Nuclear Power: Not green but not that scary

By Gregg Beever

It’s winter, isn’t it? Kind of tough to tell these days.

Winter brings shorter days and shorter days mean the lights stay on longer. Our winter heating bills double as we jack the thermostat in an effort to combat hypothermia. It’s the time of year our already rabid consumption of energy becomes insanely intense.

Edmonton, like many other city around the globe, is growing along with its insatiable energy needs. So how is Edmonton and the rest of Alberta going to fuel the future?

Before you answer, remember, we have to do it cleanly and greenly. You know, that whole global warming thing.

A few months back I was at the Greyhound Bus Station on a delivery errand. As my package was being processed a young woman cycled up to the door carrying several large, bound stacks of paper. Dressed in earthy tones she had natural, mid-length hair, wore no obvious make-up and was equipped with the kind of proper cycling gear that suggested her bike was her main mode of transport. In short, she was the type of girl that makes my hippy heart flutter.

It came as no surprise, then, that the stacks she placed on the conveyor belt beside me were posters for an environmental advocacy group. The poster read “A Truly Green Future…Does Not Include Nuclear Power,” a slogan belonging to the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Alberta (CNFA).

It occurred to me, as I was driving home, that I should have picked her brain about it. Why should Alberta be nuclear free? What makes nuclear power not “truly green?” Would that girl have given me her phone number?

These were all questions that demanded answers. Since I’ll never get the answer for that last one, I’ll have settle for answering the first two.

CNFA’s website makes several damning accusations to the viability of Nuclear Energy. The front page claims that nuclear power is unsafe, has unresolved waste management problems, carries geological and economic risks, threatens Alberta’s security and is not an environmentally sustainable solution. The left column of the website contains images of old rusty barrels slapped with skull and cross-bone and radioactive logos. Very scary stuff.

There’s just one problem: nuclear power really isn’t scary. It is easy to see danger in nuclear technology. We have, after all, easy historical references of its destructive capabilities.

Chernobyl is always the first that comes to mind, the nuclear disaster that hit in 1986. You might be surprised to learn, as I was, the total death toll for Chernobyl stands at just 75. Not to trivialize the suffering of the victims, or the environmental fallout, but for one of the worst nuclear accidents in history, that is quite a low number.

The next on the tip of everyone’s tongue is Three Mile Island, which killed no one. In fact it didn’t even make anyone sick. So while opponents of nuclear power argue safety concerns, it turns out that, statistically, nuclear technology is one of the safest sources of energy we have.

France, for example, currently has 59 nuclear reactors, the base of a nuclear program that has been expanding for over 30 years. The French have yet to experience a major accident.

The danger of nuclear energy needs a little perspective. Instead of feeling the hype of fear, do the math: there are over 400 reactors worldwide providing electricity, yet the earth is still spinning. Still, safety alone doesn’t make nuclear power a viable energy solution.

Economically nuclear reactors look very expensive, the CNFA website pegs construction costs for four plants at roughly 30-billion dollars. That’s an insane amount of cash. However, what isn’t said is nuclear operating costs are extremely low, allowing the initial capital to be spread out over many years.

According to the Nuclear Power Expert Panel, a group created in 2008 by the Alberta Department of Energy to research the practicality of nuclear power in our province, the cost of nuclear energy clocks in at 3.5 to 6.0 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). Coal plants with carbon capture and storage, an unproven technology our government is handing just under $800 million to (for one power plant, yay!), nearly double that cost at 11.9 cents per kWh. Renewables such as solar power plants are even more expensive at 20.9 to 73.4 cents per kWh.

The CNFA is correct that nuclear waste is an unresolved problem. However, 99% of spent fuel can be recycled and be reused as additional nuclear fuel. Recycling greatly reduces the amount of waste generated as well as minimizes the time period during which the material is radioactive at levels above the natural background radiation. The Coalition claims this recycling process is unsafe, but I’m again going to ask you to do the math on 400 reactors running just fine around the world.

Nuclear power also apparently increases the threat of terrorism, according to the CNFA, though I’m not sure why. Alberta already supplies a copious amount of petroleum to the United States, I’d say that makes us as big a target as we’re going to get. Maybe the reactors could be a target themselves, but they certainly don’t increase the threat. This is just fear mongering.

Back in late October nearly 200 people showed up at the legislature in protest of nuclear power. The idea of closing the door to an energy option that we know can help reduced carbon dioxide emissions worries me. Global warming is a problem on absolutely massive scale.

It is the catalyst from which an endless list of environmental complications spawn. Extensive glacial melting, pine beetles, coral reef bleaching, acidification of the oceans, Australian frogs disappearing, to name just a few. These issues all have their roots in climate change, and whatever methods we have at our disposal to mitigate warming we should at least be considering.

Is nuclear power a green option? No, it’s not. Uranium is a finite resource that is non-renewable, and its waste is certainly a concern.

Is nuclear power the best way to go about fueling the future? No. Renewables are obviously our best route, but that doesn’t mean that nuclear can’t be at least part of the solution. Nuclear may not be greener, but it is better than what Alberta currently has, and I think that’s something we should all consider.