The recent op-ed promoting nuclear energy reads like a promoter’s playbook.
A lot of hype. The possibility of accidents and meltdowns was briefly mentioned, but completely ignored are the problematic life cycle issues and you have to ask yourself why.
Moreover, nuclear was never green.
Saying “Nuclear energy provides 67% of France’s energy, demonstrating that it is possible to rely on nuclear energy as a primary source of energy on a large scale,” misses the reality in the U.S..
Context and history matter, not misapplied analog. Not rhetoric. U.S. companies have literally lost the expertise to build major reactors, period.
Moreover, France is experiencing a prolonged drought that lowered river levels, a problem because nuclear plants require copious water to cool superheated equipment and to avert meltdown.
France’s utility EDF which runs the plants has had to seriously curtail power generation due to low river levels. Plant thermal discharges also destroy local ecology.
Note that wind and solar electricity do not require any river or precious groundwater, and produce no thermal plumes.
Half of France’s reactors are offline for O&M (they’re old). Estimates of future output are said to be the lowest in over three decades. EDF reported running its plants in 2022-23 resulted in a first-half loss of €5.3B.
EDF’s new British reactor in Somerset is experiencing delays and cost overruns. The original £18B estimate is projected to reach £32.7B. Completion date? Britan has assumed 50% interest to help offset future electric bills—good luck getting the U.S. government to do that.
Regarding SMRs (Small Nuclear Reactors), they are very aggressively being promoted not the reality. The DOE’s first and only SMR construction permit approval (2022) was a 50-megawatt pilot plant at the DOEs Idaho National Research Laboratory.
The operation was slated for 2026, then 2029, then 2030. The company behind it has terminated the arrangement. The reasons cited are cost overruns and the increasing competitive structure of wind and solar energy.
Since 2014 the DOE sunk more than $600 million into the failed SMR, and approved $1.4 billion.
As of 2022 only 3 SMRs were operating globally, Russia, China, India. China’s long-term nuclear plan to be the world leader in major plants deserves note but is not relevant here.
Promoters and parts of our government hype the commercialization of SMRs. While SMRs promise speedy construction the reality is delays and cost hikes.
They are not proven and have a lengthy regulatory process—DOE/NRC says SMRs still stretch years into the future. No commercial SMRs are built, none are licensed to operate.
Life-cycle. Large amounts of waste are generated at each step of the mining and milling process that must be managed—sometimes for thousands of years.
Uranium mines generate surface and groundwater contamination which are some of the most persistent and expensive cleanups. Many of the hundreds of U.S. uranium mines created long-term widespread environmental degradations, among the costliest to manage, $100Ms to billions each. https://www.epa.gov/navajo-nation-uranium-cleanup/abandoned-mines-cleanup
Spent waste is a big problem. There is no national storage strategy (let’s not get into the Yucca Mtn mess). People may not know waste must be stored, secured, and monitored at each power plant.
Some radionuclides are highly radioactive for thousands of years, meaning costly long-term O&M.
Just one example, CA’s San Onofre hasn’t generated power in over a decade and is still being decommissioned. Another problem is what to do with 3.55 million pounds of on-site waste.
Our government says decommissioning reactors is a long-term costly process, taking 2 – 4 decades each.
Let’s not forget the Shoreham debacle, things got really complicated when LILCO briefly tested its reactors at partial output which contaminated the system.
Shoreham never generated electricity but managing its contaminated equipment directly contributed to the lengthy expensive decommissioning; debt assumed by the LIPA that we still pay for.
The Department of Homeland Security considers nuclear waste a serious national security risk, for each location.
Consider terrorists looking to make a dirty bomb to contaminate a vital area and spread terror—and they’re easy to make.
It’s disappointing but not surprising business interests backed by the government promote worst practices that actually lead to a reluctance to make positive commitments towards climate and energy sustainability. Let’s not strike up the band. Enough already.
Planetary scale destruction occurs because of the production and consumption of fossil fuel all throughout the process resulting in the pollution of air, groundwater, land and sea. While nuclear is promoted as “carbon-free power” nothing about it was ever clean or green. It’s an oxymoron like “clean coal.” Maybe worse.
Stephen Cipot
Note: The author worked seven years in oil, gas and mining at various U.S. locations, including for the Fortune 500 company blighted by the so-called Karren Silkwood incident.
Silkwood had worked at the company’s uranium/plutonium enrichment facility (made into a 1983 movie starring Meryl Streep in her Oscar role, Cher, and Kurt Russell). The company also mined uranium in the U.S.. And had a 15% stake in BP’s Deep-Water Horizon mess.
The author was glad to switch roles for a career at the USEPA, as geologist, scientist, and project manager covering many challenging assignments.
He’ll never forget a Superfund public meeting when someone stated that the worst contamination should be put in rockets and sent to the sun. There were a lot of yeses. Some things are beyond words or comment. The author is also involved with many civic responsibilities.
Stephen Cipot
Garden City Park
