In regard of recent support of the idea of nuclear power being a great idea
because it cuts greenhouse emissions, it isn’t. It isn’t because the down-side of
the one in a million chance of an accident is a million times worse than we can
cope with. It isn’t because there’s not a good solution to the problems of waste
transport, waste treatment, terrorist use of by-products. But most of all it isn’t
because it’s simply not economically sensible compared with green alternatives.
20% to 70% more expensive than wind 200% to 1000% more expensive than
cogeneration and efficiency savings.
It’s hard to get good numbers because the nuclear industry spends a lot of effort
muddying the waters in the same way the tobacco lobby did for years. Like the
tobacco lobby they pay scientists, but here’s an excerpt from a newly published
paper by a respected energy researcher of at least 20 years standing, Amory B.
Lovins
“Nuclear power is an inherently limited way to protect the climate, because it makes electricity,
whose generation releases only two-fifths of U.S. CO2 emissions; it must run steadily rather than
varying widely with loads as many power plants must; and its units are too big for many smaller
countries or rural users. But nuclear power is a still less helpful climate solution because it’s
about the slowest option to deploy (in capacity or annual output added per year) – as observed
market behavior confirms – and the most costly. Its higher cost than competitors, per unit of net
CO2 displaced, means that every dollar invested in nuclear expansion will worsen climate change
by buying less solution per dollar. Specifically, every $0.10 spent to buy a single new nuclear
kilowatt-hour (roughly its delivered cost, including its 2004 subsidies, according to the authorita-
tive 2003 MIT study’s findings expressed in 2004 $) could instead have bought 1.2 to 1.7 kWh
of windpower (“firmed” to be available whenever desired), 0.9 to 1.7+ kWh of gas-fired industri-
al or ~2.2–6.5+ kWh of building-scale cogeneration (adjusted for their CO2 emissions), an infin-
ite number of kWh from waste-heat cogeneration (since its economic cost is typically negative),
or at least several, perhaps upwards of ten, kWh of electrical savings from more efficient use. In
this sense of “opportunity cost” – any investment foregoes other outcomes that could have been
bought with the same money – nuclear power is far more carbon-intensive than a coal plant.
For these reasons, expanding nuclear power would both reduce and retard the desired decrease in
CO2 emissions. Claims that more nuclear plants are needed to protect Earth’s climate thus cannot
withstand documented analysis or be reconciled with actual market choices. If you are concerned
about climate change, it is essential to buy the fastest and most effective climate solutions.
Nuclear power is just the opposite. Claimed broad “green” support for nuclear expansion, if real
(which it’s not), would therefore be unsound and counterproductive. And efforts to “revive” this
moribund technology, already killed by market competition, only waste time and
money. “
Also, from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service
“In the 1970′s nuclear power cost half as much as electricity from coal burning: by 1990
nuclear power cost twice as much as electricity from coal burning (Slingerland et al, 2004).
Today the costs of nuclear power are estimated to be about $0.05-0.07/kWh making it, on
average, between 2 and 4 times more expensive than electricity generated by burning fossil
fuels.
Compared with some modern renewable energy sources, nuclear power has mixed fortunes: for
example it is more expensive than wind, about the same price as hydroelectric power and
cogeneration with gasified wood, and cheaper than solar energy using photovoltaic (PV) cells
(Ã…ko Institute, 1997). However, while the costs of nuclear power are rising, those associated
with renewable energy sources are falling rapidly as they are relatively new and rapid
progress is currently being made in reducing costs and increasing efficiency. In the case of
nuclear power the costs are rising and are likely to continue rising for the foreseeable future.
This is partly because the nuclear industry has been heavily subsidized by governments in the
past meaning that some of the costs have been excluded from the price, but have been paid
for by the taxpayer.”
It’s should be really obvious that large scale expensive solutions, while good
for the corporations that build them, make little sense compared to small scale
local generation like solar, cogeneration and efficiency savings. It’s never going
to be obvious to the economic rationalists, however, so it’s necessary that those
of us who haven’t subscribed to the religion of giving bigger profits to the big
end of town cast a critical eye over the solutions the powers that be suggest.