This page is a MIRROR COPY of the original link to a Financial Times story dated July 26, 2005, which is no longer available online. Financial Times
July 26, 2005Expected Nuclear Revival May Still Be a Decade Away
Few issues unite environmentalists and Republicans, but these unlikely allies increasingly agree on the need to revive the US nuclear industry.
Some, though by no means most, environmentalists believe greater use of nuclear energy is the only politically viable way of preventing catastrophic climate change. For many Republicans, building more nuclear generators is the best way of heading off more painful measures restricting carbon emissions.
Pete Domenici, the Republican senator who is one of the most influential energy lawmakers, believes that without more nuclear energy imports of oil and gas will soar, greenhouse gas emissions will rise and the US will have to allow more mining and drilling, with attendant environmental consequences.
But concerns over safety, cost and radioactive waste need to be laid to rest before the industry will be allowed to expand. Many believe that the proposed US energy bill does not resolve these issues and that it may be at least 10 years before a new nuclear reactor is generating power.
The last new nuclear reactor for the US was ordered in 1973, before the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 destroyed confidence in the industry and prompted the cancellation of more than 100 reactor orders. New reactors are seen as safer. "The new generation . . . use passive safety features - meaning that no operator is needed to assure safety," says Jone-Lin Wang, a nuclear expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Instead, natural forces like convection, gravity and evaporation can cool the reactor in an emergency."
However, John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard and co-chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), believes safety concerns have not been fully addressed. "The new reactors are probably about ten times safer than the older ones, so you could see a huge expansion of the sector without much increase in risk," he says. "However, even the new designs have some vulnerability to well-organised and knowledgeable terrorist attacks."
A greater worry is the safety of many older plants that will operate for decades to come. "There needs to be more training for safety staff working at older reactors. Even one Chernobyl-scale problem every 10 years would be enough to derail nuclear energy," says Prof Holdren.
Nor has the issue of waste been resolved. Since the 1970s Congress has been planning to store the nation's nuclear waste in a storage site under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Although several billion dollars have already been spent on the site, the state of Nevada has managed to delay the process in the courts. The NCEP has suggested interim measures, such as a series of dry casket storage facilities that would keep waste safe for around 100 years - time for the government to ensure Yucca's safety. But such temporary sites would be extremely unpopular in communities where they would be located.
It is on costs that the forthcoming energy bill is most focused. Electricity from a nuclear plant is extremely economical - around 1.76 cents per kWh compared with 1.79c for coal and 5.67c for natural gas. However, because no new reactors have been built in the US for so long, utility companies are worried that the first few new plants may reveal technical glitches that drive up building costs.
The Senate bill attempts to compensate by providing production credits for the next generation of nuclear reactors, along with 80 per cent loan guarantees and help in negotiating regulatory hurdles.
Prof Holdren argues that, even setting aside these problems, the higher cost of building a nuclear plant means that nuclear energy remains uncompetitive. The government taxes the nuclear industry to dispose of its waste but the same cannot be said of fossil fuels. Prof Holdren believes that, until there is a level playing field, the nuclear industry may struggle.
"Take into account the higher cost of construction and you get about 4.5 to 5 cents per kWh for coal-powered electricity, and 6.5 cents for nuclear," he says. "You would need a tax on carbon of about Dollars 100 a tonne in order to make nuclear energy competitive."