[Peakoil-announce] Nuclear Energy critique

[Alex P]

Some hard facts about the sustainability of nuclear power.

The last paragraph is worth reading in particular.

Alex
O4O4873828

ACT Peak Oil discussion list
http://www.act-peakoil.org
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Nuclear confusion
Jun 24
 David Fleming   |   Prospect Magazine 


There are two things to be said for nuclear power. It is based on an 
energy process which does not produce carbon dioxide. And it is a way of 
generating energy which is not directly at risk from the looming 
scarcities affecting oil and gas. These two killer arguments tend to be 
conflated into one persuasive and rhetorical question: "What's the 
alternative?"

There are arguments against it too, and most of them are well known. It is 
expensive and, without hefty government subsidy, offers little potential 
for profit. It leaks low-level carcinogenic wastes into the air and water. 
It produces high-level radioactive waste, requiring standards of treatment 
and storage which are seldom met. It produces the materials for nuclear 
proliferation. Its accidents can potentially devastate continents.

But there are two other arguments against nuclear power that are not so 
well recognised. The first is that nuclear power actually produces quite a 
lot of carbon dioxide: every stage in the process uses fossil fuels (oil 
and gas) - with the exception of fission itself. Uranium ore has to be 
mined and then milled to extract the uranium oxide from the surrounding 
rock; it has to be enriched; the wastes have to be processed and buried, 
safely; nuclear power stations have to be constructed, maintained and then 
eventually chopped into bits and stored away.

But it is the second argument which shocks: nuclear power depends on a 
supply of uranium ores from scarce, rich deposits, which face a depletion 
problem every bit as serious as that of oil and gas. That rich ore will 
soon no longer be available. The poorer grades of ore that would then have 
to be used take more energy to process than they yield.

The question of how much rich uranium ore is left would not matter if the 
industry were to continue on its present small scale. So the question is: 
what job is nuclear power likely to be asked to do? A serious 
contribution - enough to make a difference - might mean bringing on 
nuclear power to replace the gas and coal now used to generate 
electricity. A more ambitious one - but necessary, given the scale of our 
energy problem - would be to provide the primary energy to generate the 
hydrogen that we would need to replace the use of petrol and diesel on 
road and rail. If nuclear power did all that, then gas could be reserved 
for the jobs it does best - providing fuel for industry and households. If 
applied worldwide, this would, in principle, solve the energy problem for 
some years to come.


That would, of course, mean a renaissance for nuclear power. But what else 
would it mean? The waste problem would increase, and the nuclear industry 
would be forced to meet impeccable - but energy-consuming - standards of 
waste management, treatment and storage. It would also have to 
rehabilitate landscapes after they had been mined for uranium. All this 
would bring forward the point at which the industry would be forced to use 
ever poorer uranium ores as the richer ones were depleted - and its need 
for energy from fossil fuels to extract the uranium would start to rise 
quickly.

It is not the mining process that makes the really serious demands for 
energy, but the milling. All too soon, it would be necessary to mill hard 
ores with a uranium oxide content of 0.02per cent - that is, one part in 
5000: for every tonne of uranium oxide they extracted, the industry's raw 
material suppliers would have to mine, mill and dispose of some 5000tonnes 
of granite. At the same time, it would be reduced to milling soft ores 
(sandstone) with a uranium oxide content of just 0.01 per cent - 10,000 
tonnes of ore to be mined, milled and disposed of for every tonne of 
uranium oxide extracted.

It is with ores at these grades that nuclear power hits its limits; this 
is where the energy balance turns against it. If ores any poorer than this 
were to be used, while at the same time maintaining proper standards of 
waste control in all operations, nuclear power production would go into 
energy deficit: it would be putting more energy into the process than it 
could extract from it. Its contribution to meeting the world's energy 
needs would become negative.

At present, nuclear power is not one of the major producers of energy. It 
accounts for about 16per cent of the world's electricity supply, which in 
turn accounts for about 16per cent of all the energy produced, so that its 
total contribution to the world's final energy needs is about 2.6per cent. 
Suppose, however, that the industry were to be set up on a scale large 
enough to make a difference. For how long could it continue to provide the 
needed energy before, for practical purposes, it had used up all the 
uranium ores rich enough to produce a positive energy balance? If it 
supplied the world with all its electricity, then the total quantity of 
useful ores on the planet would be sufficient to keep the nuclear industry 
going for just six years. If, in addition, the world's road and rail 
transport fleet were to be run on hydrogen derived from nuclear power, 
then the useful life of the industry would be about two years. As provider 
of a few token reactors to show that governments are trying, it could keep 
going, rather pointlessly, for another 40 years. But the essential fact is 
this: as a serious new source of energy, nuclear power is a non-starter.

Most of the analysis in this field is being done by Jan Willem Storm van 
Leeuwen and Philip Smith, both nuclear scientists at the end of 
distinguished careers, now free of the need to appease any institution, 
and with the courage to cope with a great deal of criticism and worse.

There are three criticisms of the uranium shortfall thesis. First, it is 
argued that there are plenty of good-quality uranium deposits available, 
that reserves are abundant, and that they will become more so when demand 
strengthens. But there is little to support this. From the 1960s to the 
1980s, exploration for uranium deposits was intensive; most that was there 
to be found was found. Some small deposits doubtless remain to be 
discovered, but the geology of uranium is now well known: there are almost 
certainly no major new discoveries ahead.

Second, critics point out that uranium is an abundant element; there is 
plenty of it in the earth's crust and in seawater. But in both cases the 
energy needed to extract it would be more than could ever be recovered.

Third, there is the argument that we could use uranium more efficiently by 
developing breeder reactors, which would be 100 times as efficient as 
today's thermal reactors. But after 50 years of extremely expensive 
research, they are still not technically feasible.

As long as the argument remains bogged down at the level of whether the 
problem exists or not, governments will consider themselves free to do 
exactly as they want. They will insist that there is no alternative to 
nuclear power, and nuclear power stations will continue to be built in 
Britain and around the world - enough to provide a general sense that help 
is at hand, but not enough to have any positive effect on the problem of 
energy and climate change. What will be significant will be the negative 
consequences. An expansion in the nuclear power industry will suck up the 
funds which should be made available for conservation and renewables. It 
will be a source of low-level radiation, of materials for proliferation 
and of carbon dioxide emissions. It will produce some very expensive 
energy. And then it will hit its limits. The industry will be left with 
huge reserves of low-grade uranium ores, too poor to be usable, and an 
equally huge inheritance of contaminated waste which has to be dealt with.

Just at the moment, we have an opportunity. Very efficient, manageable, 
small-scale solutions - focused on renewables and conservation 
technologies comprehensively applied - do exist. They need single-minded 
planning, big investment and training programs; but they have the 
advantage that, unlike any other option, they are feasible; and they do 
not conceal within them some terrible snag that no one dares talk about. 
There could be real solutions to the rapidly unfolding energy crisis. If 
sacrifices are now made to the voracious demands of nuclear power, that 
chance will be lost.

David Fleming's book The Lean Economy is forthcoming.



------------- Forwarded message follows -------------

An excellent article on why nuclear energy is not the solution to 
global warming OR the coming world energy crisis – from the Australian 
Financial Review!

http://afr.com/articles/2005/06/23/1119321845502.html

Apparently the author of the article has a book coming out:

David Fleming's - "The Lean Economy"