As nuclear energy is getting an extensive discussion in the comments thread, I thought I’d repost this piece I wrote this more than a year ago. The only change since then is that the evidence for human-caused climate change has become even more overwhelming, though there are still plenty of people who combine global warming denialism (or a long track record of denialism, with no admission of error) with the claim that “nuclear power is the only solution to climate change.”
Repost
My column in yesterday’s Fin was about the option of nuclear energy as a solution to the problem of climate change, an issue that’s been discussed a few times here already. One point I didn’t make is that the availability of nuclear-generated electricity as a ‘backstop’ technology puts an upper bound on the costs of a strategy that would reduce CO2 emissions enough to stabilise atmospheric concentrations (this is much more than Kyoto which aims only to stabilise emissions from developed countries, as a first step to a solution).
Nuclear option premature
With the Kyoto protocol in force, and evidence of rapid climate change mounting up day by day, it’s not surprising that there has been renewed interest in nuclear energy as a source of electricity, free of emissions of greenhouse gases. What’s surprising is that so many of the participants in the debate seem to be restating positions that have been frozen in time for twenty years or more.
The debate over uranium mining provides an example. Labor’s ‘three mines’ policy was a grubby internal compromise reached in the early 1980s. It owed a lot to the interaction between geographical and factional alignments and almost nothing to a rational evaluation of the issues. It made no sense even at the time, yet it is still defended by some as an appropriate policy for the future.
The central reasoning underlying the anti-uranium campaign was rendered obsolete by the late 1970s. It was assumed that nuclear power was set for rapid growth, and that restricting the supply of uranium was the best way of constraining that growth. Meanwhile, nuclear proponents were looking at ‘fast-breeder’ reactors that would generate their own plutonium and thereby avoid the uranium shortage.
But the stagnation of nuclear power after the Three Mile Island accident meant that the shortage of uranium never developed. Releases from military stockpiles after the end of the Cold War have ensured a continuing supply. The availability of uranium is not a constraint on nuclear power and is unlikely to become one. Restrictive Australian policy might raise the world price, but that would merely benefit other suppliers at our expense. Similarly, the fast breeder reactor is commercially dead. France pulled the plug on its Superphenix reactor in the late 1990s, and Japan’s Monju has been mothballed for a decade.
If the opponents of nuclear power seem stuck in the 1980s, many of the supporters seem to back in the 1950s, still selling a dream of limitless clean power, ‘too cheap to meter’, and obstructed only by baseless fears. If the experience of the past thirty years has taught us anything, it’s that this dream is illusory.
Nuclear power can be clean (at least compared to the main alternatives), it can be safe and it can be cheap, but it apparently can’t be all three at once. In the aftermath of the Three Mile Island meltdown, it was pointed out by some that no-one had died, and it was suggested that nuclear power was being held to excessively tight safety standards, compared to those prevailing in the Soviet Union, which was forging ahead while nuclear energy stalled in the West. The Chernobyl disaster put paid to that claim.
In the ensuing decades, there have been repeated claims that the problems have been solved and that the stage is set for a renaissance of nuclear power. There has been much less in the way of concrete achievement.
It is hard to assess the costs of nuclear power because of its long stagnation. Large-scale construction has mostly been undertaken in countries where nuclear power attracts government subsidies, usually linked to military objectives, as in France. The main issue relates to capital costs. With the low interest rates prevailing currently, nuclear power looks marginally competitive with fossil fuels, but a complete analysis, including a proper allowance for waste disposal, would almost certainly yield substantially higher costs.
It would be foolish to foreclose any options, but a return to nuclear power looks premature at this stage. There are lots of conservation options, and alternative strategies such as tree planting, that could yield savings in emissions at significantly lower cost. Only when these options are exhausted would an expansion of nuclear power make sense.
In the meantime, it would be helpful if advocates of nuclear power could clarify their own position regarding climate change. While many are happy to score points against environmentalists by pointing to nuclear power as a solution to climate change, a surprisingly large number simultaneously push the claims of the handful of scientists (mostly not experts in the field, and many with glaring conflicts of interest) who deny the reality of human-caused climate change.
Not only does this undermine the case for re-examining the nuclear option, it undermines the credibility of its advocates. If an individual or lobby group disregards the massive body of evidence on climate change, often on the basis of a predetermined political or interest-group agenda, what reliance can be based on their claims about the safety and cost-efficiency of nuclear power?
John Quiggin 
The point that some nuclear advocates are global warming deniers is a red herring. Some suicide bombers are mothers so that doesn’t automatically make motherhood a bad thing. Recent polling (refer dKos) has found that nuclear supporters tend to be conservative, male or technocratic. Lefties are active opponents while women tend to harbour quiet misgivings.
Let me put the male technocratic view; how can major (50+%) emissions reductions be achieved otherwise? If your answer involves millions of wind farms and solar panels or pumping coal emissions underground I suggest you do more research. If you think technological fixes are imminent stop sneering at those who believe in the Supernatural. If you think a switch to an Amish economy is inevitable try going without your car.
Alas I doubt this debate will have progressed much by this time next year.
Hermit,
I don’t think the debate will have progressed much on this blog in a year’s time, but in the wider public arena there are promising signs that rationalism is finally making an appearance.
Even Tim Flannery – who is well known in South Australia for appearing in government ads advocating ineffective solutions to global warming – and WWF CEO Greg Bourne have conceded that we need to at least reconsider our nuclear options.
I await with bated breath the announcement from Flannery and Bourne that nuclear is the only option.
If I wasn’t used to it, I’d conclude that my writing was insufficiently clear. Even though I write quite plainly “There are lots of conservation options, and alternative strategies such as tree planting, that could yield savings in emissions at significantly lower cost. Only when these options are exhausted would an expansion of nuclear power make sense”, Hermit jumps straight in with the assumption that I’m promoting “wind farms of solar panels” and Dogz follows suit.
I know the comment facility is easy to use, but please read the post first.
Read my comment JQ. I said nothing about wind farms or solar panels; just a remark about rationality in the nuclear debate, which I believe even you might concede has been sorely lacking.
Nuclear has the advantage of killing two birds at once: CO2 emissions and increasing global demand for rapidly diminishing fossil fuels. That’s certainly a lot better than wind farms which we all know kill only one bird every 1,000 years 🙂
Where will the nuclear power stations be located? Gippsland? Suburban Brisbane? The Blue Mountains? The Adelaide Hills? Getting agreement to store nuclear waste in the desert thousands of kilometres from anyone is impossible, let alone a nuclear power plant close enough to large population centres to supply them with electricity.
You can’t even get something as harmless as a windfarm up these days. A nuclear power station? Dream on.
“how can major (50+%) emissions reductions be achieved [without nuclear power]”
A good start is to think about the problem and what the options are. Which is easy to say and awfully hard to to, but thankfully fine minds have applied themselves to some of the problems.
The California Climate Change Center at UC Berkeley released a report called Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California that looks at the options for returning California to 2000-level emissions by 2010, 1990-level emissions by 2020, and 80% below 1990 by 2050. The researchers have completed a detailed analysis of some of the options under consideration and concluded those options will reach half the goals while increasing the gross state product by $USD5 billion and creating 8,300 new jobs by 2010, and upwards of $60 billion and 20,000 new jobs by 2020.
There’s an abundance of good, non-nuclear ideas, that are positive and productive to boot. That’s where our attention should be directed, rather than at some half-baked nuclear ‘debate’ designed to distract the Labor Party.
I welcome the debate but don’t expect an open and honest from a government trying to ‘green wash’ it from the start.
Include all options nuclear coal -+ sequestration- gas, a mix of renewables with a national energy efficiency drive but make sure all nuclear costs waste, security and decommissioning are included, plus the time it takes to get them online and lets see how it stacks up.
BTW anyone see that lovely map on insiders of where the reators would go on the eastern coast?
Hermit no its relevant, its very hard to take seriously any debate from the pro-nuclear advocates when they have ignored the science of AGW for so long but have a change of heart when an industry that has had serious environmental concerns can get a leg up from it.
In the same way this governments newly expoused concern for AGW is so self evidently disingenuous when there is never even the slightest mention of a national energy efficiency drive, cuts funding to renewable research and rebates for solar heaters.
It’s great to suggest a rational debate on the issue, but that avoids some realities. In theory, nuclear power is an option. It’s far from convincing that it’s a cost-effective or efficacious one compared to other options. That can be decided via further rational exploration of the question, (an area where nuclear proponents don’t score very highly either Dogz).
But, the art of what’s possible is part of the equation as well.
Who wants a nuclear power station near them? Sure, it’s a NIMBY situation, but that is a real element in making decisions on concrete action.
Reason sugests that nuclear power is possible, reality, that it’s not very likely.
So in the last 12 months what new evidence in support of the Anthroprogenic Global Warming theory has been unearthed?
Ideological scaredy cats of nuclear, bring up the social cost argument, but as yet don’t seem to be capable of recognising the magnitude of that same argument for fossil fuels. They want to somehow airbrush it away with windmills and solar panels. It may be a tad counterproductive to be smug about not producing nuclear waste with a life of centuries if the alternative is the whole planet going down the toilet in a single one. Tonight on a new ‘techy news’ spot added to our normal news we had a look at a solar panelled household. For an installation cost of $17,000 the household had saved 2/3 of its power bill. You all got that? Yes you may be able to increase the mortgage and save 2/3 of your bill as your panels feed back into the grid (turning the meter backwards) during the day. At 8%pa that will cost your household $1360 pa or $26/week in interest, without any depreciation on your asset. Now I don’t know about your power bill, but that doesn’t go close to stacking up at my joint and what’s more if we all did it, can you imagine what the price of base load generator power would rise to in order to keep us all going after dark? And that’s just our household electricity needs, before we begin the journey to work. There’s an awful lot of sunstruck windy types coming out of the woodwork with global warming. Wait’ll the bastards start freezing or sweating in the dark without their Centrelink payments and we’ll see who’s afraid of nuclear.
John’s statement doesn’t rely on there being some new overwhelming evidence.
It’s sufficient to demonstrate that the existing evidence has begun to overwhelm the denialists.
For example:
The above in response to Terje, not observa, obviously.
That doesn’t make any sense at all.
Who are these scaredy cats who bring up the social cost of nuclear, but who won’t recognise the social cost of fossil fuels? Or are you actually arguing that there’s a positive social cost for fossil fuels?
JQ
I thought your central point was the bona fides of recent converts to nuclear. I agree that we should look at all GW mitigation options that show early returns. That includes carbon trading and increased renewables targets, both of which should encourage conservation. However the nation of Germany is conducting this experiment for us with enormous but often idle windpower generation and enhanced rebates for rooftop solar. In fact I have received a $multi-k solar rebate myself here in Oz. The German finding is that they need imported gas generation to back up renewables in spells of calm, cloudy weather. Since that imported gas is vulnerable or finite then something else needs to be done, the N option perhaps.
So I agree we should go for other options a.s.a.p. but I predict an unfavourable outcome. If I’m wrong I’ll wear it.
If nuclear power is the answer for our greenhouse future then it is an admission that we are not prepared to economise or even share some of the wealth. Embracing nuclear power is just saying “I’m alright Jack to hell with the future as long as I have my Prado and McMansion in the ‘burbs”
I have asked this on many occasions and never got a coherent answer. What is wrong with Iran having a peaceful nuclear power program. It is a member of the NPT unlike Pakistan or India. If Iran cannot have nuclear power then what is the model for the worldwide expansion of NP required to make a dent in greenhouse emissions. Do only Christian democracies and dodgy friends of superpowers like Pakistan get Nuclear Power? Does anyone get it? Do only members of the NPT get it? If so how do we remove it from Israel, India and Pakistan?
The enormous advantage of renewable power is that it cannot be used for weapons. Additionally small scale renewable power is uniquely suited for the 3rd world that lack the large scale distribution networks that we have. Concentration on providing nuclear power for 1st world contries could take the wind (no pun intended) out of massive expansion of appropriate renewable power to the 3rd world. Something like a massive 60% of the Earth’s population do not have electricity. To them the problems of ‘backing up the power’ do not exist as an electric light is a bonus. As they are feeling Peak Oil first of all with skyrocketing fuel prices because, of course we get first dibs on their oil to fuel our Prados, the renewable electric light means that they do not have to burn expensive fuel to light their homes.
The only long term answer for all people of the world is renewable power. 1st world countries should fund a massive expansion of renewables by carbon taxes and energy conservation. This technology will trickle down faster to the 3rd world if the 1st world provides the example. Yes we may have to make big efforts to conserve energy. Yes we may have to take some reponsibility for our energy choices rather than using what ever we like and damn everything else.
telephone…
telephone news and reviews…
A sustainable energy future for Australia
Our electricity supply systems are predominantly based on coal, the most greenhouse intensive of all fuels. Dr Mark Diesendorf, who teaches sustainable development at the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales, comments on some of the new technologies aimed at giving Australia a clean energy future.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1625259.htm
Looks like -at least by this study- a clean renewable energy future for Australia with a mix of renewables, gas and energy efficiency is both technically and economically feasible.
And the prize for the most incoherent, off-topic and ideology soaked rant of the day goes to [drumroll]:
Observa.
Congratulations, you have just won a gross of hand-reared, free-range, karma-certified, organic artichokes. Would you like fries with that?
Siminjm,
Who cares about a clean future?
According to observa-types, if the solution isn’t nuclear, there isn’t a problem.
SJ,
I agree. He added his comment more as an aside to show that the basis for his earlier article on nuclear power has not changed in any manner that was significant. I was not trying to tear down his main argument and I am not an advocate of nuclear power.
Not if his claim is that there is new evidence. That may not in fact be his claim however it is what he seemed to be saying and why I highlighted the sentence in question.
Following your reference to this report I have read the first 50% and hope to read the rest soon. My initial observation is that it is well written. Mostly it discusses evidence that is not new (ie not written in the last 12 months), however it does cite some more recent papers in support of previous evidence. So thanks for referencing it.
Regards,
Terje.
Just that I live in a state that has the most variable (nowadays) demand for electricity in this country(and the Western world?) due to summer airconditioning (no I’m a rare beast without it). I’ve seen a state govt fall on the price of electricity and all hell breaks loose when leafy suburb elites lose their power in overload blackouts. All this in a state that burns brown coal by the trainload and digs up uranium, the latter at record levels this year, yet won’t allow a low level waste dump near its 50s nuclear test sites. Work that little lot out by gum and you’re a better bloke than me. Talk’s cheap until you cut off their mains supply in a heat wave.
“Who are these scaredy cats who bring up the social cost of nuclear, but who won’t recognise the social cost of fossil fuels?”
Green left twits that think social costs are warm fuzzy things that governments can bear on their behalf.
Observa,
I’d like the adjudication a non-green, non-left twit on this one.
Would the US Price-Anderson Act which condemns the US taxpayer to indemnifying the nuclear industry without limit constitute a “social cost” according to your definition?
Shouldn’t those mung-bean munching, bong-sucking nuclear power execs and their bead-wearing kombi-living shareholders get out of the Timothy Leary Peace and Freeloading Love Commune and instead compete in the real world of commerce?
Are we all in agreement that the mandatory renewable energy target is a dumb way to go about tackling greenhouse emissions?
I think the notion that our current gov’t wants to make a difference on the global warming front by advocating nuclear is a red herring – I can only see this as advocating more mining and it has nothing to do with reducing reliance on coal or seeing any kind of reduction in how much gets exported and burned clean or dirty anywhere in the world. If it was a case of nuclear or coal, coal would win, but it’s not – our gov’t wants both. The mining industry is a powerful lobby and our gov’ts are their friends. Maximising the profitablity of a relatively small number of very high turnover companies is what this is about. Meanwhile renewables seem to offer no such export income stream (until batteries are good enough to make shipping electricity around feasable) not even in the manufacturing side (not enough cheap educated labour to compete, though they’re working on the cheap part) to compare to the economic boon that high output mining represents. And I suspect that when renewable costs do come down enough to be competitive, stuff you just dig up and ship will have room to come down in price sufficiently to burst any growth bubble. As long as the costs of environmental damage, security of energy supply and climate change are not included in their costs of doing business the coal, oil and uranium mining industries will retain a strong and influential position in Australia.
On the other hand, given a couple of nuclear power plants worth of R&D funding there might be more rapid and significant improvement in renewable technologies – it’s certain that we are yet to see the last word in such things as photovoltaics and in energy storage systems. If the currently externalised costs of oil, coal and nuclear get included in their bottom line then we might see the balance shift.
Solar remains the greatest untapped energy resource we have , especially in Australia, and I don’t believe the problems are unsolvable although they won’t get solved if the prevailing attitude is a belief that costs can’t ever come down so don’t try.
Ken, conventional batteries will *never* become cheap enough to ship energy around that way; coal is barely economical to ship and batteries contain an order of magnitude less energy.
Hydrogen is a different matter, though the costs of liquefying it for transport are very high.
Oh, and with regards to solar, have you looked at just how much the price has to come down to compete with wind, let alone nuclear or coal? It’s orders of magnitude.
Look, you won’t get any argument from me that the externalities of all energy sources should be priced into their cost (which nuclear mostly does; waste disposal is included, but the cost of insurance in case of a disaster is not fully included), and the market can then do its thing (including investing to conserve energy, as John argues will come first). But, even if you did so, solar is just way too expensive and I haven’t read anything to indicate that it’s going to get cheap compared to alternatives (remember, most of them are decreasing in cost too, so you’ve got a moving target) any time soon.
Katz, the US is just one country. France and Sweden have no counterpart to Price-Anderson, yet they have thriving (and safe) nuclear industries. 83% of Swedes believe their nuclear program should be maintained or expanded.
So, what should an intelligent person conclude about the Price-Anderson act: that the nuclear industry in the US is maintaining a handy rort, or that nuclear industry cannot operate without such protection?
‘Would the US Price-Anderson Act which condemns the US taxpayer to indemnifying the nuclear industry without limit constitute a “social costâ€? according to your definition?’
Definitely yes, but the point is noone is suggesting for a moment that our govts indemnify the fossil fuel industry, now and into the future. We have simply accepted that inheritance from the Industrial Revolution. It’s a bit like trying to invent the circular saw or the Victa lawnmower in today’s litigious environment. You couldn’t feasibly do it. The day a class action on emissions looks like succeeding against say a power generator, is the day the govt steps in with legislative indemnity. Certainly they can set tougher universal emission standards for any player to meet, but beyond that there is little point in allowing individuals to sue for any social costs incurred. The victory would simply be a phyrric one for us all as consumers, as it is with the nuclear power industry.
The point is our standard of living depends directly on our current energy usage. It is a nonsense to suggest that renewables can quickly or cheaply fill the void of fossil fuels and maintain that level. What the left greens need to clearly understand is our capacity to carry large numbers of unproductive members of society(white and black welfare, retirees and students,etc), depends fundamentally at present on privately cheap fossil fuels. The question then is one of how the load will be spread and how some current sacred cows have to be sacrificed. The reduction question will be resolved either by the price mechanism or quantity controls and those of us who prefer the freedom of the price mechanism, know only too well who are licking their lips at getting their hands on the quantity levers.
I think you are incorrect on France if you think that they developed nuclear power just for military objectives. I think you’ll find that one of the main reasons they developed nuclear power was so that could buy their power from stable democratic countries like Canada and Australia, and not hopeless dictatorships who would mess up their supply every now and then. The second thing that you are confusing is militaristic expenditure with nationalism. Most of the money going to nuclear weapons etc. in France has nothing to do with having a good military but everything to do with nationionalistic sentiment.
On a completely different topic, if you can dig up some of the electricite de France documents, you might get a decent estimate of storage/decommisioning costs. At one stage, the French government made the commisioning of power plants dependent on depositing a huge bond that would be used to pay for decommissioning the plants etc. (but seems to have got conveniently forgotten). This can give some estimate of what some of the after costs of power generation are.
conrad, on the French decomissioning costs:
EdF puts aside EUR 0.14 cents/kWh for decommissioning and at the end of 2004 it carried provisions of EUR 9.9 billion for this. By 2010 it will have fully funded the eventual decommissioning of its nuclear power plants (from 2035). Early in 2006 it held EUR 25 billion segregated for this purpose, and is on track for EUR 35 billion in 2010. Areva has dedicated assets already provided at the level of its future liabilities.
Robert, “Never” is a very absolute word. If your starting position is “Never” then you will end up correct by not doing anything “ever”. What is “Conventional” by definition isn’t going to be different or superior to what is currently available. You won’t get the new technologies that can successfully tap a vast energy source by being content with the conventional or by denying funding to R&D in areas (nano materials with photoelectric properties or suitablilty as cathode or anodes for example – some of which have already shown great potential) that are aimed at bridging that gap between the conventional and something better. As I said, we haven’t heard the last word on solar or on energy storage – that is unless such research goes unfunded.
Simonjm: In the Mark Diesendorf (of UNSW) contribution you linked to, he states the following:
“Within a few decades, low-grade uranium ore will have to be used. Then the CO2 emissions from the mining, milling and enrichment of uranium will become so large that they are comparable with emissions from an equivalent gas-fired power station.”
This is not the less fallacious for being constantly repeated. First, it is wrong to compare emissions during the construction phase of one plant with emissions during production from another. A gas fired power station also has to be built, and the gas itself if derived from coal (as most will be) will need to be debited accordingly with the emissions arising during mining and transportation. Secondly, only the first nuclear plant would necessarily imply use of fossil fuels in its construction and enrichment phases, the next would not, and not even the first would generate more CO2 in its construction and enrichment phases than it saved during its operation.
Atleast Thanks Michael H at least one person bothered to read the post. You will notice that study didn’t look at any giant leaps in technology or cheap solar wind sources but small improvements well within the capability of the technology.
The debate isn’t so much a technical debate but political and whether the influence can be wrested away from the fossil and now nuclear lobbies.
As far as exports it look like we only wish to be dumb resource exporters, the lack of support for a local renewables industry is pretty well forcing business to set up overseas. With sales of renewable technology booming we can calk this done as another one that got away.
Other countries see the potential but not us.
I find it ironic that the only political leader to really show support for renewables was Sir Joh with Labor scrapping the funding when it came to office.
Robert M what is wrong with incentives?
simonjm, there seems to be a lot of comment floating around the blogosphere claiming that the costs of extracting uranium will make nuclear power infeasible. We really oughtta stamp on this “fact”.
First, if the price of uranium rises then we’ll start looking for more; no-one has bothered seriously looking for new reserves much since the 1960s. Secondly, according to the AAEA extracting uranium from seawater costs less than five times current uranium prices (which is why access to yellowcake will not prevent any country with a coastline from getting nukes). Since the cost of getting uranium is currently only about 2% of the cost of nuclear power, this would add only 8% to the overall cost of this form of energy.
That said, I think there are other problems with the economics of nuclear power.
Simonjm.
Thank you for the link to the article by Dr Diesendorf, UNSW. It is yet another instance in support of the importance of mainstream research.
Ken, the *best* batteries big batteries you can currently buy store about 0.4 megajoules per kilogram, and cost about $200 per kilogram. To ship those batteries to Japan and back would take roughly the same amount of energy as they can carry. Using affordable but less efficient lead-acid batteries makes the equation even uglier. Black coal can store about 27 times the energy per kilogram, even taking into account the conversion loss when you turn it into electricity.
While it’s difficult to predict the future course of research, this guy, while saying that battery energy density can still be substantially improving, is talking about a two or threefold increase over the longer term. When you’re so far out of the ballpark, a two or threefold increase isn’t enough.
That said, I would be very happy if the combination of solar energy and efficient energy storage emerged as the most efficient way of tackling the greenhouse problem. But I don’t see how, even with the most generous assumptions, shipping energy in batteries to places less generously equipped with sun and room for solar cells, can be cost competitive. Hydrogen, maybe. Anything vaguely resembling present-day batteries, no way in hell.
Simonjm, because they favour one particular means of tackling greenhouse emissions (renewables) when other methods are probably cheaper options (even if you have an objection to geosequestration and nuclear, there’s energy conservation, which makes *everyone* happy). It’s like the CAFE fuel economy laws in the United States; it encourages cars to become more economical (actually, it doesn’t even do that very well, but that’s an argument for another day), but does nothing about tackling the other side of the equation – encouraging more efficient use of vehicle travel.
And, yes, I’ve read Diesendorf’s study. For one thing, if you look at his numbers the overwhelming majority of electricity comes from gas, not renewables. And, as I read it, he’s making the very, very unsafe assumption that natural gas prices will remain low. If oil prices stay the way they are or go higher (thus making conversion to liquid fuels attractive), and/or the price of natural gas stays high in the United States (thus making it profitable to liquefy the stuff and ship it to the US as LNG), the present low local price of natural gas will not last.
And his claims about the energy cost of nuclear are wrong. Like Tim says, no matter how many times he repeats that claim, it’s still flat-out wrong.
It seems that the primary attraction of the nuclear option is the promise of not having to alter our energy-hungry lifestyles. It’s an approach that belongs to general idea that whatever problems we’ve created will be solved sometime in the future by someone else.
“So, what should an intelligent person conclude about the Price-Anderson act: that the nuclear industry in the US is maintaining a handy rort, or that nuclear industry cannot operate without such protection?”
Fallacy of the excluded middle.
The middle term concerns the costs of allowing a Swedish of French regime of carrying social costs. I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about something far more important: our right to justice.
The point is that regulation of nuclear reactors and restitution for wrongs done by that industry fall outside the traditional jurisprudential framework as it has evolved in common law countries over the centuries.
The British system of justice is a major guarantor of our freedoms, independence and personal liberty. Tort law pays due respect to the integrity of the individual and the importance of private property.
What Sweden and France and any other country choose to do with these values is up to them.
But for my part, when it comes to justice, I’m British to the bootstraps.
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: Any person who sacrifices her liberties for an air conditioner deserves neither liberty nor air conditioning.
And when Dogz and Observa demand cheap air conditioning fueled by nuclear reactors it is essential that the rest of us understand that they intend to keep cool by sacrificing our traditional rights.
Katz, it is you who wishes to take my airconditioner away on the basis of your fear of events that have never occurred in the west, despite 50 years of nuclear power. And that doesn’t even begin to touch what you’ll be doing to all the Chinese and Indian peasants who won’t have access to sufficient energy to pull themselves out of third-world status.
Don’t preach to me about liberty.
Observa,
“but beyond that there is little point in allowing individuals to sue for any social costs incurred. The victory would simply be a phyrric one for us all as consumers, as it is with the nuclear power industry.”
I agree.
But I think that you may misunderstand the basis of the tort of negligence.
No individual can successfully claim for “social costs”. Such a litigant has to demonstrate damage to her person or to her property. Price Anderson doesn’t indemnify against “social costs” it indemnifies against private claims for personal or property damage.
Thus a person may sue for the effects of second-hand smoking. We have all been exposed to second-hand smoke. But unless we can demonstrate an actual harm, then we have no claim.
This is the genius of British justice.
Terje –
“So in the last 12 months what new evidence in support of the Anthroprogenic Global Warming theory has been unearthed? ”
There was extensive discussion on the Science Show last Saturday – repeated Tuesday at 1915 – about a new study showing changes in the chemistry of the oceans caused by rising CO2 levels that will result in the catastrophic collapse of shell-building organisms and corals within the next 50 years. Vale the Barrier Reef, apparently.
“Katz, it is you who wishes to take my airconditioner away on the basis of your fear of events that have never occurred in the west, despite 50 years of nuclear power.
…
“Don’t preach to me about liberty. ”
That is unusually intemperate, even for you Dogz.
Please try to understand my position. And please don’t stereotype it.
I don’t intend to take away your cheap air conditioning at all. All I ask is that the nuclear industry should not expect me to underwrite their costs for doing tortitious nuisance to me or to my property. If the nuclear industry feel they can produce electricity under those conditions, then they are welcome to, so far as I am concerned. However, they must be willing and able to pay the unsubsidised costs of any negligence as determined in a court of law.
So Dogz, please have the courtesy of addressing my arguments rather than your prejudices.
Surely, then, the correct way to go about reducing carbon emissions (if that is what you want to do) is to do the following:
1. Introduce a legal cap on emissions – perhaps introducing the Kyoto (and future) limits into law.
2. Sell “rights to pollute” up to this limit, which may change from year to year.
3. Allow carbon sequesterers to sell rights as well.
3. Make those rights fungible and tradable.
4. Enforce them strongly.
5. Ensure that other externalities are also priced in, including waste disposal.
6. Let the market sort out the rest.
Bingo – the cheapest and best ways to reduce carbon emissions will win and it will change from year to year as the economics change.
AR, this is pretty much my view of the appropriate policy response.
In the Washington Post of 25/5/06 George W. Bush is reported as saying: “‘Nuclear power helps us protect the environment. And nuclear power is safe.” He failed to say: “…but it’s expensive.” In 2005 the US Energy Bill offered an estimated $US12b. to the nuclear industry in subsidies of various kinds, including a tax credit of 1.8 cents per Kw/h of nuclear-generated electricity, Federal loan guarantees for companies building plants, a heap of Government training and R&D infrastructure, etc., etc.
Katz, you’re drawing a really long bow with this whole tort issue. We don’t live in an idealized world where every wrong is righted by the free and unfettered application of the almighty tort. For example, take Worker’s Compensation in most Australian States: you get prescribed amounts for certain injuries.
If society as a whole decides that keeping our airconditioners is worth the tiny chance of a nuclear reactor going haywire, then society will vote for a way to make that happen. If that means capping the liability of nuclear power generators, then that’s what we will do.
The problem with your tort theory is that it doesn’t take account of the plus side of the balance sheet. If my nuclear power station blows up I can’t tell the judge “yes your honour, I know, a lot of people got hurt. But I calculate that the net benefit people received from being able to run their airconditioners all summer far outweighs the damage caused by the plant exploding”. The judge might well agree with me, but that won’t mitigate the damages bill.
These kind of global decisions rightly sit outside the law; we have a parliament and elected leaders who’s job it is to balance the overall pluses and minuses of any major changes.
Now all we have to do is work out if a limit is appropriate and the correct number of permits to issue. Oh, and get some Federal legislation passed.
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Katz,
No one has the obligation “…to pay the unsubsidised costs of any negligence as determined in a court of law.” This can only be up to the point of bancruptcy and/or liquidiation once past the insurance limit. All the US act does is to ensure that, for the nuclear industry at least, this limit is raised to the point of bancruptcy of the government.
AR, I have two caveats to your proposal: how do you decide what the caps are, given the global climate models have such high variance in their predictions; and how do you ensure the government doesn’t just treat the sale of “rights to pollute” as another way to fleece the public of money – that is, how do you prevent the government continually jacking up the price as a means of bolstering general revenue?
Robert M I had thought setting a target was one way to encourage an industry as just one of a mix of solutions. As far as the gas from my understanding it is a stop gap lesser of evils until the right mix of renewables and energy efficient products/services come online.
Given the investment in renewables and the great advances technology the prospects of such a mix is quite probable now that it is being taken seriously-look at BP.
As far as the costs of nuclear I’m more than happy to see it on the table as long tas all the costs are factored in.
A lot of claims are flying about I’d just life to see the truth come out come what may.
A side note regarding efficient use of resources with both China and India looking for 1st world living standards unless you have 4 more Earths handy resources efficiency will be a must.
AR & JQ the most appropriate policy approach, I don’t see energy/resource efficiency included in this do you two think those 6 steps will lead to this automatically?