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InFocus: Nuclear energy returns from the grave
By Andrew Flohr-Spence
specand@mscd.edu

On Aug. 29 a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Eunice, N.M., to begin construction on the National Enrichment Facility where, starting in 2008, uranium will be enriched for eventual use in nuclear reactors. The celebration marked the beginning of the site’s construction and also a fundamental change in America’s relationship with nuclear energy.

Though soured in the last half of the 20th century, our love affair with nuclear energy began rosily. In 1953 Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the U.N. with his “Atoms for Peace” speech, which advocated the sharing of nuclear energy technology with poor and underdeveloped nations. The speech heralded an age that some believed would see power “too cheap to meter.”

Founded in 1959, the International Atomic Energy Agency began facilitating the international exchange of nuclear technology and insuring its safe and non-military use.

With the advent of the IAEA, nuclear reactors began popping up around the globe and the dangers of the proliferation of nuclear technology became apparent. The nuclear solution moved slowly but surely from ideal to taboo.

At century’s end public skepticism toward anything nuclear – which peaked after the meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986 – virtually killed the nuclear energy market.

For the United States, the dream of an endless, clean energy source seemed to be coming true until the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Since then, no new U.S. nuclear plants have been approved for construction. (It is important to note that the low cost of fossil fuel energy also had a hand in de-emphasizing the nuclear option.) There are currently 104 reactors licensed to operate in the United States, after dozens were decommissioned in the last two decades (including Colorado’s Fort St. Vrain in 1989).

But as the world confronts the realities of relatively scarce oil and coal reserves – and the apparent damage done by fossil fuels – we have also started hunting for alternative sources of energy. The nuclear option once again looks appealing.

A perfect energy would produce little carbon dioxide (or any other poison gas); be accessible and in near-endless supply or, even better, renewable; and, preferably, not cause a total environmental collapse. Fossil fuels, while currently supplying the lion’s share of our power, fail to pass just about every one of these criteria.

Solar power could be perfect, but current photovoltaic collectors use less than 10 percent of sunlight – a nice thing for calculators and domestic power sources, but not much else.

Bio-refineries are facilities that produce fuel, energy and chemicals from organic material. Like solar power, however, they have a great future and low output. Wind power holds a small share of the market and is currently expanding. President George W. Bush recently talked about how wind could some day produce as much as 20 percent of the nation’s power. But wind as an energy faces two problems: it is not ubiquitous, and the giant wind-driven turbines kill birds as well as induce a not-in-my-backyard reaction from neighbors.

There are a number of alternative energy sources, but at the moment they can barely supply a small percentage of our power needs, even if we get crazy with conservation.

So we come back to our powerful friend, the atom. Unfortunately, the one glaring problem with nuclear power is storage. We still don’t have a legitimate, long-term solution for radioactive waste from the controlled fission of enriched uranium. Though we once used the practice, recycling nuclear material is now barred by nuclear non-proliferation agreements. In fact, it is questionable whether our civilization can reasonably expect to ever create truly safe storage facilities, given the millennia-long half-lives of some nuclear materials. For over fifty years the by-products of nuclear power have sat in ‘interim storage’ sites all around the country. For better or worse, the fate of a proposed long-term storage site, Yucca Mountain, still sits in court.

Nonetheless, the groundbreaking in New Mexico represents the arrival of a new American energy policy. Unveiled in January, President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative – though it continues funding for fossil fuels – funds a number of energy alternatives, including nuclear. Similarly, the 2005 Energy Bill gave loan incentives, production tax credits, and federal risk insurance to builders of new nuclear sites. In 2005 two companies filed for licenses to build new facilities. This year 16 companies have begun the federal application process, proposing a total of 25 future nuclear plants.

Having not yet found a perfect energy source, we are forced to strike a balance, to diversify our portfolio, with the resources we have. Current thinking tends to lean toward getting the nuclear power show back on the road. Other sources might surface, or rather their technologies might be improved, but right now the options are slim. Regarding the storage of radioactive materials, proponents of nuclear power might say interim storage is better than no storage at all. But tell that to the state’s citizens who store it. The debate will rage on.

In the meantime – we need power.