BirkeyBlog

I recently read an Imprimis article that gave a synopsis of a talk presented at Hillsdale College by William Tucker, a veteran journalist for many publications including the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, the Weekly Standard and more.

Tucker starts by pointing out the political candidates debates about global warming, energy crisis and carbon emissions. He proposes that nuclear energy could serve to help solve these issues.

There are only 103 operating nuclear reactors in the US today, mostly owned by utilities, who also own and run coal-fired power plants. This is relatively small and not much of an existing infrastructure. There is only one steel company in the world that can make the reactor containment vessel, and it is a Japanese company. The company is back-ordered 4 years.

Tucker points out how strange this is for a technology once regarded as American. France, China, Russia Finland and Japan all perceive nuclear power as the best answer for reducing carbon emissions, and battling rising oil prices. Yet the USA remains in a “Three Mile Island” mentality, with our pop stars singing that it is blasphemy to use the atom to make bombs or electricity.

We need to realize that all living things draw draw energy from their environment and then discard “waste.” There is nothing inherently shameful about energy consumption. If this is not true, then every human being is “wasteful” by definition.

All energy ultimately is from our Sun. Plants store energy from the sun, converting it into carbon based molecules. Animals eat the energy stored in plants. Humans discovered they could release that energy with a chain reaction called “fire.” This heat can break down other carbon chains in what we call “combustion.”

About 400 years ago, humans discovered an older source of stored energy from the sun - coal. We have so much of it that we will probably never run out, and it s still the world’s largest energy source. However, it is also the most environmentally destructive substance ever utilized.

Oil is rarer than coal, and is believed to be the remains of organisms living in the shallow seas at the time of the dinosaurs. It now constitutes about 40% of our energy consumption and is the most difficult source to replace. Production peaked in 1970 and has been declining ever since, a fact which explains much of our foreign policy in recent years, as we realize how vulnerable we are.

Natural gas is generally considered the most environmentally friendly fossil fuel and gives off about half as much greenhouse gas as coal. Regulation and deregulation has caused ups and downs in production over the years leading to the practice of generating electricity from gas. This caused other gas-dependent industries to move to Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

Alternative Fuels

Tucker points out that no energy form is “renewable” because it cannot be recycled (2nd law of thermodynamics). What we typically mean by renewable energy sources is that the flow of certain energy is free… like solar energy. However, coal and oil in the ground are also free - it just costs money to get it out and refined into a usable form. So, even so called renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydroelectric have unavoidable costs to harness and use them. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. Solar energy is great but is very diffuse. It requires large amounts of land area to capture enough of it to be useful. Wind also requires land as well, plus it is unpredictable. Photovoltaic cells have some promise but at current production costs to produce, they are not yet financially efficient investments.

Nuclear or Terrestrial Energy

Tucker points out that there is one more form of alternative energy that is usually grouped with solar: geothermal energy. So, where does this natural heat from the earth’s core come from? We know that at least half of it comes from the radioactive breakdown of thorium and uranium - a nuclear reactor carried out in a controlled environment within the earth.

In order to harness this energy we mine for the uranium isotopes, concentrate it and set up a chain reaction to release that energy in the form of heat - the very same process we use to harness solar energy from coal.

When Albert Einstein told President Roosevelt about nuclear energy, he stated that “for the first time mankind will be using energy not derived from the sun.” What he meant was that a very small amount of matter could be converted to very large quantities of energy - which is good news in terms of our energy needs and the environment.

For instance an average 1,000 megaton coal plant consumes 110 railroad cars each with 20 tons of coal every 5 days. Each carload provides 20 minutes of electricity. When burned, the coal will produce 3 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This accounts for 40% of our greenhouse gases and 20% of the world’s carbon emissions.

By contrast, a 1,000 megaton nuclear reactor uses a fleet of flatbed trucks filled with fuel rods every two years. The rods are mildly radioactive and can be handled with gloves. They are loaded into the reactor where they remain for 6 years (only 1/3 of the rods need to be replaced at a time). The spent rods are stored in the containment structure under 3 feet of water which blocks their radiation. There is no exhaust, no carbon emissions, no sulfur sludge to be dumped. There is no water, air or ground pollution or radioactive release into the environment.

Objections to Nuclear Energy

First, some fear that a nuclear reactor may explode. This is impossible. Reactor grade uranium is only 3% U-235. Bomb grade uranium - that kind that can explode - must be enriched to 90% U-235.

However, a reactor can “melt down.” This is what happened at Three Mile Island. Some valves stuck, and operators thought the core was overflowing when it was actually short of cooling water. About a third of the core melted from the excess heat. Did this result in a nuclear catastrophe? No. The melted fuel stayed in the reactor vessel. The predicted “China Syndrome” did not occur.

This was not the case in Chernobyl. Soviet designers did not bother to build a concrete containment structure over the reactor! In 1986, two teams of operators became involved in a tussle over use of the reactor and they ended up overheating the core, setting a fire which released radioactive debris around the world. More radioactive fallout fell on Harrisburg Pennsylvania from Chernobyl, than from Three Mile Island. With proper construction and safety measures, this kind of thing need never happen

Another objection is the waste that nuclear power is supposed to produce. But this is widely misunderstood. Spent fuel rods are 95% U-235, or about the same amount as in a shovel full of dirt. Of the remaining 5%, most is recycled and useful for other things (medicine, etc.), leaving a very small amount that needs to be stored in special repositories like Yucca Mountain.

Unfortunately, federal law requires all nuclear power byproducts to be stored in nuclear repositories. As a result, 98% of the materials stored in Yucca Mountain is either natural uranium or useful material. Why? Because President Jimmy Carter outlawed nuclear recycling out of fears that foreign countries would steal our radioactive material and make bombs. This has proved to be a false alarm. All countries that have made nuclear have used their own enriched or recycled fuel, except India, which stole some plutonium from a Canadian-built reactor

For example, France has produced 80% of its own power for the last 25 years with nuclear reactors. It stores all of its high-level “nuclear waste” in a single room at Le Havre.

Conclusion

The US currently gets 50% of its electrical power from coal, and 20% from nuclear reactors. Reversing these numbers should be a goal in order to reduce carbon emissions and do less damage to the environment. It would also reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It would not require massive subsidies as the nuclear industry has had a major revival in recent years. Utilities are making so much money that the attorney general of Connecticut recently proposed a windfall tax on their profits! The industry is poised for new construction with 4 proposals already before the NRC, and 30 more waiting!

The rest of the world is rapidly growing toward nuclear power as well. At one time the leader, America is now being left behind to countries like Russia, Japan and France who are exporting their technology. The main reason is public fear. The American public regards this technology as related to the atomic bomb and tinkering with nature. It is none of these, but rather a result of our growing understanding of the universe. The sun has been our source of energy for ages, and now we have the skills to harvest the energy generated within the earth itself.

I agree with William Tucker that it is time that we put our unfounded fears aside and avail ourselves of this clean, safe, terrestrial energy.

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