We've written before about how former Vice President Al Gore doesn't think expanded use of nuclear energy can play much of a role in stemming the emission of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't seem like that message is getting through to some of the folks who are watching his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
Here's Roger Ebert:
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Electricity, Carbon, GHG, Global Warming, Climate Change, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth
Here's Roger Ebert:
What can we do? Switch to and encourage the development of alternative energy sources: Solar, wind, tidal, and, yes, nuclear.I guess Roger didn't get the memo.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Energy, Electricity, Carbon, GHG, Global Warming, Climate Change, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth
Comments
It's not that he himself is against it as a principle or something. It's that it will simply not happen because the very people who could build those plant will not be willing to risk their money on it.
Get used to it.
It's not that he himself is against it as a principle or something. It's that it will simply not happen because the very people who could build those plant will not be willing to risk their money on it.
Get used to it.
Here is a quote from the September 5, 2005 issue of BusinessWeek:
"As a result, companies say they won't order a new plant until they are sure they can get a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a process expected to take four to five years. "At the very earliest, we are looking at construction starting around 2010," says Adrian Heymer, director of new plants deployment at the Nuclear Energy Institute. Since construction would take four to five years, electrons from the new nukes couldn't start flowing until 2014 or 2015 at the soonest.
It could be longer than that. John W. Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon Corp. (EXC ), believes that a new generation of reactors is essential. But even though Chicago-based Exelon is the nation's biggest nuclear utility, with 17 reactors, Rowe says the risks are still too great to order new plants now. "While the stars and moons are moving in the right direction, they're not there yet for us," he says."
Compare that with what Al Gore said in the Grist interview.
A: I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now.
Q: Won't, or shouldn't?
A: Won't. There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved.
If we are not going to even start producing new nuclear power until 2015, and we continue to increase our use of other power sources during the intervening 9-10 years, nuclear power will certainly be playing an even smaller role than it does today as a portion of our power supply.
If we build on a schedule even close to what is currently predicted by most industry insiders, it will be a decade or two before nuclear even catches up to its current portion. I cannot provide the quote off the top of my head, but I seem to recall that even Skip Bowman is calling for nuclear power to simply maintain its current portion of power production.
How is that different from what Gore said?
Stupid regulations.
This is what confuses me: if we accept that global warming is happening now because of greenhouse gases, then it is a global problem. Why do Americans -- such as Al Gore, but he is far from the only one -- seem to have such a US-centric view of the problem?
Look at Finland, France, China, South Africa, etc. Nuclear energy is the way of the future. It is happening now. Get used to it.
While South Africa does have the PBMR project that will probably have an operating unit by 2010 and they have recently indicated interest in expanding the LWR capacity at Koeberg, those projects are small potatoes compared to the planned increases in coal fired production.
I read an article recently that indicated that between bringing a couple of plants out of mothballs and building new plants, Eskom is planning more than 7,500 MW of new coal generation within the next 5 years.
Again, I say, you might not like what Gore has to say, but it seems to be a pretty accurate statement about what the nuclear industry is doing. He does not say he does not like nuclear power; he says that he does not think it is going to make much of an impact on global climate change.
The industry could do far more, but seems unwilling to take even a moderate financial risk. It also does not seem willing to make the case that 60-72 months to issue a license for new construction is simply way too long.
Heck, the entire Shippingport project took less time that that and we had very little knowledge and operating experience at the time.
What you say about PBMR is correct, but unfortunately, PBMR is having serious financial troubles. Personally, I favor a competing technology, but I would still like to see PBMR succeed.
But what about the other countries I mentioned?
Now, Mr. McErlain has enlisted a movie critic in his ongoing criticism of Gore. I am glad to see that Anonymous and, especially, Mr. Adams have reminded Mr. McErlain and everyone else that not only is Gore not anti-nuclear but that his views on the future of nuclear power are very much in the mainstream—indeed, as Mr. Adams points out, they are not all that far from the views of industry spokesmen.
One important reason for this, noted by Gore in the interview and by Mr. Adams in his post, is that the construction of new nuclear plants is an expensive undertaking which involves considerable financial risk. (Of course, in his interview, Gore was discussing the American nuclear industry and not the Finnish nuclear industry—evidence, no doubt, of still another of Gore’s many shortcomings.) And in a market-based economy, like that of the U.S., this economic problem constitutes a serious—but not necessarily fatal—disadvantage.
Now, as most readers of this blog are aware, in an attempt to compensate for this disadvantage, the industry has sought, and appears to have obtained, financial support from the federal government. Therefore, it is curious to see a self-proclaimed “libertarian”—I hesitate to mention names, since this could be misconstrued as a personal attack—first pose a series of rhetorical questions that ignore this issue and then lament the fact that our political system does not resolve the energy situation to his satisfaction. It is also curious to see certain nuclear cheerleaders on this site—individuals who remind us that they abhor dictatorship, cherish freedom, and uphold the rule of law—so quick to cite the example of China while they are disparaging the media, regulations, environmentalists, and Al Gore.
The competing claims involving energy consumption, environmental protection, government subsidies, and property rights raise difficult and contentious issues. It is unfortunate that some ideologues think that these issues can be boiled down to a simple choice: either to infinity and beyond by embracing nuclear power or to the horse and buggy era with Eliot Spitzer.