Will global warming create a new nuclear age?
At the end of Al Gore's movie,
An Inconvenient Truth
, tips are offered to help reduce the threat of global warming: Use florescent light bulbs, drive less, recycle more.
Build new nuclear power plants? Not on the list.
But nuclear power is being touted, by nuclear
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advocates, as a safe, clean energy source in a time of rising costs and concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.
"There is now a realistic assessment that nuclear energy is part of the environmental solution," Andrew Kadak, an MIT professor and a former head of a Massachusetts nuclear plant, says. Kadak recently was featured on a National Public Radio broadcast on the issue. "If you look at a country like France, which has significant nuclear energy production, you see that they are one of the few nations that has met or exceeded the
carbon dioxide target levels set by the Kyoto Accords."
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Nuclear foes, on the other hand, are quick to
debunk this characterization.
"It's simply fiscally foolish to be pushing nuclear energy before we figure out how to solve the waste
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problem," Jay Coghlan, director of the Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, says. "We're talking about waste that is radioactive for 100,000 years and there are no plans on how to safely dispose of that material."
New Mexico, although not a site for nuclear power plants, is considered a critical component of the new nuclear renaissance. The state houses both Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories,
as well as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for nuclear waste.
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A uranium
enrichment plant recently was given federal approval for southeastern New Mexico.
"The recent license approval is another sign
that the industry is continuing to move forward in its effort to expand the availability of clean,
safe and affordable energy in this country," Trish Conrad, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), says.
Positioning nuclear energy as a clean and affordable resource is a stark change from the power source's reputation over the last several decades.
An accident at the Three Mile Island power plant near Middletown, Pa. in 1979 spawned a movement of environmentalists, legislators and everyday citizens who believed nuclear power was simply too dangerous to be meddled with.
The infamous meltdown at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine in 1986, which caused considerable environmental and human casualties, confirmed the anti-nuke movement's worst fears.
Even pop culture took
its shots at the nuclear industry. The fictional Springfield Nuclear Power Plant on
The Simpsons
conveys a factory whose safety standards are comically non-existent.
"There was a time when no CEO would be caught dead saying the 'N' word in a boardroom," Kadak says. "Not only were there concerns about the costs but also the environmental issues."
But electricity shortages and the rising price of electricity throughout the country are forcing utilities to consider nuclear energy as an economically competitive alternative, he adds. Americans currently get 20 percent of their energy from nuclear power. That number is likely to jump, considering there are currently 10 companies or consortiums preparing 12 licenses for what could be up to 22 new nuclear plants, according to the NEI. The US already has 103 nuclear plants in operation.
And the environmental concerns about nuclear power in the '70s have made way for current concerns regarding carbon dioxides. According to NEI numbers, nuclear energy accounted for 73 percent of US emission-free generation in 2005.
As to the issue of safety, nuclear energy proponents contend that the days of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are long gone.
"We have a proven record of safety," Conrad says matter-of-factly.
Conrad cites a 2005 study, which found that 83 percent of Americans living in close proximity to nuclear power plants favor nuclear energy.
Even environmentalists like Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore have joined the bandwagon. In a stunning April 16 opinion piece in the Washington Post, Moore wrote that his newfound support for nuclear energy was inspired by the dangerously high carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired electric plants. Moore categorizes concerns about the cost and safety of nuclear plants as, quite simply, "myths."
"Thirty years on, my views have changed," he writes. "And the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change."
Clearly, though, not everyone is a believer.
Mark Sardella, executive director of Local Energy, a Santa Fe group that works on reducing energy costs for communities, calls the nuclear industry's campaign "entirely propaganda."
Sardella says that nuclear plants are not cost-effective, in part because they require exorbitant insurance policies to protect against disasters.
Sardella also points to the much-publicized near meltdown of the Davis-Besse power plant in Ohio in 2002 as evidence that historically lax safety standards are still a reality.
"Our nuclear fleet is 24 years old and needs to be retired," Sardella says. "Everyone is looking for some way to continue the massive consumption our economic structure allows, and nuclear energy is a bad answer."
Further, Sardella and others say, there remain unanswered questions regarding the disposal of nuclear waste.
Coghlan also points to a 2006 report conducted for the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research that cites the high cost of constructing nuclear plants and the possibility of inadvertently proliferating nuclear weapons as two more reasons why nuclear energy is dead wrong.
"It is time for the global community to move on from a belief in the nuclear option and to begin focusing its efforts on developing more rapid, more robust and more sustainable options…" Brice Smith, the study's author, writes.
With pressure to find new energy and do it quick, politicians also have been sucked into the nuclear debate. Both of New Mexico's US senators,
Republican Pete Domenici and Democrat Jeff Bingaman, are proponents of nuclear energy and supported the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) licensing of the Louisiana Energy Services' (LES) uranium enrichment facility last month. It was the NRC's first licensing of a large, commercial nuclear facility in 30 years; the New Mexico operation also will be the first private source of uranium to nuclear plants in the country.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former Department of Energy secretary, also is weighing in on New Mexico's relationship with nuclear energy. Following NRC's announcement of LES' licensure, Richardson released a terse press release pointing out that the state of New Mexico was "largely excluded" from the licensing process and that he expects LES to run a clean operation.
As for the national implications of a nuclear renaissance:
"The Governor is very aware of the debate that is going on at the national level right now over the future of nuclear energy," Richardson spokesman Jon Goldstein wrote in a June 30 e-mail statement to SFR. "Nuclear energy has the benefit of not directly producing greenhouse gases, but it should be judged on its total costs and security issues as well. As Energy Secretary and now as Governor he has always been very concerned about the waste issues that come with nuclear power plants. That is why he fought so hard for the tough, legally enforceable limits on waste from the LES uranium enrichment plant in Eunice."
Goldstein also notes that Richard-son is more interested in other types
of alternative energy, mainly because the waste and costs issues figure so prominently:
"Nuclear energy accounts for more than 20 percent of our power nationally, so it can't be ignored, but these waste and cost issues must be addressed before any big moves are made. The Governor is much more focused on renewable energy right now-solar, wind and biomass-than he is on nuclear power."
Still, with the clamor for a widespread shift in US energy policy getting louder every day, it's clear that the nuclear option is being taken more seriously, throughout the country and in New Mexico. And even with all the new arguments for nuclear power, the idea that a vast network of power plants could soon fuel our everyday lives makes Jay Coghlan cringe:
"Can our safety be personally guaranteed? What's going to happen with nuclear waste? What about the tremendous amount of energy it takes to enrich uranium?" he says. "I'm very, very concerned that the public is not being presented with all the facts."
