FAQ: What about Nuclear power, can't we replace the energy we get from oil with more nuclear power?

The problems with Nuclear are four fold.

EROEI

Danger

Waste

Capacity  

EROEI

The first issue with nuclear power is 'What is the energy returned on energy invested?' You obviously have to evaluate all energy sources in this way but nuclear power is especially tricky. When you start calculating whether we actually get a net energy benefit from nuclear power once you calculate in the costs of waste disposal and safeguarding that waste for many thousands of years it is not at all clear cut. No one has done this research so this remains an open question. It is also important to note that the proponents of nuclear power cite the fact that it emits no CO2, and as such this is an advantage over fossil fuels. This is not strictly true. Enormous amounts of CO2 are emitted in the mining, processing, transporting etc of the fuel, and well as in the building materials for the production of the plant itself, a not trivial figure.

DANGER

The inherent instability and extreme toxicity of nuclear fuel mean that it will always be dangerous and hard to handle making it expensive and dangerous to those who work in the plants, mining, etc but also to those living or working near to nuclear plants. There is a long running dispute over leukaemia rates near the UK 's sellafield plant in Cumbria . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2107892&dopt=Abstract This is the same plant that has had to indefinitely shut down its Thorpe spent fuel reprocessing plant due to a major leak of highly radioactive liquid. They have as yet no idea of how to clean up the spill. http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=589332005 . There is also concern about the vulnerability of nuclear facilities to terrorism. The result of a 9/11 style attack would disastrous, if the reactor core was breached, although the nuclear industry has reassured us that nuclear facilities would withstand that sort of attack, but I don't suppose anyone has slammed a fully laden 747 into a nuclear reactor to test it. The link between nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons is seldom mentioned. The current dispute between Iran and the USA and Europe clearly highlight this fact. Iran has declared that its nuclear power program is pure ‘civilian' ie generating power, but the USA and Europe all know that one of the main by products of nuclear power generation is plutonium which is also a vital ingredient of nuclear weapons. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/ http://www.payvand.com/news/03/oct/1015.html

Waste

Not one single country producing nuclear waste from either weapons manufacture or nuclear power generation (every country that has nuclear weapons also produces nuclear power, hmmm) has worked out what to do with the waste. The question of how to store it so that it is safe, cannot either explode or leach into the ground water or air has not been resolves despite over 50 years of trying. It is an open question, one that will never be fully answered mainly due to the long term nature of the problem. High level nuclear waste will have to be stored safely not leaking, or degrading for several thousand years before it is safe. Who will be around in a thousand years from now and how do we fund them to carry on the problem which we have created? It is another example of present generations stealing from their progeny. They will have to pay for our short sightedness. The ‘hope' is that a technical solution will be found that will be easy and cheap ‘sometime' in the future. There is no guarantee this will happen. Should be gamble with our children's and grand children's future?    

CAPACITY

Currently the US uses oil at the rate of about 7Billion bbl/yr. This oil provides about 40% of the US's total primary energy use. Coal and natural gas together provide another 45% of primary energy. I have done a few back-of-the-envelope calculations asking the question. "What if we were to replace the energy we now get from oil with electricity generated from nuclear or with wind? How many new nuclear plants would be needed and how many wind turbines would be needed?" If we assume that about 85% of the oil we use is used for energy production then we need to generate enough electrical energy to replace the energy of about 6B bbl of oil. If we use the conversion that 1 bbl of oil is equivalent to about 1700 Kwh of electrical energy, then to replace 6B bbl we need to generate about 10 T (rillion) Kwh of (additional) electrical energy per year. If we provide this energy by building nuclear power plants that operate at an 80% capacity factor (ie operating 24*365*0.8 = 7000 hr/yr) then we need to build about 10T Kwh/7000 hr = 1.4e6 MWe of additional power generating capacity. If each nuclear plant has a capacity of 1,000 MWe, then we need an additional 1.4e6/1,000 = 1400 nuclear power plants (we currently have 107 nuclear reactors capable of generating electricity) in the US only let alone the rest of he world. If we were to replace all fossil fuel use by such nuclear generated electricity we would need to build 1400*85/40 = 2975 one thousand MWe nuclear plants. If capital costs of nuclear power plants run at about $1.5-$2.00 per installed watt then capital outlays for 1400 nuclear 1,000 MWe would total as much as $2.8 trillion (just to replace the power provided now by oil) - not exactly chicken feed.

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