A Nuclear Future?

Warheads, nuclear waste, plutonium, reprocessing, fast breeder reactors, centrifuges, uranium enrichment, Three Mile Island, Windscale and, of course, Chernobyl…all these words and phrases are synonymous with the nuclear industry. Probably 99% of the population of the industrialized world had written off the nuclear industry years ago, thanks to a series of disasters, higher incidences of carcinomas nearby nuclear plants and the persistent problem of how to dispose of nuclear waste. Disposing of the nuclear waste is the biggest headache, and just burying it, launching it into space or burying it at the bottom of the ocean are not adequate solutions.

Many other military-use nuclear reactors have also had problems; at weapons facilities in secret cities and on nuclear submarines, and not all of these problems have been made public.

The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 didn’t help the civilian nuclear power movement with the possibility of the China Syndrome occurring when the nuclear core overheating and burning its way out of the containment vessel, through the concrete floor and into the soil. It actually doesn’t mean it continues on its destructive way to China, even if it is a very evocative image. It was also the name of a 1979 movie that opened about 12 days before the Three Mile accident and the movie was about a cover-up over a nuclear accident, starring Jane Fonda.

The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the worst poster child of all for nuclear and I am not too sure if anyone will ever know how many people died at the time, or since, because of the accident, or related illnesses and genetic impairments. Upwards of half a million people were exposed to high levels of radiation and the fall-out spread around the world. Back in 1986 I even remember Welsh sheep being quarantined due to radioactive caesium coming down in the rain. Even 20 years later almost 360 Welsh farms still have regular checks for radiation levels, according to the Guardian Newspaper.

Even after all the bad press it seems that the nuclear industry might yet prove to be the knight in shining armor (literally – if you think of the nuclear core containment jacket!) because of the other poster child of the apocalypse now riding around the planet – climate change.

Whichever way you look at it, it seems clear that nuclear power has very low carbon emissions compared to many other forms of power generation, especially coal and gas, but also maybe even lower than solar and wind.

Surprised? So was I. But I wanted to take a closer look…

The life-cycle cost and benefit of a power plant depends upon the construction, operation and deconstruction process, as well as what you get out of the plant and social costs – such as destroying a pristine environment (with hydro, or wind-turbines, or a smoke belching power plant), or the deaths and illnesses associated to the plant.

Coal power plants emit nitrogen oxides, mercury and particulate pollution, all contributing to smog and lung-related illnesses, as well as acid rain from the sulphur dioxide emissions. Oh, and did I mention those GHG emissions? Lots of them come out of the coal power plants and millions of tons of coal have to be dug out of the ground, or stripped away from under mountains and transported to the power plants. The waste from the plant then has to be disposed of too, and all this transportation needs fossil fuels to do the job.

Now nuclear, after the initial design and construction, needs only a small mass of fuel (190 tons for a 1000megawatt reactor) transported to ‘burn’ in the reactor and, after processing, the quantity of fuel that has to be disposed of is also a tiny fraction compared to a coal power plant. A Canadian CANDU reactor fuel rod produces as much electricity as 380 tons of coal or 1800 barrels of oil, yet it only consumes 1% of its actual energy content. The ‘waste’ fuel rod can be reprocessed, reusing about 75% of it and having 25% (about 48 tons) of highly radioactive waste left behind.

Some figures put nuclear waste generation at around 12,000 tons per year for the 436 civilian nuclear reactors in the world — about 5 times the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Now compare that to a 500megawatt coal power plant that needs about 250 tons of coal per hour at full load (see Wiki Fossil Fuel entry) and generates almost the same mass as waste. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists the US was burning 2 million tons of coal a day back in 1993.

The numbers are mind-boggling.

Just as crazy is the fact that coal power plants emit low levels of uranium and thorium, as naturally occurring isotopes, along with mercury and selenium. A 1,000 MW coal power plant may release up to 74 pounds (34 kg) of uranium-235 (the same type of uranium that is ‘burned’ but not released inside a nuclear reactor) and 12.8 tons/year of thorium – another radioactive substance. So ‘clean coal’ is a long, long way off, especially if it needs to be cleaned of radioactive particles as well as GHG emissions.

So, what remains the largest area of concern for nuclear, aside from the very real history of lethal accidents is what to do with the nuclear waste. This is still something that, to date is unresolved.

Currently, the US has around 70,000 tons of uranium and 600 tons of plutonium stored at its nuclear power plants. The uranium is no more radioactive than when it was dug up and refined, but the plutonium (and other highly radioactive components) is highly dangerous and has a long half-life (the time to half its radioactive emissions) until it becomes safe. The Yucca Mountains in Nevada are proposed as a burial site for this waste – but the uranium can be re-used a few times over after reprocessing so it should not be locked away forever, at least not until it is reprocessed.

The plutonium and other highly radioactive components have to be dealt with and burial seems the best approach of the imperfect solutions currently available. Dealing with a few hundred tons of highly dangerous waste seems a lot easier than dealing with thousands of tons of coal generated waste and better than releasing hundreds of thousands of tons of coal ash particulates, heavy metals and radioactive dust into the atmosphere along with the GHGs.

I don’t know if nuclear is a good way to go, but after more than 50 years of operating nuclear power plants and more than 20 years after the last major nuclear ‘incident’ perhaps it will become a future source of ‘cleaner’ energy. The World Nuclear Association have many facts and figures, one of which shows that nuclear power GHG emissions are around 3% of an equivalent coal power plant, considering construction, fuel excavation, processing, operations and disposal.

The bottom line is this; as we don’t seem able, or willing, to curb our consumption (or population) enough to make do with what we have, then we will continue to look for the energy Holy Grail while being unwilling to make any real changes to how we live. Our insatiable desire for energy will push us to eventually explore all energy options whether we like it or not. In the meantime, we really should ask ourselves if we have really learned enough to make nuclear safe, are we willing to continue to poison the planet with coal power emissions, or invest mightily in renewable energy, or switch off those lights, live in smaller homes, drive less, eat less meat…

The choice is ours.

Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specialising in renewable energy, power grid modelling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites. He is the author of the Eco-Geek blog.

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