This educational guest blog comes to us from Claire Scoggin, director of the Wiess Energy Hall at the Museum of Natural Science in Houston. For more from Claire, check out the Beyond Bones blog.
The recent election and rising gas prices have raised the topic of energy to a higher level of importance for most Americans. Whatever it takes to make us examine what is required to produce the energy we crave in this country is good because it causes us to consider our responsibilities to the world today and to future generations.
Theodore Roosevelt, years ahead of his time, was an instrumental force in initiating wise conservation of our resources.
“In utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the Nation, the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight… The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life.”
Address to the National Editorial Association,
Jamestown, Virginia, June 10, 1907.
The importance of the resources used for the production of energy show that Teddy Roosevelt was especially correct in predicting that conservation of resources would affect every other problem in our lives.
Yet for a long time in this country, people who were environmentally conscious were considered to be just a bunch of fanatics who were against economic growth for the sake of saving a few wild animals or trees. Fortunately, conservation has recently become a major issue as people are finally raising their heads and saying, “What are we doing?”
Most agree that it is practical to use some of our natural resources for the betterment of humanity, but a mature society looks out for its future generations. The word “sustainability” has become widely used. In the context of energy, it means the ability to supply our current needs without compromising the health, safety and environment of future generations.
The issue of energy and its global environmental, economic, and political ramifications is one of the most controversial issues facing our government today.
It is vital in a democracy for the citizens to be able to distinguish facts from verbal manipulation. How do we know what information we need to know in order to evaluate the information presented to us? Energy is a multi-faceted topic and requires clear criteria to evaluate the sources of energy such as solar, wind, fossil fuels, geothermal etc.
Below is a tool to use to compare energy sources.
Sources of Energy Analysis
What do we need to look at in order to evaluate an energy source?
- Is it used for electricity or transportation?
- What per cent of our power comes from this source today?
- Understand the processes involved – study the science.
- If the source is for electricity, will it steadily supply the base load or is it best for peak load? (Base load is the amount of electricity needed all the time in a steady supply. Peak load is energy that can come from intermittent sources during just the peak times of day when the most electricity is used – from about 4-9 p.m. )
- Resources required to supply the fuel on a continuous basis
- Source (fossil fuels, biomass, wind, solar etc)
- Availability of resource
- Cost of resource
- Procedures for producing resource
- Our relationship with the nations providing the resource if a high percentage cannot be provided domestically
- Current and future global competition for resource
- Cost of transporting resource
- Cost of production - per KWH produced if for electricity
- Energy Production Facility
o Front end costs to build production facility
o Time required to build facility
o Are building materials domestic or foreign?
o Other resources required to process
o Ability to shut down and restart plant
o Maintenance – speed of equipment deterioration
o Personnel needed and training involved
o Cost to rebuild and how often this will be necessary.
- Transportation requirements – is the resource near the market and distribution facility?
- Environmental effects
- Carbon footprint
o Effects on local environment and wildlife
o Pollution – Air, Noise, Water
- Safety factors – effects of a natural or man-made disaster
- Waste produced and storage necessary
- Precedence – historical perceptions
- Regulations – local, state, federal and international
- National security issues involved
- Changes on the horizon
- Technology – research and development
- Criticisms
The Good the Bad the Energetic: Part 2
In a previous blog entry we discussed what questions we need to ask in order to effectively compare the different sources of energy being presented to us as alternative to oil. As an example I have chosen nuclear energy to analyze.
Nuclear Energy Analysis
Q: Is it used for electricity or transportation
A: Electricity
Q: What per cent of our power comes from this source today?
A: The United States has 104 commercial nuclear reactors which produce about 20% of our national electricity. There are about 400 nuclear reactors in the world with 33 reactors under construction and 94 ordered.
Q: What are the processes involved?
A: Nuclear energy is used to produce electricity in much the same way that all electricity is produced - heat energy is converted into mechanical energy, which generates electricity. A large plant generates about a million kilowatts of electricity.
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Nuclear energy has 4 main processes:
1. The uranium ore is extracted from the mine.
2. Conversion, enrichment and fabrication processes prepare the uranium for use in the plant.
3. Inside the power plant, uranium atoms are slowly and carefully split apart in a process called fission, which releases heat energy. This heat energy is used to boil water in the core of the reactor to produce steam. The steam then powers the turbine which in turn generates electricity.
4. Spent uranium in the U.S. is currently stored at the power plant. The U.S. government is trying to build an underground site for storage of the radioactive materials.
This Nuclear Simulator Game looks like fun!
Q: If the source is for electricity, will it steadily supply the base load or is it intermittent?
A: Nuclear energy is continuous so it easily supplies the base load. Nuclear plants are difficult to shut down and restart so they are not used as “peak load” plants.
Q: What are the resources required to supply the fuel on a continuous basis (fossil fuels, biomass, biomass, wind, solar etc)?
A: Resource: Uranium or any combination of thorium and uranium. Known uranium sources are expected to last the world for about a century at the current rate of usage.
Availability of resource:
Uranium is found in rocks and is abundant worldwide with the largest deposits in the Rocky Mountain regions of North America. It requires about 200 tonnes (440,800 pounds) of U308 per year to keep a large nuclear reactor running.
Cost of resource:
In 2008 the average cost of uranium UX-U3O8-SPT per pound was $106.90 and expected to be $91.90 in 2009. The cost of the fuel is not a major factor in the price of electricity produced by nuclear power plants so a sharp rise in the cost of uranium would have a small effect on the cost of the electricity.
Procedures for producing resource:
Uranium is mined by removing the ore, or rock, from the ground in underground or open pit mines. Then the rock is taken to uranium mills where the uranium is taken from the rock by leaching with a variety of chemicals. The uranium is made into cakes that are yellow so they are called “yellow cake.”
Our relationship with the nations providing the resource if a high percentage cannot be provided domestically
Since uranium is easily mined in the U.S. we can assume that we will not have problems with obtaining the resource.
Current and future global competition for resource
Uranium is also mined in other mountainous regions around the world so competition will not be a problem.
Q: What is the cost of production - per KWH produced?
A: Once the reactor is built, the cost of generating electricity from a nuclear plant is about 0.4 cents a kilowatt-hour. Another estimate of 2.86 cents per KW- Hr includes the cost of building the plant, feedstock, waste disposal projected costs and decommissioning costs. It does not include interest on the money borrowed to build the plant.
Q: What is needed to produce electricity from this source?
A: The following is a list of what is needed.
Front end costs to build electricity production facility
Nuclear power plants are relatively expensive to build and the cost may have doubled in the past 2 years to $5-10 billion for a one reactor plant to as much as $24 billion. The need to use special materials and to incorporate sophisticated safety features and back-up control equipment raises the cost of building a nuclear power plant significantly higher than for coal or gas-fired plants. Once the plant is built the operating cost is much the same. It is estimated that new reactors would cost up to $6,000 per kilowatt of capacity to build.
Time required to build facility
It is said to be possible to build a facility in 4-5 years and 2 more for licensing and approvals. Most believe the numbers are double that.
Are building materials domestic or foreign?
Nuclear power plants are built of mostly concrete and steel which are easily available although the economic growth of India and China is rapidly increasing its demand.
Other resources required to process
Most nuclear plants are built on the shores of oceans, lakes and rivers in order to use the water to absorb the heat left after powering the generator. The amount of water needed varies according to the design of the plant but it is huge amounts of water, most of which is reused. Some estimates are 4 million gallons of water a day.
Ability to shut down and restart plant
Nuclear plants are very difficult to stop and restart. Every 1-2 years most reactor must be shut down to be partially refueled.
Maintenance – speed of equipment deterioration
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will license a plant for 40 years. After that they can renew their license or decommission the plant. Decommissioning means shutting down the plant and taking steps to reduce the level of radiation so that the land can be used for other things. The NRC requires that the decommissioning process can take no more than 60 years.
Personnel needed and training involved
A nuclear power plant employs about 1,000 people. Engineers and technicians for reactors require 4-5 years of training. Universities are re-establishing nuclear training programs and bachelors degrees and the PHD programs.
Cost to rebuild and how often this will be necessary.
A nuclear power plant is expected to last for about 40 years. New technologies are making it possible to prolong that time.
Q: Are there geographic limitations?
A: Most types of nuclear plants are built near a large water source in order to use the cooler water to chill the hot water used to produce steam.
Q: is the resource near the market and distribution facility?
A: Uranium mines are not near the nuclear plants so the ore must be transported long distances by highways, trains or waterways. Containers have been designed to carry dangerous nuclear materials that are capable of withstanding enormous impact.
Q. What are the environmental effects of nuclear energy? What is its carbon footprint?
A. During the electricity generating phase, nuclear power is considered by many to have the lowest impact on the environment — air, land, water, and wildlife - of any major energy source. It does not emit CO2 during this phase but one must examine the full life cycle of production. Many phases require fossil fuels to process, such as crushing of ore, roasting of limestone used to neutralize the ore, production of uranium pellets, production of zirconium to produce the fuel rods, etc, production of steel and concrete to build the power plants, waste management and transportation. All of these costs in monetary and carbon emissions must be considered in order to obtain a valid picture of the effects. These costs will vary according to the market prices of the resources utilized. The addition of security needs adds to the carbon footprint of nuclear energy.
It takes about 200 tonnes of U308 per year to keep a large nuclear reactor running. Uranium mining is not a pretty sight.
Q. What are the effects of nuclear energy on the local environment and wildlife where it is produced?
A. Electricity generating plants using nuclear power are considered to have the least effect on the local environment, but the problem is that the effects they does have are devastating and long term.
Q. Does it cause pollution? (Air, Noise, Water)
A. Although humans are exposed to radiation every day in cosmic radiation from the sun and radon seeping from the ground into their homes and other buildings, the concentration is not as high as from the uranium mining processes. In addition to radon gas, ore dust can be blown by the wind and contaminants can be leached and seep into surface water bodies, causing such problems as lung cancer and acid rain. In addition, there are other heavy metals, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon dioxide, and particulate matter released. Acid plants which produce acid for milling operations release large amounts of sulphur dioxide (SO2), a major part of acid rain.
Although new milling plants have much safer methods of dealing with the uranium tailings, many believe that the intensity of the risks of the nuclear energy production process are not worth the advantages.
The amount of noise pollution involved in the whole nuclear cycle is not any worse that any other kind of energy-generating plant. The mines are far from large cities. However, especially in Colorado and Wyoming, the rise in population, mines and milling operations is putting people closer to nuclear processing facilities.
Any mining process is going to pollute the nearby water. As rainwater washes over the mine and the tailings, it is contaminated by the elements that once were safe underground. Uranium mining is very dangerous due to radioactive and chemical pollution.
Reactors require huge amounts of cooling water, which is why they’re often located near rivers, lakes or oceans. Reactors with cooling towers or ponds can use 28-30 million gallons of water per day.
The 48 reactors with once-through cooling systems use far more (up to 1.5 billion gallons per day). A typical two-unit reactor using once-through cooling takes in about a square mile of water, 14 feet deep, each day.
Some marine life is devastated by being sucked into the reactor cooling system. More is eliminated or forced to move due to the rise in temperature - which becomes up to 25 degrees hotter than the water into which it flows.
Q. Safety factors – What are the potential effects of a natural or man-made disaster?
A. Nuclear power plants were designed to withstand hurricanes, earthquakes, and other extreme events, but deliberate attacks - such as an attack by an airliner full of jet fuel - were not considered.
After 9/11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), established the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response. The U.S. Congress passed more stringent requirements and the Energy Policy Act of 2005. For example, each nuclear power plant has to conduct security exercises every three years to test its ability to defend against various potential attacks.
Q. What waste is produced and how is it stored?
A. From the moment uranium is mined, nuclear energy creates radioactive waste material which remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. This means that it sends out rays such as gamma rays and X-rays that are harmful to living things.
Even as the industry aims to build new plants, there remains no U.S. system for managing high-level nuclear waste. The industry favors initiation of a dump site in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. Not only does this proposal pose grave safety risks — including those related to shipping high-level waste across the country — it would impose tens of billions of dollars of costs on taxpayers. Russia is being considered as an international nuclear waste storage location. In the meantime, the waste is stored above ground at the site of origin.
The UN established the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “to promote safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies.”
Proponents of nuclear energy claim that new techniques have made the nuclear power the safest industry in the world.
Q. What are historical perceptions of nuclear energy?
A. Nuclear power was first used in nuclear weapons and played an essential role in the ending of World War II. The use of nuclear power for energy started in 1951 and fluctuated with the cost of oil. Then, in 1979, the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania; and then the disastrous explosion at Chernobyl, Russia, in 1986; caused changes in the U.S. nuclear policies under President Ford and President Carter. These policies were extended worldwide and caused a huge slowdown in nuclear advancements. Currently, the fluctuations in the cost of oil have revived interest in use of nuclear power.
Q. What Regulations are involved– local, state, federal and international?
A. Anything nuclear requires a great deal of government oversight, security and financial backing. Investors will not take a risk on nuclear plants unless there are government loan guarantees which promise to pay back the money if the borrower — in this case, the nuclear plant builder — defaults. Congress passed an appropriations bill at the end of 2007 which provided for $38.5 billion in loan guarantees, with more than half reserved for nuclear, one fifth for coal, and the rest for renewables and efficiency.
Nuclear power projects are so complex and long in duration that they require bipartisan cooperation at all levels of government.
Internationally, several groups have been formed to oversee the nuclear industry. The oldest is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) formed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) began in 2006 to promote the use of nuclear power and close the nuclear fuel cycle in a way that reduces nuclear waste and the risk of nuclear proliferation.
Q. What national security issues are involved?
A. In addition to the safety issues involved at a nuclear power plant, plutonium is used in nuclear weapons. The creation of plutonium during nuclear reactions is a serious threat to our nation and the world. The increase of nuclear materials, technology and know-how cannot be separated between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Although the U.S. is a leader in the creation and implementation of safety and security measures world-wide, one must consider the realities of the ability of any nation to exercise control over any activity intended for harm.
Just an Internet search of “nuclear research” exposes the activity going on worldwide. As research becomes more common worldwide, the threat of sabotage or a terrorist attack increases.
Q. What changes are on the horizon in research and development?
A. All phases of the fuel cycle are being improved for safety and security, including methods to reduce the threat of plutonium in order to keep it in the hands of nations using it solely for nuclear power.
Other nations look to the United States as a model in nuclear safety, non-proliferation, security and in repository science. Nuclear research is being conducted at universities and reactors worldwide.
If the United States is not engaged in building new nuclear power plants, including new reactor design and fabrication, it will be left with an ever-diminishing influence in international discussions relating to future nuclear power and fuel cycle arrangements.
A key component of the future of nuclear power is in the development of a workforce able to meet the human resource requirements for engineers, technicians, operators, regulators, and scientists (physics, chemistry, radiochemistry).
Nuclear fusion is another process that scientists are hopeful will someday provide an endless supply of energy for generating electricity. Nuclear fusion uses uranium by joining uranium nuclei in a reaction that gives off heat and light. With nuclear fusion, there would be less radioactive waste than with nuclear fission, but scientists have not yet found a way to make this process viable.
Q. What are the major criticisms of nuclear energy?
A. Nuclear plants are too expensive - at least $12 billion or more apiece. The planet and its inhabitants need faster, cheaper and safer energy sources without the risks presented by nuclear power: daily exposure to routine releases of radiation; the risk of radiological catastrophe from a serious accident or attack; piles of lethal radioactive waste stored unsafely at reactor sites; and the proliferation dangers and ties to nuclear weapons development.
Summary:
I cannot imagine many topics with as many diverse “facts” and opinions presented as nuclear power. Doing the Nuclear Energy Analysis emphasizes the importance of knowing the source of information and the influence of emotion and fear on controversial issues. I think it all comes down to how much one is willing to tolerate in areas of safety and weapons proliferation. When people say that nuclear power is the cheapest and cleanest, we need to know that they are viewing only a small part of the whole picture.
As usual, my opinion is mixed. I do not feel that nuclear power is worth the risks. Yet even if we did not build any more reactors and stopped using the ones we have, we would still have many of the safety and security issues to deal with in the existing radioactive materials. We also would not have the influence internationally to play the lead part in safety and security of the industry and controlling weapons proliferation.
About the author: Claire Scoggin is Director of Weiss Energy Hall at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. For more from Scoggin, visit the Beyond Bones blog.
