report appears quite hard-hitting in that it touches on all the concerns:

Despite the Prime Minister's well-known support for the nuclear industry, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) concluded that a new nuclear programme was not the answer to the twin challenges of climate change and security of supply. In a hard-hitting report, the 15-strong Commission identified five "major disadvantages" to nuclear power:

* The lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with highly toxic nuclear waste

* Uncertainty over the cost of new nuclear stations and the risk that taxpayers would be left to pick up the tab;

* The danger that going down the nuclear route would lock the UK into a centralised system for distributing energy for the next 50 years;

* The risk a new nuclear programme would undermine efforts to improve energy efficiency;

* The threat of terrorist attacks and radiation exposure if other countries with lower safety standards also opt for nuclear...

There's little point in denying that nuclear power has its benefits but, in our view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages.

Throw in a nod to the potential of renewables:

The commission said that even if the UK's existing nuclear capacity was doubled, it would only lead to an 8 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels. By contrast, renewable energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and biomass, which are zero-carbon sources of energy, could supply 68-87 per cent of the country's electricity needs if fully exploited.

It isn't clear what Blair will do with this but it's got to give him reason to pause and think twice about the rush to build new nuclear plants.

Since the Bush administration announced a proposal to reprocess spent commercial nuclear fuel, they have ducked and dodged every query about the price tag. Well this past week, the Secretary of Energy finally admitted what everyone familiar with the technology has known: it is expensive. Really, really expensive.

From Congress Daily:

"One of the reasons it might not pan out is that it's thought to be too expensive," said Bodman, who today reiterated his estimation that the program would eventually cost between $20 billion and $40 billion.

Not exactly a precise range either. Granted it's expensive at either end of the estimate but you would think that they could determine the potential costs with a bit more precision.

But uncertainty about future costs or consequences has never stopped this Administration (unless it pertains to global warming and they themselves have created the uncertainty) and they are proposing to spend $250 million this year and between $1 billion to $1.5 billion for the first three years to fund the program.

Senator Domenici, the chair of the Energy and Water Appropriations Commitee and one of the big proponents of nuclear power, is not going to be dissuaded.

He was quoted as saying:

"If anyone is going to take this money away, they better have a very high use."

Hmm. thoughts anyone on how else to spend $1.5 billion?

Apparently even those who support nuclear power can't come to grips with a waste solution. The Post ran a relatively contradictory oped on nuclear waste this morning by two pro-nuclear MIT profs.

The authors rightly dismiss President Bush's latest proposal to reprocess nuclear waste, suggesting, as I did, that this could signal the demise of the commercial nuclear industry in the U.S., because of proliferation concerns.

But without providing a serious solution to nuclear waste they encourage the construction of new plants. Buried quietly within their oped is the crux of the problem:

"But significant expansion of nuclear power, together with extension of licenses for current plants, will yield more spent fuel than Yucca Mountain can handle, even if the statutory limits on its capacity are doubled."

With Yucca Mountain rightly stalled, the U.S. has no credible solution for storing the waste. If we extend the licenses for current plants or build new plants, we'll need a second repository (that is once we've actually found a first one).

How is this legitimate public policy? How can anyone advocate creating more waste when we already have more than 60,000 MT sitting around the country with no safe solution? So long as this country is mired with a waste problem, we absolutely need a moratorium on building new nuclear power plants.

In response to the President's new proposal to reprocess nuclear waste, here's a good letter by arms control and environmental groups.

The letter outlines the National Academy of Sciences' estimate that such a program could cost more than $100 billion! A few years ago the DOE reported that a similar program could cost more than a $100 billion. This is no joke. The DOE quickly retracted their estimate but has never provided a new number. Can you imagine how many windmills could be build with that amount of money? And remember the only reason to support reprocessing is to assist the commercial nuclear industry.

This is going to be a heavy burden for an industry on precarious footing. Reactors already put communities at risk. Now the Bush administration is proposing to increase that risk?! If the defense community doesn't make him eat this the way he choked on Harriet Miers there's something really wrong.

If you want a clear indication that President Bush is completely insincere about national security issues look no further than his latest proposal to undertake nuclear reprocessing in the U.S. For decades, the U.S. has maintained a strict firewall between commerical nuclear power and nuclear weapons. That firewall has been maintained by preventing commercial reactors from undertaking reprocessing, which involves separating plutonium away from spent fuel. Now President Bush is planning on reversing that long-standing decision?!? I don't imagine that the hypocrisy of opposing North Korea and Iran's development of this technology will be lost on many.

And I am quite surprised that the commercial nuclear industry is acquiescing to this proposal. The commercial nuclear industry in the U.S. has long benefited from the fact that it poses no threat to nuclear proliferation. All of that will change. And so will much more. Although the details of the proposal are unclear we could be talking about shipping spent nuclear fuel across the country to a reprocessing facility, and then shipping the new fuel back to the reactor. I'm sure you all remember when people were throwing themselves in front of trains in Europe to prevent such shipments.

Where are the defense hawks? The Washington Post story suggests that the proposal is controversial within the White House, but how did security lose out to commercial nuclear power?

This story is explosive and we'll delve into more in the coming days.

If you survived West Wing's shift to Sunday night, then you know that this past week's episode was about nuclear power. (I actually haven't seen the show much this year but the football games were so boring that ended up tuning in). There's been an interesting discussion at Gristmill about the episode.

There isn't too much to add. But in defense of the show: the West Wing has always been endearing for its idealogical self-righteousness--particularly so when contrasted with the folly of the Bush administration.

With respect to nuclear power: it was refreshing to see that the writers didn't buy into any of the "new" arguments that the industry is peddling. None of the arguments against nuclear power have changed: it's still dangerous to operate, expense to build, and a mess to dispose of.

One of the big issues we'll be monitoring in this blog is the (attempted) resurgence of nuclear power. No nuclear power plants have been commissioned and built in this country for more than thirty years, but Congress is very quietly pushing this country towards a nuclear relapse of significant proportions.

By now, I'm sure everyone has seen the industry's slick advertisements in which kids are flying kites, playing on swings, and blowing bubbles in an idyllic field far away from any nuclear cooling towers or radioactive storage pools. While the industry has tried to reinvent itself since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the disaster at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, it hasn't been able to shake the pesky facts that continue to plague nuclear power. Those facts fall into three categories: cost, waste, safety.

While we'll eventually get to discussing each of these problems in turn, I just wanted to point out the latest concern raised by private investors about the risks of nuclear power. Standard & Poors, the credit rating company, continues to raise serious financial concerns about nuclear power. For years, the company (in conjunction with much of Wall Street) has rejected the financials of nuclear power.

The bottom-line is that the industry knows that it won't be able to build another plant in this country without significant federal subsidies.

Which really brings us to the main issue: what energy sources will the federal government support with its limited budget? We've already spent tens of billions of dollars subsidizing the nuclear industry over the past fifty years--and still the industry is back for more. Will we continue to invest in dangerous and outdated technologies or will we finally get serious about investing in clean alternatives?