Nuclear power is particularly green energy: get used to it - pg 2 of 3

... continued from first page.

Safety is an area where nuclear actually excels.

It's arguable that one major incident in fifty years of global nuclear power plant operation is a superb safety record. It certainly beats the safety record of the highly polluting oil industry.

Overall, the nuclear industry has been largely incident-free, considering the 400 or so active reactors around the planet and how long many of them have been in service. No other part of the power industry can point at such a small number of fatal incidents in its life cycle. Nuclear even has a better safety record even than conventional hydro systems, if one takes into account the numbers killed in construction, dam failures, etc. On aggregate, the most advanced European economies combined produce about 50% of their electrical power using nuclear technologies, and there has been no major incident associated with these power plants since they began operation.

In fact, nuclear power is surprisingly prevalent anywhere other than the USA. LWR, PWR, and LMFBR power plants together are very prevalent around the world.

A mix of these technologies provides about 80% of electrical power in France, 32% in Japan, 26% in Germany and 21% in the U.K. In the USA, about 20% of electrical power comes from LWR and PWR, or, to put it in perspective, about the same as natural gas, nearly seven times the power from conventional hydro, and four times more than all alternative energies such as solar, wind, biomass, etc. combined.

Net Generation by Energy Source, All Sectors,
Year-to-Date through October, 2006.
Source: U.S. EIA (Energy Information Administration)

Nuclear energy is inexpensive.

It's a little known fact that nuclear energy is highly price competitive with every other energy source, including coal and gas, on cost per Kw/hr. And even more interesting is that this is true even after taking waste management and decommissioning costs into consideration.

In fact, even using U.S. government statistics, it's easy to see that over the total life cycle of a typical plant, nuclear energy is cheaper than almost any other form of energy on almost every cost parameter.

From a simple OPEX point of view, we can compare basic fuel costs, the major component of OPEX. The total fuel costs of a nuclear power plant in the OECD are typically a third of those for a coal-fired plant, and between a quarter and a fifth of those for a gas combined-cycle plant. Overall, from 1995 – 2005 nuclear power was consistently cheaper, or as cheap, as every other major power generating fossil resource, and even much cheaper than hydro. It was also, of course, significantly cheaper than any form of “alternative” energy, such as wind.

U.S. Electricity Production costs 1995 – 2005
Source: The World Nuclear Association, December 2005

A 2004 U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering report looked at electricity generation costs for new power plant of all kinds.

For the first time, an attempt was made to factor all the associated costs of power production into the equation. The cost of standby capacity for wind was added, as well as carbon values up to £30 per tonne CO2 (£110/tC) for coal and gas. The results were incontrovertible - wind power was determined to be more than twice as expensive as nuclear power, which was far cheaper than any of the other power sources.

In fact, under almost any set of reasonable assumptions, nuclear technologies are shown to consistently deliver energy at around $0.03 per Kw/h at almost any location on earth. The best deal on the planet. The obvious corollary is that it is expensive for those with much to lose, i.e. the oil lobby, the gas lobby, the coal lobby, and - one must add - the “alternative energy” lobby, and those feeding off the huge subsidies all these industries are allocated.

Building nuclear plants is expensive. While OPEX is lower than for any other major power industry, the same cannot be said for CAPEX. Such plants incur major capital outlay in construction, not the least of which is the huge cost of planning permission in most western countries. It is right to want to be careful with this form of energy.

It is also true that the overall percentage cost of build is higher than for other forms of fossil energy, although, surprisingly, less than for wind. But these initial CAPEX costs are more than offset over the life cycle of the plant by the consistently low, predictable fuel costs. And if we add in the cost of carbon offset, then nuclear is even more cost-effective. The following is eloquent:

Electricity generation costs without investment subsidy. Real Interest Rate 0.5%, March 2003 Prices. R. Tarjanne & K. Luostarinen, Lappeerenta University of Technology, July 2003.

Cold blooded economic analysis such as the above consistently shows that nuclear energy is cheap however you approach it.

Moreover, nuclear power is the only industry engaged in energy production that factors in the environmental and financial costs of construction and decommissioning into the final equation. If we took the same approach to nuclear as with coal and oil, removed the capital cost of build and the cost of decommissioning from the cost per KW/hr, and allocated the industry the outrageous subsidies we give to carbon rich fossil fuels, then the figures would be even more starkly favorable to nuclear power.

On a pure cost basis, the argument for nuclear is noticeably positive and it is our folly to ignore it. The debate around nuclear power can therefore only be one of comparative pollution.

... continued on page three.