A slightly different version of this article was written in November 2006 for Counterpoise Magazine by Peaceworks Director and Missourians for Safe Energy co-founder Mark Haim.

Nuclear Power: Failed Technology or Candidate for a Comeback?

By Mark Haim

I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s. Back then, in the era of “Atoms for Peace,” nuclear power was sold to the American people as our future. We were moving forward into an age of limitless, clean energy that would be so abundant, it would be “too cheap to meter.” By the time I became a young adult in the early 1970s Richard Nixon was telling us that the United States would have 1,000 large nuclear plants installed by the year 2000. By then, I’d learned not to trust what people like Nixon were telling me, however.
By the mid-1970s the once bright hope sold to a generation of baby boomers and our parents came crashing down as the realities of nuclear safety, routine radiation releases, worker contamination, potential melt downs, mill tailings and the unresolved—perhaps irresolvable—nuclear waste quandary began to sink in to public awareness. Soon, instead of cheering crowds at ribbon cuttings, there were mass demonstrations, legal interventions, public debates, civil disobedience actions and a diverse network of grassroots safe energy organizations springing up all across the nation.

All this happened well before the March 1979 Three Mile Island accident which, in the words of former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Peter Bradford, turned “a $2 billion asset into a $1 billion cleanup job in about 90 minutes.” The utility industry, which already had its doubts—as nuclear plants were proving to be far more costly than anticipated—basically pulled the plug on the nuclear option.

The last nuclear plant to be completed in the United States was ordered in 1973. Dozens of plants—many partially built—were canceled. Not wanting to throw good money after bad, the utilities wrote off billions already invested. Writing in  Forbes Magazine  in 1985, James Cook labeled “The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program” as “the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.” 

Fast Forward Two Decades

Many observers believed the moribund industry stood no chance of rising from the grave. In 2001 The Economist, Britain’s leading financial journal, declared “Nuclear power, once claimed to be too cheap to meter, is now too costly to matter.” 

Corporations, like General Electric and Westinghouse, were heavily invested in this technology, however. They continued to lobby for a revival of nuclear power’s fortunes. They found willing allies in the Bush-Cheney administration, who’ve been more than happy to heap billions in new subsidies on the industry, while relaxing regulatory oversight and eliminating opportunities for citizen input.

This Federal commitment to a nuclear revival, combined with rising energy prices, and growing concern over global climate change has led some U.S. utilities to give nukes a second look. The idea that nuclear power is climate friendly has also been a factor in making some environmentalists reluctant supporters of nukes, regarding them as a lesser evil compared with coal, which the industry presents as the only other “realistic” option. While critics can debunk the “carbon neutral” myth with solid numbers, the nuclear industry is able to spend hundreds of millions on sophisticated public relations campaigns that tend to drown out the facts.

Today we stand at a precipice. While no utility has yet taken the plunge and placed an order for a new nuke, there are at least a dozen sites around the nation, most of them in southeastern states, where utilities have stated an intention to build a new nuclear plant. Many others, including AmerenUE here in Missouri, have indicated that they are considering nukes.

Unfortunately, from the perspective of those concerned about a potential “nuclear revival” (or,
perhaps more accurately, a “nuclear relapse”), much of this is coming in under the radar. Here in Missouri, for example, relatively few people are aware that Ameren is considering building a new nuke. And, far fewer still have in any way made their concerns about nuclear power heard.

Ironically, this is actually the time—before any contracts are signed, before money and corporate prestige are invested, before jobs are on the line—when citizen input has the most chance of making a difference. But, because all is so tentative, opposition has been slow to mobilize.

Issues to Consider

As a new generation grapples with nuclear power, they must focus on key questions including: what exactly is nuclear power, why is it dangerous, why there is so much concern over nuclear waste and what are the connections between the “peaceful atom” and nuclear weapons? It’s also important to explore what nuclear power will cost and how this compares to available alternatives. The question of global warming also must be addressed.

Energy issues in general, and nuclear power in particular, are more technical subjects than those familiar to many progressive activists; issues like the Iraq War, homophobia or homelessness. This is no reason to shy away from engagement. In fact, decisions we make now regarding energy and nuclear issues are some of the most critical one can imagine. They will impact every aspect of our lives, and will resonate for many centuries to come. These decisions are far too important to leave to vested interests like oil companies, nuclear vendors and utilities. Citizen participation is essential.

A Fancy Way to Boil Water

Nuclear fission power is a different way to make steam to turn a turbine to generate electricity. Rather than burning a fossil fuel, releasing energy stored in its chemical bonds, when fissioning uranium or plutonium—splitting atoms into several smaller atoms or subatomic particles—some of the matter in the nuclei is converted to energy, giving off heat and boiling water. This is the Einsteinian concept E=MC2 put into action.

The big advantage of getting energy in this manner is that lots of energy is released by converting very small amounts of matter. The big problem is that, to get this energy, we have to mine, process, transport, handle and contain radioactive materials. Radiation causes cancer, leukemia and genetic damage, and there is no safe dose below which there is no risk of harm. Moreover, the process of mining uranium takes naturally occurring radioactive materials out of stable, contained locations in the Earth, concentrates them, and then, in the fission process, multiplies their radioactivity literally one million fold.

Nuclear reactors, like any machine designed by humans, are subject to breakdowns and accidents. Unlike a conventionally fired boiler, however, the consequences of a nuclear plant accident could be truly catastrophic. That’s because each large reactor contains within its core the radiological equivalent of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.

Put another way, radiation is measured in curies. A large teaching hospital and medical research facility with 1,000 laboratories handling radioactive materials might house in total 2 curies. A typical reactor by comparison contains within its core at any moment 16 billion curies (not to mention the additional radiation in the waste holding pools and dry casks; often decades of high level waste is stored on site). Thus, nuclear technology is uniquely unforgiving of mistakes. Should a worst case accident happen, the radiation release could kill tens of thousands of people and leave vast areas uninhabitable.

Moreover, there is not only danger should some hypothetical accident occur. Nuclear plants routinely release some radiation into the air and water every day. These “permissible” releases not only occur at the plants, but at every step in the nuclear fuel production chain. There are very serious environmental impacts from uranium mining and milling, and often the mill tailings—the bulk of the mined ore that is left behind—are left uncovered, venting radioactive gases directly into the atmosphere.

Isolation for a Quarter Million Years?

Unlike chemical wastes, which can generally be neutralized, the dozens of different radioisotopes produced through fissioning uranium each have their own half-life—the time it takes for half of what is present to decay into something else—and this fixed rate is something we cannot practically alter. Some half-lives are very short, mere seconds or minutes, others are on the order of multiple decades, while still others far longer. Plutonium 239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. Since isolation for the “hazardous life” of a substance means for at least ten half-lives, we are talking about coming up with a means of isolating this deadly substance for approximately a quarter of a million years.

Nuclear waste thus presents us with a great ethical dilemma. It must be isolated from the environment virtually perfectly for far longer than our species has so far lived on the Earth, or for about one hundred times as long as the time that’s elapsed since ancient Greek civilization peaked. This is far longer than we can expect continuity in human institutions. It’s also far longer than we can realistically predict what will happen geologically, assuming we opt for burial of the waste. A location that appears stable now, might not be 5,000 or 50,000 years from now. And certainly, no above ground building can be expected to stand or to be secure for that long.

We are more than 60 years into the Nuclear Age and not one of the 31countries using nuclear power has yet to implement a permanent waste solution. Humanity is producing this vast inventory of lethal materials without knowing how we will isolate them, where we will do so, or how much it will cost. We are leaving it to future generations to “solve” the waste problem. This means safely transporting all the spent fuel and decommissioning the plants. That means doing the work of dismantling the reactors—which themselves must be treated as waste, cut up into pieces, transported and put into repositories. It’s not just the power plants and the spent fuel that must be addressed, but all the facilities at all the steps in the nuclear fuel production chain, and all of the waste streams each of them has generated. It also includes paying the tab for all of this, although some funds in theory have been allocated.

Future generations will be required to accept the risks of handling these materials and the costs of doing so, even though they received none of the energy from these plants. Presumably our immediate descendents, over say the next century or two, will need to address decommissioning and clean-up, should they have the resources, social organization and will to do so. The temporal injustice is likely to be compounded for many generations to come, should these nuclear materials leak out of whatever storage they are placed in, contaminating water or air. It is also possible that future generations will turn to our era’s waste for their weapons.

It is also worthy of mention that one microgram (a millionth of a gram) of plutonium inhaled virtually guarantees lung cancer, and about 12 pounds is all that’s needed to make a bomb equivalent to the one that leveled Nagasaki. A typical 1,000-megawatt reactor produces 500 pounds of plutonium a year, and, in total, about 30 metric tons of high level waste.

The Siamese Twins

Nuclear weapons represent the preeminent existential threat to our existence. There is no secret to the bomb. It is only limited access to special nuclear materials—highly enriched uranium or plutonium—that keeps any nation or sub-national group from acquiring these doomsday weapons. Most states that have “gone nuclear” over the past several decades have pursued their nuclear ambitions under the legitimating cover of civilian nuclear power programs. The more fingers on the trigger, the more likely nuclear war becomes.

Today Iran tells the world community that they are only interested in nuclear technology and know-how for energy purposes and who can say for certain this is not the case? If, however, they, or any other nation, install a full-blown nuclear fuel capability, including enrichment and/or reprocessing they can at any point opt to weaponize.

As long as our government says to the world that nuclear is the answer to our energy needs, and keeps selling this technology to developing nations, Uncle Sam will fill the role of a nuclear Johnny Appleseed. Only by abandoning nuclear power and encouraging all nations to do the same can we make the pursuit of nuclear weapons capability unambiguous and relatively easy to sanction.

The imperative of our age is survival and the nuclear Siamese twins present a most serious threat. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inexorably linked and, to reduce the nuclear threat, rather than see it rise dramatically in the decades ahead, we must eschew both kinds of nukes. In accordance with Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, we should also negotiate the mutual, verifiable elimination of the nuclear arsenals of all n-weapons states, including those in the U.S. arsenal. The hypocrisy of telling others that they cannot have a single WMD, when our government holds many thousands only breeds resentment and gives others the incentive to attain nuclear status, if for no other reason than to deter the nuclear bully.

Pre-Positioned WMD for Terrorists

If, on Sept. 11, 2001, a plane had been flown into the Indian Point nuclear power plant 35 miles north of Manhattan, instead of the WTC, the carnage could have been in the tens or hundreds of thousands.  Nuclear plants, because of their massive inventories of highly radioactive materials pose a unique set of risks as compared to any other energy technology.

According to a July 2002 report titled Making The Nation Safer: The Role Of Science And Technology In Countering Terrorism, “the potential for 9/11 type attacks on nuclear power plants is high.” The report, released by the National Research Council, describes the threat risk as high with potential consequences “ranging from reactor shutdowns to core meltdowns with very large releases of radioactivity.”

Nuclear security concerns extend beyond attacks on reactors themselves. We also face possible attacks on nuclear waste storage facilities, including on-site holding pools, and nuclear waste transportation. There is also the possibility of sabotage by plant workers or diversion of radioactive materials from a nuclear plant for use in a terror attack at another location.

In an era of violent conflicts, terror attacks and wars, it seems foolhardy to build a whole new set of targets that leave all of us vulnerable to security breaches or attacks.

The Costlier, Subsidized Option

Nuclear power only exists thanks to massive taxpayer subsidies. Everywhere it has failed the test of the marketplace and new nuclear plants are only being built in countries where governments are underwriting the venture.

No U.S. utility has ordered and built a new nuke in more than 30 years. At the behest of nuclear vendors, who are heavy contributors to GOP coffers, the Cheney Energy Task Force recommended a whole raft of new subsidies, and, in 2005, Congress complied, providing the industry with $12-13 billion in new funding.

It should be noted that over the 50-year period of 1948-1998 nuclear power received $74 billion in federal research and development subsidies (in constant 2003 dollars). This was 56% of all federal energy R&D subsidies. While subsidies are sometimes helpful in jumpstarting a fledgling industry, commercial nuclear power has been with us for 50 years now. If the industry is not yet mature and competitive, is there any reason to believe that it ever will be?

The truth of the matter is that no one knows what a new nuclear plant will actually cost. We do know that the industry has consistently low-balled its cost estimates in order to sell their multi-billion dollar white elephants. We also know that there are safe sustainable alternatives, such as wind power, that are commercially competitive right now. We cannot afford to sink trillions into nuclear dinosaurs, when we need this money to fund the transition to a sustainable energy future.

Nukes, No Cure for a Warming Planet

Although the utility industry has generally fought tooth and nail against restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, they and the larger nuclear industry are now finding global climate change concerns a convenient way to sell us a new generation of nukes. While it is true that nuclear plant operations do not directly emit CO2, the primary greenhouse gas, their overall argument is deeply flawed.

To begin with, it is not power plant operation, but rather the full cycle of energy production that must be looked at. In the case of nuclear power, this includes mining and refining uranium ore, processing and enriching the uranium, fabricating and transporting the fuel, transporting and dealing with the waste, and, of course, building and ultimately dismantling the power plants. Each of these steps involves the use of fossil fuels. Fuel enrichment is especially energy intensive.

Moreover, if we were to proceed, as the industry advocates, and build 1,500-3,000 new nukes, to fuel all these plants, would require turning to ever lower grade ores. This is not only more expensive, but is also much more energy intensive, requiring large inputs of fossil fuel to mine and crush the rock to extract the uranium, not to mention to restore the mining sites and deal with the radiation-releasing mill tailings.
While nuclear advocates love the straw man argument that nukes are more climate friendly than coal, our real choice is not whether to invest in nukes or coal, but rather includes, along with these options, efficiency improvements and renewables, both of which can reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a significantly lower cost than nukes can. According to Nuclear Information and Resource Service, energy efficiency improvements are seven times more effective at reducing greenhouse gases, per dollar spent, than nuclear power. Yearly costs per 1000 kg avoided CO2 emissions are $68.9 for wind and $132.5 for nuclear power.

The Safe, Sustainable Alternatives

The real alternative to both nuclear power and to polluting fossil fuels is an energy future based upon the twin pillars of efficiency and renewables.

The potential for cutting energy consumption is vast. Virtually everything we do can be done using far less energy. Simple technical fixes, like including more insulation and better windows in our buildings, can reduce heating a cooling needs dramatically, saving money and environmental impact.  According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, just by investing in efficient lighting, we could eliminate fully 10 percent of electric consumption, enabling us to shut down 120 large nuclear or coal plants, saving massive environmental impacts and $30 billion a year in fuel and operating costs.

All our energy needs can be met by a diverse mix of renewable sources. Our planet is constantly bathed in incoming solar energy. We need only capture a small fraction to power or economy, as the Earth receives in one half-hour the equivalent of all human uses for a full year.

While we would be wise to use a mix of renewable sources, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory study determined that, in the U.S., wind power alone, sited in environmentally acceptable locations, could supply more than three times current electric consumption. A June 2005 study by Cristina L. Archer and Mark Z. Jacobson published in the Journal of Geophysical Research found that globally, if we harvested just 20 percent of the available wind power, we could produce energy equal to all the world’s current usage in all forms, or more than seven times current electrical consumption.

Time for Action

The next two years are critical. Sufficient citizen opposition could scuttle the nuclear revival. Or the industry could gain traction, leverage billions in subsidies and begin building a whole new generation of plants. We have a window of opportunity. This is the time to get organized and mobilize a groundswell of support for safe, sustainable energy. The choice is ours.