Nuclear a Risky Bet

Question the safety or reliability of nuclear power and its proponents are quick to claim that nuclear power plants are the safest and most reliable sources of electricity.  That would come as a surprise to residents around the reactors at Three Mile Island, Fukushima and Chernobyl. Germans who live near reactors have seen their children develop higher rates of leukemia, while uranium mines and processing plants have also left a legacy of cancer in their vicinities.   Reactor safety is not the only risk.  In Texas, frozen equipment shut down a nuclear power plant during a cold snap, when it was most needed. Such events demonstrate that safety and reliability are closely linked.

Operating a nuclear power plant safely requires highly complex systems. When something goes wrong, the plant shuts down.  It is not unusual for one or more plants to be shut down for hours, days, weeks, or months to fix one problem or another.  For example, in France recently, 28 nuclear plants were shut down because of safety concerns, while others were down for refueling and maintenance, causing electric power shortages.  Of course, the power needed to be replaced, resulting in extra costs for utility customers.  But it is not just safety issues or refueling and maintenance that can cause a nuclear plant to shut down.

Climate Change Risks

The extreme weather caused by climate change affects the operation of power plants.  The Texas incident is but one example. All thermal power plants, including nuclear reactors, need water to make steam and to cool equipment and as a consequence located near bodies of water.  With rising water temperatures and drought operations of nuclear plants are at risk.  We’ve already seen instances of this occurring here in the US and in Europe. Thermal plants, including nuclear reactors, are located next to the ocean and threatened by rising sea levels.  Obviously, climate change is heightening the critical importance of the choices we have to make about using water during droughts, which we are seeing in many regions of the nation.  Do we allocate the water to cool nuclear and fossil fuel plants or to grow food, or for drinking water or to preserve fish and wildlife habitat?

Least Risky Path

If we are serious about addressing climate change, we must put our limited dollars into developing energy resources that will make a difference and do so quickly.  There are many examples of people investing in proven locally-produced energy that is available now.  For instance, in California several communities, businesses and farmers are investing in solar and storage batteries so they will have the power they need when transmission lines go down due to wildfires.  Additional benefits are:

•  power from these renewable sources is less expensive than from nuclear power;
•  power remains available even when transmission lines are affected by wildfire and/or weather; and
• generating power locally makes the electric grid more reliable and reduces the need to build more transmission lines — the electric industry calls this the “non-wires solution.”

Given that climate change effects are increasing, we must ensure that the choices we make today will pay off in the future by adopting the courses of action that involve the lowest risk. Nuclear power does not meet this criterion.

Below in the Resources section you will find papers, articles, videos, etc. documenting nuclear power costs along with solar, wind, and energy efficiency.