QandO

June 17, 2004

Gas Pains
Posted by Dale Franks

Robert Samuelson writes that our next shortage is likely to be a dearth of natural gas. We're just using too darn much of it. Samuelson's answer--at least part of the answer, anyway--is an energy policy that includes an energy tax.

«Hard choices!"» he thunders. «We must make hard choices! Conserve! Restrict demand! Stimulate supply!»

Yawn.

We already have a replacement for natural gas, 51% of which is used for power generation. We've had it for half a century: Nuclear power.

Let me be clear there is absolutely no form of energy that is safer, cleaner, and cheaper than any other source of energy currently available. You can do all the hippie/greenie carping that you want about that statement but it's undeniably true.

Writer/engineer James Hogan has written about nuclear power generation. He points out a number of interesting facts.

In the West, not a single person has ever died from nuclear power generation accidents. And Chernobyl teaches us nothing about nuclear power generation. It tells us a lot about the dangers of ineptly designed and run nuclear reactors, just as ineptly designed and run skyscrapers, dams, and bridges are dangerous. Chernobyl-type accidents are, of course, impossible in the US, because the design of the Chernobyl reactor is one that has been banned in the US since 1950, precisely because the design was inept.

Chernobyl also teaches us what happens when nuclear power is run by a large, incompetent, unaccountable bureaucracy in a totalitarian state, too, but it's difficult to see how that applies here.

The worst "disaster" in the US, Three Mile Island, resulted in no one being killed, no one being injured, and no member of the public being put in the slightest danger. The maximum increase in radiation dosage that would have been incurred by anyone standing directly over vent where the radioactive gas that was released was 8 millirems, approximately one-third of the radiation you receive with a normal dental X-ray.

By contrast, between 200 and 300 coal miners are killed each year in accidents.

For decades, the Brits tested an experimental reactor in a cave in Scotland, subjecting it to every conceivable failure of coolant and safety systems. In the end, they just shut everything down to watch what would happen.

The core quietly cooled itself down.

Air pollution from coal, on the other hand, is estimated to cause 10,000 deaths a year in the US alone. By contrast, the waste from nuclear power is extraordinarily safe in comparison. A 1000-megawatt plant produces 1 cubic yard of radioactive waste per year. Compare that to a coal plant of similar capacity, which would produce 10 tons of waste per minute.

Now, the waste that we would produce all over the country would be radioactive enough to kill 10 billion people, if they were exposed to it. Yet somehow, every year we produce enough barium to kill 100 billion people, enough ammonia and hydrogen cyanide to kill 20 trillion people, and enough chlorine to kill 400 trillion. With nuclear waste, ground into power, fused with glass, placed in steel containers, and put in a concrete bunker several hundred feet underground, there's not much chance of anyone being exposed to it.

In one year, a 100-megawatt coal power plant generate 1.5 million tons of solid waste that are chock full of toxins and carcinogens, and we usually dump it into landfills or piling it up in hills. And that's only the solid waste. That doesn't count, say the 600 pounds of carbon dioxide or 10 pounds of sulfur dioxide that go up the chimney every second.

Professor Bernard Cohen of the University of Pittsburgh, in his book, Before It's Too Late, predicts that if the US were to go completely nuclear for power generation, the total added health risk covering the entire process, from uranium mining to waste disposal, would be the same as raising the speed limit by 0.006 miles per hour. The risks eliminated by ending coal, oil, and natural gas power generation would be far, far greater.

And let's not even talk about solar power. Solar energy received on the earth is simply too dilute. A lump of coal that would produce one kilowatt-hour of electricity would weigh about a pound. To produce the same amount of energy for that size, an area of about 15 square inches, the sun would have to shine for 1,000 hours.

So, let's say you wanted to build a 1000-megawatt solar energy plant. OK. First, set aside between 50 and 100 square miles depending on where the plant is located. Now, cover that whole area with 35,000 tons of aluminum, 2 million tons of concrete, 7,500 tons of copper, 600,000 tons of steel, and 75,000 tons of glass.

That's about 1,000 times the amount of materials needed co build a nuclear plant of equal generating capacity. And none of that stuff comes cheap. And, frankly, neither does the labor to keep 75 square miles or so of collectors clean.

And, don't forget, all these hundreds of thousands of tons of materials are the products of heavy, energy hungry industries. So much so, in fact, that building solar plants would produce a net energy loss. And don't forget the wastes from that production, about 10% of which is highly toxic.

Solar power is "free" and "clean"? Don't bet on it.

Frankly, the opposition to nuclear power is mere Luddism.

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