I had an "aha!" moment this morning related to the politics of nuclear power and nuclear waste. I have a new (to me) theory about why nuclear power is so controversial. To get out of the mess, we need to allow the nuclear industry more freedom to bear its own monitoring, safety, liability, and disposal costs. I think the industry's reaction to this cost burden will tell us once-and-for-all whether nuclear power can stand on its own two feet.
The US nuclear power industry is based on boiling-water and pressurized-water thermal reactor designs that utilize only about 1% of the available potential nuclear energy in their lightly-enriched uranium fuel. The nuclear waste from these reactors, consisting of a mix of fertile uranium, fissionable uranium, plutonium, and various lighter radioactive byproducts, gets pulled from the plant in such a state that it is both dangerous and seemingly useless. Storage and disposal of these radioactive wastes is fraught with risks of environmental contamination and serious public health impacts.
Nuclear research has developed technical solutions to this problem, but their economic viability remains in question. Several fuel reprocessing techniques have been developed that allow the spent fuel to be converted back into a resource that would be usable as feedstock to the reactors that produced it. Unfortunately, these same reprocessing techniques can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium that could, potentially, be diverted into malicious hands. In response to this risk, the US stopped its nuclear fuel reprocessing program during the Carter administration, back in 1977. Other countries continued:
An alternative class of reactor designs, known as breeder reactors because of their ability to "breed" fissionable fuel from non-fissionable feed stock, can utilize either uranium or more-abundant thorium fuels more completely. In theory, up to 99% of the fuel can be consumed, considerably increasing the running time of the reactor on a single fuel load and similarly reducing the amount of waste produced.
Breeder reactors have been largely ignored in the US nuclear industry due to their increased complexity (and initial cost) over non-breeders. The market for mined uranium (a limited resource) has been soft for some time, largely due to the economy of scale established in the mid-1900s by strong US Government defense demand. With defense needs for uranium down since the end of the Cold War, the combination of established large-scale exploration and mining efforts and resulting supply surplus have kept fuel costs for commercial nuclear reactor operators artificially low. Also, the ultimate cost of both waste disposal and accident liability has been partially borne by tax-payers (see Yucca Mountain and Price-Anderson Act). These policies have amounted to indirect subsidies, providing industry with little economic motivation to invest in breeder reactor technology or other efficiency innovations.
The dangerous, partially-used nuclear fuel assemblies sitting around the US at various reactor sites are prime candidates for reprocessing and reuse. With the development of reprocessing facilities and a movement to breeder reactor designs, this waste could be a resource. Thus, moving this "waste" into long-term deep-geologic containment sites like Yucca Mountain is, in a way, like throwing away energy reserves. Economically, it might make more sense to reprocess this fuel, use it to generate power, then move the resulting fully-expended waste into long-term containment. But that's not happening.
Due to valid nuclear proliferation concerns, lack of a freely-functioning nuclear energy market, and competing political viewpoints, we find ourselves paralyzed. Citizens are paying for this inaction three times over: first, through potential long-term environmental contamination resulting from eventual plant decommissioning and storage of radioactive wastes at reactor sites; second, through partially tax-funded geologic storage efforts (e.g. Yucca Mountain); and third, through the loss of a waste resource that could be effectively converted into electric power through reprocessing and more efficient reactor designs.
I wish I could say that the answer is to renew our fuel reprocessing efforts and to fund research and development of commercial breeder reactors. But I can't, because I don't know if that makes sense from economic, public safety, and international relations perspectives. It seems a little hypocritical to respond to our energy crisis by exploiting the very technologies that we are denying to so-called "rogue states" like Iran and North Korea. (Wouldn't that be provoking them?)
I can say that I'd like to see the nuclear power industry reformed in such a way that a) reactor suppliers (e.g. GE and Westinghouse) and operators can be held fully liable for environmental contamination and potential public health impacts of their products (repeal the Price-Anderson Act), and b) that reactor operators fund 100% of the monitoring, clean-up, and disposal costs of their wastes.
I suspect, should this legal liability and direct financial accountability be put in place, that nuclear power would cease to be economically viable. But I could be wrong.
What do you think?
Resources:
IAEA's United States Country Profile
Wikipedia articles:
Light Water Reactor
Breeder Reactor
Parker, Sybil P. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Energy. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co, 1981.
The US nuclear power industry is based on boiling-water and pressurized-water thermal reactor designs that utilize only about 1% of the available potential nuclear energy in their lightly-enriched uranium fuel. The nuclear waste from these reactors, consisting of a mix of fertile uranium, fissionable uranium, plutonium, and various lighter radioactive byproducts, gets pulled from the plant in such a state that it is both dangerous and seemingly useless. Storage and disposal of these radioactive wastes is fraught with risks of environmental contamination and serious public health impacts.
Nuclear research has developed technical solutions to this problem, but their economic viability remains in question. Several fuel reprocessing techniques have been developed that allow the spent fuel to be converted back into a resource that would be usable as feedstock to the reactors that produced it. Unfortunately, these same reprocessing techniques can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium that could, potentially, be diverted into malicious hands. In response to this risk, the US stopped its nuclear fuel reprocessing program during the Carter administration, back in 1977. Other countries continued:
Reprocessing of civilian fuel has long been employed in Europe, at the COGEMA La Hague site in France, the Sellafield site in the United Kingdom, the Mayak Chemical Combine in Russia, the Tokai plant in Japan, the Tarapur plant in India, and briefly at the West Valley Reprocessing Plant in the United States.
An alternative class of reactor designs, known as breeder reactors because of their ability to "breed" fissionable fuel from non-fissionable feed stock, can utilize either uranium or more-abundant thorium fuels more completely. In theory, up to 99% of the fuel can be consumed, considerably increasing the running time of the reactor on a single fuel load and similarly reducing the amount of waste produced.
Breeder reactors have been largely ignored in the US nuclear industry due to their increased complexity (and initial cost) over non-breeders. The market for mined uranium (a limited resource) has been soft for some time, largely due to the economy of scale established in the mid-1900s by strong US Government defense demand. With defense needs for uranium down since the end of the Cold War, the combination of established large-scale exploration and mining efforts and resulting supply surplus have kept fuel costs for commercial nuclear reactor operators artificially low. Also, the ultimate cost of both waste disposal and accident liability has been partially borne by tax-payers (see Yucca Mountain and Price-Anderson Act). These policies have amounted to indirect subsidies, providing industry with little economic motivation to invest in breeder reactor technology or other efficiency innovations.
The dangerous, partially-used nuclear fuel assemblies sitting around the US at various reactor sites are prime candidates for reprocessing and reuse. With the development of reprocessing facilities and a movement to breeder reactor designs, this waste could be a resource. Thus, moving this "waste" into long-term deep-geologic containment sites like Yucca Mountain is, in a way, like throwing away energy reserves. Economically, it might make more sense to reprocess this fuel, use it to generate power, then move the resulting fully-expended waste into long-term containment. But that's not happening.
Due to valid nuclear proliferation concerns, lack of a freely-functioning nuclear energy market, and competing political viewpoints, we find ourselves paralyzed. Citizens are paying for this inaction three times over: first, through potential long-term environmental contamination resulting from eventual plant decommissioning and storage of radioactive wastes at reactor sites; second, through partially tax-funded geologic storage efforts (e.g. Yucca Mountain); and third, through the loss of a waste resource that could be effectively converted into electric power through reprocessing and more efficient reactor designs.
I wish I could say that the answer is to renew our fuel reprocessing efforts and to fund research and development of commercial breeder reactors. But I can't, because I don't know if that makes sense from economic, public safety, and international relations perspectives. It seems a little hypocritical to respond to our energy crisis by exploiting the very technologies that we are denying to so-called "rogue states" like Iran and North Korea. (Wouldn't that be provoking them?)
I can say that I'd like to see the nuclear power industry reformed in such a way that a) reactor suppliers (e.g. GE and Westinghouse) and operators can be held fully liable for environmental contamination and potential public health impacts of their products (repeal the Price-Anderson Act), and b) that reactor operators fund 100% of the monitoring, clean-up, and disposal costs of their wastes.
I suspect, should this legal liability and direct financial accountability be put in place, that nuclear power would cease to be economically viable. But I could be wrong.
What do you think?
Resources:
IAEA's United States Country Profile
Wikipedia articles:
Light Water Reactor
Breeder Reactor
Parker, Sybil P. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Energy. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co, 1981.
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