A Nuclear Fisking

Today’s Washington Post carries an anti-nuclear essay by Peter Asmus titled “Nuclear Dinosaur” that is so rife with half-truths, hyperbolic claims, and tendentious rhetoric that it’s just begging for a fisking.

The recent call by President Bush to restart a major nuclear power program in this country in response to concerns about our dependence on foreign energy sources and global climate change would have Adam Smith rolling in his grave.
There is no power source less compatible with the GOP's love of free markets and disdain for regulation and subsidy than nuclear fission. Without government intervention, there simply would be no nuclear industry.

Or aircraft carriers, state colleges, or Amtrak. What a silly statement: all the energy markets are heavily regulated and subsidized; nuclear energy would be different only in the sense that nuclear fuel would have to be closely monitored.

Now, it is true that nuclear energy does not contribute to global climate change. And the new pebble bed modular reactor may well leak less, greatly reduce the risks of catastrophic meltdown and use less uranium fuel. But nuclear power is far from being clean or green.

“Leak less” – that’s cute. They've decommissioned those reactors using loofahs and screen doors. Three Mile Island represented the worst leak in the American nuclear industry and, in the words of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, resulted in a “very small off-site releases of radioactivity” and “In the months following the accident, although questions were raised about possible adverse effects from radiation on human, animal, and plant life in the TMI area, none could be directly correlated to the accident.”

Consider the following:
· In the nuclear fuel process, uranium enrichment depends on great amounts of electricity, most of which is provided by dirty fossil fuel plants releasing all of the traditional air pollution emissions not released by the nuclear reactor itself. Two of the nation's most polluting coal plants, in Ohio and Indiana, produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment.

This circular logic is baffling. Would it be OK to enrich uranium with electricity from nuclear power plants which don’t burn those “dirty fossil fuels?” Plus, if we’re talking cost-to-benefit ratios, we should shut down all the ethanol plants which consume close to $1 of energy for every $1 of ethanol processed. After uranium is enriched it provides enough energy for decades after the initial cost of processing.

· The operations of nuclear power plants release dangerous air emissions in the form of radioactive gases, including carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton and xenon.

The radioactive isotopes released from burning coal are far more dangerous than the emissions from nuclear power plants, which is mostly steam. In the new pebble bed reactors, helium is used as the cooling medium. Since this gas is radioactively inert, even if there were a “leak” in the system, there would be no radioactive danger from the gas.

· Uranium mining mimics techniques used for coal, and similar issues of toxic contamination of local land and water resources arise -- as does the matter of the unique radioactive contamination hazards to mine workers and nearby populations. Abandoned mines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste can pose radioactive risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure.

Which option poses a greater threat to the environment: the billions of tons of coal removed from the earth or the tens of tons of uranium? Also, I’m befuddled by the self-evident statement that radioactive mines are, um, radioactive. Don’t go down there.

· Concerns about chronic or routine exposure to radiation are augmented by the supreme risk of catastrophe in the event of power plant accidents. A major failure in the nuclear power plant's cooling systems, such as the rupture of the reactor vessel, can create a nuclear "meltdown." Catastrophic accidents could easily kill 100,000 people.

What anti-nuclear article would be complete without the obligatory Chernobyl/China Syndrome reference? Closer to the truth is that the nuclear power industry has been extremely safe for a half-century. Furthermore, the new pebble-bed reactors being built in China are meltdown-proof; even if somehow the helium cooling medium escapes from the main reactor, the fuel cells will heat up but cannot melt because of the ceramic material surrounding the uranium.

I first learned about the electricity industry when I covered the battle to close the Rancho Seco nuclear plant in Sacramento in the 1980s. A long list of problems had resulted in local rate increases exceeding 200 percent. There were rumors of drug use, and even sex orgies, under the immense cooling towers. The picture painted by some insiders was of an operations crew made up of a bunch of yahoos who would fit right into an episode of "The Simpsons."

This innuendo is beneath contempt. “Rumors of drug use” in the 1980s? Please.

Over the next 15 years, I learned the ins and outs of the electricity business, the world's largest -- and most polluting -- industrial enterprise. The subject is boring and complex, which has led to ignorance about its extremely important activities. Past decisions authorizing a spate of nuclear plants were made with little scrutiny of their economic or environmental impacts. The consequences of those decisions, and the government subsidies that helped promote the fiction that they were cost-effective, helped set the stage for today's crisis in energy supply.

The author’s concern for the pollution attached to the business of creating energy is misplaced in this article. After hydroelectric dams, nuclear energy is by far the cleanest of the reliable energy sources. Burning coal, oil, and other fossil fuels release tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and particulates into the atmosphere – nuclear does not. Quite to the contrary, instead of spewing waste into the atmosphere, the waste from nuclear energy is tightly contained.

The United States, with its 103 operating nuclear power plants, is already the world's top consumer of electricity generated from nuclear fission. But we have yet to build a federal repository for nuclear waste. Given that U.S. reactors produce about 2,000 tons of high-level waste every year of operation, calling for greater reliance on nuclear power is not only supremely irresponsible but also an insult to the "conservative" wing of the Republican Party. Teddy Roosevelt is also turning over in his grave.

Hey! Only one grave-gyrating metaphor per article, please. Aside from that, Asmus should demand that the government open up Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository instead of shutting down the nuclear industry altogether. His argument is like saying that since we have no good place to throw our trash, we should stop eating.

That Republicans call for more nuclear power is truly mind-boggling.

Oh don’t be so shocked, Mr. "Sex and drugs, oh my!"

There has never been a more subsidized, socialized power technology than nuclear. Virtually all of the countries that derive the greatest amount of electricity from nuclear power -- France, Lithuania, Ukraine, Sweden -- feature central planning and socialistic energy policies.

Don’t forget about the commies!

Real, free-market energy policies suggest smaller, smarter and cleaner power sources. The last thing the United States should embark on in these volatile times tainted by the terrorist threat is the dinosaur technology that is nuclear power.

Wrong again. The United States now imports a higher percentage of its petroleum from the Middle East than it did during the OPEC oil shock. Our dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia means more dollars for a corrupt kleptocracy that was home to 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers. Nuclear energy (as well as opening up ANWAR) are steps in the right direction for energy independence and national security.

The writer is author of "Reaping the Wind" and "Reinventing Electric Utilities."

Of course he is. For somebody so concerned about government subsidies, Asmus should note that renewable energy (e.g. wind, solar) gobbles up a huge portion of the federal government’s energy subsidies, second only to natural gas subsidies.