Nuclear Power in American Energy Strategy

The following is a posting by Guest Author Russell Lowes:

The media the Southeastern U.S. is pushing the resurgence of nuclear power as the solution to America's energy future quite uncritically. That may be because the epicenter for the new nuclear power industry is the old south, stretching from the Carolinas to Florida and Texas. The "new" vision for a nuclear-powered America is a re-hash of President Nixon’s plan for 1000 nuclear power plants, demonstrated by the promotional mantra the Bushies have rolled out:

"We need a thousand nukes."

While the media is hopping in Dixie, the media here in Arizona are nearly mute on this issue. Why? It could be because Arizona's only commercial nuclear plant has the worst U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety record in the country. It may be that John McCain wants to make it a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, and major media outlets here aren't willing to piss in his well. Or it could be because the conglomerates who own our media are giving Arizona Public Service, the manager of Palo Verde, the largest nuke in the nation (The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station has three reactors, with a total of 3810 megawatts output), time to get its financial house in order.

There is a lot of money at stake in reawakening the atomic power industry. Trillions, to be somewhat exact. Tens of them, to be still more exact. The industrial giants who stand to profit from a revivified nuclear power industry are seeking to bring the industry back from the economic grave it has mouldered in since the 1980s. Their aspirations indicate that, just as the planners of Iraq failed to internalize the lessons of Vietnam, nuclear industry boosters have failed to understand the reasons why the industry died the first time.

Let's examine the push for reawakening the nuclear industry through a very personal analysis. What might it do to you and I for nuclear energy to once again become a significant part of America's energy infrastructure?

Mortgage Tax Credit? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Mortgage Credit...

The Bush Administration wants the U.S. to build 1000 reactors. The last program, which built only 100 reactors, turned out to be an economic disaster, with billions and billions of dollars worth of nuclear plants canceled and more operating at steep subsidies. That orgy of reactor building left the ratepayers in those service areas, and taxpayers throughout America, under a heavy debt load to pay for the excesses of the power companies.

The atomic energy industry and the federal government are up to their old tricks again, but are even more audacious since they can count on the acquiescence and cooperation of an Administration that could care less about the public good. The industry and their enablers in this Administration are promising that it will be less expensive to build plants in the future than it was in the 1980s, knowing full well that construction cost overruns in the industry will once again be on the order of hundreds of percent, just as they were in the 1970s and 1980s.

Their scheme to pocket trillions in publicly subsidized construction costs threatens to cost you more than you save as a consequence of the tax credit for interest payments on your mortgage. Assuming you own, or are going to own a house, and your interest payments are a very modest $800 per month, or $9600 per year, the cost to you personally as a taxpayer to underwrite this nuclear building boom will far outstrip the tax savings homeownership affords you. If your mortgage is costing you $9600 per year in interest, the tax savings would likely be 20% of that, or $1920: call it $2,000 for simplicity.

One thousand atomic energy plants would cost you, and every other taxpayer, well over $2,000 per year. Those 1000 reactors would cost $5 trillion, conservatively. There is no way that ratepayers are going to be able to afford to finance this capital outlay through bonds or rate hikes, so the U.S. Government will have to step in to underwrite the program. When you add to the $5 trillion construction all the interest cost, taxes, insurance, the construction capital of these plants will cost well over $22.5 trillion over the next 40 years. If America’s average population during this time is 350 million people, the cost per person per year will be at least $2,143 per person per year. This is just for capital payback.Throw in the fuel cost, operation and maintenance and waste costs and you have trillions more to give away to the nuclear industry. Say goodbye to your home mortgage tax credit. With $2,143 per person per year going toward an outdated nuclear energy program, there may not be much money left for mortgage interest write-offs, or for sane energy options. And perhaps we can also forget any hope to afford national health care, serious investments in our educational system, public transportation, or any badly needed new government initiatives. Medicare, Social Security, and benefits for our armed services personnel could even be on the block to make room in the budget for such a big ticket item as Bush's 1000 new nukes.

We can't afford this Administration's pipe-dream to line the pockets of another favored industry. The alternative to such lightheaded thinking is to invest in the proven technologies of energy efficiencies, renewable power sources, while reducing our use of fossil fuels. Only one sixth of the power supplied in this country is supplied as electricity. The rest is supplied by car engines, space heating with gas, combined cycle heat production, etc. With only one sixth of our energy in electricity, and $750 billion per year going to supply less than one half of that sixth (i.e., less than one twelfth), how will we be able to afford development of other energy resources? We simply won’t. America's current total energy costs, including electrical generation and every other form of energy use, are about $900 billion per year. These “public servants” want to us to spend another $750 billion per year for 30 years, just to supply less than 8% of our total energy needs. Obviously, it will impossible for ratepayers to finance these sorts of outlays, to imagine that such a thing is even possible without a full-scale consumer revolt is absurd. Looked at in this bottom line fashion, the idea of supplying America's future energy needs with nukes just doesn't pencil out.

As you might guess, the backers of this multi-trillion dollar plan have a massive misinformation campaign. Pollution on the web is frequently found. So where do you go for decent information on nuclear energy? Here are some high-quality website addresses to browse, for starters:

http://www.nirs.org/
http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20050803/Introduction.pdf (PDF Download)

Just What is the Value of $750 Billion Per Year?

-- The total annual energy budget of the U.S. is about 7% of GDP, or roughly $900 Billion per year.

-- This $750 billion is equal to 6% of the total $13 trillion 2006 Gross Domestic Product.

-- 128% of $586 billion Social Security budget for 2006

-- 179% of the $419 billion U.S. Department of Defense budget for 2006

-- 13 times of the $56 billion U.S. Department of Education budget for 2006

-- The war in Iraq is expected by some to cost $1.5 trillion by the time it is completed, IF it is completed relatively soon. This is two years of construction capital payback for 1000 nukes. If these figures pan out, building 1000 nukes will be like funding 15 Iraq wars over 30 years.

On a final note, if each 8% of our energy cost $750 billion per year (not to mention the extras like fuel cost), the dollars for energy in America would be roughly $9.4 TRILLION per year, instead of the current $900 billion we spend on energy.

Russell J. Lowes, a financial management consultant and the Research Director for Power Plant Analysts, is the primary author of a book on the nation’s largest nuclear plant upwind of Phoenix, “Energy Options for the Southwest, Part I, Nuclear and Coal Power." The book played a principal part in the cancellation of two additional reactors at the Palo Verde plant. He can be reached at russ3lowes@netscape.net

With how energy needs are changing learning about Earth's ecology as a child is becoming as important as doing some math worksheets to learn Algebra or even just coloring and having fun with coloring pages to keep the learning process going.

Comments

[Eric McErlain]

Excuse me for differing with Mr. Lowes, but I'd like to know where he's getting his information about plans to build 1,000 new nuclear plants in the U.S. alone.

To get a better idea of what I'm talking about, it's probably a good idea to review some basics, for instance, the fact that there are only 103 nuclear power plants operating in the U.S. today, 453 worldwide. For Mr. Lowes to claim that there were 1,000 projects on the drawing board worldwide would be laughable, to make that claim about projects in the U.S. is completely preposterous.

For a complete list of possible sites, click here:

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=344

For more pro-nuclear talk from a progressive/liberal perspective, see the following:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/22/202710/47

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/19/223627/400

[Robert Palgrave]

SOLAR, NOT NUCLEAR

There is absolutely no need for nuclear power in the US because there is a simple mature technology available that can deliver huge amounts of clean energy without any of the headaches of nuclear power.

I refer to 'concentrating solar power' (CSP), the technique of concentrating sunlight using mirrors to create heat, and then using the heat to raise steam and drive turbines and generators, just like a conventional power station. It is possible to store solar heat in melted salts so that electricity generation may continue through the night or on cloudy days. This technology has been generating electricity successfully in California since 1985 and half a million Californians currently get their electricity from this source. CSP plants are now being planned or built in many parts of the world.

CSP works best in hot deserts and it is feasible and economic to transmit solar electricity over very long distances using highly-efficient 'HVDC' transmission lines. With transmission losses at about 3% per 1000 km, solar electricity may be transmitted to anywhere in the US. A recent report from the American Solar Energy Society says that CSP plants in the south western states of the US "could provide nearly 7,000 GW of capacity, or about seven times the current total US electric capacity".

In the 'TRANS-CSP' report commissioned by the German government, it is estimated that CSP electricity, imported from North Africa and the Middle East, could become one of the cheapest sources of electricity in Europe, including the cost of transmission. A large-scale HVDC transmission grid has also been proposed by Airtricity as a means of optimising the use of wind power throughout Europe.

Further information about CSP may be found at www.trec-uk.org.uk and www.trecers.net . Copies of the TRANS-CSP report may be downloaded from www.trec-uk.org.uk/reports.htm . The many problems associated with nuclear power are summarised at www.mng.org.uk/green_house/no_nukes.htm .

[Russell Lowes]

Regarding the post from Eric McErlain on the 1000 nuclear plants. . . One source for this information on where the Bush Administration is promoting 1000 new nuclear plants is in an article called "Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Power," in the American Indian publication called "Indian Country Today." The Indian nations are very interested in what goes on with nuclear power, because they have perhaps been negatively impacted by this energy form more than others. The web address is:
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1022253815
More on this later!

[Russell Lowes]

Regarding the post from Robert Palgrave, good information--I have been involved with solar energy issues since the 1970s and was the Administrative Director for the Arizona Solar Energy Association in the early 1980s. CSPs have been around in California and the Southwest since at least 1979! They were used for pump irrigation that early, as well as for water heating. Thanks for posting the websites. Additionally, the cost of PV cells are still up there, but the costs have been coming down quickly. Energy efficiency opportunities are enormous, and costs have been dropping quickly. You might also want to check out Rocky Mountain Institute, started by Amory Lovins, for a view of what is going on with many of the energy options.

[Michael Bryan]

I gotta say that having read the article Russ references, I don't see any substantive proposal on the table for 1,000 new nukes. The article merely uses the Nixonian goal as a hyperbolistic figure, saying Bush policies make the specter of 1,000 new plants more realistic. The author of the article is largely responsible for the figure, not the Administration.

[Michael Bryan]

Personally, I think much of our immediate needs for electrical production will be supplied by so-called 'clean coal'. America is has some of the largest coal deposits in the world (often we are referred to as the Saudi Arabia of coal) and it is a proven technology with good financials. Unfortunately, while may of the pollution problems of burning coal have been addressed or minimized, the problem of CO2 emissions is very much still problematic. With millions of voters clamoring for power, I fear that even Democratic politicians will look the other way as more and more coal generating capacity is brought online.

[Dwight D. Leister: Chair: Committee To Elect]

The solution is LOCAL NOT REGIONAL power production. As technology enables groups of homes or businesses to produce there own power and return power to the grid as I have had Solar Panels that have provided enough power to my home that it returned power BACK to the grid so the power meter was going BACKWARDS! It could be hydrogen, solar, wind,etc. I warn against relying on Coal no matter how much we have in the ground. Coal Mining is dangerous and in the areas where it is located are large amounts of uranium deposits and natural gas. We need to think out of the box about electrical power as we are were stuck on the Edison Light bulb since its invention, now going to condesent light bulbs that if put into use today would elimenate the need for Palo Verde altogether.

[Dwight D. Leister: Chair: Committee To Elect]

As a Life Long Enviornmentalist fighting Open Pit Mining South of Tucson that has Destroyed The Water Table of The Santa Cruz Valley and is Effecting Tucsons Water with Toxins that are causing cancer ;I can NOT believe Mike would support Strip Mining of Eastern States that cause massive enviornmental damage yet letting ANWAR sit pristine ,full of OIL reserves , untuchable because of the rights of wandering herds of deer?

[Michael Bryan]

Dwight, what the hell are you on about? Just because I think it is likely that coal will be used to meet much of our electricity in the needs in the near future, does not mean I SUPPORT the practice, let alone the strip mining practices the industry uses. And yes, I DO support letting ANWR sit pristine, full of oil and untouchable. That's rather the point of a wildlife reserve...

[Dwight D. Leister: Chair: Committee To Elect]

Cause AND Effect; I read Nothing in your report that played down the Strip Mining for Coal of the Eastern States as Robert Kennedy JR. has talked about with each State Government and Offiail saying; "Why Did You Let Them Do That"?

Iam NOT "ON" anything I just know the facts that are driving the debate behind the scenes AGAINST MORE COAL PRODUCTION;(STRIP MIMING) AS YOU ARE AGAINST MORE NUCLEAR POWER PRODUCTION.