Atomic Dreams

"If we can reach a societal consensus that what we desire is a
slower and smaller way of living, a reconceived notion of success,
then we can fundamentally reformulate our energy system." I'm glad
to see the author state what most environmentalists appear to be
avoiding. Most people don't want to make do with less material
goods. I suppose that's human nature... bigger, better, faster,
more... but I think it's also our downfall. Recently I checked out
Treehugger.com for the first time. I thought it sounded like a site
a could relate to. The first thing I saw on the site was a cooler
with wheels and a motor attached. If this is what "green" means to
people, I want no part of it!

From the article: "Nuclear plants could reduce the need for
waste storage by “reprocessing” the fuel, but that would create
weapons-grade radioactive material." My understanding is that
during fuel reprocessing the waste is reduced by re-refining it
into more usable nuclear fuel. The concern, and reason Carter
banned the facilities in the 70's, was that the same equipment can
be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium/uranium. The article is
misleading when it states weapons-grade material is a necessary
by-product. The issue is a security/control one.

From the article: "Nuclear plants could reduce the need for
waste storage by “reprocessing” the fuel, but that would create
weapons-grade radioactive material." My understanding is that
during fuel reprocessing the waste is reduced by re-refining it
into more usable nuclear fuel. The concern, and reason Carter
banned the facilities in the 70's, was that the same equipment can
be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium/uranium. The article is
misleading when it states weapons-grade material is a necessary
by-product. The issue is a security/control one.

I've given nuclear a lot of thought. I'm not so much against it
as I am against fighting it. The worst danger is doing nothing and
I fear a stalemate in which we neither build nuclear power plants
nor develop alternatives and conservation. Those of us who are
concerned ab out global warming, cannot use up our energy
preventing something. We need to use all our energy to develop
another way. The danger or nuclear power lies in things might
possibly happen. The greater danger is global warming and the
things that definitely will happen if we don't do enough.

An objective review of the available data has certainly
convinced me that nuclear power is safe, clean, reliable,
sustainable, inexpensive, and has a lot of potential for even more
progress in all these areas. It holds the promise of a significant
step forward, leading to a world wide improvement in everyone's
standard of living. That is what I have concluded after spending
the last five years studying it. This obvious finding leaves us in
a delicate situation - how to assuage the guilt and embarrassment
of the green celebrities who have delayed its introduction, causing
hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result of coal combustion
pollution and coal mining, and perhaps even pushing the planet past
the brink in its global heating crisis. These people were well
intentioned, I believe, and definitely energetic. But they were
wrong. What will they do now? Will they dig in, and keep coming up
with ever more extreme and unbelievable justifications for their
destructive leadership, or will they change and now try to do the
right thing? I really hope that they choose change, along with the
evidence based reasoning, scientific knowledge, and inclusive
compassion that is needed. But you can't always get what you want.
So here we have Mr. Mark digging in. His first shovel full throws
out the myth that nuclear power is the same as big central
government. Sorry, this is just not so. Nuclear power can be
produced using small systems in a widely distributed pattern. In
fact this is exactly what is happening in South Africa. Why is this
approach going so slowly there? Answer: fanatical opposition from
greens. So the greens oppose nuclear power because they say it
looks like big centralized government, and then when it does not
look like big central government they oppose it anyway. This is
disingenuous. It is just this kind of twisting and verbal squirming
that has totally put me off. Falsely categorizing nuclear power as
forcing centralized

The 104 nuclear power plants that are currently operating in the
US produce about 780 terawatt-hours each year. That is the energy
equivalent of more than 4 million barrels of oil per day and
represents 20% of the electricity produced and consumed in the US.
Essentially all of the construction for those plants took place in
just 30 years between 1963 and 1993. When those plants were
started, the world had little experience in constructing and
operating large nuclear plants. Engineers and draftsmen did design
work using T-squares, compasses, paper and slide rules. The
resulting plants are now operating with an average capacity factor
of more than 90% (that is flat out for about 7900 hours per year
out of a possible 8760). Most of them will operate for at least 60
years. The average production cost from those plants is 1.72 cents
per kilowatt hour while the average production cost from coal is
2.37, natural gas is 6.75 and petroleum is 9.63. Wind power from
huge wind farms costs in excess of 7 cents (once the production tax
credit is included back into the costs) and small wind and solar
systems produce unreliable power that costs in excess of 20 cents
per kilowatt hour under any reasonable assumption for interest
costs on the initial investment. The waste products from atomic
fission have been safely handled for more than fifty years without
a known incident anywhere in the world where a person was injured
by accidental exposure to the high level waste. The really good
news is that the used fuel still contains about 95-97% of its
original potential energy and we KNOW how to recycle that fuel to
produce more energy and other useful products. Why do many people
who are terribly concerned about the impending disaster of global
warming advocate ignoring the potential of atomic fission? As a
former submarine Engineer Officer, I have an intimate and personal
understanding of the fact that atomic fission power plants are very
useful in closed e

The 104 nuclear power plants that are currently operating in the
US produce about 780 terawatt-hours each year. That is the energy
equivalent of more than 4 million barrels of oil per day and
represents 20% of the electricity produced and consumed in the US.
Essentially all of the construction for those plants took place in
just 30 years between 1963 and 1993. When those plants were
started, the world had little experience in constructing and
operating large nuclear plants. Engineers and draftsmen did design
work using T-squares, compasses, paper and slide rules. The
resulting plants are now operating with an average capacity factor
of more than 90% (that is flat out for about 7900 hours per year
out of a possible 8760). Most of them will operate for at least 60
years. The average production cost from those plants is 1.72 cents
per kilowatt hour while the average production cost from coal is
2.37, natural gas is 6.75 and petroleum is 9.63. Wind power from
huge wind farms costs in excess of 7 cents (once the production tax
credit is included back into the costs) and small wind and solar
systems produce unreliable power that costs in excess of 20 cents
per kilowatt hour under any reasonable assumption for interest
costs on the initial investment. The waste products from atomic
fission have been safely handled for more than fifty years without
a known incident anywhere in the world where a person was injured
by accidental exposure to the high level waste. The really good
news is that the used fuel still contains about 95-97% of its
original potential energy and we KNOW how to recycle that fuel to
produce more energy and other useful products. Why do many people
who are terribly concerned about the impending disaster of global
warming advocate ignoring the potential of atomic fission? As a
former submarine Engineer Officer, I have an intimate and personal
understanding of the fact that atomic fission power plants are very
useful in closed e

In the ongoing debate about nuclear power, we constantly are
told that nuclear power is carbon-free, has no carbon footprint,
and that it offers the only real solution to energy generation at a
scale that could address our growing energy needs. The article
makes that point that because it ten years or more to build a
nuclear power plant, any climate benefit will not start until
around 2020 for the first new plants to come on line. The reality
is worse. When you realize the enormity of the carbon footprint of
building the hundreds of nuclear plants required, as well as from
the mining and transporation and processing and reprocessing of the
fuel needed to power them, you see that we would be adding a
gigantic carbon spike for the next fifteen to twenty years - using
up valuable petroleum and other finite resources, long before we
would get ANY climate benefit. It not only takes 10 or 12 years to
get these things built and up and running, but they aren't carbon
neutral for years - they have to repay the carbon that was put in
the atmosphere in order to get them up and running and even when
they are up and running, they are still not carbon neutral because
operating them requires a lot of other systems and processes that
are not solely energy-related. To say that this is a solution is
ludicrous for a problem that needs to be solved in the next decade
or two at best. Then, you add in the insanity of the economics,
particularly with so much steel, cement, other metals and resources
flowing to China and India, which is already driving up the cost of
construction for such plants to two or three times the projected
costs, and questions about peaking uranium supplies, terrorism,
waste storage, and the vulnerability of an ever more centralized
power system and the fact that these things produce the most toxic
substance known to man in great quantities doesn't even have to be
brought into the conversation. This is the legacy solution for ou

I bought Utne Reader just for the article on nuclear power. What
a disappointment! 1. The concern over waste is a valid one,
especially transportation, but the French method seems to be
working well. Around 75% of their energy is nuclear. They vitrify
the waste and have a staging process for security and storage.
Evidently, it's secure, affordable, and working. If it's not, your
article should have addressed their failures or obstacles. We have
a model to examine and should do so, for our own understanding. 2.
Some people quoted in the article made disparaging comments about
engineers or the nuclear industry, as being interested only in
making money or in engineering solutions. One could just as easily
reply that environmentalists are only interested in environmental
solutions. Of course these firms want to make money, but they have
to make bids and be accountable for meeting reasonable costs.
Engineering firms also, typically, do not have an outrageous rate
of return on their efforts, just a respectable one. The businesses
is cyclical, expensive, and complex. Other industries do less and
make more in profit. 3. The article was long on vision and short on
details. I was interested to learn more about conserving energy as
the main way of reducing emissions. All for it. But how do you
enforce such a measure? A few examples would have been quite
enlightening. Just saying that we should make sacrifices and
re-think our entire society might be laudable, but it's also
frustrating. Such wholesale changes tend to be driven by costs,
when the current lifestyle is too expensive, or from health, when
the current lifestyle becomes deadly. Or from legislation, from
laws and penalties. OK. Fine. What, exactly, is your suggestion for
taking that approach? Is there some sort of truly realistic plan
out there? If it's all about local solutions, how does the entire
nation embrace a new way of life? One of the reasons that I dislike
readin