But I will comment yet again in hopes that the readers will at least get a less anti-nuclear spin on commercial nuclear power.

Storage Costs

High level used nuclear fuel is already being stored. It has been for decades, and it’s not harming anyone. That’s a good thing. Where’s the toxic waste created by the manufacture of solar cells being stored? How about the mercury emissions from coal power?

If waste storage was so cost prohibitive, then nuclear would not even be on the table. Operational costs of nuclear are among the lowest of any baseload source, including coal and hydro. In fact, nuclear is the ONLY large scale electrical generator that is REQUIRED to store all of it’s waste (which isn’t really waste, because it can be recycled). If coal power was held to the same standard then there would be no way it could be cost competitive with nuclear. Nuclear would be BY FAR the most cost effective baseload energy source.

Insurance Costs

So… How much has Price-Anderson cost the US tax payer? Nothing. The utilities pay 100% of the premiums, and it has never been utilized - not even after Three Mile Island. You’re hinging your argument on what it COULD cost. Similar arguments could be hinged on the Hoover Dam breaking. This insurance was modeled on the same type of insurance that protects makers of child vaccinations. No one has unlimited liability.

Subsidies

I’d question the source of your information. I’m guessing that you’re lumping all nuclear technologies together, and when you add Department of Defense dollars into the equation, you can make it look like a lot of subsidies are being given to the “nuclear industry.” In fact, commercial nuclear power (which is what we’re talking about here) has received very little in the form of subsidy in the past 30 years.

The industry proposals for funding assistance for the first few new nuclear plants are similar to that provided for other major capital intensive projects that will provide significant benefit to the nation. Recently, clean coal projects have applied for and been granted financial assistance in the form of loan guarantees; the Alaska pipeline received a loan guarantee for 80% of project cost, some $18 billion; wind power generators receive a production tax credit of $18/MWh. It is standard practice for the federal governments to assist major transportation projects that will improve national infrastructure and benefit the average American. The industry proposals call for funding assistance for the first set of new plants, after which time, there would be no further need for financial assistance.

1) Storage - the volumes of nuclear waste are much smaller than our current fossil fuel technologies (i.e., 100,000 tons of spent fuel from 50 years vs 2 billion tons of coal every year). In fact, mining technology is now at a point where deep boeholes become feasible (i.e., 5 km depth instead of .8 km of current geological plans). At such depths very little if any material will find its way back to the biosphere. As for plutonium, the best way to get rid of it is in a reactor.

2) Insurance - Most large industrial activities have liability limits. No jumbo jet would fly without the international treaties that protect their liability. Price Anderson is actually a better deal than just a liability limit and the industry pays the fees.

3) Investment Banks - Like the utilities they are waiting to see if any of the new designs (e.g., some being built in China now) can be brought in on schedule and budget. So far the experience in Asia (and France) is if you stick with a few designs and a dedicated crew you can build plants on time and on budget (e.g., ABWR in Japan and the Korea Standard Plant in ROK).

I know that the Climate Movement wants an all renewables path, however there do remain issues with these technologies as well (e.g., no economic energy storage to alleviate the intermittency). Why not use nuclear (and even carbon sequestration) to get society through the transition? Once the issues with renewables are resolved, the transition source could be phased out.

The reason this is true, the reason environmentalists working for antinuclear organizations quietly but calmly get on board nuclear-powered ships, is that the stuff is highly radioactive only in terms of concentration, not absolute amount.

When it is deeply buried, there is more natural radioactivity above it than there is artificial radioactivity in it. If it were on the bottom of the ocean — an adequate but not optimal place to put it — its power to contaminate the ocean, should the containers it is in someday leak, is on a par with the power of the saltshakers in the Titanic similarly to make the oceans brackish, and undrinkable.