Anyone watching what is happening in Japan right now should have a pretty good idea why I'm writing this post. But you're wrong. As is pointed out here and here, the problem with nuclear is not that it could (will) blow up. It's not even that the waste sticks around for 100,000 years and needs to be stored somewhere for that long (think about how well we understand the language from 10,000 years ago and you begin to see why that's a problem). It is simply the cost.
As is pointed out in the FP article above, the industry can overcome the danger of explosions. New reactors are far safer than even the ones in Japan. With some revision to current standards and a bit of beefed up protection, nuclear is relatively safe. But therein lies the problem and the author of the FP piece never really addresses it. Nuclear is not viable under current permitting regimes unless it is given huge subsidies. It is an outrageously expensive source of power. The new requirements that will come out the disaster in Japan will do nothing to make it less expensive.
This is the real problem with nuclear. It isn't fall out, it isn't explosions, it isn't radioactive waste. It's basic economics. Nuclear is more expensive than any other available power source when compared on a non-subsidized basis. So why, when it has a litany of other problems, should we continue to subsidize it? That money is better spent on research, efficiency programs and subsidies for non-nuclear renewables.
Does this include all of the externalities? I'd think that if you included those costs, that nuclear would be cheaper than coal at least and probably comparable to oil.
ReplyDeleteI think that nuclear is a viable stopgap energy that we can use to reduce the amounts of coal and oil that we use until we can revamp the grid so renewables will be viable...
I'd finish my thoughts here but I have to go cook dinner. :)
Even including externalities (primarily CO2) I think that Nuclear is still not cost comparable. Think about it from the perspective of an insurance company. Assuming you'd do it at all (which I think is a fairly questionable assumption) how much would you have to charge in premiums in order to provide coverage for a disaster whose cost could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars? Right now that coverage is provided by the government (the largest subsidy to nuclear) but if it went away what would happen to nuclear power?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how I feel about nuclear. It is unquestionably better than coal from an environmental perspective but I have a very hard time getting behind the economics of it.