CNN Opinion: Nuclear power is too risky (By Mark Z. Jacobson)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/22/jacobson.nuclear.power.con/

Nuclear power is too risky

By Mark Z. Jacobson, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Mark Z. Jacobson is director of the http://cee.stanford.edu/programs/atmosenergy/index.html">Atmosphere/Energy Program and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. More information is available http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/susenergy2030.html">here.

Palo Alto, California (CNN) -- If our nation wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, we should invest only in the best energy options. Nuclear energy isn't one of them.

Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar spent on making the world a comparatively dirtier and a more dangerous place, because nuclear power and nuclear weapons go hand in hand.

In the November issue of Scientific American, my colleague Mark DeLucchi of the University of California-Davis and I laid out a http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030">plan to power the world with nothing but wind, water and sun. After considering the best available technologies, we decided that a combination of wind, concentrated solar, geothermal, photovoltaics, tidal, wave and hydroelectric energy could more than meet all the planet's energy needs, particularly if all the world's vehicles could be run on electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells.

We rejected nuclear for several reasons. First, it's not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant. And all that dirty power will be released during the 10 to 19 years that it takes to plan and build a nuclear plant. (A wind farm typically takes two to five years.)

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/22/brand.nuclear.power.pro/index.html">Stewart Brand says now is the time for nuclear power

...

[bananas]

1. "In sum ..."

In sum, if we invest in nuclear versus true renewables, you can bet that the glaciers and polar ice caps will keep melting while we wait, and wait, for the nuclear age to arrive. We will also guarantee a riskier future for us all.

There is no need for nuclear. The world can be powered by wind, water and sun alone.

:applause:

[Bobbieo]

2. No nuclear until we get responsible people to handle the operation from

mining to power plant and it ain't gonna happen. There is too much greed in the world to waste money on safety factors.

[wtmusic]

3. Ooh Jacobson is writing for Scientific American now

and showing up on CNN.

I bet he reads lots of books. Isn't he dreamy?

[kristopher]

4. .

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/

[kristopher]

5. Also see

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/2009-09_FourNuclearMyths

and

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Dogmudgeon]

12. And now for something completely different

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjYr69vtfOE">A Refereed Analysis and Dialogue of MZ Jacobson's 'Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security' and Issues Therein Raised

--d!

[joshcryer]

6. Jacobson wants us to spend $100 trillion to get off of fossil fuels. I am with him.

[kristopher]

7. That is a rough estimate of the cost to move the WORLD to renewable energy

Powered by wind wave and solar. "Overall construction cost for a WWS system might be on the order of $100 trillion worldwide, over 20 years, not including transmission. But this is not money handed out by governments or consumers. It is investment that is paid back through the sale of electricity and energy. And again, relying on traditional sources would raise output from 12.5 to 16.9 TW, requiring thousands more of those plants, costing roughly $10 trillion, not to mention tens of trillions of dollars more in health, environmental and security costs."

If we take a similar quick look at nuclear we find that the estimate to move the world to a fossil free, nuclear powered system would require about 17,000 new 1 GW reactors. Using a cost of $10B each results in an estimate of $170 trillion dollars, not counting the waste disposal and nuclear proliferation costs.

[FBaggins]

9. No it isn't.

It's the cost just to construct the power generation capacity. He explicitly ignores the expenses of transmission and infrastructure... which have been variously estimated as at least another 100-200 trillion.

It is investment that is paid back through the sale of electricity and energy.

Really? Can you tell us how much that would be? Should be easy enough. Multiply the cost by the proportion of global energy usage that the US represents... then divide by the number of households... then account for the amortization cost of that portion of the debt represented by that household.

Don't forget that the entire bill can't be accounted for this payback, since the utilities need to staff and maintain the generation/transmission capacity.

So what's the figure?

Here's where you think of a clever way to start a post with a "." and spam some unrelated paragraphs from another post... then pray that nobody notices.

[joshcryer]

11. With a few hundred million worldwide invested in to rewnewables, we're no where near...

...the figure necessary to fully transition to renewables.

[joshcryer]

10. Yes, unfortunately we'll be well beyond tipping points before the world moves to renewables.

[malakai2]

8. Wait, wait, wait-

"We rejected nuclear for several reasons. First, it's not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant. And all that dirty power will be released during the 10 to 19 years that it takes to plan and build a nuclear plant. (A wind farm typically takes two to five years.)"

So a question, how much "dirty power will be released" in the course of building enough wind turbines to offset the baseload of a nuclear plant with a 90% capacity factor, or in the course of building enough wind turbines and a battery system to accomplish the same? Is he trying to say that wind is carbon free? Or that a small-scale wind farm that comes nowhere close to offsetting the stable and predictable output of a single nuclear plant is less carbon-intensive than the nuclear plant? Hell, if we want to play that game, my little hand crank flashlight produces less dirty power than a typical wind farm, and takes less than two years to produce, AND I can always turn it on, whether or not the wind is blowing. It's not even close to apples-apples, but who cares? It's a feel good story.