Go green; get nukes

Reviewing existing plants for safety flaws is, naturally, a reasonable response to the disaster in Japan — it would have been reasonable even without this impetus — and temporarily halting the construction of new plants to ensure that all safety guidelines are met is only prudent. But it is widely speculated that many of those German power plants won’t come back online, and America hasn’t built a new nuclear plant since Three Mile Island. Mysterious words like “radiation poisoning” and “nuclear cloud” are hardly going to help matters.

There are only 443 nuclear power plants currently operational on this planet; a further 150 controlled fission reactors power naval vessels, so about one-quarter of “nuclear power plants,” broadly-construed, are currently at sea. The signal difficulties with nuclear power are the disposal of nuclear waste, the expense of building new plants and the bad image generated by Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima.

Of those 443 land-based plants, the median age is 27 years old (i.e., Cold War-era) and because the typical nuclear reactor is only designed for an operating life of 40 years, we will soon have to decide what to do about their replacement. Power plants cannot be built overnight; the fastest-built nuclear plants take at least four years to construct. Delays for permits can take longer.

The case against nuclear power is simple: it is expensive to build a nuclear power plant. Finland is one of the few countries currently constructing a new nuclear plant. The project was supposed to cost 3.7 billion euros but has already incurred an additional cost of 2.7 billion euros.

The case for nuclear power is more subtle. Perhaps most importantly, nuclear power is the safest known method of producing commercially-viable electricity to large scale. In 2002, the International Energy Agency, a subsidiary body of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, collated estimates of deaths-per-kilowatt-generated by different types of power generation. Although estimates varied widely for coal and hydroelectric power, one conclusion was inescapable: Even when incorporating the 9,000 deaths directly attributed to Chernobyl, nuclear power is safer than natural gas, hydroelectric power and coal. When nuclear power plants go haywire, the world press descends in a burst of media glare. But the 13,000 American deaths attributed to burnt coal particles every year go quietly unmentioned.

Nuclear power is also an important method for controlling carbon emissions. In 2009, power generators emitted roughly 9 billion tons of carbon dioxide, out of an industrial total of 30 billion (according to The Economist). The best estimate is that nuclear power spared us about 2 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide generated, which is 22 percent of the total carbon emissions due to power generation. This is why Patrick Moore, a cofounder of Greenpeace, finally came out in favor of nuclear power as an essential element in any green solution to our renewable energy problem.

The most typical argument against nuclear power is the problem of nuclear waste, though the French have been inventing new techniques for circumventing this difficulty. Many nuclear reactors employ uranium-235, a fissile isotope of the more common U-238. After a typical cycle in a contemporary nuclear reactor, the U-235 has been “spent,” though more than 95 percent of the original uranium is salvaged from the reactor core (plus plutonium generated through the fission reaction). So far, America has hesitated to recycle the uranium, often because this process is expensive. But re-enriching the uranium to fissile levels would significantly reduce the quantity of radioactive waste to be disposed, besides reducing the relative levels of ionizing radioactivity in the final product.

Nuclear reactors, like airplanes, must be subject to strict safety standards to ensure that their tremendous potential does not accidentally rebound against its employers. But after Sept. 11, no one suggested that planes should be permanently banned from the skies. Nor should America and other countries hesitate to use nuclear power wisely, as one component in a diversified portfolio of energy resources. Wind is fickle, water uncertain and solar power impractical in many regions during winter. Until we develop commercially viable fusion power plants, fission remains our safest, most efficient option for the mass generation of electricity. I understand the political impulse to speak strongly against nuclear power when its popularity is falling, but politicians are meant to lead as well as to serve. I would hope that statespersons like Germany’s Angela Merkel would reconsider their hasty posturing and turn to more constructive endeavors, like encouraging spent fuel reprocessing and researching fusion technology. Fission power has its problems, but its record on safety is exemplary.