I'm not absolutely opposed to nuclear power and would tend to agree with Rafael's points but two of them require clairifcation:

1/ Storage of nuclear material in glass is not as safe as once thought. Recent research has shown that the glass degrades at a much faster rate than expected. Don't ask me for a reference, I read it in the newspaper a few months back.

2/ Nuclear power is far from CO2 neutral. Building the plants requires thousands of tonnes of concrete and concrete manufacture is just about the most CO2 intensive manufacturing process on the planet apart from aluminium. Uranium mining and processing is also very C02 intensive. As demand for uranium increases and miners start to turn to lower grade ores then the energy intensity will increase.

The reactors in the post are said to have a 60 year lifespan. Many believe we have about 40 years supply of high grade ore left. After that you're stuck with some extremely expensive and toxic stranded assets.

Having said all that there may be a case to be made for an emergency program to switch from coal to nuclear generated electricity for the sake of the clmate if serious attention is given to solving the problems. Anythings got to be better than burning coal.

Alberta does not have many other acceptable options.

NG is running out.

Using fuel extracted from tar sands would compound the GHG produced by the total process and reduce end product quantities.

Using local low quality coal could even be worse.

Wind or Sun power does not have the required continuity.

A combination of Nuclear + Wind turbines + Solar farms may satisfy most requirements on a full time basis without adding too much GHG.

Regarless of which combination is used, Nuclear seems to be indicated for core energy production.

Most fears of nuclear power power don't take into account new design like Pebble bed reactors and sub-critical reactors that are not only melt down proof but actually eat existing nuclear waste. Solar/wind/water are inconsistent forms of energy that need a continues back up like nuclear to insure regularity. Fears of nuclear power usually don't consider how much damage has been done by non-nuclear sources of energy like fossil fuels, which in fact is far greater. The small amount of radioactive waste and even the nuclear accidents is nothing compared to the millions and billions of metric tons of CO2, SO2, carcinogenic particulates, thorium and uranium spit up by burning coal. In fact more people have probably died from coal based air pollution then from nuclear contamination. Fear of nuclear power is often irrational and based on the image of a mushroom cloud.

Industry mouthpieces out in force, as always.

"Solar and wind are inconsistent. Fusion would enable a constant source of power.

It makes sense to invest in both (renewable & fusion) at the same time but regardless of how much money you throw at it (fusion research), you still need the time and knowledgeable researchers to advance the technology."

I hear an echo.

"Nuclear has much to offer: Particle bed reactors are melt-down proof, 55% efficient and use fuel in silicon carbide coconuts so tough that there is no need for a containment dome and once spent all that needed is to bury the nuts somewhere. Only problem is people's irrational fear of nuclear power despite the fact that coal has pumped up more radioactive material (thorium and uranium in coal ash) and cause far more damage world wide to public and environmental health."

Another echo.

Nuclear mouthpieces love using the word "irrational." Reminds me of Gingrich's list of "contrasting words." Same phraseology, over and over.

Jack,

You are not being constructive. Your shouts of "nuclear mouthpiece" at anyone who dares to speak in favor of nuclear power is juvenile tantrum throwing, and doesn't belong here.

Cervus, I mentioned reprocessing, and I'm all for it. But the industry is not doing it because it's against current government policy (courtesy of Carter). They need to build the reprocessing plants first, then we'll know they're serious about sustainability. I don't see it happening. It's a 5-10 year lead time even if they had the permits now, which they don't and it's not even being discussed.

The tar-sand companies use natural gas (NG) to get hydrogen for upgrading the crappy, dirty tar. Why not start setting up wind turbines for hydrogen electrolosys to supplement the NG? Add capacity gradually and gain experience with reliability.

One of the virtues of hydrogen (supposedly) is that it can be stored. You only need enough storage to smoothe out the intermittency of wind power, and/or supplement with NG.

Tar-sands production seems to me like exactly the kind of business that can accomodate a minor intermittent energy input.

"Most fears of nuclear power don't take into account new designs like Pebble bed reactors and sub-critical reactors that are not only melt down proof but actually eat existing nuclear waste. "

PBMRs (pebble beds) do not eat existing waste. they are based on the same wasteful once-through fuel cycle as the rest of the industry. Subcritical reactors are just that, designs, one has never been built. the costs involved are unknown but expected to be very high and the technical challanges remaining are considerable.

For those tossing around James Lovelock as an appeal to authority, they should read "Revenge of Gaia". There he posits that 80% of the current world population will be wiped out very soon, and the survivors will have to retreat to the Poles to survive. Basically, it's Mad Max 4. I'm not saying he's a loon, but....

not being constructive
shouts of "nuclear mouthpiece"
juvenile tantrum throwing

Ah, you're a troll. Makes sense now.

@Lad- "Still trying to figure out the switch grass connections."
Big Biomass Lobby? Nuclear energy definitely has its place, and I can tell you exactly where it is: Somewhere other than my backyard.
But in all seriousness, nuclear is certainly going to be part of the mix, on a global basis at least, for a long time. France, for example, gets upwards of 80% of its power from nuclear. But this need not be the case in North America. We get less than 20% of our electricity from nuclear plants, most of which are pretty old, and unlike some parts of the planet, we have a wide variety of alternatives from which to choose, not the least of which is all the energy we can potentially conserve. Considering our current position and lack of inertia in the domestic nuclear industry (at least before the current administration), I would think the common sense approach would be to expand conservation programs and renewables, invest in cleaning up coal, and leave other nations to deal with the headaches of nuke-you-lar. Westinghouse can make nice profits oversees installing modern nuclear plants. If we ever get in a crunch for power, we have a nice large stockpile of aging nuclear weapons, and nuclear waste that can be reprocessed using technology which will have been field tested abroad, and in the meantime, we can make some cash exporting Uranium to countries like France who depend on it, instead of using it in old, inefficient plants.

Thanks to Rafael for constructively laying out common reasons for opposition to nuclear power. We see that these objections are political and economic problems and are therefore soluble problems: the world *will* solve them when the situation becomes desperate enough.

And it will become desperate, because the world's energy problem is precisely about increasing supply while containing global warming. Sustaining nine billion people at a modern standard of living at a Western European/Japanese standard of energy efficiency will require increasing the world's energy supply by about a factor of four. It is physically impossible to conserve our way into that future of economic justice. No known feasible technology permits capturing and sequestering for a usefully long time enough CO2 to prevent global warming (in 2005 burning coal alone released ten thousand cubic miles of CO2; we would have to capture and semipermanently hold more than 1,000 cubic miles of CO2 every year in order to halt anthropogenic global warming). Quadrupling energy supplies with renewables alone would be much more expensive than doing it with safe, clean nuclear power.

The sooner we accept the scale of the problems involved the sooner we will accept the necessary solutions. We should do this before we drown the world's coastal cities and create half a billion refugees.

Quadrupling energy supplies with renewables alone would be much more expensive than doing it with safe, clean nuclear power.

Safe! Clean! Too cheap to meter! We need to quadruple energy output!

Signed,
The 50s

From the article:

2,200 MW
60-year design life

From Mark:
"First, the proposed cost of this plant is $ 6.2 Billion ..."

From the Canadian Tire catalog:

View larger image

Deferred Payment

See More Wind Energy

Whisper 100 Wind Turbine
$2,999.99 = $3K
950W of power at 45km.hr winds

120W Solar Panel
Delivers 120W of power in peak sunlight
$1,099.99 = $1.1K

Now in a large installation economies of scale would cut these prices in half, so:
turbine@950W = $1.5K
panel@120W = $0.5K

Compared to this nuclear plant that generates 2200MW:

2,200,000 KW / 0.95 KW = 2,315,789 turbines
2,200,000 KW / 0.12 KW = 18,333,333 panels
(NOTE: I am using PEAK output so I am being VERY generous)

2,315,789 turbines x $1.5K = $3473683.5K = $3.5B for turbines
18,333,333 x $0.5K = $9166666.5K = $9.1B

So this nuke @$6.2B is in between turbines and solar panels.

However, nukes clearly have a much higher maintenance and fuel costs. On the other hand, both turbines and panels have very high upfront land costs, infrastructure costs (wiring, transformers, etc) plus some maintenance (damage from the elements).

In fact, no one anywhere in the world has demonstrated the ability to acquire such a large chunk of land and actually deploy so many turbines/panels without any regulatory or other legal problems. On the contrary I keep reading about land owners complaining and fighting against turbines all the time (much smaller installations too).

I am the biggest fan of turbines and solar panels. However, they simply cannot provide a steady supply of power at such a massive level (MWs). No way no how. It just cannot be done today.

Of course, installing smaller capacity systems consisting of turbines and panels would be good, but would not remove the original problem - lack of massive amounts of power these projects need.

As others pointed out nukes have problems as well, such as waste. Still it is a lesser evil compared to coal and other alternatives, which are limited in Alberta.

So stop dreaming about turbines and panels. They won't server industrial users any time soon. They will work well for residential use, households that generally have much more modest needs.

In the meantime oil industry has few choices - nukes, coal, natural gas. Anything else?

Lesser evil! Massive amounts of power! Dreamers! Steady supply!

The "lesser evil" argument is fallacious on its face. There are more than two choices.

The mere fact that we're processing tar sands is insane -- a reflection of our unceasing addiction to unsustainable energy (ie, anything not renewable, including nuclear).

It is not "dreaming" to know that we can live well and live sustainably.

The "steady supply" argument is negated by grid compensation and storage mechanisms. It's the dumbest argument out there against renewables.

As for the economic questions, we've faced multiple fold increases in energy prices in a few short years, yet the world economy didn't collapse. Yet people will come here and shave pennies while ignoring the extreme differences in environmental effects/legacies of the choices they support.

Our grandchildren are going to hate us if we chose to give them a very damaged world because we couldn't pony up a penny or two.

Wow, what a collection of hoary old fallacies, from both sides.

over 60 years after the first commercial nuclear reactors came on stream, there is still no viable solution for the long-term storage of waste

Surface or near-surface storage in armored casks is quite viable, even for long-term storage. You should take the glacial pace of deep geologic storage in the US as evidence that it isn't really needed.

Nuclear power is far from CO2 neutral. Building the plants requires thousands of tonnes of concrete and concrete manufacture is just about the most CO2 intensive manufacturing process on the planet apart from aluminium. Uranium mining and processing is also very C02 intensive.

The actual numbers show that nuclear would have similar CO2 emission per unit of energy produced as 'renewable' sources, and much lower than fossil sources. Beware of biased analyses that assume the use of inefficient gaseous diffusion enrichment and that assume (for no honest reason) that such plants must be powered by electricity from coal.

Many believe we have about 40 years supply of high grade ore left.

And many believe that much larger sources will be brought online, and that seawater uranium extraction can be commercialized at a cost per unit of uranium not much above current spot market prices. This produces no mine tailings and will last for many centuries, even without reprocessing.

But the industry is not doing [reprocessing] because it's against current government policy (courtesy of Carter).

No, they're not doing reprocessing because it's economically ludicrous. There was a commercial reprocessing plant in the US that shut down after six years because it couldn't make its business case close. Uranium would have to become much more expensive than even the recent elevated spot market prices in order for reprocessing to start to make economic sense.

Well of course we are selfish and have unlimited appetite for things, including oil. Sure, we are doing all kinds of damage to environment, etc. The fact remains that there is not way today to tell people in Alberta not to mine for oil. There is no way to stop them building coal based power planets. etc.

I DO think that at some point as the proce of oil continues to climb we WILL change our habits and switch to hybrids, even start installing turbines and solar panels. However it does seem to be taking a long time. Worst of all we seem to find it easier to wage wars (Iraq) for oil than seek better answers (solar).

My point is that instead of fighting wars (Iraq) or building a bunch of new coal plants (Texas util) Albertans are at least going with the least offensive and least polluting option - nukes.

Simply stating that everyone should go solar is not a realistic option.

The fact remains that there is not way today to tell people in Alberta not to mine for oil. There is no way to stop them building coal based power planets. etc.

No way? So Canada doesn't have a government that sets the terms of its society? I didn't know that.

Simply stating that everyone should go solar is not a realistic option.

"Irrational"
"Juvenile"
"Feasible"
"Realistic"
etc

Like I was saying about Gingrich's list.

No one is saying that solar alone is the solution. Please don't construct strawmen.

The actual numbers show that nuclear would have similar CO2 emission per unit of energy produced as 'renewable' sources

Where are these "actual numbers"?

Opinions on nuclear power are too polarized to be able to have a reasonable dialog in a forum like this. Rafael, at least, knows what he's talking about, but so does Paul Dietz--and they come out on opposite sides of the issue. I was a little disappointed to see Rafael raising the Chernobyl spectre; the Chernobyl reactors used a design that was singularly dangerous, and has never been used outside the FSU. A repeat of Chernobyl is simply not a credible scenario for any of the designs that are candidates for new reactors.

One comment regarding the PBMR fuel cycle: although it's a "once thru" cycle, it has a much higher burnup ratio than older reactor designs. As the reactor operates, a significant fraction of the non-fissile U238 gets converted to fissile PU239 and then fissions. The "breeding ratio" is less than 1.0, so there's no net accumulation of plutonium. Spent fuel is not reprocessed. But it does obtain substantially more net energy per pound of uranium than older "once through" cycles.

No, they're not doing reprocessing because it's economically ludicrous. There was a commercial reprocessing plant in the US that shut down after six years because it couldn't make its business case close. Uranium would have to become much more expensive than even the recent elevated spot market prices in order for reprocessing to start to make economic sense.

Paul, I can't believe you're actually making that argument. If reprocessing is uneconomical, then nuclear power is uneconomical. Current policy allows plant operators to store vast quantities of waste on their premises near populated areas. This is insanity.

Things only make sense when viewed from a sustainable perspective. The only reason nuclear power ever seemed remotely like a good deal is because the users of the power weren't paying for the cleanup--and they still aren't. Even burial is not a completely sustainable solution. Who pays for monitoring for 10,000 years? The only way it makes sense to run nuke plants is if we are will to pay the full costs of a complete closed-loop reprocessing operation.

Anything else is old, conservative, bleed-the-planet-dry, let-our-kids-pay-for-it thinking.

A Canadian friend of mine mentioned to me in passing some time ago that Canada is actually "reprocessing" some old US nuclear weapons. Does anyone know anything about this?

Why not use particle accelerator driven subcritical reactor to transmute the waste? Oh because it more economical to just store the waste then to design a new reactor to destroy it, got it.