What brings me to say such things? Last week, I was heading to the Mines rec center when I was stopped in front of the student center by a representative of a small environmental activist group known as Environment Colorado. I do not remember his name since I am horrible with names, but he was out spreading awareness about allowing oil and gas drilling in Colorado state parks. This is what he lead with anyway before promptly getting to the point of needing money. Why he was approaching college kids for money is beyond me, but I digress. After talking with him about how much I love experiencing the outdoors as well as playing the role of the poor college kid to get out of giving him money, I had to venture into the lion's den and ask how his organization stood on nuclear power. Beyond giving the standard environmental answers and then concluding that nuclear power is probably a necessary evil, he began to talk about the high cost.
He told me that nuclear power is not viable because of the high cost associated with it. I cleverly retorted, saying that it is actually cheap but only made expensive by regulations. Of course he didn't believe me and began to tout about high construction costs and long build times due to how "complex" nuclear power is. At this point, the argument turned into the "Uh huh!...Nuh uh!" kind of argument.
Not wanting to be one-upped by a CU graduate, I had to go home and do my research, which has lead to some interesting findings. In summary, I think I finally have identified what has killed nuclear power and unfortunately it has little to do with science. I highly recommend reading this article passed on to me earlier this week by my dad.
The article has many good points about what has harmed the growth of nuclear power in the United States, many of which seem to be directly tied to President Jimmy Carter. I will try to avoid bashing him here and instead try to present the facts of what his administration "accomplished."
I have mentioned in the past that images of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl killed the growth of nuclear in this country because it caused the general public to be afraid of it. Well, I was wrong. Keeping in mind that the Three Mile Island incident took place in 1979 and that reactor number four at Chernobyl melted down in 1986, take a look at this graph.
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| Graph depicting the new number of nuclear power plants ordered versus the year. |
I have to admit that some of the decline in growth of nuclear power was due to the energy crisis of the mid 1970s which made nuclear energy an excess to the market. The killing factor to the growth of the industry, though, was dealt by the Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker on Columbus Day of 1979 when he drastically raised interest rates. This cost would not have killed the nuclear industry had it not been for the help of the anti-nuclear interventionists who continually sued companies building new plants. These law suits caused the construction of the plants to be halted while in court. When one suit was settled, often another would be brought against the same plant. This resulted in the excessively long construction times notorious to nuclear power plants. This has nothing to do with the complexity of the plant being that in reality nuclear power plants are not much more complicated that coal-fired plants.
The long construction times though stretched out the time that the plant had to be financed. The new plants could not begin to pay off the loans used for construction until the plant could produce power. The high interest rates over long periods of time simply made the construction of new plants uneconomical. Companies could not afford to invest in them as they would never be profitable. The actual construction of the plants is not expensive, but financing the plant over long periods of time is.
Just to give you an idea, the article talks of the Boston-Edison's Pilgrim-2 plant which was finally canceled in 1981 after the cost of construction went from 400 million to 4 billion dollars! It seems to me that the Carter administration's efforts to stop nuclear power in the United States was pretty successful. I don't know what you guys think, but this is more than a little maddening to me. People need to read a little before they continue to talk about how expensive nuclear power is. We need to stop the slow down on the construction of nuclear power plants!
6 comments:
Do you know what the groups were suing about?
The suits are usually just aimed at delaying the construction of the new plant. To do this they file lawsuits on anything that they see that will hold up the plant. Often times the suits are over such things as making them prove that they the water will be cleaned to ridiculous levels that the courts don't even enforce. Most of the suits are thrown out, but they still take time to get out of the way and therefore accomplish the damage.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about nuclear power plants, but it seems a little crazy that its being stopped over what seems like many frivolous law suites. I'm almost a little surprised they get away with filing all of the suites because it seems like there is some sort of law against that type of thing.
Bre, unfortunately it is not illegal to file such lawsuits, but it makes sense that it would be. Frivolous lawsuits have been a problem in this country for many years, but unfortunately we can't just take away someones rights to take somebody to court. Actually, there is even a whole industry that has kind of formed around taking nuclear power plants to court. But nuclear power is not the only industry that suffers from this. It is a common tactic among radical environmentalists. Probably good at times, but often it just inhibits progress in my opinion.
Hi Aaron!
I have a lot to say about your post, but let me just hit on a few things:
1) It may seem weird that EC would be on campus soliciting, but that kind of behavior is actually pretty normal at most college campuses: the culture at Mines is just one of low tolerance for activism. At most campuses, that kind of thing is par for the course. Also, I wouldn't characterize EC as small--they are pretty deeply involved in the environmental lobby in CO. That said, they have a lot of volunteers/interns who work for them, and they may not be up as much on the intricacies of nuclear as you are. I really like that you engaged him on the topic, though.
2) I think it's a mistake to write off cost as being a major inhibitor of nuclear power. This is a relatively accepted argument, and not just among hippie environmentalists. MIT's study The Future of Nuclear Power emphasizes it, and most good energy policy analysts acknowledge that cost is a significant issue when it comes to nuclear. I'm not saying the EC guy knew what he was talking about on everything, but cost is not a red herring here. And it's not just a result of Carter, or any other magic bullet explanation. NP in France is cheaper because they've routinized their design process, for example. Our more free-market system here has made that impossible. That's not Carter's fault.
3). To say that the cost of nuclear is high because of frivolous lawsuits also seems to me an oversimplification. We live in a democracy, and in one that (it could be argued) is fairly favorable to corporations. Lawsuits are one means citizens have of fighting back. Some may be frivolous, others may be using the system to fight for what they believe. From my point of view, that's what democracy looks like: messy and legalistic, but, in the end, just. More plants will surely be built in the coming decades under different regimes, but citizens should always have the right to contest such choices.
4) Finally, progress is important, particularly when it comes to our nation's energy future. And you and I actually come down on the same side when it comes to using nuclear to secure that future. But I disagree that progress must win out as the only narrative. I also embrace narratives of dissent, of slow development, of thoughtfulness, of care...and find that (and I'm generalizing here) nuclear engineers and scientists often are not interested in those other versions of truth. I wonder if your feeling like a kid in a he said/she said has to do with others just not wanting to budge on their viewpoint but also you not wanting to budge on yours.
Phew! Don't mean to sermonize. Just a great post, and I wanted to respond. Nice work.
Hey Jen, I actually agree with a lot that you have to say. First of all, it is good to learn a little about the EC. I saw them again on campus the other day and got a brochure from them to check out what they are doing.
I don't mean to say that nuclear power plants do not have a high cost associated with them. I simply mean to say that the cost is a lot higher than it would be if they were built in a timely matter. There was a case back in the 80s where four nuclear power plants were being built and slated to total 12 billion dollars, 8 billion dollars of which was just interest. In this case two thirds of the total cost was just interest!
As far as calling them frivolous lawsuits, I guess that is not what I really mean. I do admit that most have merit, though it is obvious that the lawsuits are a tactic to hold up construction and make the completion of the plant far more expensive. There are activist groups out there that seem to make a living doing this as the article talks about.
Not to say that being able to defend what you believe is wrong. I am not saying that at all. I am glad that we can fight what we do not want in this country. I just think that there should be a little more discretion about what should be able to hold up the construction so long. We must remember that these are private companies in a capitalist system that are trying to make money. At some point, the right of the activist to fight for what he wants interferes with the right of the organization to pursue their livelihood. I don't think this is right, especially considering the track record of nuclear power over the last 25 years.
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