Originally published in the International Herald Tribune, October 17, 2008.
Copyright © Daniel B. Botkin 2008.

John McCain has called for building 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and 100 eventually. Barack Obama’s Web site says, “It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table.”
But to what extent can nuclear power really help achieve energy independence?

There’s a problem about nuclear energy that gets little attention. At present, fossil fuels provide 87 percent of the world’s total energy while nuclear power plants provide just 4.8 percent. (All nuclear power plants currently generate electricity, accounting for about 15 percent of world electricity generation, while fossil fuels produce almost 67 percent of the electricity.)

The best estimates put the amount of uranium that can be mined economically (what geologists call the reserves) at about 5.5 million metric tons, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, today’s nuclear power plants use 70,000 metric tons a year of uranium. At this rate of use, the uranium that could be mined economically would last about 80 years.

Suppose it were possible to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear power. Suppose that we could use nuclear energy to make liquid and gas fuels to power vehicles, and could do this quickly using conventional nuclear power plants.

We would have to build enough plants to increase energy production by 17.4 times, which means using 1.2 million tons of uranium ore each year. At that rate of use, the reserves of uranium would be used up in less than five years.

Geologists also estimate that there are about 35 million tons of uranium out there regardless of the cost of mining it (geologists call this identified resources). With nuclear power replacing all fossil fuels, even these would be used up in 29 years.

Thus, if the goal is to counter global warming by replacing all fossil fuels with nuclear power, this goal cannot be met.

Advocates of nuclear power point out that it doesn’t have to replace all other sources of energy. Let’s consider that approach.

At a recent meeting, the Group of Eight major industrial countries agreed to reduce carbon emissions 50 percent by 2050. Suppose nuclear energy increased just enough each year to enable fossil-fuel use to decline at a constant annual rate, to 50 percent by 2050, while nuclear power therefore increased to provide 50 percent of the world’s energy.

At this rate of use, uranium reserves would run out by 2019, and the estimated maximum of 35 million metric tons of uranium in identified resources would run out by year 2038, gaining us less than two decades.

There are some important caveats. Exploring for minerals is done on an as-needed basis, and large areas of the world may have been little explored for uranium. Every mining geologist and mine corporation executive will tell you that estimates of total reserves of a mineral are just that – estimates – and that the reserves of many minerals always increase over time.

This approach may be all right for the planning time of mining companies, but it won’t work for a long-term global energy strategy based on adequate supplies of uranium.

Considering the enormous costs of building the large number of nuclear power plants that are contemplated to replace fossil fuels, the United States would be courting disaster if it chose this route with nothing but blind faith that there may be a lot more uranium out there if we only look for it.

We need to know a lot more about available uranium resources and where they are. If they are in unfriendly countries, they might not be available at all.
Nuclear power advocates also argue that it is possible to recover significant amounts of uranium from spent fuel. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, “In 2004, two-thirds of the uranium used was newly mined; the rest came from civil and military stockpiles, spent fuel reprocessing and re-enrichment of depleted uranium.”

But the amount from spent fuels is not specified, and a reprocessing program to deal with 1.2 million tons of used uranium would be a major undertaking, perhaps not technologically feasible in the near future.

Others suggest that breeder reactors, which produce more nuclear fuel than they use, will solve the problem.

The United States experimented with a few breeder reactors from 1964 to 1994, but they were shut down or work on them halted in the 1990s.
Other nations have tried building them, and some are considering or developing them. But to my knowledge perhaps only one or two breeder reactors are in use and providing electrical energy anywhere in the world, and these are probably not “breeding.”

There are reasons for this: The technology is not there yet, and the reactors are dangerous in themselves, even without considering their potential use in making atomic weapons. They are the kind of nuclear reactors that everybody fears Iran or North Korea might build and use to make atomic bombs.
In sum, the breeder-reactor route, if it is practical at all, is a long way in the future as a major contributor to the world’s energy, and certainly not a way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels now or in the near future.

The bottom line: From what is known about resources of uranium and the present and future state of nuclear power plants, there is no way that nuclear power can play a dominant role in the world’s energy supply.

This is not to say that it could play no role in a mixed strategy involving many kinds of energy, only that those who continue to press for a greater role for nuclear power must first show that there will be enough uranium to assure that thousands of nuclear power plants built at enormous cost would not soon stand idle – and leave our economy standing idle too.

The answer is:  ideally the best designed house would be as close to as sphere as possible.  A Buckminster Fuller geodesic Dome is a pretty good approximation.

Dan Botkin

NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT A SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING

Daniel B. Botkin
Copyright © 2007 Daniel B. Botkin

It has come as a shock to me that some of my fellow environmentalists, and one of this country’s leading newspapers, have recently begun arguing in favor of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels and a way to fight global warming. Stewart Brand, according to a recent interview in the New York Times—which calls him one of the originators of environmentalism—is for it and feels “guilty that he and his fellow environmentalists created so much fear of nuclear power.” The famous British scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock has also said that nuclear power is our best choice to combat global warming, and not long ago the New York Times ran an editorial endorsing this kind of power. These opinions are apparently having an effect. The New York Times reported on March 28 that rising concerns about global warming are helping to drive up the price of uranium and leading to a new boom in uranium mining. (more…)

ENERGY FOREVER: A SOLUTION TO OUR ENERGY PROBLEM

Daniel B. Botkin
Copyright © Daniel B. Botkin 2007

The answer to our energy crisis lies in a farm field in Bavaria, Germany. There, sheep graze beneath an unusual crop: an array of black rectangles mounted on long metal tubes that rotate slowly during the day, following the sun like mechanical sunflowers. This is the world’s largest solar-electric installation, generating 10 megawatts on 62 acres. Scaled up, just 3.5% of Germany’s land area could provide solar energy equal to all energy used in Germany — by cars, trucks, trains, manufacturing, everything! And this would not have to be on otherwise empty land; it could be on rooftops, above parking lots, and integrated with certain kinds of pasture and cropland.

Solar energy collection seems unlikely in Germany’s climate, and even less likely in Bavaria — a landscape famous not for sunshine but for high mountain peaks and beautiful winter resorts. In Munich, Bavaria’s major city, about one-third of the days are rainy all year long, the average January daytime temperature is 34o F, and the average August daytime temperatures a mild 73o.

So why aren’t nations rushing to install solar power facilities? Are costs prohibitive? In 2002 Con Edison built New York City’s largest commercial rooftop solar energy system for $900,000, providing energy for 100 houses. At an average of four people per home, the installed cost is $2250 per person. For the 300 million United States residents, the installation cost would be $675 billion.

The U.S. balance of trade is in the red about $60 billion a month, or $720 billion a year, and much of this trade imbalance is due to the cost of foreign oil. So, for the equivalent of one year’s trade imbalance, the United States could pay the cost of installing solar energy facilities for all domestic electrical consumption.

The war in Iraq — justified, many say, in part to protect our sources of petroleum — has cost an official federal allocation of more than $506 billion. In January, a report by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated that the total true costs of the Iraq war could be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. For the cost of the Iraq war — or perhaps just one-half or one-quarter of that cost — solar energy systems could have been installed to provide domestic electricity for all the people in America: energy forever!

The numbers become even more amazing for the dry, sunny climate of Arizona. Based on facilities already installed there, covering just 1% of Arizona’s land with these solar collectors would produce electricity for 275 million houses — considerably more houses than exist in the United States.

Solar energy, of course, has many other benefits — primarily independence from foreign suppliers and greatly reduced air and water pollution, including less greenhouse gas. It also offers the option of decentralized energy production, which would reduce the risk to our energy supply from terrorist attacks.

Why isn’t the United States pursuing solar energy production? The conventional wisdom of environmental economists I know is that solar will never be more than a minor player in the energy game. World-famous environmentalist James Lovelock says the same thing. Is it just a mind-set that is holding us back?

Perhaps their information is out of date. The efficiency of solar energy devices continues to improve rapidly: Today’s solar devices convert 17% of solar energy to electricity; not too long ago, these devices converted only 1% to 2%.

Perhaps big power companies stand to lose too much revenue (and control over power distribution) if decentralized generation takes over when solar power is produced on rooftops.

Perhaps, despite the clear need to move away from petroleum, there is just too much money riding on oil production and distribution for us to let go easily. Whatever the reasons have been, the facts tell us that we should wait no longer.

Energy is the number one environmental problem today. But we don’t want to minimize our use of energy — abundant energy makes possible civilization, especially our kind of high-technology civilization. So the question is: how can we maintain abundant sources of energy without ruining our environment? Here is some information that can help.

Pros and Cons of Some Energy Sources

Pros and Cons of Energy Sources: More Information

Copyright © 2007 Daniel B. Botkin
From his forthcoming book, Energy Forever: A Voter’s Guide to Energy

Now that it is generally accepted that global warming is happening and is at least in part the result of burning fossil fuels, the question is: what do we do about it? One answer is energy sacrifice — that we try to use as little energy as possible, each of us, everywhere, forever. In my view, that’s unrealistic — consider how unsuccessful we are at depriving ourselves, even for a little while, of anything we greatly want or need. But more important, it’s not a good idea for human societies, civilization, or humanity.

Why? The answer lies in a story about whales, whaling, and people, a long time ago. Put yourself back to about 500 A.D. or a few centuries later, and think of yourself as part of a small group of Eskimo struggling northeastward near the Bering Strait and crossing into what is now Alaska. Life for you and your ancestors has been a struggle — living at the margin, barely enough food, hard to keep warm, often without enough energy left over to do much more than think about the next meal. This was the life of most of the Canadian Eskimo at that time, a struggle for existence. (more…)

A Walk Through an Irradiated Forest 

With growing recent advocacy for more nuclear power plants, I have been thinking about a little-known, unique and curious experiment conducted in the 1960s and 1970s at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY: the laboratory radiated an entire forest. Back in those cold-war days the danger of a nuclear war and of other releases of radioactive materials seemed real. One response of the Federal government was to sponsor three experiments examining the effects on natural ecosystems of releases of radioactive isotopes, the kind of things that make electricity in nuclear power plants or are by-products of that production. (more…)