| Using nuclear reactors to produce electricity has met with mixed results. Nuclear energy was embraced with fervor as a response to the Arab oil embargoes in the 1970s. Then, an economic slowdown (remember stagflation?) and very high interest rates made these capital-intensive plants much more expensive than expected, to the chagrin of many electric ratepayers. At first, electric utilities had difficulty operating these new plants efficiently – and safely. The accident at Three Mile Island, even though it was managed safely, caused fear (very few of us know much about radiation and its effects on us) and skepticism. The more recent accident at Chernobyl resulted in several direct deaths from radiation poisoning, made a sizable area around the plant uninhabitable and distributed additional radioactive elements over a wide area, especially in Russia, Scandinavia and Europe.
Today, nuclear power supplies about 20 percent of our electric requirements. It supplies a much larger portion in other major industrial countries, for example, about 75 percent in France, 45 percent on Sweden and 30 percent in Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan.
In general, and especially recently in the U.S., reactors are operated very efficiently and safely and they produce electricity, after the construction cost is paid off, at relatively low costs that are not subject to the large changes that we see sometimes in oil and gas prices. Compared to other sources of electricity, like coal or natural gas, they have a small impact on our environment. Nuclear plants do not produce any smog-causing or greenhouse gases and it is not necessary to deliver fuel by building pipelines or running frequent 100-car coal trains.
So, what are we to think about the possibility of more nuclear plants? Like all ways of making electricity, nuclear power has both good and bad points. For new plants, there are three important points to consider: (1) nuclear power’s costs are lowest when the plants run continuously, so they can only supply efficiently the base-load portion of our requirements; (2) to be competitive, new plants must be built faster and more cheaply than the ones that are running now, this means new designs are necessary to make the plants simpler to build and operate and (3) nearly all of the most likely owners and financiers of new nuclear plants agree that we must find a solution to the problem of “nuclear waste”, that is, the disposal of spent nuclear fuel.
The U.S. government (both the administration and the Congress) is pursuing the creation of a final disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The scientific criteria will be tough to meet and the state of Nevada is virulently opposed to the plan. Without an approved final disposal site for the spent fuel, or another generally accepted workable plan, new reactors simply will not be built.
More to the point, what about the prospects for more nuclear plants in the Pacific Northwest? Here we rely very heavily on hydroelectric power. This is the foundation of our electricity supply – and it presents a serious problem for nuclear plants. In years when we have average or above-average precipitation, we have a surplus of available hydroelectric power in the spring (March, April and May). The marginal cost of this power is much cheaper than any other source, so other electric power plants are normally shut down in favor of hydro during this period. But shutting down a nuclear plant for two months each year is a big economic penalty, which works against using nuclear power as an additional electricity source in our area.
We need to look carefully for new production sources that work best with our existing supplies. Combined-cycle gas turbines seem to be a good fit and fuel cell technology is becoming a realistic alternative. The technology is available to connect small sources of electric generation, solar and windmills, for example, to the grid. These sources should be encouraged with tax credits or low-rate loans for individuals and small businesses to overcome the initial capital cost barrier. In many cases, the cheapest, most efficient way to “add capacity” is to either reduce demand (better house insulation, high-efficiency lights) or to shift it, such as by using timers to wash clothes and dishes late at night, or by having aluminum plants run at night instead of during the peak demand periods in the morning and evening.
Especially in our area, which, because of our heavy reliance on hydroelectric power, has a very different supply structure compared to the rest of the country, we need a comprehensive solution that provides the type of new electric plants that fit best with our existing sources and that promotes conservation and demand management with as much enthusiasm as new plants. Nuclear power, if it can overcome its drawbacks and, in particular, if it can provide a solution to the nuclear waste problem, could provide part of the solution in our area, but it is not the only, or necessarily the best, answer to our current shortages. |
