BBCAT POSITION PAPER on NUCLEAR POWER FOR FLORIDA

September, 2007

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Should Florida Turn to Nuclear Power to Meet the Climate Threat?

A Position Paper by the Big Bend Climate Action Team

Tallahassee, Florida, (revised) September 2007

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Contents

WHAT MUST BE DONE TO STABILIZE THE CLIMATE?                                  

CAN NUCLEAR POWER HELP TO SOLVE THE CLIMATE PROBLEM?          

PROBLEMS ATTENDING THE USE OF NUCLEAR POWER                                    

Obstacles to Safe Disposal of Nuclear Waste

Risks of Terrorist Attacks, Proliferation of Weapons-Grade Materials, and Accidents

Other Environmental Contamination

Emissions of Heat

Water Use by Nuclear Power Plants

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Associated with Nuclear Power

Cost of Nuclear Power Compared with Fossil Fuel and with Alternative Energy Resources

Public Resistance  

RECOMMENDATIONS

NOTES   

APPENDIX A: Technologies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Concentrations    

APPENDIX B: Executive Summary of 2007 ACEEE Report                                                    

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Florida is a rapidly growing state and its need for energy is constantly on the rise. Until recently, the state has met its energy needs mostly with coal and natural gas and partly with nuclear power.01 Today, however, because of the accelerating global warming crisis, it is necessary to curtail the burning of fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases, and to search for viable alternatives. This paper examines the question of how nuclear power compares with other energy alternatives in a world in which carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping gas emissions must be promptly and drastically reduced.

WHAT MUST BE DONE TO STABILIZE THE CLIMATE?

Many climate scientists advocate the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 20 percent by 2020 and by a total of 80 percent by 2050. Ecologist Stephen Pacala and engineer Robert Sokolow presented in 2004 an estimate of the magnitude of the task of stabilizing the climate at this rate. Their paper, which appeared in Science, was titled “Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies.”02 It identified 15 currently usable technologies, each of which can begin to be ramped up now and can first flatten CO2 emissions at today’s level and then bring about a decline so that within 50 years they will be 80 percent lower than they are today. A summary of their recommendations appears in Appendix A.

All 15 of Pacala’s and Sokolow’s recommendations require effort well beyond what is currently being done (business as usual), but according to the authors all are economically feasible and many can benefit the world’s economies. Moreover, only seven of the recommendations have to be carried out to achieve the needed carbon reduction; not all are required for success.

CAN NUCLEAR POWER HELP TO SOLVE THE CLIMATE PROBLEM?

One of  Pacala’s and Sokolow’s 15 recommendations is to replace a substantial amount of coal-fired power with nuclear power. The authors say that nuclear power could be used to replace 700 gigawatts  of coal power to reduce atmospheric CO2 by about one billion tons.03  

A major study conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003 (referred to hereafter as “the MIT study”) asked the question what would be required to accomplish such a great expansion of worldwide nuclear power within 50 years.04 The authors of the study chose as a target a tripling of present-day nuclear power to 1,000 gigawatts, which is in the same range as the 700-gigawatt increment chosen by Pacala and Sokolow. The authors assumed that the reactors of choice would have to be light-water reactors, which are already in use in many locations and for which the problems are at least known, if not solved. Closed-cycle reactors such as are used in France, which reprocess nuclear waste, involve too many unknowns and risks at present and will need further modification before they can be deployed on a large scale.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a fact-based assessment of the viability of nuclear power as an option to help Florida begin to achieve the initial goal of a 20-percent reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions within the first ten to fifteen years (that is, by 2020).

PROBLEMS ATTENDING THE USE OF NUCLEAR POWER

The eight subsections that follow discuss eight problems presented by the use of nuclear power. All eight have persisted since the construction of the world’s first nuclear power plant and all still resist solution today.

Obstacles to Safe Disposal of Nuclear Waste

Nuclear plants produce a waste material, spent fuel, that is highly radioactive and long-lived. The problem of  disposal of this waste has not been solved. According to the authors of the MIT study, geologic disposal (burying the waste deep underground in impervious rock formations) is the most feasible option but “the process of approving a geologic site remains fraught with difficulties.” While awaiting the approval of a permanent storage site, nuclear plants are storing the waste in holding ponds, which are nearing and exceeding capacity.

The French now use nuclear power to meet 80 percent of their electrical power needs and have for the past fifteen years been storing the waste in pools—first, for a year on site, then for two to three years at reprocessing plants. Then, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, the high-level reprocessed waste is vitrified (solidified) and stored at La Hague for several decades, where it “awaits final geologic disposal.” Final geologic disposal sites have not yet been identified, however, despite 15 years’-worth of studies authorized in 1991 by the French Waste Management Research Act. A site consisting of deep clay is being studied but a site consisting of granite would be preferable. A granite site is being sought, but has not been found.05 Meanwhile, according to the Brookings Institution, France’s nuclear power stations will reach the end of their design life in 2010 and the time has come to make fundamental decisions about if and how they should be replaced.06 

Recycling of spent fuel, as in France, does not appear to be a realistic option for any nuclear plant operating in Florida. When most of the U.S. nuclear plants operating today were originally built, the federal government intended to approve of recycling of their spent fuel. However, President Ford initiated, and President Carter promulgated (in 1979), a ban on the reprocessing of spent fuel in order to minimize chances of proliferation of nuclear weapon fuel. In 1981, President Reagan lifted the reprocessing ban, but U.S. policy still prevents reprocessing and recycling used nuclear fuel. Thus, reprocessing of spent fuel is not likely to become acceptable or cost-effective in the United States at any time soon and the problem of disposal remains unsolved.07

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) offers information on a possible interim strategy, storage of the waste in dry casks.08 However, dry cask storage is, itself, only a short-term remedy. Casks exposed to radioactivity become brittle over time, they require resealing after 20 years, and they have to be cooled in water to be handled. Long-term storage of nuclear waste presents an ongoing and growing problem as radioactive waste accumulates.09

It takes up to ten years from planning through construction to build a nuclear power plant, but most scientists say major greenhouse gas reductions must begin today and must be well under way within the next decade to gain some control over the climate crisis. Clearly, then, nuclear power cannot be mobilized in sufficient quantities in a short enough time to provide the needed abatement of the global warming threat. The task would be overwhelming. According to the MIT study cited several times earlier, to reach the goal of generating 1,000 gigawatts of electricity from nuclear power would necessitate adding, on average, one large (2,000 megawatt) power plant somewhere in the world every month for the next 50 years. This is an almost prohibitively rapid pace of implementation and would drastically accentuate the problem of nuclear waste storage.

Finally, to operate the enormous number of new nuclear plants being contemplated would necessitate dedicating, every three to four years, a new geologic waste disposal site the size of the controversial Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. Yucca Mountain was first proposed in 1978 as a repository for nuclear waste but has yet to open with the earliest “best achievable date” now of 2017 or beyond.10

Risks of Terrorist Attacks, Proliferation of Weapons-Grade Materials, and Accidents

Nuclear plants are unique in the enormous hazard they present. Unlike plants that burn any other fuel to produce energy, nuclear plants can release substances that will sicken and kill huge, vulnerable populations for many miles around and remain in the environment for centuries and even millennia. Because this hazard is so great, it is of immense significance that nuclear plants cannot be perfectly protected from terrorist attacks, thefts of nuclear grade material, or even simple accidents. In testimony before the Select Committee on Intelligence in the U.S. Senate in February 2005, FBI director Robert S. Mueller stated that the energy sector, particularly nuclear power plants, is “[an] area we consider vulnerable and target rich.”11

The odds of major accidents are lower than they were at the times of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents. New nuclear reactors now have automatic shut-down features that do not depend upon human intervention.11B Still, the chance of a major accident can never fall to zero and the laws of probability dictate that, given sufficient time, anything that can happen will happen. One estimate puts the accident probability at approximately 1 in 10,000 reactor-years. If this estimate is accurate and if the projected number of new nuclear plants is built, a Chernobyl-scale accident is likely to occur about every five years.12 If this estimate is two to four times too high, then the frequency might fall to once in twenty years—still unacceptable.

Hazards are also associated with uranium enrichment plants. Scaling up nuclear power capacity to the extent being considered here would require dozens of new enrichment plants, would create thousands of tons of plutonium waste, and would pose intolerable threats of nuclear proliferation. To minimize this risk, the authors of the MIT study recommend that nuclear fuel supplies be controlled by only a few countries (the United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom). User countries would purchase these fuels and would contract not to produce fuels themselves. Supplier countries would accept spent fuel from the user countries in exchange for fresh fuel and would undertake to deal with the waste. This system would reduce the risks of sabotage but would further aggravate the problem of waste disposal.

Other Environmental Contamination

Besides posing the problem of nuclear waste disposal, nuclear power plants routinely emit radioactive gases and other radioactive elements, such as Cesium-137, Strontium-90, and tritium, among others, into the environment.13  Regulations are in place to protect the public from harm to health from these elements, but according to the MIT study cited earlier, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety regulations have not been enforced with sufficient diligence to win public acceptance of the nuclear option.

Emissions of Heat

A nuclear power plant produces electricity just as a coal or natural gas plant does—by heating water to produce steam and using the steam to run turbines. After use, the steam has to be condensed back to water by running it through cooling towers—the huge, concrete towers visible on the sites of many power plants.  Simple evaporation may suffice to condense the steam in some settings, but in Florida’s hot, humid climate, ambient heat and humidity inhibit evaporative cooling. Exterior water (that is, water from a nearby lake, stream, or bay) is used to cool each tower, and as the steam rises through the tower it is cooled and condensed to water. The exterior water, now hot, is then released back into the water body from which it came, creating a zone of hot water called a thermal plume.

Lakes, rivers, and bays receiving thermal plumes from power plants can become exceedingly hot. Heat waves are growing more common year by year and more and more frequently produce conditions that force nuclear power plants to slow or halt production in order not to threaten aquatic life. As an example, during the heat wave in Europe in 2006, the release of hot water from cooling towers into rivers threatened to cause mass deaths of fish and other wildlife, and power production had to be curtailed.14

In Florida, according to state regulations, water that is hotter than 96.5 degrees Fahrenheit may not be released into the Gulf of Mexico. That translates into a mandate that cooling water being drawn into the plant must be no hotter than 87 degrees. Of recent date, water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico have been growing warmer, and power production has had to be curtailed on the hottest summer days—the times when electricity was most needed for air conditioning.15 This is a disadvantage shared by nuclear and coal power plants and to some extent, also, by gas-fired plants.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) notes that rising summer temperatures also challenge nuclear plant safety by reducing margins available for nuclear power plants to cope with accidents. If a tornado or hurricane disconnects a nuclear power plant from its electrical grid, the nuclear reactor shuts down automatically and backup diesel generators automatically start up to provide electrical power to the safety equipment needed to continue cooling the reactor core. Unfortunately, however, diesel generators can also fail under such conditions, leaving a plant at risk for meltdown.16

Water Use by Nuclear Power Plants

The amount of water that a nuclear power plant consumes depends on the cooling method used, but according to a 2004 Department of Energy study, nuclear power plants consume more water per kilowatt-hour than do pulverized coal-burning power plants, regardless of the cooling method.17 As an example, the Vogtle nuclear plant upstream from Savannah, Georgia withdraws for its cooling towers about 68 million gallons a day (mgd) from the Savannah River and consumes (that is, loses to evaporation) about 43 mgd, returning only a third of the water back to the river.18 Nuclear fuel is hot even when it is not being used to generate electricity, so reactors require cooling water even when they are not operating.

Using large quantities of water to produce electricity in hot Florida summers makes for difficult choices, especially during drought. Decisions have to be made whether to cool offices, homes, and industrial plants; to irrigate crops; or to maintain lake and river water levels and healthy freshwater flows to estuaries. These quandaries are becoming more critical as Florida’s population and water demands grow; Southeast Florida faced its most severe drought ever in the spring of 2007, and that is where four of Florida’s nuclear power plants are located.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Associated with Nuclear Power

In contrast to coal-burning power plants, nuclear power plants produce virtually no carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions while generating electricity.  In a smoothly running nuclear power plant, the only CO2 emitted is from on-site back-up diesel generators and incidental sources such as vehicles. However, the use of nuclear energy entails substantial emissions of CO2 both before and after its use in the power plant. Energy is required to mine and enrich uranium, to transport it, and to reprocess or dispose of spent fuel afterwards, and coal is most often burned to provide that energy, especially at enrichment facilities. To compare CO2 emissions only at the power plant that uses coal versus nuclear power is not fair. Life-cycle CO2 emissions should be tracked for both.

The CO2 emissions associated with the mining and enrichment of nuclear fuel are rising, because the richest uranium veins are being mined out (see Graph 1). A quantitative analysis published by the Oxford Research Group late in 2006 concluded that even if no new nuclear plants were put into operation, U.S. uranium-fueled nuclear power would incur the emission of as much CO2 as natural gas-fired power by 2070, half a century from now. However, if the projected number of new nuclear power plants is built, the emissions will exceed those from natural gas much earlier.19 

 

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Graph 1. Global uranium depletion by consumption growth rates

Global Uranium Depletion by Consumption Growth Rates

If consumption remains at current rates and if uranium prices remain stable, an optimistic reserve of 3.6 billion kg will be depleted by 2050. At higher market prices, more uranium becomes recoverable economically, but the trend is still downward.

It should be noted that the price of uranium hardly affects total nuclear power operating costs. Uranium prices can rise considerably before they significantly impact the final energy price per kilowatt-hour. Ryan McGreal, personal communication, 20 June 2007.

Source: Ryan McGreal, The nuclear option, www.raisethehammer.org

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Cost of Nuclear Power Compared with Fossil Fuel and with Alternative Energy Resources

The MIT study indicated that substantial financial inputs are needed to bring the cost of electricity from nuclear plants down to the point where it compares favorably with the cost of electricity from coal or natural gas. The authors suggest using economic incentives to reduce the high initial cost of electricity from nuclear power plants: reducing construction expenses by 25 percent; reducing construction time to 4 years; improving operation and maintenance; and placing financial penalties on the coal and natural gas for their carbon emissions. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, mentioned earlier, is intended to help first movers get started.

 

To tilt the playing field toward favoring nuclear power, both Florida and federal laws offer financial incentives to build new nuclear power plants.  The 2006 Florida Energy Act establishes “mechanisms for the recovery [by utilities] of costs incurred in . . . siting, design, licensing, and construction . . . in order to promote electric utility investment in nuclear power plants.”20 In effect, the act permits recovery of these costs from consumers before the plants are built. Similarly, the federal 2005 Energy Policy Act provides numerous incentives such as a tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for eight years of operation for the first 6 gigawatts of nuclear power to come online. This credit is called a “first-mover incentive.”21 It is true that, given these inputs, the cost of a kilowatt-hour can look acceptable on the customer’s bill, but the true price of nuclear power remains unchanged. As electric prices fall, taxes rise apace.

 

Up to three-quarters of all costs of nuclear power plants have been due to the long span of time from conception to operation.21B  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has, since 2005, taken three major steps to shorten this costly time span.  First, rather than requiring that the applicant file separate permits for construction and operation, the commission offers a single "combined construction and operating license." The commission also allows firms supplying reactors to utilities to apply in advance for approval of their designs; to date, one of the three major firms has had a new reactor design approved.  Thirdly, utilities can now request site approval before the expensive and long application process for the license, although local agencies may still impose their own permitting processes.21C In addition, new reactors have become more efficient. They can be in use for 90 percent of the time, compared to only 50 percent of the time in the 1970s.21D 

Even with such incentives, nuclear power is not an inviting prospect for investors. To take a nuclear power plant from planning through permitting and construction involves considerable financial risk. Researchers reporting in the journal Environmental Science & Technology found that the costs of constructing nuclear power plants varied up to five-fold in the years prior to construction of the  last U.S. nuclear power station almost 30 years ago and concluded that such a large range of costs is still likely.22

The expert energy consulting firm Synapse Energy Economics cites many instances in which the U.S. Department of Energy has published gross understatements of cost overruns in the nuclear industry. One example is of the case in which the cost of the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia increased from $660 million for four reactors to $8.7 billion for just two reactors in nominal dollars; and Synapse provides many more such examples. Synapse concludes that the “nuclear industry has a serious credibility issue concerning the reliability of nuclear construction cost estimates.”23 This uncertainty makes it mandatory to use one or several independent, expert analyses that take into account earlier experiences with the nuclear industry’s inaccurate predictions of costs when the costs of nuclear energy are compared with the costs of other sources of electricity.  

The question may be asked, If carbon capture and sequestration are required of coal-burning power plants, will nuclear energy then be cost-competitive with coal? An economic study to answer this question was performed by Brice Smith, former senior scientist at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). Smith compared the costs of nuclear power with costs of natural gas and two types of coal-fired generation and found that in all cases, nuclear power, at 6 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour, was considerably more costly than the alternatives. Then he imposed a carbon-sequestration cost on each of the three fossil fuels and all three became somewhat more costly than nuclear power. He concluded that electricity from natural-gas and coal-burning power plants with carbon sequestration would be approximately equal to the cost of electricity from new nuclear plants and that “carbon capture and storage efforts can be an economically viable component for the transition from our current fossil fuel based energy system to more equitable and sustainable long-term possibilities.”24 His data follow (Table 1):

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Table 1   

Costs of nuclear versus fossil fuel power with and without carbon sequestration costs added

(cents per kilowatt-hour)

Fuel

Standard process

Process with sequestration 

Coal (pulverized)

3.3 – 4.3   

5.2 – 9.0

Coal (IGCC)*

3.2 – 4.8  

4.2 – 8.0

Natural gas   

4.1 – 5.6    

5.3 – 8.5

Nuclear

---------------------------- 6.0 – 7.0 ----------------------------------

 

* IGCC stands for Integrated Gasification-Combined Cycle, a coal-oxidizing process that is cleaner and theoretically more adaptable to carbon sequestration technology.

Source: Brice Smith, Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change.  Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and RDR Books, 2006.

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Another question to ask is how the cost of  electricity from a new nuclear unit compares with the that from an alternative portfolio of wind, energy efficiency and natural gas-fired generation. Synapse conducted a study to find the answer and the results are shown in Table 2:

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Table 2  

Costs of nuclear power versus a portfolio of natural gas and alternative energy resources (wind energy and energy efficiency)              

Type of capacity

Generation (gigawatt-hours)

Cost (cents per kilowatt-hour)  

Total cost    ($millions 2003)

 

 

 

 

Nuclear power only

17,187  

6.8

$1,169

 

 

 

 

Alternative energy resources singly

 

 

 

   Wind

4,599 

4.5 – 6.0   

$207 - 276

   Gas  

9,084 

4.7

$427

   Energy efficiency 

3,504   

4.4  

$154

 

 

 

 

Portfolio of all three resources:

17,187 

4.7   

$788 - 806

 

Source: “The Risks of Building New Nuclear Power Plants” a PowerPoint presentation by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. and presented to the New York Society of Security Analysts, 8 June 2006.

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From the results of these two cost studies, it appears that, once carbon sequestration becomes mandatory, the cost of coal power will increase substantially from current levels and be comparable to the cost of new nuclear power while alternative energy (together with small amounts of natural gas) will cost the least.

Resistance to Nuclear Energy

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, public opinion has been shifting somewhat towards acceptance of nuclear power in recent years. However, most people are unclear as to the merits of nuclear power in the face of global warming and opposition continues strong.  In October 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a body explicitly charged with promoting the spread of civilian nuclear technologies, released a report on public opinion in 18 countries.  The IAEA found that nearly three out of every five people interviewed opposed the construction of new nuclear plants.  In only one country, South Korea, was a majority in favor of building new reactors.25 People in general are leery of having nuclear plants in their own neighborhoods; and the environmental community is almost unanimously opposed to its use.26

RECOMMENDATIONS

Clearly, from the above discussions, the problems facing nuclear energy, in Florida as elsewhere, are numerous, serious, and largely intractable. If no better alternatives were available, it might be necessary to face and attempt to deal, albeit imperfectly, with these problems, but alternatives are available, and they are more benign, safer, easier to implement, and more cost effective. Florida should immediately, and to the maximum extent possible, invest its available resources, time, human creativity, and effort in these two energy realms:

  • Establish policies to implement conservation and energy-efficiency measures, including distributed generation, cogeneration, load control, load shifting, tiered rates, and other such measures to reduce demand.
  • Take advantage of clean, non-fossil, renewable resources to meet increasing demand.  These include solar power, geothermal energy, biomass, ocean current power, wind power, and possibly other options yet to emerge.

The question of how much energy can be harvested from the efficiency and renewable resources that are available to the state is addressed in a June, 2007 report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). If all the policies recommended by ACEEE are implemented, the state can reduce its projected future use of electricity from conventional sources (i.e., natural gas, coal, oil, and nuclear fuels) by about 29% in the next 15 years.27 The executive summary of this important ACEEE report is appended to this paper as Appendix B.

One of the elements of a plan to improve the efficiency of energy delivery in Florida is distributed generation, a strategy that is very little used in the United States. Nuclear power plants, like large coal plants, are huge, centralized stations requiring long transmission lines to deliver power to customers. These large plants do demonstrate economies of scale, but the savings may not counterbalance transmission losses, which add up by the mile. Whereas transmission losses at times of base demand amount to a relatively modest 9 percent of total energy, they can amount to as much as 20 to 30 percent at times of peak demand.28  Smaller (natural gas) power stations, distributed across the service area, incur lower transmission-line losses and have another merit: they can deliver their waste heat for use in nearby buildings. This is known as cogeneration, meaning that electricity and heat, which are produced simultaneously, are both used, whereas in a large nuclear or coal plant remote from most end users, the heat has to be released into the surroundings (i.e., wasted). 

ACEEE recommends increased use of cogeneration in Florida’s energy strategy. Pacala and Sokolow’s 15 recommendations do not include distributed generation per se, but it is implicit in these three:

“Replace 1,400 gigawatts-worth of coal plants with [natural] gas plants, quadrupling total [natural] gas plants.” This permits better distribution of generation because gas plants can be smaller in size and located closer to end uses. Efficiency benefits from the smaller size of these plants, which can be brought on-line and operated in smaller increments as needed.

“Add 2,000 gigawatts of peak photovoltaic power.” Adding immense amounts of photovoltaic (PV) power permits well-distributed generation: PV generators can be situated on or very near the buildings they serve.

“Make buildings 25 percent more energy efficient.” This is a method of improving efficiency, not where the power is generated, but where it is used. Since end-use efficiency operates all the time that energy is used, it reduces base load.

In our view, distributed generation should be much more widely employed in Florida than it is today.

While efforts are under way in Florida to fully exploit all available efficiency and renewable resources, the state’s energy needs should be monitored. If it becomes clear that alternative energy will be unable to meet the need, then other options (natural gas, coal, and nuclear power) should be considered.29 However, if that point is reached, policymakers should simultaneously address the question whether the state’s energy portfolio can be infinitely expanded, or whether, in Florida as elsewhere, an inflexible limit is being reached that calls for population stabilization.

In summary, the Big Bend Climate Action Team holds the view that no investments in nuclear power should be made for at least the next ten to fifteen years because energy efficiency and alternative fuels are available, cost-effective, and greatly underutilized. These should be given preferential treatment and should be developed to the greatest extent possible.

The Big Bend Climate Action Team believes that all clean energy resources should be used before fossil or nuclear fuels.  Solar energy, in the form of electricity or heat, has a promising future in Florida and the costs are declining as the technology improves.  Solar energy is especially effective in reducing peak load. Ocean-current power may, as technology improves, become a major base-load renewable energy resource for Florida. 

 

Notes:

1. Florida’s energy needs for electricity are currently being met as shown in the following table:

Fuel

% of Total Electricity

   Coal

34

   Natural gas 

27

   Petroleum

19

   Nucleara

16

   Other

  4

 

At present, five nuclear reactors are operating in Florida. Progress Energy owns the Crystal River nuclear power plant in Citrus County (one reactor).  Florida Power & Light (FPL) owns the St. Lucie Plant (two reactors) on Hutchinson Island in St Lucie County and the Turkey Point plant (two reactors) in Miami-Dade County. The total capacity of these plants is rated at 3.9 gigawatts (2004).

Source for data in table: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), “Potential for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to Meet Florida’s Growing Energy Demands,” 2003. Source for nuclear reactors in Florida: “Nuclear Power Plants in Florida Net Generation and Capacity, 2004,” Energy Information Administration, Dept of Energy, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/states/statesfl.html 

2. Stephen Pacala and Robert Sokolow, “Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies,” Science 305 (13 August 2004): 968-972.

3. Units of electric power:

1 kilowatt = 1,000 watts.

1 megawatt = 1,000 kilowatts (1 million watts)

1 gigawatts = 1,000 megawatts (1 billion watts)

 

4. Study titled “The Future of Nuclear Power,” described in John M. Deutch and Ernest J. Moniz, The nuclear option, Scientific American, 21 August 2006.

 

5. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Waste Management, Yucca Mountain Project, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml 

6. French Nuclear Power and Its Alternatives, U.S.-France Analysis, January 2001, Baudouin Bollaert, Editorial Pages Chief Editor, Le Figaro, on The Brookings Institution website, http://www.brookings.edu/fp/cuse/analysis/nuclear.htm

7. NMC (Nuclear Management Company),   http://www.nmcco.com/education/facts/waste/waste_home.htm  

8. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dry-cask-storage.html  

9. http://www.serve.com/gvaughn/prairieisland/drycask.html

10. Statement of Edward F. Sproat, III, Director for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy, before the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives. September 13, 2006, available at http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/info_library/program_docs/testimonies/SPROAT9-13Testimony_FINAL.pdf

11. Testimony of Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation before the Senate Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate, February 16, 2005, available at http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress05/mueller021605.htm.

11B. The Economist Technology Quarterly, 8 September, 2007, p. 26.

12. Steven Filler, Nuclear power isn’t the solution to global warming, The Guardian, 30 July 2006.

13. Nuclear power plants emit radioactive contaminants and other hazardous materials including heavy metals and solvents during daily routine operations. All power plants have discharge permits for air and water releases with state agencies and with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Each nuclear plant has an “offsite dose calculation manual” which provides this information. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Generic environmental impact statement for license renewal of nuclear plants, Final Report, NUREG-1437, May 1996, Vol. 1.

14. “[Due to the heat wave,] Spain shut down the Santa Maria de Garona reactor on the River Ebro, one of the country’s eight nuclear plants which generate a fifth of its national electricity. Reactors in Germany are reported to have cut output, and others in Germany and France have been given special permits to dump hot water into rivers to avoid power failures. France, where nuclear power provides more than three quarters of electricity, has also imported power to prevent shortages.”—Juliette Jowit and Javier Espinoza, Heat wave shuts down nuclear power plants, The Observer, 30 July 2006, or http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1833620,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

15. A case in point is that of the coal and nuclear plants owned by Progress Energy at Crystal River. Recent heat spells have at times left the cooling water too hot to be released. In 2006, the company had to apply to the Public Service Commission for permission to install additional cooling towers. Catherine E. Shoichet, “Nuclear reactors release heat into rivers and the Gulf: Progress seeks state's okay for cooling towers,” St. Petersburg Times, 3 March 2006.

16. Union of Concerned Scientists, Nuclear heat (Issue Brief), August 3, 2006.

17. J. Hoffmann, S. Forbes, and T. Feeley, Estimating freshwater needs to meet 2025 electrical generating capacity forecasts, U.S. Department of Energy, June 2004.

18. Sara Barczak, Safe Energy Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, personal communication, June 2007; and S. Barczak and R. Carroll, Climate change implications for Georgia’s water resources and energy future, Proceedings of the 2007 Georgia Water Resources Conference, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, June 2007.

19. Report titled “Secure Energy? Civil Nuclear Power, Security and Global Warming” by the Oxford Research Group and cited by` Moira Herbst, “New debate over nuclear option,” Business Week, 26 March 2007, or http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2007/db20070326_366468.htm

20. Nuclear Power Plant Cost Recovery, Section 25-6.0423, Florida Administrative Code.

21. John M. Deutch and Ernest J. Moniz, The nuclear option, Scientific American, 21 August 2006.

21B. The Economist Technology Quarterly, 8 September, 2007, p. 25. 

21C. The Economist, 8 – 14 September, 2007, p. 72. 

21D. The Economist, 8 - 14 September, 2007, p. 71.

22. Research reported in Environmental Science & Technology  and cited by Ian Hoffman, Energy costs may explode in switch to nuclear power, Oakland Tribune, 4 April 2007.

23.“The Risks of Building New Nuclear Power Plants” a PowerPoint presentation by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. and presented to the New York Society of Security Analysts, 8 June 2006.

24. Smith concluded further, “Adding the estimated costs for carbon capture and storage capabilities to the cost of generating electricity from new fossil fuel power plants, we can compare the cost of this transition strategy with that of building new nuclear power plants. . . . While there remains a fair amount of uncertainty with the total cost, the use of carbon sequestration is likely to be economically competitive with new nuclear power. . . . The middle of the projected cost range for natural gas or pulverized coal fired plants is 6.9 to 7.1 cents per kilowatt-hour, while the middle of the cost range for IGCC plants is just 6.1 cents per kilowatt-hour.” Brice Smith, Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change.  Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and RDR Books, 2006.

25. Ann S. Bisconti, Public supports climate change action, but is unclear on nuclear energy’s role in preventing greenhouse gases, a paper prepared for the Nuclear Energy Institute, May 2007, available with other papers on similar topics at http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=3&catid=503. The IAEA surveyed Argentina, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, United Kingdom, and the United States. International Atomic Energy Agency, Global public opinion on nuclear issues and the IAEA: Final report from 18 countries, prepared for the International Atomic Energy Agency by GlobeScan Incorporated, October 2005, pp.18-20.

26. A letter requesting that Senator John McCain eliminate subsidies for nuclear power from the Climate Stewardship Act of 2005 was signed by the presidents, CEOs, and executive directors of thirteen major environmental organizations on May 20, 2005—the Environmental Working Group, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, League of Conservation Voters, National Environmental Trust, National Tribal Environmental Council, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

27. American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), “Potential for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to Meet Florida’s Growing Energy Demands,” 2007.

28. Thomas R. Casten and Robert U. Ayres, “Are worldwide power systems economically and environmentally optimal?” preprint of a chapter from Marilyn Brown and Benjamin Sovacool, eds., 13 Energy Myths (Springer-Verlag, in press, 27 July 2006).

29. The future use of coal without sequestration is not a viable option, because of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with burning coal. If sequestration proved cost-effective and feasible in Florida, then coal could be considered. Natural gas is preferable to both coal and nuclear power. It does add CO2 to the atmosphere at a time when CO2 must be removed, but it emits about half as much CO2as coal for each unit of energy that it generates.

 

Appendix A

Technologies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Concentrations (Pacala and Sokolow, 2004)

 

Each of these options involve currently usable technologies that can begin to be ramped up now and can, by mid-century, prevent the emission of about one billion tons of CO2. Only seven of these 15 technologies are required to bring about a decline in CO2 emissions so that at the end of about 50 years they will be 80 percent lower than they are today.

 

EFFICIENCY AND CONSERVATION   

   

        1. Double vehicle fuel efficiency.

 

        2. Reduce vehicle use by half.

 

        3. Make buildings 25 percent more energy efficient.

 

        4. Produce twice today’s coal power output at nearly double today’s efficiency.

 

DECARBONIZATION OF ELECTRICITY AND FUELS

  

      5. Replace 1400 gigawatts-worth of coal plants with gas plants, quadrupling total gas plants.

 

        6. Capture and sequester CO2 from baseload power plants.

 

        7. Capture and sequester CO2 from hydrogen plants.

 

        8. Capture and sequester CO2 from coal-to-synfuel plants.

 

        9. Replace 700 gigawatts of coal power with nuclear power.

 

      10. Replace 2 million megawatts of coal power with wind power.

 

      11. Add 2000 gigawatts of peak photovoltaic power.

 

      12. Replace most gasoline used in gas-powered and hybrid vehicles with biomass fuel made using wind power.

 

      13. Replace use of fossil fuels in vehicles with 100 times the current U.S. or Brazil production of ethanol from biomass fuels.

 

NATURAL CARBON SINKS

 

      14. Halt deforestation; accelerate reforestation, afforestation, and new plantations.

 

      15. Apply conservation tillage to all cropland (amounting to 100 times the current usage).

 

Source: Stephen Pacala and Robert Sokolow, “Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies,” Science 305 (13 August 2004): 968-972.

 

 

Appendix B

Executive Summary of 2007 ACEEE Report

Potential for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

to Meet Florida’s Growing Energy Demands

Florida is among the fastest growing states in the country, and the state’s electricity demand is growing even faster than the state’s population. To sustain this rapid economic and population growth, Florida needs to take action to meet the resulting increases in energy needs. A particular challenge is peak demand (those times when extreme heat or extreme cold crank up air conditioners and heaters), which is growing slightly faster in recent years than regular day-to-day electricity demand, and is the most expensive type of electricity. 

 

Florida’s unique energy vulnerabilities have also become apparent during the past several years.  Florida is one of the most natural-gas-dependent states in the country, with more than a third of its electricity generated by natural gas.  In December 2005, the natural gas “crisis” drove utility prices from less than $3 per thousand cubic foot to over $14, a price that hurt Floridians’ pocketbooks. The pain intensified when Hurricane Katrina disrupted natural gas supplies and jeopardized electricity generation. While the price of natural gas has fallen over the past year, it still costs over two and a half times more than it did when many of the state’s new natural gas power plants were planned. It is not the bargain we once thought. To meet the growing electricity needs, Florida’s utilities project the need for both more natural-gas- and coal-powered plants.

 

Opportunities for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Fortunately, another suite of energy resource options is available&