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 
Automatically is putting it too strongly, and I think there is room for a variety of other policy interventions. But without price incentives, nothing else will make much diffrence.
AR,
“No one has the obligation “…to pay the unsubsidised costs of any negligence as determined in a court of law.â€? This can only be up to the point of bancruptcy and/or liquidiation once past the insurance limit.”
And that’s all I require.
Dogz,
“The problem with your tort theory is that it doesn’t take account of the plus side of the balance sheet.”
Tough.
The power generators have made their profits. They have no other legitimate expectations in a civil society. What a revelation. Neoliberals bleeding on about social responsibility and social costs.
Margaret Thatcher would be revolving in her grave, were she composed of organic matter.
Dogz’s puling compromise will win.
I don’t doubt that the punters will vote for nuclear power when offered the opportunity. So I can be smug and stay cool at a fraction of the real ammortised price of that refrigerated air.
democracy = “puling compromise”
and I thought I was cynical.
Dogz,
I think I have answered your second question – I do not know the correct limits, or even if there are such limits. I was merely trying to direct the debate to discuss the points that are now being discussed.
On deciding how to ensure these do not become just another revenue source – perhaps either hypothecation of the revenue from the rights towards their enforcement (just trying to avoid the implicit conflict of interest), or, and probably better, set the income to be zero. Give the rights to current emitters up to the required limit (see above) plus current sequestration rates and then allow the sequesterers to sell the additional volume. Trading could easily be on the SFE (Sydney Futures Exchange), whose platform could cope with such rights with very few modifications.
The normal corporations tax on the profits the sequesterers make from the sale of the rights may also make the whole scheme revenue neutral from the government’s point of view – but there would need to be some continuing expenditure on monitoring.
Simonjm, note that Diesendorf doesn’t give a number for gas in his RN spiel.
If you go look at some of the more detailed publications, the biggest cuts to greenhouse emissions are basically the replacement of coal with gas, and then energy efficiency. Renewables are the cream on top that aren’t actually projected to make big contributions for decades. Underpinning these projections are an assumption that gas will remain cheap in this period. If a big international trade opens up in gas (as other countries around the world take the same option to reduce the carbon usage) this seems doubtful to me.
AR, the sad thing is that the steps you outline are the obvious and responsible approach, the government knows this, and yet it has rejected this approach. The issue of what the limit should be is a red herring – nobody knows exactly what it ought to be, so the boundedly rational thing to do is set the limit at a best guess, and adjust in later years in light of experience. Putting in place the mechanism is the first step. If sale of rights to pollute were used to reduce other taxes, it would be unequivocally a net benefit to welfare; if (harking back some weeks) you think governments can actually invest for future welfare, using the funds in this way would likewise be a net benefit.
Some of the big existing emitters represent very long-term investments with big political implications. Eg, the Port Agusta power station in SA: burns what is charitably described as “brown coal” from Leigh Creek (more like vaguely carboniferous mud). The power station is about the only reason Port Agusta continues to exist.
Under any rational CO2 reduction scheme the power station will have to disappear. There may be a hundred stories like Port Agusta across the country. I can’t see any governmeent willingly submitting to the kind of political fallout you’d get from destroying those towns.
So, while I buy the general approach as a steady-state solution, the hard problem is how to get there from here?
stephen,
The government is, IMHO, not an evil thing (although I would like to see a lot less of it). I do not feel they have thought something in the order of “Ha ha! we can stuff up the environment to make more money regardless of the consequences.”
From a national point of view the science on whether client change is going to be bad for Australia and whether any expenditure should be committed to reducing its effects or stopping it or some combination of the two is still an open question. My job is in risk management and the first principal of managing risks is first to understand it, second to quantify it and then to look at whether the risk should be eliminated (normally very costly) or managed to reduce its impact and / or frequency.
In this case if we accept that climate change is both happening and anthropogenic (the science on both is, IMHO, increasingly persuasive) we then need to look at a process of managing that change. This may be by attempting to stop or slow it by reducing the incidence of the cause (GHG emission reduction), it may be by attempting to reduce the effects by amelioration or it may be by simply saying that the change is likely to be good and accepting it. You may also take 2 of these 3 views in combination (1 and 3 are contradictory).
As this government tends to do, it is probably erring on the conservative side of the argument and doing little or nothing while the science is not unequivocal and the outcomes are uncertain. Perhaps they should do more; reasoned argument is the way to persuade them to do it.
“Andrew Reynolds Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 11:55 am
On the nuclear waste issue – there is a clear solution. Politicians just know that they would be slaughtered by the political left if they proposed it in Australia. The Swedes (beloved of those who tend to regard themselves as the Left) are amongst the largest users of nuclear power in the world and they are building a permanent storage facility for high level waste. If a similar facility were built in Australia we could take all of our own waste and (for an appropriate fee) all of just about everyone else’s. A facility like the Swede’s could be built just about anywhere, but political reality means that it would probably need to be built far from a major city. Outback WA, NT SA or QLD would be ideal, with some sites in NSW being possible.
We have some of the most geologically stable rocks on the planet, we produce much of the uranium, why not get the double whammy and get paid to bury the waste.
BTW – I know this will not be popular on this blog, but instead of abuse, please try to use reasoned argument. Here’s hoping. “
Thanks for the repost Ernestine – did you miss adding a comment?
No, Andrew, I did not miss adding a comment.
Robert M I’ve asked Diesendorf to drop in and answer some questions.
He said he might be able to later in the week. If so have some specific questions ready 🙂
With the high price of oil likely to stay with us that makes tar sands, shale oil and coal to oil economically viable anyone want to say what they may do to the price of gas?
That of course means business as usual and more CO2, if we pass a climate tipping point that forces our hand to drastically limit fossil fuel use it would appear we’re screwed.
AR,
I was totally opposed to nuclear energy, but my position has shifted a little to somewhat like your proposition.
I still don’t think it’s a particular clever idea, but if it’s doing to be done, it might as well be all or nothing. So on the basis of the rational arguments, if it’s OK to sell the stuff, then it must be OK to have our own nuclear power plants, and naturally we’d then store our own high-level waste. If we do that, why not charge others a fortune (?) to store theirs, owing to our relative geological stability. Though I suspect the proclaimed economic benefits fo this may not be as significant as some suggest. The supporters of the waste facility in the NT used the ‘job creation’ argument to help make the case; in the end it was revealed that the number of permanent jobs created would be around 6.
And that’s as far as most of the proponents take it, in the name of reason. The basic principle is fair – you can’t really seperate out the mining, from use, from waste storage. And so neither can the other uses of uranium. If you go this far, than reason must accept profileration as a logical consequence. Yet, mad-keen supporters of nuclear power are regularly seen to be in a flap about Iran’s enrichment activities. But it’s no use decrying what Iran might eventually do with the products of enrichment as, reason suggests, nuclear weapons are also part of that same fuel cycle that proponents of nuclear energy tell us makes things such as the 3 mines policy illogical artifacts.
This is an outcome that makes me suspect my former complete opposition was quite reasonable. Can’t we make civillian use dependant on a strict no-nukes policy? Maybe, but look what the NNPT has achieved so far.
Again it leads me back to the unreasonable position. I could really only fully support such an idea if we were really in a no-other-choice position. But I think it’s pretty clear we aren’t. Why take a punt on an option that won’t light the first bulb for 10-20 years from now, when other options exist today and tomorrow. Maybe that isn’t too unreasonable.
Simonjm,
I personally doubt that the current oil price will continue in the medium term. To me at least the current problem stems from little exploration and development expenditure when oil was approaching USD10 per barrel only a few years ago. More exploration and development will bring the price down – but I do not propose that we re-open the peak oil discussion here.
If the current scientific view of the climate is correct then the problem is the carbon emissions, not (IMHO) the lack of oil.
The problem on the carbon is pricing the externalities correctly – as it is with nuclear, as, with Ernestine’s helpful repost above, there is no real technical reason why nuclear cannot be used. The price is likely to be a problem, along with the politics.
I wonder if this might be regarded as an approaching tipping point, or evidence that we might be past it? If so, then as you say, we’re quite possibly screwed.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/more-on-the-arctic/
The comments thread on this article is worth reading.
“democracy = “puling compromiseâ€?
“and I thought I was cynical.”
Dogz, you smooth talker you!
The posts on this thread have illustrated the ability to argue whilst ignoring the elephant in the corner.
Nuclear costs must include the ongoing costs of both dealing with waste as well as the security of ensuring that that other scourge of modern day life the terrorist doesn’t nuke any facility. The ease with which Lucas Heights was proven to be insecure last year makes me think that it would be far better to spend the money on almost any other kind of energy rather than nuclear. Gas, water and geothermal have many possibilities. Where is the debate and funding for these alternatives? Our windy places provide us with power and tourist attractions.
Nuclear supporters should remember it’s not a messiah just a way to make a heap of money for powerful people uninterested in the future as they won’t be there. Religious fervour will not change its negatives. No wonder people don’t want it in their backyard.
Jill,
I don’t think many people are ignoring the elephant in the corner. Some people are pointing directly at it and saying “look at the bloody elephant”, and some are saying “there is no elephant”. 😉
Contrast this report from last Friday
With this one from today (after the synopsis was released):
There’s the Howard argument in a nutshell. If we don’t do anything for 20 years, it’ll be cheaper.
“The problem on the carbon is pricing the externalities correctly – as it is with nuclear, as, with Ernestine’s helpful repost above, there is no real technical reason why nuclear cannot be used.”
In Andrew’s opinion.
Other opinions have been extensively discussed in an ealier thread.
(Unless of course, it involves giving loads of money to money to coal miners and/or users).
(The above was a correction to my own post, not a response to Ernestine’s post.)
Jill, Ernestine – let me make my position on nuclear clear. I believe that there is no technical reason why it could not provide the baseload power that any system like ours needs. The waste can be dealt with and security is a problem, but not an insoluble one. I am not convinced that it is the best cost option, however. In fact, it may well be one of the more expensive options.
If we believe that we need to reduce carbon emissions there are many possibilities for the production of transient power (wind, solar, wave, tidal etc.) and a few for the production of baseload power (gas, coal with some form of sequestration, nuclear, geothermal, biomass etc.). Whichever we use, a diversity of sources is likely to prove wise and possibly necessary. As I outlined above, all that is needed is to decide what the target needs to be and set up a market based mechanism to get there, without attempting to mandate a means or overstate the problem. I cannot see how it is more complicated than that.
Andrew Reynolds,
Which ‘market based mechanism’ are you going to set up to price the potentially intergenerational and international externalities (waste, accidents) of nuclear power?
What ‘targets’ are you going to set, for Australia and the rest of the world, and how are you going to ensure that these targets are met (I assume the former S.U. did not set as target the actual nuclear fall-out from Chernobyl)?
Which ‘market based mechanism’ are you going to set up to price the potentially intergenerational and international externalities (waste, accidents) of nuclear power?
The same mechanism that determines whether people are willing to sacrifice their air-conditioners or their potential to climb out of third-world status: the market of public opinion and the ballot box.
“The same mechanism that determines whether people are willing to sacrifice their air-conditioners or their potential to climb out of third-world status: the market of public opinion and the ballot box. ”
How many dollars do you put into the ballot box? What is the current market price for a public opinion of type xyz?
My reference above to the US Energy Bill signed last August somehow failed. the URL is
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/electricity/energybill/2005/articles.cfm?ID=13980
EG, precisely my point. You want complete insurance, or equivalently, to price the unpricable. The market cannot do that, by definition, so we do it through the ballot box.
gordon, thanks for the link. I only glanced through it but I’ll take time to read it in detail. It is interesting.
Ernestine,
I would have thought that a professional economist would have been able to look at this problem. Good subject matter for a PhD.
The waste has, I believe, been dealt with – the Swedish storage option, applied in ancient Australian rock, should (if my understanding is correct) provide a permanent solution. Put it a mile or so down in 2 to 3 billion year old rock and progressively seal it and it should be OK until it is not likely to be a problem to the human race – or many other animals.
Pricing the externalities, though, would be fun to look at. But then, isn’t this whole debate about pricing the externalities of carbon emissions?
“You want complete insurance, or equivalently, to price the unpricable. The market cannot do that, by definition, so we do it through the ballot box.”
Incorrect Dogz.
The above is an example of lexicographical legerdemain.
The exercise of the ballot puts a price on nothing, certainly not the price of a nuclear accident.
Correct is that the exercise of the ballot is an indemnification against the responsible parties paying the price. This indemnification is granted under the cover of the responsible parties paying part of the price.
The rest of the price is abandoned to be paid by someone who hasn’t been born yet.
Tradition, says Chesterton, is the democracy of the dead.
Democracy, says Dogz, is the bill that the present tenders to the unborn.
“Pricing the externalities, though, would be fun to look at. But then, isn’t this whole debate about pricing the externalities of carbon emissions?”
No, Andrew, the heading of this thread is “Time to go nuclear?”
“You want complete insurance, or equivalently, to price the unpricable. The market cannot do that, by definition, so we do it through the ballot box.â€?
Only an astute reader picks correctly that ‘you’ in the foregoing is Dogz.
Katz, EG, I have children. I don’t want to bequeath them a planet vastly inferior to the one I inherited.
I believe progress is best served by having access to cheap and abundant sources of energy. If that can be provided by fossil fuels or renewables, then so be it. If not, then a nuclear industry that has paid out less than $150M in insurance over 50 years seems like a good option, particularly in a country with vast Uranium and Thorium reserves and vast geologically stable areas in which the waste can be stored.
So yes, I think it is time to go nuclear. For the children.
Dogz, there is nothing I would respect more than your right to voice your personal opinions.
I also respect your privelege to select whatever information you wish for the purpose of forming your personal opinions (ie insurance pay-outs data).
“So yes, I think it is time to go nuclear. For the children. [And to show how much I love them I’m paying the bill with their money.]”
Ernestine, whether it is time to go nuclear depends partly on the externalities of carbon emissions, i.e. if they were zero we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
Of course it also depends on the externalities of nuclear power, and the externalities (and direct costs) of other means of generating power.
Presumably there’s some (hypothetical) combination of the above which would make even you support nuclear power?
Which is the greater inter-generational inequity: bequeathing to our children a life of overly-restrictive energy consumption on the basis of our own irrational fears, or saddling them with the very small risk of paying for some nuclear clean-up?
Ernestine,
I stand corrected – it is about nuclear. But why are we debating nuclear? Certainly not because it is financially cheaper than gas or coal. It is the externalities of the carbon emissions that do not seem to be adequately priced.
Tom Davies,
“whether it is time to go nuclear depends partly on the externalities of carbon emissions, i.e. if they were zero we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
Fair enough if this is your perception. Of course it does not exclude other possible reasons. For example, actual or anticipated difficulties in getting oil supplies is conceivable to be another plausible reason for the timing. I simply don’t know and I like to keep an open mind on these matters.
“Of course it also depends on the externalities of nuclear power, and the externalities (and direct costs) of other means of generating power.”
There is an extensive discussion on earlier threads. The only point I can think of at present in addition to those covered on earlier threads is that IMHO the externalities generated by a windmill are not comparable to the potential negative intergenerational and international externalities of nuclear power. As Dogz noted on a preceding thread, the possibility of a nuclear disaster of the Chernobyl type cannot be excluded.
One way of looking at the problem is to say if there would have been an intervention in markets for the energy in the past, then the problem with carbon emissions would not be as urgent now. The carbon emission problem built up slowly. So, it seems the learning from the past could be expressed by saying some precautionary intervention in nuclear energy markets should be built into the decision making process. Whether such an intervention takes the form of taxes, quantity constraints or some other mechanism is yet another topic.
“Presumably there’s some (hypothetical) combination of the above which would make even you support nuclear power? ”
I must stress that my personal preferences are irrelevant. Otherwise, this statement looks to me like yet another application of Markowitz’ portfolio theory. If so, then the ‘pricing’ (by one means or another) of various types of externalities becomes even more important.
“Which is the greater inter-generational inequity: bequeathing to our children a life of overly-restrictive energy consumption on the basis of our own irrational fears, or saddling them with the very small risk of paying for some nuclear clean-up?”
Tsk tsk.
Begging the question AND fallacy of the excluded middle.
“I stand corrected – it is about nuclear. But why are we debating nuclear? Certainly not because it is financially cheaper than gas or coal. It is the externalities of the carbon emissions that do not seem to be adequately priced.”
We are debating ‘nuclear’ on this thread because the ‘nuclear solution’ was introduced by you and a few others on a previous thread which dealt with ‘the last sceptics’ (about global warming) and JQ (rightly) closed the ‘last sceptics thread’ and opened one for this debate.
Ernestine,
At no stage have I said nuclear is a solution (if one is needed) – merely an option. Personally I would prefer that no solution be mandated and that a way be found to price the externalities better. Once that is done the solution(s) should find themselves and change over time.
“Begging the question AND fallacy of the excluded middle.”
I think most will find it a very real choice. I know what I’ll be voting for, assuming I’m still a resident that is. Honestly, Australia’s rapid descent into nanny-statehood is starting to make me wish I lived elsewhere. Albrechtson sums it up best.
Andrew,
I don’t think I have misrepresented you. I have quoted your post of 25 May on this thread. Fair enough?
If you claim I have supported the use of nuclear for Australian power then I believe you have misrepresented me. I have said that there may be a good case for us to bury the waste of other’s reactors.
Dogz,
“Honestly, Australia’s rapid descent into nanny-statehood is starting to make me wish I lived elsewhere. Albrechtson sums it up best. ”
Nanny statehood is hardly what is happening in the real Australia. We may be getting tied up in red tape courtesy of the Howard government but this is bureaucracy not nanny statehood. In fact we have a dog eat dog industrial relations system, a dog eat dog refugee policy and a proposal for nuclear power which fails to recognise the rights of people to have a safe environment. There is no point in having abundant energy for wasteful and polluting activities to cope with green house gases. DDT had many environmental advantages too but we are still living with its legacy.
Energy is important – but it is not worth mortgaging the future of many generations to come. Voting is not necessarily going to come up with the best solutions for the earth as a whole or even our own backyard.
“Australia’s rapid descent into nanny-statehood is starting to make me wish I lived elsewhere”
Australia is no nanny state, Dogz, and never has been, that is just foolish ideological rhetoric. You have as much freedom and opportunity here as anywhere on earth.
I am no teary-eyed flag-waving patriot, but one of the biggest breaks anyone could get in life is to hold an Aussie passport.
However, if you really think Australia is so terrible overall, well you are certainly free to go see if you can find somewhere else better. But I don’t like your chances.
Seeker, I don’t wish to denigrate Australia as a whole. It has some great aspects to it. And I certainly plan to hang onto my passport. But it is not true that you have as much freedom and opportunity here as in the US.
The culture here is very government-oriented; people look to the government to solve every problem. We have a welfare system under which families on over $120,000 a year still receive government handouts. Here in South Australia you cannot move without running into government influence and control.
The US is very different: people don’t expect anything of their government (unfortunately, they also get what they expect to a certain extent). But consequently, people expect to rely on their own resources a lot more. And people are more comfortable with success – there is far less of the “tall poppy” over there.
I don’t claim one system is better than the other: whatever floats your boat. The nanny-state don’t float mine, that’s all.
“In the aftermath of the Three Mile Island meltdown,”
Tsk, JQ, Tsk.
There was as you know, no meltdown at TMI. There was an “emotional” meltdown as a result of the gas release….but this is what you mean, correct? Not the use of one engineering term to conflate it with a highly emotional one?
I was writing from memory, Tim, but the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission backs me up
Are you sure this isn’t one of those blogospheric factoids, like on DDT and climate change?