At this point in the climate crisis no nation, state, county or community can afford the “all of the above” fantasy of “large hydro, nuclear and carbon capture should be included in Minnesota’s carbon-free energy mix” as implied by a Dec. 12 Community Voices commentary.
And by using the catchword “carbon capture” it hides the ugly secrets of carbon capture and storage (CCS). For example, at the Illinois Prairie State CCS installation, a separate carbon-emitting gas power plant was built to supply energy for the CCS project: cost $2 billion. Other objections to CCS include a super solvent, KS-21, which is unproven in large operations. In CCS, the carbon is returned to the atmosphere after being used, which does not combat climate change but instead extracts more fossil fuels. So much for CCS – it’s extremely expensive, works poorly and ratepayers are not “buying it.”
But about nuclear power plants (NPP) being “clean”, a term which encompasses “carbon-free.” No matter how you slice it, NPPs are not clean. At the site they emit dangerous radioisotopes into the air, water and soil, including Carbon-14; they produce unspeakably filthy decay products from the splitting of Uranium-235 comprise spent fuel and the manufacture of spent fuel canisters, casks – and transportation of same – emits tons of carbon pollution. At 150 tons each, the spent fuel casks end up in communities that hosted the NPP.
But the real obfuscation contained in the word “clean” is revealed in the fuel cycle. From exploration, mining, milling, enrichment, transportation and fuel fabrication, the process of generating nuclear fuel leaves behind, not just a carbon footprint, but sick and deceased miners, piles of radioactive mill waste in mostly indigenous communities, spectacular and deadly accidents (see Wikipedia on Church Rock in New Mexico), and enrichment-process contamination in Portsmouth, Ohio, Paducah, Kentucky and international sites.
Minnesotans can ask the indigenous communities near the Prairie Islands NPP in Welch, “How do you like raising your family near an NPP, then being stuck with the spent fuel waste?” Or you can ask parents in Piketon, Ohio how they liked having to close a contaminated middle school (Zahn’s Corners) after some children got sick from radiation.
Instead of an “all of the above” philosophy, Minnesotans should be adopting the solar and wind generation philosophy. Nobody is saying solar and wind is perfect, but its imperfections don’t hold a candle to hydro, nuclear or carbon capture.
Jan Boudart is a Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS.org) board member.
Solar and wind with storage is our best path forward.
The recent stories on nuclear fusion and its temptation is not useful.
Some say it was just 10-15 years away. It still is.
That’s a great aspirational goal but completely unrealistic in the near term. Maybe 75-100 years from now we can go all renewables.
Again, are “go green” folks aware of what is happening around the world? Look at Germany, they promised their citizens that their commitment to solar and wind would protect them from needing Russian oil and gas. Germany is now firing up multiple coal fired plants to get their citizens energy to heat themselves. Good luck “go green gang”, the technology to use only green energy is not close to being able to run a large metropolitan area. Some day yes, soon no! Not using “all of the above” will get the same results as Germany, cold, cold citizens, living in the dark.
Um, Germany’s problem is that it had been relying on Russian oil and gas, and now Putinist fascism has made that position untenable going forward. But it’s nice to see your glee at the misfortune of those having to deal with an unexpected energy crisis, and acting as though that somehow ends the threat of global climate change and the need to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide.
No BK, the problem was Germany reassured their citizens that the commitment to solar and wind would carry the day as far as energy. Totally false claim. No joy in the pain of German people, more startled at “greenies” saying we don’t need “all of the above” and totally unaware of other major countries failures.
Wind generation has some ecological drawbacks of its own, but we try to ignore them because they are relatively modest, and we know the alternative is worse.
The immediate obstacle to large-scale wind and solar is the permitting of transmission lines. This will require some compromises that we aren’t used to accepting. But the looming environmental disaster forces us to compare those unpleasant compromises to the alternative.
When we think about any new nuclear power, we shouldn’t be thinking of the Monticello and Prairie Island plants, which came on line 50 years ago, based on designs that may have been 15 years old at the time. We should be looking at the state of the technology as it is today, and comparing it to the alternative.
But which alternative do we compare it to? We obviously need to vastly expand wind and solar production, but that still leaves the intermittency problem. And we’ll need much more power generation in order to electrify transportation and heating.
So when we evaluate new nuclear power we should not compare it to wind and solar, which it would complement. The alternative to compare it to is fossil fuels.
“When we think about any new nuclear power, we … should be looking at the state of the technology as it is today, and comparing it to the alternative.”
As I understand it, thorium reactors are smaller, cheaper, safer & have less toxic waste. But I’m saying that from memory & am not an expert. The larger point you make is correct though: we’re not talking about three mile island style reactors any more.
“Nobody is saying solar and wind is perfect”
But we are saying that those two alone won’t provide the energy that we need. Nuclear is the way to go, shoot the waste into space towards the sun and have reliable energy all the time, every day.
“Shoot the waste into space towards the sun” immediately makes me not want to listen to any of your other ideas. It makes it clear you haven’t thought much about this topic. The radioactive material came from Earth in the first place. It can be stored here on Earth.
“Nuclear is the way to go, shoot the waste into space”
What could possibly go wrong?
Hey Minpost? The solution to reader criticism of your decision to allow an intellectually dishonest opinion piece from an industry shill is NOT to post an equally intellectually dishonest opinion piece from someone else. I don’t go to oil industry shills for my information about alternative energy, but I also don’t go to an organization who’s stated goal for 41 years has been the abolishment of nuclear power for opinions on energy policy because their take is just going to be “Nuclear bad!” Any and all advancements in the field that make nuclear power safer, cleaner and more efficient in terms of waste products will be ignored by said organization because to admit that progress can be made is to admit that “Nuclear bad!” is an incredibly simplistic stance that is no better than “Oil good!” in the grand scheme of things. Groups like this actively make the world a worse place to life in and have absolutely contributed to climate change by blindly opposing anything nuclear.
Spot on.