Citizens Action Coalition Education Fund

With the emphasis on reducing carbon dioxide air emissions associated with coal-fired electric generation, recent discussions have included nuclear power as a solution to global climate change. The last U.S. commercial nuclear reactor came on-line over ten years ago. Nuclear power development has declined dramatically over the past several decades as rising economic costs (related to vastly extended construction times largely due to regulatory changes and pressure-group litigation) falling fossil fuel prices and flat load growth made nuclear power plant construction less attractive.

Now, however, some are promoting nuclear power as a "solution" to global warming. Setting aside for a moment the issue of radioactivity and nuclear waste, nuclear power is by no means "carbon-free."

"A number of recent studies have found that when mining, processing, and extensive transportation of uranium in order to make nuclear fuel is considered, the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) as the result of making electricity from uranium is comparable to burning natural gas to make electric power. Additional energy required for decommissioning and disposition of the wastes generated increases this CO2 output substantially."

Claims that nuclear power provides a "clean" solution to coal-fired electric generation are also misleading.

"The vast majority of radioactivity in nuclear waste worldwide is from the production of electricity. Even in the United States, where for decades a robust nuclear weapons program operated, more than 95% of the total radioactivity is in waste from commercial nuclear power. Reactor waste contains materials with half-lives measured in tens of thousands, and some in millions of years. More than 12,000 human generations -- are required to reduce the hazard of these materials to acceptable levels. The most concentrated waste is irradiated fuel from electric power reactors, and the residual wastes from attempts to 'recycle' or reprocess the fuel. Other wastes include the entire massive reactor structure itself when the facility is shut down."

"In addition to radiological pollution, nuclear power also contributes massive thermal pollution to both our air and water. It has been estimated that every nuclear reactor daily releases thermal energy – heat – that is in excess of the heat released by the detonation of a 15 kiloton nuclear bomb blast. In addition to horrendous direct impact of this heat on aquatic ecosystems, nuclear power contributes significantly to the thermal energy inside Earth’s atmosphere, making it contraindicated at this time of rapid global warming."

Despite nuclear power's emergence as an electric generating resource over half a century ago, the safe disposal of nuclear waste remains unsolved, and the number of new nuclear reactors that would have to be built to provide a meaningful reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would greatly exacerbate the problem.

"Nuclear power is not a clean energy source. In fact, it produces both low and high-level radioactive waste that remains dangerous for several hundred thousand years. Generated throughout all parts of the fuel cycle, this waste poses a serious danger to human health. Currently, over 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and 12 million cubic feet of low level radioactive waste are produced annually by the 103 operating reactors in the United States. No country in the world has found a solution for this waste. Building new nuclear plants would mean the production of much more of this dangerous waste with no where for it to go."

"Over 54,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel has accumulated at the sites of commercial nuclear reactors in the United States. There are several proposals to manage this highly radioactive waste, but none of them would satisfactorily deal with the material.

• Yucca Mountain – The Yucca Mountain project continues to be mired in controversy and may well never open. Numerous unresolved problems remain with the geologic and hydrologic suitability of the proposed site, and serious questions have been raised about its ability to contain highly radioactive waste for the time required.


• Private Fuel Storage – Private Fuel Storage (PFS) is a consortium of eight commercial nuclear utilities seeking to open an aboveground 'interim' storage site for 40,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel on Goshute land in Utah. After an eight year struggle, NRC granted the consortium a license in September, 2005, but the license still requires the approval of the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Three of the companies involved in the project have also recently withdrawn or decided to withhold funding for the consortium. If opened, PFS would not solve the waste problem, even temporarily. By transporting waste and storing it above ground in yet another part of the country, PFS will just make the existing waste problem worse. The ‘temporary’ nature of PFS is also questionable, because the project is completely dependent on the opening of Yucca Mountain.


• Reprocessing, Fast Reactors, and Transmutation – Fast reactors, in combination with reprocessing and transmutation, have also been proposed by the Bush Administration as a way to deal with the waste produced by nuclear power. . . . But fast neutron reactors have a terrible track record in safety and are incredibly expensive. These reactor designs also have many remaining technological problems . . . . Even if these problems were addressed, fast-neutron reactors would not eliminate the need for a repository.


• "Reprocessing, the chemical process of extracting uranium and plutonium from irradiated fuel after it is removed from a reactor, also has problems. Reprocessing technology, which is an essential component of the fast reactor cycle, is extremely expensive, poses a security threat, leads to environmental contamination, and also does not eliminate the need for a repository."

While no nuclear power reactor has experienced significant core damage since the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island (TMI) in 1979, nuclear safety remains a significant problem.

In the 27 years since the TMI meltdown, 38 nuclear power reactors had to be shut down for at least a year while widespread problems within each plant were fixed and safety margins were restored to minimally acceptable levels. Including those prior to TMI, 51 reactor outages of a year or longer have occurred. While these reactors shut down before they experienced a major accident, we cannot assume our luck will continue."

"There is a strong link between economics and safety. Reactors in the United States have been badly managed and poorly regulated. As a direct consequence, their costs have been higher and their safety levels have been lower than necessary. Evidence supporting this conclusion comes from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, which have licensed a grand total of 130 nuclear power reactors in the United States. Fifty times during that period. A U.S. nuclear reactor had to be closed for a year or longer to restore safety levels. This is neither economical, nor safe. Yet we experience it again and again. U.S. reactors were badly managed and poorly regulated, and unless those two systemic problems are addressed, the future of nuclear power in the United States will probably be a replay of its troubled past."

A June 14, 2007 report sponsored by the Keystone Center and written by nuclear industry representatives, environmental and consumer advocates, academics and state officials illustrates the significant obstacles to nuclear expansion.

"Hypothetically, an aggressive scenario to achieve even modest global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would require building 21 large (1,000 megawatt) nuclear reactors worldwide every year for fifty years, and more than five per year (275 total) in the United States. Keystone participants could not agree on the feasibility of such an expansion, but the amount of resulting waste would fill '10 nuclear waste repositories the size of the statutory capacity of Yucca Mountain.' The report also notes many unresolved concerns about Yucca Mountain, and expresses 'little confidence' that the facility will open on schedule."

"The Keystone panelists projected that the cost of nuclear power would be from 8 to 11 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh)(in 2007 dollars). By comparison, UCS experts pointed out that the average U.S. price of wind energy was 4.9 cents per kWh in 2006 (after tax credits worth about 2 cents per kWh) and is projected to cost as much as 6.3 cents per kWh in the near term due to an increase in construction costs affecting all technologies. Energy efficiency improvements, meanwhile, cost less than 4 cents per kWh."

While it is true that nuclear reactors can suffer meltdowns from malfunctions or terrorist attacks, that they release radioactivity in all phases of the nuclear production cycle, that the problem of waste disposal remains unsolved, and that civilian nuclear programs can spur weapons proliferation, the strongest case against nuclear power as a global warming remedy stems from the fact that nuclear-generated electricity is very expensive.

"Despite more than $150 billion in federal subsidies over the past 60 years (roughly 30 times more than solar, wind and other renewable energy sources have received), nuclear power still costs substantially more than electricity made from wind, coal, oil or natural gas. This is mainly due to the cost of borrowing money for the decade or more it takes to get a nuclear plant up and running."

"The upshot is that nuclear power is seven times less cost-effective at displacing carbon than the cheapest, fastest alternative better energy efficiency . . . . For example, a nuclear power plant typically costs at least $2 billion, or up to $5 billion with overruns. That money could be spent to insulate drafty buildings, purchase hybrid cars or install superefficient light bulbs and clothes dryers. Such an investment would lead to seven times less carbon consumption than if that money were spent on a nuclear power plant. In short, energy efficiency offers a much bigger bang for the buck. In a world of limited capital, investing in nuclear power will divert money away from cheaper and faster responses to global warming, thus slowing the world’s withdrawal from carbon fuels at a time when speed is essential."

• Olson Mary, Nuclear Information Resource Service, Confronting a False Myth of Nuclear Power: Nuclear Power Expansion is Not a Remedy for Climate Change, Commission on Sustainable Development, United Nations (citations omitted, May 3, 2006).
• Public Citizen, Nuclear’s Fatal Flaws, updated April, 2006, found at: www.citizen.org/print_article.cfm?ID=15422. Union of Concerned Scientists, Fact Sheet: Walking a Nuclear Tightrope: Unlearned Lessons of Year-plus Reactor Outages, (September 18, 2006), found at: www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/20060918-nuclear-tightrope-fact-sheet.pdf.
• Lochbaum, David, Nuclear Safety Engineer, Union of Concerned Scientists; commentary at the end of an article found at: http://www.motherearthnews.com/article.aspx?id=114432.
• The Keystone Center’s report is found at: www.keystone.org.
• National Wildlife Federation, A Response to the Keystone Center’s Fact Finding on Nuclear Power, (released June 14, 2007), found at: http://www.nwf.org/news/story.cfm?pageId=3F8017D0-15C5-5FE8-B042791561108A00.
• Union of Concerned Scientists, New Report Underestimates Cost of Expanding Nuclear Capacity, Overstates Power Plant Safety and Security, Science Group Says; Report Correctly Concludes Reprocessing Poses Serious Proliferation, Terrorism Risks (June 14, 2007 Press Release).
• Hertsgaard, Mark, Mother Earth News, The True Costs of Nuclear Power, found at: http://www.motherearthnews.com/article.aspx?id=114432