A Promise to Myself!

As this term winds down, and as I find myself with more time, I want to commit to keeping up with what I had started roughly one year ago. I want both to keep up on relevant literature--as much as seems relevant beyond what I need to do for my work--and on relevant news. I'm going to shoot for two-three hours a week. We'll see...

Happy holidays--whichever they may be!

10 Reasons Not to Listen to 10 Other Reasons

My Google nuclear news filter popped up a little gem entitled “10 Reasons Not to Invest in Nuclear” put out by the Center for American Progress, an entity bolstering “progressive ideas for a strong, just, and free American.”

I read through their points, and it’s the same old stuff, and as I always think—at least to myself—here is why they’re wrong:

1. Nuclear faces prohibitively high-and-escalating-capital costs.

It is true the cost to build a nuclear plant has gone up since we last built one, but that’s to be expected—it’s been a long time. They cite AEP’s CEO Michael Morris as saying he doesn’t see new nuke in the near term. What, then, does he see? Coal. The article they cite, here, also states that new nuclear would cost about $4000 per kilowatt; the same article says new coal—potentially with sequestration—would be $3500. Nuclear doesn’t sound so “prohibitive”, especially when one considers the 20-50% increased cost of sequestered coal power.

Besides, if nuclear were absolutely so costly, we wouldn’t be seeing license submissions and orders for reactors. Bottom line? Nuclear is economically viable.

2. Plant construction is limited by production bottlenecks.

Sure, we all know Japan Steel is the containment vessel master of the world. They go on to state,

“even if Japan Steel increases its capacity [up from 4/year], American power companies would be buying components in a global market at a time when China and India are increasing their nuclear capacity to meet growing energy needs.”

Aren’t China and India the fastest growing coal users in the world, too? That’s what I get out of the recent G8 discussions. Sure, there will be competition for nuclear supplies, but that’s no different than any other energy—we have to accept that sooner than later. And about the vessels—I already know of one U.S. company who has one in construction.

3. New nuclear plants probably won’t be designed by American companies.

In 30 years, the United States has lost much of its indigenous nuclear infrastructure—that is true. However, it’s not the case the nuclear companies are foreign; rather, they are international. So what if Constellation teamed with Areva in a joint multinational endeavor? Areva, though headquartered in France, has 5000 U.S. employees. If Areva designs are used here in the U.S., that will mean more—not fewer—jobs for our workforce.

4. Unresolved problems regarding the availability and security of waste storage.

What do they mean there is nowhere to store used fuel? It has to be somewhere right now – and it is, on site, all around the U.S. They bring up a point of truth—Yucca would be at about capacity with what we have right now. They’re wrong, though, to say recycling wouldn’t help. Few understand that roughly 95% of what comes out as used fuel is still uranium, some of which is still usable as fuel (hence used fuel, not waste!). Take out 95% of the used fuel content for use as new fuel, and you’re left with “5% of the problem”, as it were. And that’s not a reduction? I think it is.

They also suggest recycling would increase electricity costs. However, this could very well be an issue for government—which is required by law to deal with civilian waste. And in fact they are looking at it here, here, and here. (I like the last, particularly).

5. Nuclear faces concerns about uranium supplies and importation issues.

Our foreign dependence on energy is no new thing. However, our dependence on foreign nuclear fuel would be much reduced if we went to a closed fuel cycle, i.e. recycling.

6. Nuclear reactors require water use amid shortages

“Large areas of the United States already face water shortages, and the effects of global warming are expected to exacerbate this problem.”

Nuclear power is the enemy of global warming. I like this quote from a rudimentary thermodynamics book:

“If this power plant [for which we just calculated oodles of numbers] were coal-fired rather than a nuclear plant, the quantities we have calculated would be little different. We would have essentially the same amount of heat...and the temperature rise of the river would be about the same. But there are other considerations. To supply the heat...would require about 6 tons/min [of coal]. The sulfur content...would produce about 600 lb of sulfur dioxide per minute...[and]...would pollute the atmosphere continuously. Thus the coal-fired plant would cause both thermal pollution and air pollution."

The extra water use is marginal; the emission-reduction is paramount.

7. Safety concerns still plague nuclear power.

“After the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, the United States stopped granting licenses for new nuclear plants. The crises demonstrated that the nuclear industry is vulnerable to public concern.”

True, but rather mute given current public opinion; one poll shows 67% of American support new nuclear plants. (Five-to-one preferred a nuclear plant to a coal plant in their neighborhood)

8. Nuclear is already a mature technology—it will not get cheaper.

I don’t know anyone who has ever said any type of base load generation will get cheaper.

That said, the nuclear industry will benefit from any carbon emission mandates set by the government. Thus, nuclear will become comparatively cheaper as our nation commits to green.

9. Other clean energy technologies are cheaper, cleaner, and faster to build.

And other clean energies are not appropriate for round-the-clock base load generation.

I will state I do support research into other technologies, e.g. solar and wind, for I do believe they have their place. However, I did a calculation the other day. The results were something like this. In the next thirty years, our energy demands will grow. If we use just solar for that growth, we’d be covering the whole of Illinois in solar panels—not going to happen. Same sort of thing for wind. These sources simply are not the solution unless we plan to ramp back our energy consumption level to that of say 1950, and the statistics on American consumption don’t support that possibility at all!

10. Nuclear subsidies take money away from more effective alternative energy subsidies.

Look at 9. Why heavily subsidize technologies that simply cannot meet our needs?

To Yucca or Not to Yucca (Now)...

...that is the question addressed by Sen. Pete Domenici R-N.M in a recently proposed bill. The Las Vegas Sun has more here. The key points, though, are that he's:

"...put forward a bill that would allow $1 billion annually from the fund designated for Yucca Mountain to instead go for developing nuclear recycling and interim waste storage sites run by public-private ventures...[The bill also allows] a stable funding stream for nuclear waste projects separate from Congress, where the Nevada delegation led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has successfully slashed Yucca Mountain’s budget in recent years."

What ever would we do without Harry Reid? It won't help matters that he's got a former adviser as an NRC commissioner--the current lineup which likely will undertake the licensing decision for Yucca submitted recently.

Obama discussed his energy policy yesterday; see the video here.

It all sounds "good"... except where he says McCain's call for 45 new nuclear plans is "not a serious" energy plan. He makes specific note of used fuel storage and Nevada, i.e. Yucca Mountain.

I understand oil is the big ticket item today. I understand families are hurting. However, if we limit our attention to oil in the context of total energy consumption, then we are missing the big picture. Renewables just do not count right now. Biodiesel/ethanol to me is a joke.

Baseload energy should be the focus. If we solved--I mean really solved--the baseload energy problem, our transportation cost crisis would be mitigated severely. Think nuclear and think either plug-in electrics or fuel cells.

I am war-weary, surely, but I am becoming suspicious of Obama's ability to lead our energy future.

GPM, not MPG!

A Duke professor thinks we ought to think in terms of gallons-per-mile (gpm), not miles-per-gallon (mpg) according to this article. Essentially, Richard Larrick believes we are often misled by what differences in magnitudes in mpg actually mean and that manufacturers should employ the gpm numbers instead.

For example, the cost-per-mile difference between a car getting 10 mpg and a car getting 20 mpg is greater than the difference between a 25 mpg car and a 50 mpg hybrid.

He tested his theory of misconception on college kids; not being asked, I decided to find out for myself.

miles / gallon	10	20	25	30
gallons / mile	0.1	0.05	0.04	0.03333
cost ($) / mile	0.4	0.2	0.16	0.13333
% improve each 10 mpg	0.0%	50.0%	20.0%	33.3%
$ improve from 10 mpg	$0.00	$0.20	$0.24	$0.27
% improve from 10 mpg	0.0%	50.0%	60.0%	66.7%
$ improve from 25 mpg	-$0.24	-$0.04	$0.00	$0.03
% improve from 25 mpg	-150.0%	-25.0%	0.0%	16.7%

continued...

40	50	75	100	1000
0.025	0.02	0.01333	0.01	0.001
0.1	0.08	0.05333	0.04	0.004
25.0%	20.0%	33.3%	50.0%	90.0%
$0.30	$0.32	$0.35	$0.36	$0.40
75.0%	80.0%	86.7%	90.0%	99.0%
$0.06	$0.08	$0.11	$0.12	$0.16
37.5%	50.0%	66.7%	75.0%	97.5%

Assuming gas costs 4$/g, we see going from the Excursion (i.e. 10 mpg) to my '93 Bonneville (i.e. ~ 25 mpg) gives rise to a 50% reduction in per-mileage cost. However, going from my Bonnie to say a good hybrid (~50 mpg) would also be a 50% price reduction... so something is fishy.

Ah! He must be talking about absolute cost! For the first 50% reduction (Excursion to Bonnie), we see the net reduction is 20 cents. For the Bonnie to Hybrid, we see the reduction is just 8 cents!

It makes sense, though, for what we pay per mile is an inverse function of our car's efficiency. Thus, we expect a hyperbolic cost function with the associated diminished returns.

It looks like my biggest impact move away from Bonnie will be to ride my bike!

Nonproliferation, revisited.

The Wall Street Journal has a good article by congresswoman Harman (D-CA) about the need for new nonproliferation activities. Read that here.

Speaking about Iran, she writes "the dangers posed by unsupervised, weapons-grade material in the hands of a regime that has threatened to 'wipe Israel off the map' are unacceptable."

I tend to agree, especially after attending a lecture on enrichment safeguards yesterday. To sum it up, we all got a glimpse of the Iranian centrifuge bank, with an estimated separations capacity of 3000 tonne-swu (a unit measuring how much separations can be done per year; to put it in context, a 5000 tonne-swu capacity can produce a enough for a weapon in one year...)

Now, I can't readily say I'm for preemptive war, for I've seen what that does. However, comments like "wiping" countries off the map coupled with the potential means to do so is alarming.

An Interesting Time

It's been some time, I must admit. Between finishing up my undergraduate degree at Wisconsin (+ thesis) and wrapping up an award winning year for our American Nuclear Society, I had little time for keeping up with things outside my world. Now, I'm settled back into the Lab environment to work on what ought to become my Master's work. With a DOE-funded Fellowship in tow, I should be fine.

Since Clinton dropped out two weeks ago, the playing field has been set. For me and others in nuclear, a big question has to be "where does Obama stand?"

McCain is already calling for more nuclear power, reminding us that it accounts for 20% of our energy. He also points out the agonizing fact that our national nuclear construction base is largely gone. The AP has a good review here.

From his own site, Obama says

"It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table. However, there is no future for expanded nuclear without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation."

He also believes Yucca "is not an option."

What is an option, Senator? I want a real, carb-cutting energy diet plan. I don't believe he's got that at this point. Whereas McCain says "If I am elected president, I will set [my emphasis] this nation on a course to building 45 new reactors by the year 2030, with the ultimate goal of 100 new plants to power the homes and factories and cities of America", Obama seems to say he will wait around passively as our percentage carbon-emission output, oil-dependence, and cost-of-living rise.

In other news, I've got two tank-like tires on my bike; no more flats. I baked some corn bread, too.