Comments on: Nuclear energy: Don’t believe the sticker price

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:11:09 +0000

Nuclear waste is quite small in volume, so you will not require huge amounts of money even for advanced disposal such as deep boreholes.

As for the “new” technologies, as most revolve around solar and wind, they are actually the oldest energy technologies. Yes they are improving, but nuclear is improving as well (e.g., advanced fuels are setting record burnups, pyoprocessing techniques are in development, etc.). The US would be smart to follow China and South Korea who are using ALL the lower carbon technologies.

By: memory foam

memory foam — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:03:41 +0000

Even these very high cost estimates are understating the true long term costs, since the problem of safe disposal will cost large amounts of money far into the future. With all the promising new possibilities in energy technology, some of which are likely to bear fruit soon, it is foolish to spend so much on nuclear.

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:53:57 +0000

Nuclear is much lower carbon than fossil fuels and in the same order of magnitude as solar and wind (studies such as ExternE confirm this). I would offer that small dispatchable nuclear reactors already exist (nuclear submarines). Solar cells use cadmium and arsenic which are toxic and last forever.

As for a cadre of specialists, we have had specialized professionals for millenia already. Nuclear is not quite as exotic as you may perceive.

By: M Stern

M Stern — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:26:36 +0000

Various comprehensive studies indicated that nuclear is not nearly carbon neutral. Further, the costs and energy intensity of nuclear power will increase as more plants are built and uranium becomes increasingly scarce.

Further, one can make the argument that centralized, mega-power sources are part of our energy problem. Nuclear, wind or solar, any source with ‘economy of scale’ size aren’t going to help us build sustainable energy systems. While renewables can be dispatch on a small scale level, it is impossible with nuclear.

Regardless, I think that a rationale society would rule out nuclear because of its waste alone. In the best Yucca Mountain, reprocessing scenario, nuclear still produces waste that will stick around for thousands of years. As a result, we are committing our society to keep highly trained specialists with an intimate knowledge of nuclear technology around for THOUSANDS of years. Aside from our meddling with the atmosphere and causing global warming, I can’t think of any other human action that commits humanity to such a rigid, long term path.

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:12:42 +0000

The Koreans are able to stamp out standard plants with commensurate cost reductions, the Japanese have built plants in about three years, and the AP-1000 plant at Sanmen, China is on schedule. Once the first 3 – 5 plants have been built in the US, the costs will come down as they have in Asia as long as we stick to a few standard designs.

Nuclear will never be cheap if you compare it with unregulated coal or a temporary lull in natural gas price, but economies of scale do work for nuclear energy and it delivers 24/7 low carbon power.