Nuclear Angst

Alabama honor: Bush visits first new reactor to open for decades

We may be thanking God for Mississippi in most state comparison rankings, but Alabama is currently leading the way in the quest for sane and efficient power generation. President Bush will be visiting the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant in Athens on Thursday, where the Unit 1 reactor has recently been restarted. While this may not sound significant, it is the first reactor to be started in the US in 20 years.

You may be asking yourself why this is, considering that nuclear power is the most efficient power generation means available to us by far. The only by-products are hot water and small amounts of very radioactive but containable material. (Yes, this material poses an obvious and enduring health hazard until it's safely under Yucca Mtn., but not nearly as much as the lack of power infrastructure will cause in the event of a national emergency, or even just an over-stressed power grid.) Those situations involving mishaps and the threat of radiation leaks, most notably Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in the Ukraine, are irrelevant at this point: Chernobyl is a nightmarish scenario that is not possible with modern US reactors, and the lessons of Three Mile Island have been well-learned and taken into consideration.

I have noted that Browns Ferry Unit 1 is the first reactor to be started in the US in 20 years, making it unit number 103 in the US as a whole. Contrast this to nuclear efforts in China:
(info from http://www.world-nuclear.org)

* Mainland China has nine nuclear power reactors in commercial operation, a further two units grid connected, four more under construction, and at least four more about to start constuction in 2007.
* Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world's most advanced, to give a fivefold increase in nuclear capacity to 40 GWe by 2020 and then a further three to fourfold increase to 120-160 GWe by 2030.
* The country aims to become self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the fuel cycle.

To summarize, China has plans to increase their nuclear power capacity by 15-20x its current level in the next 27 years.
By contrast, in the past 20 years, we have only shut down or paused the construction of plants, not opened any.
Now, lest I be accused of sinophobia, I will call attention to the fact that China only has 11 working reactors at this point, so it will take some time for them to catch up, even at the rate they are building.

However, my point is not to worry lest we be overtaken in numbers by any specific country, but that we have irresponsibly neglected to keep a robust power infrastructure in place. Remember the rolling blackouts in California? They were at least partially responsible for the referendum that kicked Gray Davis out the door and ushered in the era of the Govinator.

And it's not as if we can solve the nation's energy crunch with the ongoing boom in windmill construction either. Though they may alleviate problems in some areas, as a whole you're not going to help lighten the load on the nation without a veritable sea of them covering vast sections of the Midwest, and the energy required to create and construct said sea of windmills would make such an effort counterproductive.

In the end, nuclear power is the only option that makes sense. There are no coal-based clouds of smoke, no swirling windy blades of death, no acres of solar cells with meager power returns. Though these (coal-powered, wind-powered, solar-powered) solutions make sense in certain locations and contexts, the only technology that makes sense to use as the backbone of a heavily loaded power infrastructure in great need of shoring up is nuclear power. Even France has figured this out.

(That, or we can wait for the even cleaner and more efficient process of nuclear fusion to be perfected. But even setting aside the fact that it is the technology of the future and probably always will be, why do I have this sneaking suspicion that the drinkers of Gore-aid would find some reason to scream out against them too?)

If we continue to allow regulatory dead-locks and people who oppose the idea of power plants on principle (often the same people who think the fewer humans living and disturbing nature's tranquility the better) to prevent the responsible and practical process of increasing our grid capacity, the problems will only get more severe. Let those who complain of global warming go without air conditioning for a summer, and then decide if a few more reactors aren't worth it...


-Oak