If the U.S. wants to get serious about reducing CO2 and energy dependence, it must get serious about nuclear power and begin recycling used nuclear fuel. Nuclear energy is the only source of energy that eliminates CO2 and greenhouse gases. Nuclear energy is the cleanest, most reliable and the only source that can produce more electricity and cheaper electricity than oil, coal or gas. It takes millions of tons of oil or coal to produce the same amount of electricity as one ton of uranium.
Palo Verde Nuclear Station is in the Arizona desert. Its 3 nuclear reactors are cooled by treated wastewater from Phoenix, about 45 miles to the east. Palo Verde produces more than 3,700 Megawatts of clean, carbon-free electricity. That is more electricity than any fossil fuel plant or other source of energy in the United States. For over 30 years it has served over 4 million people supplying electricity to homes and businesses in Arizona, California, Texas, and New Mexico. It has offset the emission of almost 534 million tons of carbon dioxide (the equivalent of taking up to 84 million cars off the road for one year); more than 278,900 tons of sulfur dioxide; and 681,000 tons of nitrogen oxide.
Meanwhile, the manufacturing process of PV solar cells requires fossil fuel furnaces running at 2,000° C and involves a witch's brew of chemicals. Every photovoltaic (PV) solar panel contains toxic lead, cadmium or cadmium compounds. When solar panels are disposed of or are broken by lightening, hail storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. their toxic chemicals can leech into the soil, poisoning aquifers and water basins. Solar panel waste creates 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear power plants. For wind energy, it takes over 175 tons of coal to make the 800 tons of steel and concrete to install a single windmill. The generator of a 2 MW wind turbine contains over 900 pounds of the rare earth elements neodymium and dysprosium. The mining and processing of these elements requires a cocktail of chemical compounds and produces a tremendous amount of solid waste with a high concentration of radioactive residues.
The cost of nuclear power is between 2.1 to 4.0 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on the source of information. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates the cost of wind energy at 9.6 cents per kilowatt hour. But, when the wind is not blowing the cost of wind power increases to 15.1 cents per kilowatt hour if natural gas is used as the back-up fuel and 19.2 cents per kilowatt hour if coal is used as the back-up fuel. The cost of PV solar is about 12.2 cents per kilowatt hour and the cost of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) is over 21 cents per kilowatt hour. While the cost of solar continues to go down, it is the ONLY source of energy that does not include the cost of solar waste disposal. And there will soon be lots of waste; thousands of tons of highly toxic lead and cadmium waste. In addition, the cost of wind and solar energy does not take into account that we pay twice for renewable energy. Once in taxes that finance their billions in subsidies and a second time in our electric bill.
The United States has 99 nuclear reactors (Palo Verde has 3) that generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity. But there are 1.4 million solar farms in the U.S., some with more than 8 million PV panels, and countless rooftop panels but solar generates less than 1 percent of the nation's electricity. There are 58,000 wind turbines in the U.S. (20% of them in Texas) and wind generates less than 6 percent of the nation's electricity. Regardless of how many or how big we build wind and solar farms and regardless of whether we use salt flats or nickel cadmium batteries as back up, wind and solar energy sources produce very little electricity.
Renewable energy enthusiasts only talk about factory ratings, but capacity factor is the actual output over a measured period of time. Solar panels need full sunlight, no wind and no clouds to produce their factory (aka nameplate) rating. Wind turbines need a constant 27 mph wind to produce their factory rating. Topaz Solar Farm with 8.5 million PV panels and a factory rating of 550 megawatts produces just 147 megawatts, a capacity factor of 26.7 percent. The 550 megawatt Desert Sunlight Solar Farm has the same ratings and production as Topaz. Alta Wind Energy Center (AWEC) with 10,000 acres of 30-story turbines has a factory rating of 1,200 megawatts but it produces only 282 megawatts, a capacity factor of 23.5 percent. On the other hand, Palo Verde Nuclear Station produces 3,700 megawatts of carbon-free electricity with a capacity factor of 92.6 percent.
The cost to build Topaz Solar Farm was about $2.4 billion. The cost to build Alta has been $2.9 billion. The cost to build Palo Verde was $11.7 billion in 2018 dollars. However, Palo Verde will last 65 years. The PV Panels of Desert Sunlight and Topaz will last about 25 years. And AWEC's 600+ wind turbines will need maintenance at least twice a year and will last only about 20 years. If the U.S. goes ahead with offshore wind energy, the Ocean Wind project, the cost to build will be 5 times the cost of onshore facilities and the turbines won't even last 20 years because salt water is far more damaging than rain and sun.
Okay. So nuclear produces no CO2, generates thousands of megawatts almost 24/7, costs a fraction of other sources, doesn't destroy land, forests, mountains, birds and wildlife, and nuclear plants can last for more than half of a century. But what about the danger of radiation from nuclear meltdowns and the disposal of nuclear waste? Here are your answers.
The risk of a nuclear power plant accident releasing enough radioactivity to affect the public is very small. In fact, there have been only three accidents in the world since 1960 involving reactor core damage, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island, and the reality of these accidents is significantly different than the mass hysteria. At Chernobyl 78 people died as a result of the blast and radioactivity cleanup. At Fukushima no one died of radiation. However, the tsunami killed 19,000 people and the hysteria resulted in another 2,000 deaths. At Three Mile Island the reactor containment vessel worked exactly as designed and contained nearly all of the radioactive isotopes in the core and no significant radiation was discharged outside of the TMI facility. And yet, the hysteria canceled many planned nuclear projects in the U.S.
Nuclear waste can be recycled. Used fuel generally retains about 95 percent of the uranium it started with. Once reactor fuel (uranium or thorium) is used in a reactor, it can be treated and put into another reactor as fuel. The French, British, Japanese, Indians, and Russians all engage in some level of reprocessing. Recycling spent nuclear fuel reduces the volume of high-level radioactive waste by 80 percent and the level of radioactivity in the waste left over after reprocessing is much smaller. It decays to harmlessness within a few hundred years, rather than a million years it takes high-level (unrecycled) waste.
Recycling "used fuel" could also relieve our dependency on foreign countries to provide the medical isotopes needed for the 20 million nuclear medicine procedures performed each year. Unfortunately, the U.S. has a Law forbidding the recycling of nuclear fuel. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter prohibited recycling spent nuclear fuel, fearing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and preferring instead to bury it deep underground. Forty-three years later we’re no closer to doing that than we were in 1977. The French have recycled this fuel for 30 years without incident: no bad guys stealing uranium, no terrorist attacks, no involvement in nuclear weapons proliferation, and no accidental explosions.
Over the past four decades, America's reactors have produced about 56,000 tons of used fuel. That "waste" contains roughly enough energy to power every U.S. household for 12 years and the U.S. nuclear fleet for almost 30 years with no new uranium input. And it's just sitting there, piling up at power plant storage facilities. Now that's waste! We have also wasted six decades decades complaining about pollution. Five decades in denial about nuclear energy. Four decades fearing another Chernobyl. Three decades and billions upon billions of dollars on energy sources that depend on the weather. That's more waste than we can afford.
REFERENCES
Palo Verde Nuclear Station
Topaz Solar
Desert Sunlight
Alta Wind Energy Center
Ocean Wind
Photovoltaic (PV) Panels
Concentrated Solar Power
Rare Earth Metals
Rare Earth Mining
Recycling Nuclear Waste
Why Doesn't The US Recycle Nuclear Waste
The Toxic Chemicals From Solar Panels
Solar Panel Waste
Nuclear Accidents
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