[Hidden-tech] Nuke Power

Andy Klapper andytk at charter.net
Thu Nov 1 22:12:03 EDT 2007


Nuclear power seems to be taking a beating here, so much so that I feel like
I need to point out that France gets 78% of its electricity from nuclear
power plants.  Another 13 from hydro, making it 9% clean, vs. only 40% clean
here in the US.   Texas is a staggering 91% dirty.  (If you include
transportation the US is only 15% clean).

 

I haven't heard anything about increased birth defects or other waste issues
in France from their large dependence on nuclear power.  On the other hand
the blasting of mountain tops for coal here in the US has been shown to
cause birth defects.  The whole north east suffering from acid rain from
coal fired plants in the Midwest.  Oil and gas spills of varying sizes
happen all the time.  Nothing is perfect.

 

Newer nuclear power plants are much more efficient (and safer) than the
1960's technology based plants that exist in the US today.  (I don't think
we have had a new plant come on line since the (late?) 1970's).  Nuclear
power is certainly an industry that needs to be heavily regulated and
monitored.  But some people make it sound like we should expect serious,
devastating, downright scary problems all the time, when experience has
shown this to just not be true.

 

After taking into account the energy spent getting, transporting, and
refining oil we only get 15% of the power that existed in the ground.  You
can find studies that claim ethanol takes more energy to produce and
transport then you get out of it.  I've even seen studies that claim that
solar panels take more energy to produce (making chips is a very energy
intensive process) then they harvest over their useful lifetime.  I'm not
sure that this means that you can find studies that say anything, or that
power generation is a very inefficient process in general, or both.  On the
other hand, if I look at this from a simple economic standpoint, and say
that if nuclear power takes more energy to make then it produces, then as
the cost of oil, coal, and gas increases, then the price of nuclear power
would have to increase as well.  After all, everybody has to pay for  the
energy they consume, even nuclear power plants and their suppliers.  So you
could never have the case where nuclear power costs less than the other
sources of power.  (The same could be said for solar panels, if the price
before tax deductions can be made back over the lifetime of the panel then
the panel must have used less power to create then it had produced).

 

Nuclear power has a disposal problem, and we should be paranoid about it.
Nuclear power has the potential for hazardous waste discharge, and we should
be paranoid about it.  On the other hand no one technology or policy will
solve the very real problem of global warming.  There isn't even something
ten years out (I'm assuming here that it takes at least 10 years to take
something from the first lab based article ("Hey look what we did with
something that took us a year of trial and error to produce just enough to
run a test on") to practical, cost effective, high volume mass production).

 

We cannot afford to throw out the nuclear greenhouse gas clean power option.
It's here now, it plugs into the existing infrastructure, and it requires
people to change their habits the least.   (And let's face it, people aren't
even willing to give up their monster trucks, SUVs, and mini-vans).

 

This isn't to say I wouldn't be ecstatic if a company came out tomorrow from
deep submarine mode with an organic based solar panel with 25% efficiency.

 

 

Andy.

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