Scuttlebutt: Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Waste
By Mitch McFarland
Those who read this column are familiar with my opposition to nuclear power (and, of course, nuclear weapons). My criticism generally shies away from the obvious problem which is the hubris of some people believing that we can safely (and cheaply?) store deadly nuclear waste for 10,000 years. We haven't even figured out what to do with the stuff in 50 years, while making more and more of it. I know this argument isn't going to gain much ground as few people really think or care about the storage issue. Of much greater concern is the increase in the monthly cost of Netflix.
My criticism of nukes usually relies on what I imagine would be a much more identifiable problem: the astronomical cost of not just building the plants, but later de-commissioning them and then the storage costs, which is sort of like having a 10,000 year mortgage. Construction and operating costs for a nuke plant are estimated to be about $5.50/W vs solar at $2.50/W. Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University stated, “it is very clear that we can completely rebuild the energy economy of the world moving forward built on renewable energy alone, with no need for fossil fuels or nukes. To build our future on renewables is [the] fastest, safest, and cheapest way to address climate disruption." Yet many still view nukes as the solution to climate change, despite the estimated 10 years it takes to plan, permit, and build a new nuke plant to the point of producing electricity.
Nuclear power is so expensive that the current federal budget calls for $6 billion in subsidies for nuclear power plants that are uneconomical due to early closure of plants because of cheaper sources.
OK. I'll get off that horse because I have another I want to ride. It has always been a problem for nuke plants, but one that until now has received little attention. The issue came to prominence when the Russians took over the Chernobyl nuke plant and forced its workers to work a 600-hr shift at gunpoint. Some observers believe they were using it as a staging area, knowing it could not be bombed.
They screwed things up and likely poisoned a bunch of their own soldiers before realizing that they were out of their depth and left. They also attacked the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, causing structural damage and starting a fire. The fire was extinguished with no major radiation leak, but it did reveal the possibility that Ukraine (or any other nuclear nation) could be nuked without the use of nuclear weapons. Even if the containment domes could withstand a bunker-buster type bomb (they can't), there are other avenues for creating a nuclear disaster. Cutting off power to the plant would disable critical cooling systems leading to a meltdown. Less reliable back-up generators would be employed to keep cooling pumps going as long as they had fuel and were not damaged by conventional bombing. The tsunami at Fukashima flooded their generators and we all know what happened next.
How big a threat is this? Well, Romanians have spent millions for the emergency production of radiation-blocking iodine pills. A March poll of citizens in Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia revealed that they abhor nuclear weapons and worry about Russian nuclear safeguards. At the same time, they want their governments to acquire nuclear weapons after Putin put the country’s nuclear forces on high alert. Paradoxically, 85 percent of respondents reported that there were no situations in which using nuclear weapons would be morally justified. This is a classic case of cognitive dissonance i.e. holding two opposing ideas at the same time. That scares me a bit. This does not lead to rational thinking or decision making. At the very least it reduces the public pressure that might restrain autocratic leaders and weapons manufacturers from developing nuclear weapons.
Mitsuru Fukuda, a professor at Nihon University in Tokyo and expert on crisis management and security states, “Many of us did not expect a respected country’s military would take such an outrageous step. Now that ...Putin has done it, not only Ukraine but the international community, including Japan, should reevaluate the risk of having nuclear plants as potential wartime targets.”
Ukraine, it is said, was “born” into nuclear weapons with some leftover from the Soviets. Ukraine relinquished its weapons and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It did so in exchange for the 1994 Budapest Memorandum—a document in which Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom declared their (non-binding) commitment to Ukrainian independence, sovereignty, and borders.
Putin has declared that he would use nuclear weapons if Russia faced an “existential” threat. As someone who so identifies himself as the state power, how would he consider when the existence of the state was under threat?
Ukraine has already been falsely accused by Russian state media of building bio-weapons and seeking a nuclear “dirty bomb”. These could easily become flimsy excuses for existential threats.
And, of course, we now have the idea of tactical nuclear weapons. You know, little ones. They would run between 1 and 15 kilotons. Hiroshima was 10 kilotons, but the “big” modern nukes are not measured in kilotons, but MEGATONS!. And what do you imagine the public pressure would be if, say, Russia were to hit the Basra air base with a tactical nuke or Vandenberg air base in the U.S. ? The long range bombers are already in the air.
Another wacky idea the military is proposing is small, portable nuclear reactors that can be dragged around to war zones to provide electricity and reduce the supply line issues of fuel supply trucks. Great. Put a bunch of little nuclear power plants around a war zone. What could go wrong?
