The so called “nuclear
revival” that was rolling along nicely before March, 2011 was succeeding
without much opposition largely because it was deemed the necessary way to
diminish the impact of global warming. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were distant
memories, and the nuclear industry seemed to have learned how to manage this
dangerous form of power generation.
This view changed
drastically when three reactors in Fukushima melted down after the Japanese
nuclear industry had failed to prepare for the easily foreseeable hazard of a
tsunami. A skeptical public now doubts that any culture can safely manage the
complexity of nuclear power that involves the unwieldy framework of finance,
regulation and engineering that is so prone to corruption and error. In other
industries, accidents can be dealt with and relatively contained, but a single
nuclear accident has enormous potential for widespread ecological and social
destruction. There is no room for error.
However, we are
being asked to accept the “allowable risk” of nuclear energy because of the
insistence that nuclear energy has the potential to save us from global
warming. Unfortunately, this is a false hope.
At present, nuclear
energy provides about 14% of the world’s electricity, and it is not conceivable
that this share could grow significantly. The possibility of growth is
constrained by the shrinking supply of uranium, and the hesitations of voters,
investors and insurers to back new projects. A gas turbine generator can be
built in a short period, but it takes over a decade for a new nuclear plant to
go through design, approval and construction, and there is too much uncertainty
involved now for anyone to make a bet on continuing down the nuclear path. Even
if some projects go ahead in spite of the obstacles, it is hard to see world
supply going much above the present 14%.
So the question
becomes this: Do we want one problem or two? When the sea levels rise and
coastlines are hit with hurricanes of unprecedented strength, do you want the
problems to be compounded by your local nuclear power plant having a station blackout
followed by a meltdown?
One might argue
that we could have a power supply made of 20% nuclear, combined with 20%
reductions in carbon dioxide, and additions of alternative energy, and this
combination would give us time to save the planet, or invent a way to do fusion
energy. However, the nature of human development is such that, even when there are energy efficiency gains, there is an overall increase in energy use. Carbon dioxide output
will continue to climb with or without a nuclear supplement. The paradox was
first described by William S. Jevons in 1865:
“It
is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is
equivalent to diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth. As a
rule, new modes of economy will lead to an increase in consumption.”
Jevons was talking
about coal consumption, but in modern parlance it means that the invention of
the hybrid car leads to more people buying cars, and their owners, delighted by
the thought that they are using clean energy, driving them farther.
The pro-nuclear argument assumes that this growing demand is inevitable and even good for reducing unemployment and other social problems. Christine Todd and Patrick Moore (the latter formerly of Greenpeace), celebrating the licensing of two AP1000 reactors in the U.S., claim, "We need a cost-efficient, low-carbon solution to the nation's increasing electricity demand - projected to rise 24 percent by 2035. Expanding nuclear energy as part of the mix of electricity generation options is necessary to meeting our nation's growing power needs cleanly and cost-effectively." It is significant that increasing demand is defined as inevitable needs rather than controllable desires.
Matt Ridley
discusses the Jevons paradox in The
Rational Optimist, and notes with his own example that he wanted to think
Jevons was wrong, but one day found himself shouting into his cell phone, while
making a non-essential call, in order to talk over the noise of a neighbor
using a leaf blower.
Ridley writes, "Civilization,
like life itself, has always been about capturing energy… human history is a
tale of progressively discovering and diverting sources of energy to support
human lifestyle."
Steam engines began
with 1% efficiency, then efficiency progressed up to 60% in modern gas turbines.
Economists study the energy intensity
of nations as a calculation of watts used per dollar of GDP. Energy intensity
tends to rise as countries go through industrialization, but it then levels
off. The US now has an energy intensity that is one half of its 1950 level.
This is partly due to gains in efficiency, and also due to the loss of
manufacturing that is now done elsewhere. The point is that US GDP is more than
double the 1950 level, so total energy consumption in the US, and in the whole
world, has increased since 1950, in spite of gains in efficiency. This tendency
is forgotten as each new energy technology brings hope that all our energy "needs" will now be fulfilled. When the generators of Niagara were switched on, journalists
gushed about the marvelous future ahead. When the first nuclear generators were
being developed, American nuclear pioneer Lewis Strauss said electricity would
soon be “too cheap to meter.” However, he was referring to the still unrealized
potential of fusion energy. Fission reactors at the time still did not have
proven cost efficiency, and critics insist they never have.
Bill Gates has
invested in a radical
new concept in nuclear reactors which he believes is the only hope for
getting the world to zero
carbon dioxide emissions. This new travelling wave reactor would use spent
fuel already in existence, and have passive-safe features that make accidents
impossible. He has consulted with the experts and he says that in order to save
the world, carbon dioxide emissions can’t be just reduced by some amount. They
have to be brought to zero, but he is an optimist who believes that the
standard of living of the poorest billions in the world can be brought up to
First World levels, and he says energy is essential for delivering the "services" they want. Green
alternatives can play a role, according to Gates, but they will never meet the base load demand. According
to Gates' plan, if the timing of this energy input comes before ecosystems
collapse, the standard of living of the poor will increase, birth rates will
level off as a result of development, and world population will stabilize, or
even decline.
Somehow, this all starts
to sound like a pipe dream, and the details Gates provides about the traveling
wave reactor raise more questions than they answer. In the same way that he developed Windows software in isolation, in a private enterprise, he
seems to not want skeptics to raise questions, or hack or crowd-source the system
he proposes. Furthermore, like he did with numerous versions of Windows, he is
willing to put this technology into use first, without any regard for the
problems that may come after sales. (Reactor makers are infamous for transferring
after-sale liability to the buyer. Any future accidents become the
responsibility of the plant owners and operators, which they pass on to citizens.) It is one thing to do this
with software, but quite another to do it with a nuclear power plant. Bitter
experience has shown that operators are loathe to fix mistakes when they are
found after the plants have been built. Bill Gates is not even trying to get
the reactors approved in the US because he knows he would face regulatory
hurdles and the hindrances of the democratic process.
The questions about
this technology seem obvious. How many reactors would you need to build to
bring global carbon dioxide output to zero? Could you get that much fuel? The
reactor uses spent fuel, but what hazards are involved in handling the spent
spent fuel? If the vision is to have hundreds or thousands of these reactors
spread around the world, some of them small and rather portable, how does this
solve the present threat of accidents, storage leaks, theft of nuclear fuel, or
deliberate sabotage? We were fooled once before into thinking we could steal
the fire of the atom without having to pay a price, so what’s different this
time? In light of what has happened in 70 years of nuclear history, it seems
extremely ill-advised to hope for anything more from nuclear energy. It was an
experiment the human race tried but should now walk away from. Perhaps it
bridged a gap and offset carbon emissions, but it is time to recognize the
grave hazards and make nuclear energy taboo.
It would be better
to recognize the limits to growth and get serious about finding a level of
sustainable energy use. Alternative energies will not be able to supply us with
everything we want. In fact, the unrestrained growth of renewable energy would
have a negative human and environmental impact. The focus will have to shift to
using less energy and controlling population growth before the hypothetical time when everyone
will be up to the present First World standard of comfort. It is standard
development philosophy that people in the Third World need electricity in order
to have any hope, but this view may be wrong. Perhaps there are forms of justice
and prosperity that don’t require everyone getting hooked up to the grid. The
human race lived a long time without it, and may do so again. Finland is building a nuclear
storage facility that presupposes that for 100,000 years its design needs to warn away a
future race of people who are technologically undeveloped, perhaps illiterate, and
speaking a language that does not yet exist. This presumption, arrived at by the
engineers designing the Onkalo Waste
Repository, is a sharp contrast to Bill Gates’ rosy vision of the future.
Sources:
“Abundant Power from
Atom Seen; It will be too cheap for our children to meter, Strauss tells
science writers,” New York Times,
Sept. 17, 1954, p. 5.
Jevons, S. (1865) The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines. Macmillan, p. 103.
Madsen, M. (dir.)(2009) Into Eternity.
Moore, P., Todd-Whitman, C. New Reactors Signal U.S. Nuclear Energy Resurgence, February 10, 2012.
Ridley, Matt (2010) The Rational Optimist. Harper Perennial.
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