NEI Nuclear Notes

We return, once more, to Germany where details are starting to emerge on the real costs of their nuclear phase out. Let’s start with emissions. According to an estimate by Laszlo Varro, the head of the gas, coal, and power markets division at the International Energy Agency emissions will rise significantly . Varro estimates that the nuclear phase out in Germany has caused a 25-million-ton annual increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The culprit, in large part, is the new coal power that has come online to meet the shortfall. 25 million tons is sort of abstract, but EPA has a pretty cool tool: the Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator . It finds more concrete alternatives to “tons of carbon dioxide” like “emissions from passenger vehicles.” Turns out 25 million tons of CO 2 emissions per year is equal to (pick your favorite one of the following): Annual greenhouse gas emissions from 4,446,984 passenger vehicles or CO 2 emissions from 52,743,297 barrels of oil. ...

The LA Times today published an inaccurate and sloppy editorial stating: "McCain's energy plan misleads the public and ignores the risks of nuclear energy." Nearly every claim in this opinion piece on nuclear energy is either grossly exaggerated or wrong. The editorial also makes several qualitative statements unsupported by facts to play into the fears of its readers. Here are a few: McCain claims that nuclear power is clean, safe and cheap, but it is none of the above. Nuclear waste remains hazardous for millenniums, and this country still hasn't developed a practical way to store it. No "practical" way to store the used fuel, huh? I guess the LA Times hasn't heard of Yucca Mountain in Nevada . Congress designated YM, which is in the middle of a desert 100 miles from the nearest city, to store the nuclear industry's used fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just begun reviewing the application submitted by the Department of Energy to build ...