LA Weekly

Judith:

You have produced a valuable contribution to a very important, long term debate. As an ardent supporter of the idea of using the power stored in atomic nuclei, I thank you for your persistency in trying to understand rather than to simply restate old arguments.

Your article is indeed long, but I read every word of both parts. I hope that the six month effort that you have spent so far is just a start, the debate over new plants has just begun, and there is a crying need for objective reporters seeking understanding.

Here are a some thoughts for you:

1. If we need to build 2000 nuclear power plants, each with a capacity of 1000 MWe in order to make a dent in the carbon emissions of coal fired power plants, imagine how many windmills, solar panels, and biomass farms will be needed. The scale of the problem is indeed immense, but that is no excuse for not starting.

2. Nuclear power plants are not only good at avoiding carbon emissions, but they also do not pollute estuaries with mercury, contribute to asthma with fly ash, create acid with SOx, or contribute to ground level smog with NOx.

3. Nuclear fission engines are clean enough to operate inside sealed submarines and safe enough for people that know a great deal about their operation to live within a few hundred feet of them for months at a time.

4. The increased amount of waste that Mr. Lochbaum told you about with regard to Pebble Bed reactors is not technically correct. The real answer is a bit complex, and his statement only holds true if volume is the only criteria and there is no recycle.

Finally, a concept that is often ignored in the debate about nuclear power is to "follow the money". When the supply of energy is constrained so that it is less than the demand, the price goes up considerably. When that happens, selling energy products becomes a far more profitable line of work.

My point is that coal, oil and gas producers have been the biggest beneficiaries of the decision to attack and slow the development of nuclear power plants. It is not only logical, but factually supportable to assert that some of the funding for professional anti-nuclear campaigners has come from fossil fuel interests.

As Sun Tzu would say, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I fully expect that the anti-nuclear industry is going to receive some rather large infusions of cash in the coming months and my fellow nuclear trained technologists had better get busy talking to people like you.

Thanks for your comments, both here and on your own blog. You say:

"It is not only logical, but factually supportable to assert that some of the funding for professional anti-nuclear campaigners has come from fossil fuel interests."

I would love to see the evidence of this. Can you point me toward it?

Again, many thanks for reading thoroughly and responding so thoughtfully.

Judith:

It is not too hard to find evidence of fossil fuel interest money in the coffers of some ardent anti nuclear activists. Of course, that is not really much of a stretch since the industry's sales are in the trillions of dollars per year and represent a fairly significant portion of the global economy.

For a couple of specific examples, visit the Rocky Mountain Institute (home of Amory Lovins) web site and look at their descriptions of the consulting work that they have done, visit the web sites of major oil companies and look at the list of charitable contributions that they make, visit foundation sites like the Turner Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts and see where their money came from and where it goes.

The Turner Foundation might surprise some of the people on this list - Ted is normally thought of as a media mogul, but he has a large investment in natural gas production in the western US.

Here is also a link with some interesting information about Paul and Anne Ehrlich of the Sierra Club - http://www.counterpunch.org/ehrlich.html.

Dig around with some Goggle searches and I am sure that you can find even more.

I am not saying that there is any coordinated effort here - it is common practice in commodity businesses to work to raise entry barriers, convince customers that your product's competition is inferior, add costs to your competition, and to limit overall supplies in order to ensure that prices are favorable to suppliers, not customers.

I have seen the practice in the plastics business and in real estate, and my office mate from North Dakota told me an interesting story about negative studies concerning palm oil that were funded by soybean producers.

In fact, most of the above profit maximizing topics are taught in business schools.

Dear Ms. Lewis,

First, I really enjoyed your article. You clearly did your research.

Second, readers of your report may be interested to know that Stewart Brand has recently endorsed a techno-thriller novel about the American nuclear power industry, written by a longtime nuclear engineer (me).

"I'd like to see RAD DECISION widely read." - Stewart Brand

"Rad Decision" provides an entertaining and accurate portrait of the nuclear industry today and how a nuclear accident would be handled. Written for the lay reader, it is currently running as a serial at RadDecision.blogspot.com at no cost.

All sides of the nuclear power debate will find items to like, and dislike, within Rad Decision. I’m not sure myself what the future of nuclear energy should be - - but what I am sure of is that we will make better decisions if we understand what nuclear energy is right now. (Your article was certainly a step in the right direction.)

If readers find "Rad Decision" valuable, I hope they will pass the word.

Thanks,

James Aach

20+ years in the nuclear industry
http://raddecision.blogspot.com
(s. brand quote used with permission)

I've read your article quickly and liked it. A lot more could be said. I've been studying the use of fission for about two years - and I am still amazed every day by the amount of positive information that I discover. Consider radiation hormesis as only one example. There is a body of evidence that indicates a health benefit associated with low dose radiation exposure. The alarm about radiation that is so wide spread appears to be as silly as flat earth thinking was. My point is that we can benefit a lot by making better use of fission, but we don't because we are burdened with false fears. Please continue your research and publicizing of the truth about nuclear.

Don't be so sure about hormesis -- the National Academy of Science says it ain't so:

http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/030909156X?OpenDocument

I finished reading the article today. I guess the main problem is the term "waste". The slightly used and reusable fission fuel that is a by-product of our current reactors is always referred to as waste by those opposed to nuclear power. It is not waste. It can be used again to produce power. This material is a valuable source of inexpensive energy. It is a treasure. So forget about Yucca mountain, you don't need it for hundreds of years. Just start reusing the fission fuel that you have accumulated. Yes, you will need a different type of reactor design to do this, so build your new reactors using this design. Let's be clear about this - current reactors (circa 2005) cannot produce waste. They cannot fission their fuel completely enough to turn it into waste - i.e. material that cannot be reused. So you don't have a technical problem, you have a politcal one, in that oil and coal financed opposition to nuclear power is conducting a huge public relations campaign to label this valuable fission fuel as waste.

Great story. I love the way you give each and every advocate not just a chance to speak, and a fair representation of their views, but a sense of who they are as individuals. We are more than the sum of our opinions; if we remember this, we can learn from each other, and grow as a society. I think that's the underlying message in your writing.

Years ago when I was working as a business reporter in New York, a lawyer fed me some documents about a new wrinkle in investment. Utilities in several states along the East Coast hoped to band together (in what was known as ERISA) to raise money jointly to fund nuclear power plants. The sums are enormous; it can easily take a decade and several billion dollars to build a nuclear power plant, and before you know it, you have to decommission it, which (at least with the traditional style plants) means cutting them into little pieces and burying them in some place like Yucca Mountain. Climate change threatens the planet, but from what I've seen, even if the Feds pick up the insurance tabs under Price-Anderson, and even with huge incentives, utilities still don't want to make that kind of financial commitment.

Maybe if the pebble-bed reactor can bring costs down, we can seriously reconsider this technology. But from what I've seen, the biggest resistance to this technology comes not from the environmentalists, who have a voice but rarely a decisive one in these sort of decisions...but from the investment community. Wall St. doesn't think the numbers work. Until it does, not much is going to happen with nuclear power in this county.

Hi Kit! Yeah, I've heard the Wall St. argument, and it's pretty convincing. But I've also heard people claim it's possible to build smaller, more efficient reactors. I suppose when and if that happens, the economics will look better. Or not. -J.

Judith, great piece. I have some comments on it here:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/28/145022/33

Tradeoffs are unavoidable.

Radiation damages genes. Millions of people get cancer every year from the radiation thrown off by a single nuclear reactor, with hundreds of thousands dying annually. Yet, no one I know thinks it should be shut down. The good simply outweighs the bad.

Cancer is basically a genetic disorder caused by a single damaged gene that disrupts a single cell's normal ability to shutdown if it starts to replicate uncontrollably.

The most common cancers caused by the aforementioned reactor are carcinomas, the most fatal one being melanoma. I am of course referring to the G2V star fusion reactor we call the Sun.

Old-shcool nuclear technology is not an option. Only new tehcnology that minimizes or eliminates the problems of the old technology should compete with solar, wind, and water in the free market. There is no reason to be against an energy source just because it was generated by a nuclear reaction. All biofuels are the result of a fusion nuclear reaction.

Lewis on nuclear

Almost all green pro-nuclear arguments amount to this environmental Sophie's choice. Either you accept nuclear power or you get global warming. Pick your poison.

But Lewis doesn't really examine the very first and most important question: Must we ac...

Yes, but I have also heard the argument, "you don't get strontium-90 from the sun."

Hmmmm.

(Biodiversivist, right? I enjoy your posts on Gristmill.)

The debate must open, and your article is a very valuable contribution. nuclear is like an open heart surgery: nobody wants it, but there are some times when it can be worst not to have one.
another recommended piece of interested gathered information can be found here:
http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/articles_a/idea_nuclear.html
(read til the end before concluding that this is just blinded nuclear support).

a personel point i would like to make is:
the present message from environmentalists saying in short "renewables can do the trick" is i beleive contributing to the general apathy of the public.
considering that the public support for renewable is definitely favorable to renewables compared to nuclear, this kind of message leads the public into a passive behavior: "anyway, if problems arise, we will just put wind turbine and solar panels and this will do". and also creats a dissociation from the feeling of responsability of the putting of nuclear power plants: "i would prefer renewables, but the government put nuclear...".
wouldnt the reaction be quite different if major green movements were to say "if we dont make great efforts in conservation, we may end up having no other choice but nuclear and its well known drawbacks, is that what you want?!" ?

Thanks Judith, that was a really great article, and fairly balanced. It is worth mentioning however, that Patrick Moore no longer represents the views of the environmental movements. Pretty much all enviros view him as a fallen angel who's lost his mind.