Nuclear Is the Ticket to a Carbon-Free Future. Why Do Environmentalists Hate It?
Nuclear Is the Ticket to a Carbon-Free Future. Why Do Environmentalists Hate It?
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/12/nuclear-energy-carbon-free-elect...
- Expanding U.S. nuclear power — an energy source that many environmentalists and lawmakers oppose — could be the most reliable way to achieve a carbon-free electricity grid, according to experts.
- “If there is meant to be a serious conversation about changing the way we generate electricity in the United States, particularly with a focus on carbon emissions, nuclear has to be a part of the conversation,” American Institute for Economic Research senior faculty Ryan Yonk told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- Just a handful of nuclear plants have been constructed in the U.S. over the last two decades. In 2012, a plan to build a nuclear plant was approved, marking the first approval in more than 30 years and, in 2016, a Tennessee reactor became the first to come online in 20 years, the Energy Information Administration said.
- “It’s about energy, but it’s also about our security,” Craig Piercy, executive director and CEO at the American Nuclear Society, told the DCNF. “It’s about the resilience of our economy and I think that there’s a big opportunity there.”
Expanding U.S. nuclear power — an energy source that many environmentalists and lawmakers oppose — could be the most reliable way to achieve a carbon-free electricity grid, according to experts.
Nuclear energy is considered a renewable energy source because it produces zero emissions through fission, the process of splitting uranium atoms, according to the Department of Energy. Currently, nuclear accounts for about 9% of total U.S. energy consumption, slightly less than all other renewable energy sources combined and coal, government data showed.
“If there is meant to be a serious conversation about changing the way we generate electricity in the United States, particularly with a focus on carbon emissions, nuclear has to be a part of the conversation,” American Institute for Economic Research senior faculty Ryan Yonk told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Absent that, I don’t see a way that we change electrical generation,” he continued. (RELATED: Pelosi Says Women Face Particular Dangers From Climate Ch...
President Joe Biden said in April that the U.S. would have a completely carbon-free electric grid by 2035. Reducing total economy-wide emissions 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 are among his other goals.
President Joe Biden tours the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Arvada, Colorado on Sept. 14. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
However, the Biden administration has prioritized developing wind and solar energy over nuclear since taking office. Experts have criticized wind and solar as intermittent and unreliable sources of energy.
There are still burdensome regulations preventing development of future nuclear reactors nationwide. More than a dozen states have strict rules restricting such development, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Just a handful of nuclear plants have been constructed in the U.S. over the last two decades. In 2012, a plan to build a nuclear plant was approved, marking the first approval in more than 30 years and, in 2016, a Tennessee reactor became the first to come online in 20 years, the Energy Information Administration said.
‘Both expensive and dangerous’
Dating back to the 1970s, environmental activists have opposed relying upon nuclear. In October, the Center for Biological Diversity and five other prominent environmental groups penned a letter to the White House, Senate and House, urging them not to include funding for nuclear in the budget reconciliation package making its way through Congress.
“Nuclear energy has no place in a safe, clean, sustainable future,” the international environmental group Greenpeace said on its website. “Nuclear energy is both expensive and dangerous, and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn’t mean it’s clean.”
Greenpeace argued that nuclear energy poses the risk of a catastrophic meltdown similar to Fukushima and Chernobyl. The group also said there is no clean or safe way to clean up radioactive waste which is created during the fission process.
People leave after a ceremony to thank workers of the nuclear plant Indian Point on April 30 in Buchanan, New York. (Kena Betancur/Getty Images)
The total used nuclear fuel used over the last 60 years, though, could fit on a football field at a depth of less than 10 yards, according to the Energy Department. In addition, emerging technology may offer a path forward for recycling spent nuclear waste.
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Comment by Willem Post on November 13, 2021 at 8:01pm
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Long Islander,
If a new Vermont Yankee were built in the same area, say five 120 MW SMRs, they would feed into the existing grid, just as 600 MW VY did.
That could be repeated at 100 locations in the US, and in other countries, where large-capacity, MW, nuclear and coal plants were located, including at the site of the Maine nuclear power plant.
Remember, the CF of Maine wind is about 29%, and that wind output goes up and down forever, I.e., low quality electricity
Not so with nuclear, which is steady high-quality, electricity, and has a CF of 90%, almost 3 times as much.
It would take about 600/3 x 90/29 = SIX HUNDRED 3 MW, 500-ft tall, wind turbines to produce what the new SMR nuclear plant would produce
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Comment by Long Islander on November 13, 2021 at 6:34pm
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Willem,
Thank you for all of this. In addition to the landscape scarring proliferation of wind turbines, they also require the construction of new power lines. I believe one of the reasons for this is that existing lines cannot handle the thermal overload that can occur when wind generated electricity suddenly surges into the grid. Do you know to what extent predictably produced nuclear would or wouldn't require new transmission lines?
LI
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Penny,
After the TMI accident, numerous federal requirements were imposed on Nuclear Plants, which essentially doubled their original capital cost.
ALL US plants had to implement ALL these requirements to continue to have an operating license!
As a result, the entire US nuclear sector operates at a capacity factor of greater than 90%, which is the highest in the world.
GREENPEACE folks are a bunch of grifting/grafting hucksters, financed by the fossil and wind/solar industry!!
They have to make a lot of noise to keep the money flowing
Read my 30% article to see what Russia is doing with small modular nuclear plants, SMRs
Both, Russia and the U.S. have 70 years of experience building SMRs.
I attached an APPENDIX to this article.
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How can a control panel for a nuclear power plant not show cooling pump status? How can humans be so brilliant, yet so dumb? We need standardized plants and fail safe systems. Belt and suspenders technology.I envision a nuclear device the size of my fist that will power a car/house for two years before needing refueling. A unit the size of an eighteen wheeler powering an entire town. I envision clean air and water, beautiful unspoiled landscapes with enough of the wild left in them to nurture what's left of our wildlife, and connect us to our roots. I don't envision a world crammed with spinning six hundred foot tall bird cuisinarts and carpeted in solar panels. Nuclear is the only carbon free energy source we have, other than hydro, that can supply our energy needs. If we reject it, we better learn to live like the Amish.
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Long Islander,
I worked for the engineering/construction firm that designed the THREE MILE ISLAND power plant.
We had told ConEdison the plant was still in TEST OPERATION, i.e not ready for full power.
ConEdison ignored us, because it wanted to have the full tax write off for 1978.
ConEdison ran the plant at full output, until the night shift of May 1979.
The control panel had not shown the reactor cooling pump status, so when a pump failed, the people in the control room did not know!!
All the rest is history
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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on November 13, 2021 at 1:34pm
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If the push towards EV's succeeds, right or wrong, I would bet we're going to soon see nuclear return, barring of course some unforeseen breakthrough. I'm guessing some of the big players pushing EV's and cheer leading wind and solar are quietly investing heavily right now in uranium and other assets which would benefit from nuclear. It has been about 43 years since we saw The China Syndrome.
So there are about two generations of Americans who never saw that and were not around for Three Mile Island. And nuclear technology has since advanced. If the big players decide it's time to give the green light to nuclear, it would cost them relatively nothing to get "environmental groups" to go along.
He who pays the piper.
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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