Many people in this county who are joining community choice energy options in order to use and support advancing clean energy sources will be very upset when they learn our Assembly member, Jordan Cunningham, has introduced AB 2898 to amend California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard Program allowing nuclear power to be named as a carbon free and renewable resource. However, nuclear is neither carbon free nor renewable. There is a finite supply of uranium 235, which nuclear plants use to power their reactors. The ore is mined, processed, and enriched. The resulting material is manufactured into pellets and rods to contain them. All this industry and transport causes a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, during the operation of nuclear plants, CO2 is emitted with water vapor, steam, and heat. Another “renewable standard” states there is to be no waste. We certainly will have waste—thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste with nowhere to store it. The Central Coast deserves representatives who will be looking out for our health and dollars. One who will look beyond the dinosaur of nuclear power with its dangers, waste, and cost to embrace a future of truly clean sustainable power.
Marty Brown
Atascadero
This article appears in Jul 23 – Aug 2, 2020.
Response to above. There is enough uranium and thorium in the earth and seawater to power the world for millennia. Nuclear spent fuel (“waste”) is only 5% utilized and will be reused in future reactors. On a per kilowatt generated basis renewables require from 10 to 100 times the natural resources to construct compared to nuclear. Renewables also have a waste stream with solar panels and wind turbine blades ending up in landfills leaching toxic elements. Renewables last 25 to 40 years, nuclear plants last potentially 80 to 100 years. The mortality rate of nuclear power is significantly better per kilowatt generated than wind, solar, or hydroelectric. Oh, birds prefer nuclear as well!
Nuclear power does, in fact, provide us with reliable, continual electrical energy which does not generate CO2 (yes, there is CO2 generated in uranium extraction; but there’s CO2 generated in the materials extracted, smelted, refined and assembled in wind turbines, etc.). The waste stream is tiny in any meaningful measurement. By expanding our nuclear generating capacity we would very severely decrease the amount of CO2 and combustion pollutants in our atmosphere. The “fear” or “distrust” of nuclear power is without rational foundation, especially in contrast with coal, and to a lesser extent, oil fired electrical generation. The suggestion that “renewables” can displace our current carbon driven electrical generation system without the expansion of nuclear generation is preposterous.
Wrong!! There is NOT “enough uranium and thorium in the earth and seawater to power the world for millennia.” According to the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today’s consumption rate in total. That is uranium that must be mined, very CO2 intensive, then processed, extremely CO2 intensive, in a time when we are urgently trying to reduce the amount of CO2 in our environment.
“At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years. Scaling consumption up to 15 TW, the viable uranium supply will last for less than 5 years. (Viable uranium is the uranium that exists in a high enough ore concentration so that extracting the ore is economically justified.”) https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-powe…
Molly, does that count the 20% of our domestic uranium supply we sold to Russia during the Obama administration?
There are a couple of facts in this debate that we can all agree on. First, the problems of nuclear waste haven’t been solved. Second, we need to abandon the use of fossil fuel now if we want our civilization to survive. What is needed right now is real knowledge, open minds and a willingness to move forward with today’s reality in mind.
I agree Molly about the amount of uranium 235 being somewhat limited although seawater extraction has potential to supply a lot more. If we use fast spectrum reactors we utilize the uranium 238 much more efficiently and have a 100000 year supply. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/. The element Thorium can also be used very efficiently in advanced reactors and it is 4 times more abundant than uranium in the earth’s crust. We will not run out of nuclear fuel for hundreds of thousands of years. We will have transitioned to fusion of hydrogen long before that time.
Bill Gates and Terra power fission reactor is our best hope. There are al lot of naysayers out there clamoring this idea is best, but none have a buck in there pocket . Also, there is so much insane and illogical hype surrounding this issue – it is just science. TerraPower and GE Hitachi team up on proposal to build a new nuclear reactor for research in Idaho soon. https://www.geekwire.com/2020/bill-gates-terrapower-ge-hitachi-team-proposal-build-nuclear-reactor-research/ From what I seen none of these exiting ideas eliminates waste, an it is a must by my standard. Might as well make use of the spent fuel rods instead of throwing them away. The TWR technology takes leaps forward in cost and safety, while drastically reducing waste and proliferation concerns. Its advantageous design requires less fuel while supplying more heat and operates with high thermal efficiency that is safe and clean.