Why is the GOP pushing for new nuclear power?

Question

"Republicans say, build 100 new nuclear power plants during the next twenty years"
http://www.gop.com/News/NewsRead.aspx?Guid=92504368-37ec-4d4e-94bb-9edc4fc33250

But as they push for a massive number of new nuclear plants, this is what's happening around the world.

Finland: "After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor’s 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50 percent. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html?_r=2&ref=energy-environment

Turkey: "The only company bidding...offered a price of 21.16 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Current electricity prices in the country vary between 4 cents and 14 cents per kWh."
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=164556&bolum=105

Even here in the USA, in Florida: "Progress Energy offered its revised estimate Tuesday: $14-billion for two new nuclear reactors...The utility said its 200-mile, 10-county transmission project will cost $3-billion more. The total cost triples estimates the utility offered little more than a year ago."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/article414653.ece

Idaho: "Consumers expect reasonably priced energy, and the company's due diligence process has led to the conclusion that it does not make economic sense to pursue the project at this time," Bill Fehrman, President of MidAmerican Nuclear Energy Co, said in the letter to Payette County residents.
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN2957446620080129

The list goes on. Why does the GOP want 100 new nuclear power plants when currently they're so expensive and having so little success in the USA and around the world?

Answer 1

Well, call me a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I think it has something to do with the centralization of power. Read whatever you like into that statement. What other possible explanation can there be for their vehement opposition to distributed [anything]?



We could actually have clean efficient nuclear power with gen IV designs that can actually burn nuclear "waste". But this type of nuclear infrastructure would turn nuclear power into a kind of public trust - the last thing they want.



When you can't centralize and control and take all the profits and funnel them upwards - they want nothing to do with it. More than that, they want to quash distributed infrastructure of any sort, lest the little people get the idea that they can have some measure of control over their own lives and destiny. I think people are starting to wake up to what happened in the last century. I think it's telling that the new administration gave more of GM to the unions than to the bondholders. It's a beginning of a return to some sort of balance.



I like your explanation from before - nuclear is pointless when renewables (even centralized renewables) are cheaper. However, if we don't do demand management in a big way, like an Apollo program that cuts energy use in half in 10 years, the demand growth for energy coupled with realization that carbon is destroying the climate may make nuclear inevitable - because without demand management renewables can't satisfy the load. Or can they?



Light water reactors are one of our most dangerous, inefficient, wasteful and unsustainable technologies. We mine the uranium at tremendous (social and environmental) cost. We only have enough uranium for 70 years anyway. We use it once leaving 99% of the energy behind turning it into a 100,000 year nightmare of highly radioactive, highly toxic waste. All the light water reactor waste ever created is still there, in holding ponds, at the power plants where it was created.



"...some form of molten-salt thorium breeder could be the most efficient well-developed energy source known, whether measured by cost per kW, capital cost or social costs."



But we don't do it. The party of dumb wants more light water reactors. Why? See above and some of the other salient answers.

Answer 2

ThinkProgress is a ultra-left propaganda outfit and is hardly a credible source for much of anything. The Fukushima plant was (1) right next to the ocean, (2) close to a fault line (3) was a 30 year old design. If we want safe nuclear power all we have to do is contract with the companies that built the French nuclear reactors. They have never had a problem with theirs.

Answer 3

I have yet to see any proposed legislation from a Republican with any real chance at passing and curbing carbon emissions. Lot of talk and opposition, but not much action.

We've seen some from Democrats which has been met with resistance by Republicans and Democrats alike, especially in the House, looking out for their constituents at the expense of others. I suppose that's their job, though. Tough to tell your voters that closing up the coal mine in your district is a good thing because they're building a windmill farm 200 miles away in another district. That's political suicide.

Not enough people are willing to act. That's the bottom line.

Answer 4

Nuclear power is very successful, and has been providing a large percentage of the electricity worldwide. Fast neutron plants will even consume as fuel, most of the nuclear waste from existing plants. Nuclear plants do not contribute CO2 to the global warming problem. Global warming is a scientifically proven problem caused by man's consumption of carbon based fuels. President Obama, a Democrat, supports the construction of nuclear power plants.

Answer 5

The problem is, they are building the wrong types of reactors and too many various designs. Molten salt reactors are inherently safer and less hazardous than water-cooled designs with respect to spent fuel storage and nuclear proliferation. Even so, water cooled designs have been operated in Europe...especially France... for decades as well as our own nuclear-powered naval vessels with a great safety record. The French tend to stick to three basic designs which don't change whereas the US has dozens of designs which lead to engineering problems having to reinvent each design.





"The notable features of this reactor are:



Meltdown proof

Does not produce weapons grade plutonium

Has inherent non-proliferation features

Thousands of years of energy

Simplified fuel cycle (no fuel elements nor reprocessing required)

Its wastes are simpler and less toxic than current nuclear wastes

Only hundreds of years of storage versus thousands for the current wastes

Can completely destroy military plutonium

Can burn the existing wastes (spent fuel)!

Higher thermal efficiencies (operates at a "Red Heat"; ~700° C [1,260° F]) "

http://home.earthlink.net/~bhoglund/whatsMoltenSal.html



http://home.earthlink.net/~bhoglund/



At a fundamental level, all matter is basically solidified energy...using Einstein;s formula of E= MC2...if matter could be directly converted into energy, a single medium size tree could provide 47 trillion kilowatt/hours of electricity....10 times what the US currently uses. Nuclear power is currently the only source of energy on earth which returns a million times more energy than burning any other fuel.

Answer 6

It's highly centralized and easily controlled by a few elite people. The sad truth is that the modern GOP does not care about massively centralized power as long as that power is held by private citizens and corporations.



At least the Dems are honest about their desire to be told what to do by a few people half way across the country.

Answer 7

If our politicians decided that it was necessary that all wiring in our houses be made of silver, rather then gold in order to "save the environment", we would see a substantial increase in the cost of housing.



Then, if the environmentally concerned public servants decided that the use of wood in our houses was contributing to the loss of our forests, and from now on only stone could be used, we would see a further rise in house construction cost.



Now, if the same dedicated legislators made it illegal to build a foundation without first putting an earthquake proof vapor barrier out twelve feet from the foundation to prevent inadvertent contamination of the ground water for chemicals that might seep through cracks in the foundation, we might come to realize that building private houses was just too expensive to be practical.



The reason nuclear power plants are so expensive is that our politicians have made them so. And not to protect us from nuclear disaster, but to protect the big oil companies from competition.



It is not up to the Republicans or the Democrats to promote nuclear power plants. That's the job of the Free Market. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking like Communists. In our system, our government has no authority over energy production. The Department of Energy is a violation of of our Constitution.



But the Department of Energy does serve a purpose. It maximizes profits for the big oil companies.

Answer 8

The largest issue with nuclear energy is not safety, disposal of the waste or cost of construction of the power plants... but the limited size of the reserves.



At current levels of consumption there is only enough uranium to last about 70 years. If the world were to suddenly increase energy production from nuclear plants, this would fall dramatically.



“If electric capacity were increased six-fold, then the 72-year supply would last just 12 years.[6]”



Nuclear energy simply isn’t a viable long term option.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_depletion



“Various agencies have tried to estimate how long these resources will last.



European Commission

The European Commission said in 2001 that at the current level of uranium consumption, known uranium resources would last 42 years. When added to military and secondary sources, the resources could be stretched to 72 years. Yet this rate of usage assumes that nuclear power continues to provide only a fraction of the world’s energy supply. If electric capacity were increased six-fold, then the 72-year supply would last just 12 years.[6]



OECD

The world's present measured resources of uranium, economically recoverable at a price of 130 USD/kg according to the industry groups OECD, NEA and IAEA, are enough to last for some 80 years at current consumption [25]



Australian Uranium Association

According to the Australian Uranium Association, yet another industry group, assuming the world's current rate of consumption at 66,500 tonnes of Uranium per year and the world's present measured resources of uranium (4.7 Mt) are enough to last for some 70 years.[9]”

Answer 9

no, in fact this is not what is going on around the world and the list does not go on.



You are correct in that the construction cost for nuclear reactors is excessively high in the United States and some european nations due to over-regulation, public ignorance, and concern about nuclear energy. Even with high construction costs nuclear is cheaper and more realistic than renewables *when costs are factored over the life of the plant.



http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html



Reactor construction costs are cheaper in other nations such as Japan, but like fossil fuel sources construction costs are going up.



from the tables starting on pg 43, you'll notice that overnight costs on nuclear plants have become more expensive (averaged over USA forecast /Korea/Japan), but when fuel costs are factored, nuclear energy is cost competitive with coal. When you don't consider government subsidies, this is not the case for renewables:

http://web.mit.edu/ceepr/www/publications/workingpapers/2009-004.pdf



an increase in nuclear energy will not likely happen in the US, but it will happen in China, Japan,India, and parts of Europe. In the US coal will still win out even after carbon tax or cap-and-trade due to overegulation of nuclear energy and the excessive cost of renewables.

Answer 10

a) its clean energy



b) most of Europe has been run with nuclear power for decades



c) the technology is safer than when nuclear power was first attempted in the '50s and '60's



d) it will cut down our fossil fuel consumption (oil and coal) by an incredible amount, thus . . .



e) cutting down the amount of carbon dumped into the atmosphere



f) our navy has been using the technology (again for decades) to fuel our most important ships. Guess what -- no accidents.





Are those perhaps good enough reasons for you?



I agree that there should be more development of solar, wind, and wave technology but nuclear energy will help us out in the interim.

Answer 11

I LIVE DOWN WIND FROM 4 COAL PLANTS. I have asthma ! when I smell the Coal plants I stay inside. I cannot breath. Check your weather reports for air standards each day. The Coals plants must leave or we humans will.Simple right. We also do not know how to build a Bomb proof Nuclear generating plants. Yet !

Answer 12

Probably they are simply desperate.

Not one reactor on this planet is viable; the cost of construction is prohibitive enough, but that is nothing compared to the cost of decommissioning.



Actually, i do not know of any large commercial reactors which have been decommissioned by the original owner/company. Usually the company applies for bankruptcy, and the public pick up the stupendous cost.



Additionally, the public must also pay to collect, store and assure security for the high level wastes produced. (low level waste is discharged into deep wells and the ocean, where it causes massive, prolonged and lethal dangers for up to 250,000 years.)



The primary objective is to prevent, in any way possible, the adoption of local or personal power generation, and or any shift away from the use of coal, which is the corporations primary asset. Such ideas erode the future influence of power supply companies, their income base, and therefor their future viability as parasitic companies taking global naturally occurring wealth for private profiteering - selling us the basic necessities to life.



Power companies actually have a primary mandated role, by definition. Like food, this is a basic necessity of life. Electricity companies used every tactic in the book to gain the lions share of the market, and coal was the cheap fuel to use.



Power companies have previously been assumed to provide "cleaner and cheaper power" to replace older, dirtier fuels. As public utilities they served the public well, in gross ignorance of the pollution they caused, but even as the last century dawned, their power was great, and their lack of foresight profound, and, in hindsight, disturbing.



Rather than adopting cleaner natural gas in the 1930's, they continued to rely upon their massive reserves of coal, and the infrastructure investments in place for the transportation, or access to the stuff. Investing in natural gas would require loss of profit, and huge amounts of capital, and many governments instead allowed the coal fired electricity industry to continue undisturbed, and often receiving substantial government assistance, one way or another. (like the promised "clean coal technology" touted decades ago by the C.F.E.I. which is still used today as a delaying and aggressive impediment to progressive changes to cleaner fuels, and or localised generation.)

Answer 13

Thorium and depleted uranium are fertile material that will power earth for thousands of years. There is an enormous amount of nuclear fuel on this planet. Anyone who is serious about preventing environmental damage is also serious about nuclear energy or they are seriously crazy.

Answer 14

It's a good, clean and safe source of NRG.



Why are the Democrats exporting Nuclear NRG technology to other countries and trying to stop new Nuclear Power plans in our own country...?



Answer that....

Answer 15

1) It works

2) It's Clean

3) It's efficient.



The least efficient thing about it is eco-buttheads standing in the way of them --which makes them more and more difficult to build.



That's why I think the future of them is going to be shed-sized town-powering nuclear plants. They can be installed so that they're inaccessable, and provide power with virtually no maintenance for 20 years.

Answer 16

Maybe they just want to show who the hypocrites are or actually do something useful for a change.

Answer 17

Dana..... the costs you cite are chump-change compared to what the Washington Demos are proposing in the way of cap&trade and subsidies (code for 'welfare') for inefficient/unreliable alternative energy.



And you also know that nuclear energy in this country and around the world has been very successful. The costs have skyrocketed due to .... you guessed it.... government over-regulation. Regulatory ratcheting has added a lot of unecessary construction and labor costs to nuclear plants.



Of course, it you REALLY are concerned about lower construction costs and cheap electric energy..... there is always Coal.... a personal favorite of mine that does not have to come from foreign countries and does not require MY tax dollars for subsidies.



It would be irresponsible of me not to remind you that there is currently NO credible science that supports "Man-did-it" global warming...... I repeat.... NONE. But then you already know that.