Last month’s Long Now podcast summarizes the arguments in Gwyneth Cravens’ new book Power to save the world: the truth about nuclear energy. Cravens was a protester against nuclear power in the 1980s. D.R. (”Rip”) Anderson, who knows a thing or two about the subject, changed her mind. In Stewart Brand’s summary of the talk, he notes:
Comparing the environmental footprint of nuclear versus coal was the most persuasive mind-changer for Cravens. Coal involves vast quantities of mine spoil, vast quantities of fuel, vast quantities of pollution (including mercury and uranium), and vast quantities of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere. Nuclear, by contrast, uses the most concentrated form of energy in the world, the plants are small, and the waste amounts to one Coke can per person’s lifetime of energy use.
The podcast lays out the big picture in a comprehensive way. I’d like to pretend that none of it surprised me, but that’d be a lie. Although I’ve never been opposed to nuclear power, I’ve never wanted to seriously contemplate a major ramp-up either.
Why not? I guess I have to admit that the confluence of The China Syndrome and Three Mile Island was a mind-changer. And not just for me. It changed the mind of our society.
I wonder what combination of art and circumstance would change our society’s mind on this subject again?
October 30, 2007 at 10:50 am
I would have hoped that India and Pakistan testing nuclear weapons would have been enough to keep minds the way they are. Dollar for dollar, conservation measures more cost-effective than nuclear power once the subsidies are taken away, and they lend themselves less well to proliferation.
October 30, 2007 at 11:34 am
Nuclear would seem reasonable if the traditional objections were the only objections. That is, if the only problem with nuclear is safety and fuel disposal. Fuel disposal of course is still an outstanding issue.
Putting all of this aside, nuclear fuel still isn’t magically free and unlimited, and nuclear is just really expensive. If nuclear costs more than other environmentally friendly energy, why choose nuclear? Coal is clearly awful, but by phrasing the choice as simply nuclear vs. coal the nuclear proponents are ignoring a more valid debate. If we want to spend more money for energy, then nuclear is just one of many options. If we *don’t* want to spend more money for energy, then nuclear isn’t an option.
October 30, 2007 at 11:41 am
“conservation measures more cost-effective”
Some questions to ponder:
What is the total cost (including environmental externalities) of the (mostly coal-based) sources currently subject to such conservation? We don’t like to think about that.
Will renewable sources in the foreseeable future be able to do the heavy lifting that will be needed to a) displace those conservable sources, and b) meet growing demand? I would like to believe so, but if you asked me to explain how, I’d have to resort to handwaving.
That said, given Anderson’s emphasis on base load, I’d like to hear his response to the “base load fallacy” (http://www.sustainabilitycentre.com.au/BaseloadFallacy.pdf).
October 30, 2007 at 11:48 am
“Why not? I guess I have to admit that the confluence of The China Syndrome and Three Mile Island was a mind-changer. And not just for me. It changed the mind of our society.”
I think Chernobyl was the other big convincer. For me, I think it is about paternalism (”leave it to the experts,” “father knows best,”) and our reaction to invisible terrors. (It took me years to be comfortable and to regularly take medication to control my cholesterol level, somehow because I was ingesting an invisible actor — I think I know what aspirin is doing and when it is working, but it is harder to know about Lipitor, ya know?)
Some of it is a pattern of existing familiarity of course, and the ultra-green side of the environmental movement probably doesn’t want to see either coal or nuclear although I’m not sure they can do the math at all.
I’m told that a lot of the cost of nuclear is the cost of regulation and of the legal costs of geting permits and actually building the sites. I don’t know how true that is.
I do think that re-introduction of nuclear power needs two critical things: A sound and clear story about waste disposal and a very serious level of *sustained* (i.e., a century or more) transparency and accountability that we may not know how to conduct as a society. Or trust ourselves and our institutions to conduct. That’s difficult to imagine in our current adversarial condition, so it looks like needing an important breakthrough. Is response to global warming and human impact on climate a good place to start?
October 30, 2007 at 11:54 am
I’m conflicted on this as well. I worked for a number of years in climate change policy, and when you look at the numbers, nukes seem to be the feasible long-term solution, unless we are willing to undertake massive systematic change in how we run our lives/societies/cities - certainly not seeming likely right now.
I read about one epidemiological study that said: living within 40 miles of a coal-fired power plant is gives the same cancer/death rates as smoking a pack a day of cigarettes. No one talks about that study of course (ironically, it came out sometime in 2002, as terrorism was dominating the fears in people’s minds … dying of coal-smoke cancer seems much less worrisome, for some reason). living next to a nuke plant has no such effects. so, despite the threats, Pakistan & India’s nuclear arms have killed far fewer people than, say, american electric power’s fleet of coal-fired power plants.
james “gaia” lovelock is a nuke convert as well.
and yet and yet … there are probably better solutions, but none very likely.
October 30, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Even though the waste per person is small the number of people is great. The waste has a half life of somewhere in the 10s of thousands of years. Unless we are going to shoot it into the sun, with some risk, I will opt for other alternatives without such difficult waste like Hydrogen. Waste that is not able to be properly disposed of is an over riding deal breaker.
October 30, 2007 at 3:23 pm
“I think Chernobyl was the other big convincer”
Yes. The point made w/respect to that: No effective containment. Eminently avoidable.
“Fuel disposal of course is still an outstanding issue.”
Anderson sees good options there.
Of course I’m clearly not qualified to speak to these issues. Suffice it to say, I think the arguments are worth hearing out at length.
Setting aside the specifics of the debate, it raises a whole series of meta-issues. How do we know what we think we know? Under what circumstances are we willing to re-evaluate? How do we balance emotion and reason when making risk/benefit calculations in evolving circumstances? What kinds of appeals to emotion (art) and reason (evidence) can move the needle one way or the other?
October 31, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I think it is also not about the technological fixes or what the bugs were. It is about trusting the masters of the technology with our fates. Going back to Three-Mile Island is fruitful. I was living in Rochester, New York at the time and not that far from a nuclear power reactor on the shores of Lake Ontario. When Three-Mile Island hit the new, the Chairman of the power company in Rochester went to the site and the visitor center there and gave interviews and press conferences on what they did to ensure their plant was safe, how you could find out about that and so on. I was impressed, no matter how much it was theater. I was also impressed by how they dealt with shutdowns, occassional ventings, and problems with turbine blades and such.
Then, oddly, there was a lot of effort to try to license more reactors and the Rochester company joined into a pact with Niagara Mohawk that led to some really awful public advocacy, including videos (er., TV commercials) of engineers sort of talking about how we could leave our concerns in their hands. Bzzzt. No pass. And the public didn’t buy it and there are nukes no more thereabouts.
The difference for me was like night and day. Its not about bad containment but about systems that let bad containment be deployed, or operators under-trained and emergency systems that are error-prone, and so on. This needs to be handled differently.
I am not arguing against nuclear power, but am concerned for its governance and how we as a society maintain our sovereignty over such things, that mishandled, have grave consequences. There is also the matter of understanding our own behavior around risks and the problem of trade-offs where the same individuals are not on both sides of the equation. (Easy example is mandatory measles vaccinations of children. The trade-off is not for the kids at one level and it is at another level. This is tough stuff.)
October 31, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I’m not sure if my previous comment got through … but if you’d like to read another viewpoint on nuclear power - an insider’s - see my blog RadDecision.blogspot.com. You’ll find here the novel “Rad Decision” that I’ve written, which covers all the ground in an entertaining fashion. I’ve been in the nuke biz over twenty years and can tell you that it’s a lot different than the outside experts, pro and con, may imagine. Stewart Brand has said: “I’d like to see Rad Decision widely read.”
November 5, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Hi James,
Your book sounds intriguing. Now I need to decide whether I want it as atoms at raddecision or as bits from Amazone or the library…
Via your blog I found this from Stewart Brand:
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=14406
He says:
“Single-handedly, [Amory] Lovins converted the environmental movement from loathing of the auto industry to fruitful engagement with it. Someone could do the same with nuclear power plants. Lovins refuses to. The field is open, and the need is great.”
Coincidentally I have been listening to Lovins’ recent and excellent series of talks over at SIConversations. It’d be great to hear a conversation between him and folks like Rip Anderson and you.
November 15, 2007 at 2:49 am
I think one problem is that we’ve rejected all of nuclear power based on poor implementations. Traditional water-cooled reactors are really expensive and have to be kept stable through active involvement; there are other designs which are designed for stability. I wrote about this after reading an article in Wired a few years ago: http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2004/09/02/225090.aspx
February 11, 2008 at 1:02 am
[...] Nuclear power mind-changing « Jon UdellLast month’s Long Now podcast summarizes the arguments in Gwyneth Cravens’ new book Power to save the world: the truth about nuclear energy [...]
May 22, 2008 at 10:55 am
The system is rarely envisioned, built and used by the same person. A successful system is a result of people interactions- intensive ideas exchange, reconciliation of opinions and creation of mutually enhanced knowledge. It is not easy for people to properly translate, communicate and understand each other ideas. Complex knowledge, different background and experience increase the gap that people should jump to completely understand each other.
June 1, 2008 at 6:38 pm
bodybuilding…
Bodybuilding can benefit everybody if done properly….
July 17, 2008 at 9:00 pm
SOG knives…
Interesting ideas… I wonder how the Hollywood media would portray this?…
November 11, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Excuse me - but what is wrong with considering “REDUCING DEMAND” as an alternative?
The choice is not simply coal or nuclear. There is another choice - REDUCE DEMAND.
If the money spent on building nuclear reactors was instead spent on educating society about how to live greener, with less requirement for electricity - then there would be real progress, and in terms of living sustainably with the environment too.
Mankind has survived for millions of years without electricity - but now - you claim that we have no choice but to simply meet always increasing demand - BAH! wrong.
Please, don’t be stupid - place REDUCTION on the bargaining table as another alternative.
Sure, no brainer - nuclear is cleaner than coal - but hey, here’s a newsflash - using less power altogether is the cleanest suggestion of all. Too bad you are afraid to consider reduction as a real possibility.
Shame on Gwyneth Cravens. Shame on you all for being tricked into the debate “framed” as choosing only between coal or nuclear power.
…my father is dying of multiple myeloma - a form of bone marrow cancer - that he got from working at a nuclear power plant in the 70’s. It’s a real shame we are such a dirty, weak-minded species, yet we think we are so wise and advanced.