symposium

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 27, 2001 | by James A Lake, | Amory Lovins, | Hunter Lovins

Q: Can nuclear power solve the energy crisis?

Yes: Nuclear-power generation is cost-efficient, reliable, safe and emits no air pollutants.

Sharply increasing electricity prices, wildly fluctuating gasoline prices and the California power shortage have awakened Americans to the harsh realities of limited energy supplies and high energy costs. At the same time, all this has placed nuclear energy back in the American consciousness.

It no longer is sufficient for people opposed to nuclear power to engage in broad, unsupported accusations and sloganeering about how economically inefficient and unsafe the technology may be; the facts argue strongly against these concerns.

Today 103 nuclear-power plants in the United States produce 20 percent of our electricity. The electrical output from U.S. nuclear power has grown by 8 percent per year for the last 20 years as the industry has matured. This occurred despite its much-abused reputation and the premature closure of a few economically inefficient plants in the last 10 years. Since 1990, the U.S. nuclear-power fleet has increased the efficiency of generation by some 23,000 megawatts electricity (MWe) -- the equivalent of 23 large power plants.

The performance of the nuclear industry is excellent and, in 2000, nuclear electricity generation was more reliable and less costly than coal, oil or natural gas. This high level of economic performance is the principal factor driving the interest of the U.S. business community to purchase nuclear-power assets, extend the operating licenses of existing nuclear plants and plan for the construction of new nuclear plants.

Nuclear power's safety performance also is excellent. Since nuclear power doesn't kill or injure anyone, we have to look carefully at other safety indicators to see the real improvement in performance. Industrial-accident rates, unplanned shutdowns, exposure of plant workers to radiation and other safety-performance indicators substantially have improved during the last 20 years.

Safety-significant unusual events reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from U.S. nuclear-power plants averaged more than two per plant per year in 1990; this number steadily decreased to less than 0.2 per plant per year in 2000. This improvement in day-to-day safety performance is one of the principal reasons why the possibility of a major accident similar to the Three Mile Island accident (the worst core-meltdown case in U.S. history) in 1979 now is extremely small.

Furthermore, as serious as the accident at Three Mile Island was, the second of three barriers fully contained the problem inside the reactor vessel; no member of the public was harmed or threatened.

Americans increasingly are committed to the protection of our environment. There is great scientific debate worldwide about the potential for disrupting our climate with increased emissions of carbon dioxide ([CO.sub.2]) and other air pollutants associated with burning fossil fuels. It is prudent that we take action now to reduce -- or at least limit -- the growth of these air emissions in a manner that is both consistent with our economic-growth needs and our environmental-stewardship responsibilities.

Nuclear power emits no air pollutants. Along with hydropower, it is the only major nonpolluting electricity source we can turn to in the short term (solar and wind power, as well as all renewable-energy sources combined, contribute less than 2 percent of our energy needs).

One only needs to look at the energy situation in France for a good example of the benefits of nuclear energy. In France, clean nuclear power supplies more than 75 percent of electricity production, and the transportation and industrial sectors are heavily electrified. As a result, France has one-tenth the air pollution of neighboring Germany.

Some pundits claim that U.S. energy consumption is excessive and wasteful. That is not entirely true, but conservation and energy-efficiency improvements are not the only answers to our energy shortage. While citing the U.S. per-capita energy consumption, critics fail to recognize that we are the most productive nation on earth.

The United States consumes about 26 percent of the world's energy, but we produce more than 23 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP). From this perspective, there is some room for additional conservation and energy efficiency to reduce energy demand, but not to a point that threatens productivity. Increasing prosperity and productivity require that we increase our energy supplies.

It is not surprising then that, today, nuclear power enjoys the support of a clear majority of Americans. However, nuclear power faces several real challenges as it moves forward in its role as a major energy source. Briefly, these challenges can be grouped into categories:

* future economic competitiveness (especially lower capital cost to construct new nuclear plants) in an increasingly deregulated energy market;

* growing expectations for safe operations that are the critical element in continued public acceptance;