MB Civic

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May 16, 2006

Time to Invest in Nuclear Power? (7 Letters)

To the Editor:

Re “The Greening of Nuclear Power” (editorial, May 13):

You say nuclear power could serve as “a useful bridge to even greener sources of energy” without a hint of how that can happen.

You claim that spent nuclear fuel could “be stored safely at surface sites for the next 50 to 100 years” without admitting that it will remain dangerously radioactive for millenniums as subsequent wastes are piled upon existing wastes.

You contend that higher fossil fuel prices make nuclear power costs look more “reasonable” without acknowledging that decommissioning nuclear power plants will be more expensive than constructing them in the first place, as obsolete nuclear plants are entombed in perpetuity.

Nuclear power should not serve as a model for how to meet global demand for energy while addressing climate change. The same investment in distributed-generation capacity through existing sustainable solar and wind technologies would give us far more electricity for the money and infinitely greater security.

H. James Quigley Jr.
Bronx, May 13, 2006
The writer is operations director, Center for Sustainable Energy, Bronx Community College, CUNY.

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To the Editor:

Inadequately stored nuclear waste is now seeping toward the Columbia and Snake Rivers, and last year, radioactive water from the Indian Point nuclear power plant was found leaking into the Hudson River.

The country’s chemical plants are inadequately secured. We don’t have systems in place to monitor the contents of shipping containers arriving in our country’s ports. In the last year there have been disastrous domestic refinery and mining accidents, not to mention failures of levees and emergency services.

Against this backdrop, what community would or should welcome a nuclear power plant, nuclear waste or the transport of nuclear material?

Elizabeth Grossman
Portland, Ore., May 13, 2006

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To the Editor:

Whether we like nuclear energy or not, the sad reality is that there are no other options open to us.

Renewables like wind and solar energy are prohibitively expensive in capital cost, about $8,000 a kilowatt. Since wind does not blow and the sun doesn’t shine all the time, there has to be a standby source of power for wind-solar lulls.

The only non-emitting carbon dioxide energy source that can replace the grid provided by fossil fuel plants is nuclear reactors.

The capital cost of nuclear reactors is a factor of 3 or more lower: around $2,000 a kilowatt. To replace present-day fossil fuel with nuclear reactors would cost around $1 trillion. Spread over 10 years, this becomes $100 billion a year.

Compared with the cost of the Iraq war or tax cuts to the rich, surely this sum is within reach?

Gioietta Kuo
Twain Harte, Calif., May 13, 2006
The writer is a nuclear physicist.

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To the Editor:

I am always amused when advocates for nuclear energy make appeals to the public based on scientific evidence. The technology is sufficiently complex that no lay person will ever be able to make an informed choice. The appeals are little more than smoke and mirrors.

An institution does exist that can calculate the risks. It’s called insurance. So, key to the rhetoric of pro-nuclear energy is an omission: The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 limits the liability of the nuclear industry.

Like so many Republican initiatives, the new-found passion for nuclear energy is the privatization of benefits and the socialization of costs. Nevertheless, the title of your editorial is well chosen. The “greening” in “The Greening of Nuclear Energy” is the almighty dollar.

Joseph Henry Vogel
San Juan, P.R., May 13, 2006
The writer is director of the Unit for Economic Research, University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras.

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To the Editor:

You do not mention a critical proven advantage of nuclear energy: its ability to power both pure electric and the plug-in, electric-gasoline hybrid versions of automobiles.

Wider application of these technologies, combined with more electricity supplied by nuclear plants, would offer the advantages of running cars with a cleaner, cheaper and domestically produced source of energy.

Although it may now be true that how much impact nuclear power could really have in slowing carbon emissions “has yet to be spelled out,” the potential for powering cars with a zero-carbon-emissions source of energy is obvious.

Henry I. Miller
Stanford, Calif., May 13, 2006
The writer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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To the Editor:

Your editorial is on target in calling for a fresh look at nuclear energy.

Utilities have announced construction license applications for more than 16 new nuclear plants. Credit goes largely to radical improvements in average capacity factors of the existing plants, from 66 percent in 1990 to above 90 percent now.

But the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility is also moving forward.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to issue a final one-million-year safety standard by year’s end, providing vastly more stringent protection than any E.P.A. requirements for nonradioactive chemicals.

Now Congress should remove Yucca’s artificial capacity cap to allow its use within the limits of this one-million-year safety requirement. Yucca could then suffice for all spent fuel from existing plants, plus potentially 100 or more new plants.

Per F. Peterson
Berkeley, Calif., May 14, 2006
The writer is a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

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To the Editor:

You say “there is no reason why the spent fuel rods can’t be stored safely at surface sites for the next 50 to 100 years.”

You do not mention that in theory there is also no reason spent fuel can’t be separated out, processed and safely recycled into new fuel.

There is no single “silver bullet” solution to our energy needs. Invoking the first law of thermodynamics, the philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller said, “There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance.”

Michael Lakota
Cold Spring, N.Y., May 13, 2006