Perhaps this is the wrong spot for this discussion - but why would one speak of lessening climate change and closing nuclear power plants in the same breath? It's obvious that nuclear isn't perfect, but there are no air emissions and when we are trying to get away from 1) fossil fuels, and 2) GHG emissions, why wouldn't we at least maintain nuclear capacity while we develop the cleaner and renewable techs?

The post was about sustainability and Spitzer, but the question of the relationship between greenhouse gases and nuclear energy is a good one. Although the nuclear industry often touts nuclear power as being emission-free, the industry ignores the entire fuel cycle. There are significant greenhouse gas emissions associated with mining, enrichment, processing and waste disposal such that nuclear greenhouse gas emissions approach that of natural gas plants.

Acccording to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, "adding enough nuclear power to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions, create tens of thousands of tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste, contribute to further proliferation of nuclear weapons materials, result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade or so, and, perhaps most significantly, squander the resources necessary to implement meaningful climate change mitigation policies." See NIRS for more info.

On top of the that, Indian Point is an aging and troubled nuclear plant (it's leaking tritium, strontium-90, and cesium 137 into groundwater) only 40 miles from Times Square, with roughly twenty million people living within a fifty mile radius.

This is probably just more political flatulence! I don't believe any of the promises made by politicians, time and time again they just lie to our face.

As for Gov Terminator and the One Million Solar Roof project, that was just borrowed from Pres Clintons 8 yrs. I don't recall any states taking advantage of the incentives. It gave home owners and businesses tax credits for installing solar.

Typical!

Steve,

Your claim that the industry doesn't address total lifecycle emissions is simply not true. A number of studies have found that total lifecycle emissions from nuclear energy are roughly equivalent to hydropower.

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=260

Just repeating your charge over and over again doesn't make it so.

Steve's response above uses this phrase:

"Although the nuclear industry often touts ..."

which makes it seem as if the nuclear industry is some sort of unified evil force. This kind of cult thinking is so out of touch. I am in no way connected to the nuclear industry. I have studied its characteristics for several years now. I can see lots of evidence that it is clean, exceptionally beneficial, sustainable, and necessary if we want to continue living well. I am frequently in touch with hundreds of like minded people, which makes me think there must be millions with similar opinions. The understanding of the goodness of nuclear power has spread well beyond the closed confines of a few utility companies. People with green coloured glasses on should take a minute or two for a reality check before pouring out the cult catechism in discussions like this.

Eric,

Actually, I didn't say that the nuclear industry doesn't address the entire fuel cycle, I said they ignore it. But more to the point, the industry is frequently misleading, and their statements have to be parsed to understand the truth.

Typically, nuclear industry claims about global warming begin by stating that nuclear power generation does not contribute to global warming. When it's pointed out that one must look at the entire fuel cycle, the response typically is that the entire fuel cycle has very low CO2 emissions. [This seems to be where you, and the NEI page that you cite, comes in.]

However, as I'm sure you're aware, there are greenhouse gas emissions that have ten, or even hundreds, of times the greenhouse gas effect of CO2, and some of those are involved in uranium enrichment. The uranium enrichment plant at Paducah, Kentucky, for example, is the only enrichment plant in the U.S, and the largest U.S. emitter of ChloroFluoroCarbons (CFCs), potent heat-trapping agents. CFCs also destroy the ozone and were banned by the Montreal Protocol, but the Paducah plant was grand-fathered by this treaty. The German, Japan and British studies cited on the NEI page only appear to look at CO2 emissions, so they are hardly full life cycle analyses.

None of this should be suprising since the NEI is a nuclear industry trade association -- the same nuclear industry that repeatedly calls nuclear energy "clean and green" with an Orwellian straight face, even though its waste is perhaps the most poisonous substance on earth.

And responding to Randal's point, I have no doubt that many well intentioned people outside of the "nuclear industry" support nuclear power. But given the similarity of the various advertising and public relations campaigns of the nuclear utilities and the NEI, I think it's fair to refer to the "nuclear industry" collectively.

These are very important issues, and I think those of us who believe dialogue can lead to truth should try to stick to arguments and avoid personalizations.

But hey, don't you guys want to talk about Spitzer?

Steve stated in a previous comment:

"even though its waste is perhaps the most poisonous substance on earth."

which leaves me gasping in disbelief. Who makes up this stuff? Fuel that has been used once in a reactor is not waste. It has never killed anyone. Carbon dioxide caused global heating that killed thousands last summer. Bophol? Lead? Tobacco? Just mining coal kills ten thousand annually. And all this stacked up against uranium with its zero death count.

Used once uranium can be reused in fast reactors to yield more than one hundred times the amount of energy released in its first pass through a reactor. It is worth more than gold.

So used once uranium has an established record of being harmless, and a proven potential of being extremely valuable, and Steve calls it the most poisonous material on Earth. Why?

If you don't like uranium enrichment use reactors that don't need like Canada does.

The most poisonous substance on Earth is the endless stream of anti-nuke disinformation that pours out of the green cult thinking and scares people into continuing the use of planet killing coal and oil. The greens have killed more people that the nuclear technology people ever will, including weapons statistics.

I saw a comment somewhere recently that I thought was especially apt. It went something like this: every single time a nuclear power plant has been shut down due to political or social pressure (and it has happened several times) those who pressure for the shutdown say that the lost generation capability will be made up with "clean, safe" renewables. And every single time, without fail, the lost generating capability is made up with coal or gas and their CO2 emissions. Who thinks Indian Point will be any different?

Randal: Gasping in disbelief seems to be something you do frequently -- together with changing the subject and making huge leaps of logic and causation. That many of the precautions to protect us against the dangers of waste have been successful doesn't mean it's not poison, and doesn't mean that we do not need to make sure we have a place to safely put it; indeed the extent of the precautions proves my point. And it certainly doesn't make nuclear power "clean and green." And following the logic of your hyperbolic attributions of blame would seem to make you responsible for Chernobyl, no?
And isn't your linking me together with all greens as part of some killing machine exactly the point that you started off accusing me of?
Last word?

So NIRS says adding enough nuclear power to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions. Are we to believe the capital costs of constructing the tens of thousands of windmills that generate an equivalent number of MW-hrs annually as an alternative would amount to the spare change under my couch cushions? A little context please.

So NIRS says adding enough nuclear power to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions would generate tens of thousands of tons of lethal waste. That sounds ominous. Doesn't the semiconductor industry, from which photovoltaic cells are derived generate waste rich in toxic chemicals like arsenic, boron, and antimony? Are we proposing to store it deep in a few stable geologic formations too?

So NIRS says adding enough nuclear power to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions would contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons material. But didn't the United States and others offer to build a light water reactor for North Korea in 1994 in exchange for dismantling their graphite-moderated reactor, from which they had obtained the plutonium for their weapons program? Although the deal fell through, if LWRs constitute such a proliferation threat, what would have been the sense in that?

So NIRS says adding enough nuclear power to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions would result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade or so. Well, power reactors have been operating for going on six decades now, so apparently we are long overdue for another Chernobyl-scale accident. Seriously, comparing flamable graphite-moderated reactors that have no containments with western-style reactors seems a bit like comparing the Hindenburg and modern airships. Perhaps with the Hindenburg in ming the Goodyear blimps should be forbidden from flying near heavily attended sporting events or banned from the skies entirely for pubic safety reasons. What if one crashed into the Rose Bowl? Think of all of the high-pitched Mickey Mouse screams from the people inhaling the released helium and passing out. Oh, the humanity!

As for Indian Point, the Westchester Health Department has indicated that the levels of tritium, strontium and cesium are low and don't pose health threats, contrary to assertions of the junk science Tooth Fairy Project.

Kirk,

That's an interesting point. I wonder about whether advocates for closing earlier plants actually advocated for renewables, though -- when Shoreham was decommissioned in 1989/1990, for example, the renewables market was much less developed than it is today.

One fact I always find interesting is that in 1952, President Truman's Materials' Commission warned that the US would start to run short on fuel by 1975, and the US should develop solar energy to take up the slack. The commission predicted that, if the government followed its recommendations, solar energy would heat 13 million homes in America by the mid-1970s. Instead Eisenhower was elected and he implemented his "Atoms for Peace" program, the solar program was abandoned, and the United States, for better or worse put tremendous resources into the nuclear power industry. Go here for more info.

Regardless of anyone's position on nuclear, I hope we agree that we need both immediate long term plans for energy efficiency, and for building a robust renewable energy economy for the 21st century and beyond.

Regarding Lenny's point, the Journal News reported on front page story today (1/16/07) that 25% of twelve fish in the Hudson tested near Indian Point had elevated levels of Strontium 90. Strontium has a half-life of nearly 29 years and was banned in the United States after weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s left large amounts in the atmosphere. More testing will be done to assess these findings. See story here.

Love how the nuclear industry is POUNCING on every article that talks about closing a Nuclear Plant, and painting nuclear out as the GREAT SAVIOR of our nation and the world...but then, that was the plan all along if you do your research on the DOE's Nuclear Power 2010 initiative.

For starters, lets DISPELL this myth of Nuclear being a GREEN ENERGY free of CO2 emissions. It's a con game...as just one example, look at the Gaseous Diffussion in Piketon, which uses one half one one percent of ALL ELECTRIC consumed in the United States, and the fact that every bit of the electric to fuel that plant is COAL...WHOOPS.

I suppose if you live REALLY FAR away from a nuclear plant, you might embrace it...I live three miles from Indian Point, things like Strontium-90 being released into the environment CONCERN ME GREATLY. Leaking fuel rod storage pools that have release at least 300,000 gallons of radioactive contaminated water into the Hudson River concern me. Reactors held together with thousands of patched weld joints concern me, especially this close to MILLIONS of people.

Indian Point officially submits their petition for relicense of these two reactors in March, so where is Eliot Spitzer, where is Congressman John Hall, where is Muarice Hinchey, where is Hilliary Clinton?

"It's a con game...as just one example, look at the Gaseous Diffussion in Piketon, which uses one half one one percent of ALL ELECTRIC consumed in the United States, and the fact that every bit of the electric to fuel that plant is COAL...WHOOPS."

So lobby to replace the old gasseous diffusion infrastructure with centrifuge enrichment and slash your electric demand fifty fold, or construct a nuclear plant to fuel it. Or replace future plants with CANDU reactors so enrichment isnt required. Or all three. These are fairly obvious...

"I suppose if you live REALLY FAR away from a nuclear plant, you might embrace it...I live three miles from Indian Point, things like Strontium-90 being released into the environment CONCERN ME GREATLY."

So see a doctor, a statician, and a psychiatrist in that order. The doctor will tell you theres no elevated levels of Sr-90 in your bloodstream or bones, the statician will tell you you have a greater risk of exposure from jet travel, and the psychiatrist will get to the root issues of why you suffer such neurosis in the first place.

Contrary to what was indicated in the Journal News article, Strontium-90 wasn't "banned". Above ground nuclear testing, which was releasing Strontium into the environment, was banned. The fascination anti-nuclear folks have with half-lifes is baffling to the rest of us. Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, and Antimony are toxic FOREVER and are released into the environment by things like coal burning and other industrial processes at levels that can have discernable health effects. You are fretting over the fact that modern instruments exist that are sensitive enough to detect Strontium at vanishingly low levels.

The Piketon plant ceased enrichment activities in 2001 and the remaining Padukah gaseous diffusion plant will be replaced by the much more efficient centrifuge process by 2010. That process, in turn, may eventually be replaced by the even more efficient laser isotope separation process. When Padukah and Piketon were built in the 50's, primarily to support the nuclear weapons program, the AEC had contracted with three coal plants to supply the power. So you could legitimately allocate the CO2 from those three plants among the 100+ reactors supplying 20% of the power in the US. Not a bad trade off. Natural gas, which has a "greener" reputation, releases way more for the power produced.

Your ad hominem spit wads don't penetrate logic and facts.

Contrary to what was indicated in the Journal News article, Strontium-90 wasn't "banned". Above ground nuclear testing, which was releasing Strontium into the environment, was banned. The fascination anti-nuclear folks have with half-lifes is baffling to the rest of us. Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, and Antimony are toxic FOREVER and are released into the environment by things like coal burning and other industrial processes at levels that can have discernable health effects. You are fretting over the fact that modern instruments exist that are sensitive enough to detect Strontium at vanishingly low levels.